Last week I finally watched Odyssey. I watched it on Thursday at the AMC Dine-in Theater, not because I wanted to eat while watching, but because it was the only convenient option in terms of showtime and distance to the venue. That was my first time attending a screening in this theater, so now I know how the theater looks and what the best row is to sit in.

I think that’t the third Odyssey movie I watched in my lifetime. I liked, but without a hype. I think it says something that for thousands year, people still find inspiration in this epic. It’s a great story, and if after all these years, we still find something that draws us to the that plot, it’s not for nothing. The movie is very well done, the cast, the quality of cinematograthy, etc., except stepping away from the historical accuracty with costumes and armory (the wrong helmet types are bothersome, but I am unsure whether it was done on purpose to cater to the public expectations or not). Also, I didn’t like Polyphemus representation in a Gollum-like style, I like more the “traditional” presentation from the previous movies, and I think that Ancient Greeks thought about Polyphemus that way!

As much as I try not to read any reviews before watching anything, it was hard not to notice, that people were discussing the moral grounds of Odyssey’s decision, like sactrificing the lives of some of his men. But I believe that was the most true-to-the-story part! A special significans of Homer’s Odyssey is it’s representation of a snapshot in time, not only want people believed back than, but what they considered to be honorable, caurageous, what they considered being a treason, what they admired and hated, and what the “defaults” were.

I heardfrom some that this movie was better at IMAX, but to be honest, it was already enough noise for me to plug my ears from time to time, and I had no desire to be in a middle of a battle

I came back to Chicago on Saturday evening and had tons of plans for Sunday, which were only partially realized. One of the things I’ve done is watch the Wild Party movie at the Siskel Center. It was the first movie of the 20th Century Queer series, filmed in 1929. It was definitely an interesting one, especially in how openly it presented bisexual characters, and their balancing between lesbian and heterosexual relationships. You almost think that you are imagining things … except that you are not! Dorothy Arzner, the film director, was an open lesbian, and somehow, in the 1920s, it was still OK to make films like this (or nobody figured out yet that the homoerotic topic should be tabooed).

Now I am curious whether there were other movies like that!