Christopher Nolan’s take on Homer’s ancient epic is all anyone’s talking about these days. So much so that it even managed to spurt us out of retirement. We are back. Sort of. With our own spicy take on the biggest movie of 2026.
Show notes:
Thamara’s review of The Odyssey: https://thamara.co.uk/notebook/2026/08/the-odyssey (https://thamara.co.uk/notebook/2026/08/the-odyssey)
Himal’s review of The Odyssey: https://himalkk.substack.com/p/nolans-odyssey-audacious-but-ultimately (https://himalkk.substack.com/p/nolans-odyssey-audacious-but-ultimately)
The IMAX ‘Blimp’: https://www.filmaesthete.com/2025/11/19/nolan-and-hoyte-van-hoytema-test-game-changing-imax-blimp-system/ (https://www.filmaesthete.com/2025/11/19/nolan-and-hoyte-van-hoytema-test-game-changing-imax-blimp-system/)
The IMAX camera mirror system: https://ymcinema.com/2026/07/03/the-odyssey-imax-blimp-mirror-system/ (https://ymcinema.com/2026/07/03/the-odyssey-imax-blimp-mirror-system/)
Aeneid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid)
Emily Wilson’s review of The Odyssey: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n14/emily-wilson/an-uncomplicated-man (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n14/emily-wilson/an-uncomplicated-man)
Mary Beard on The Odyssey: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2026/jul/20/the-odyssey-nolan—mary-beard-stateside-podcast (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2026/jul/20/the-odyssey-nolan--mary-beard-stateside-podcast)
Xenia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenia_(Greek) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenia_(Greek))
Oppenheimer shot in 57 days: https://variety.com/2023/film/news/oppenheimer-shot-57-days-cillian-murphy-pace-insane-1235672356/ (https://variety.com/2023/film/news/oppenheimer-shot-57-days-cillian-murphy-pace-insane-1235672356/)
McCarthyism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism)
Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey: https://www.emilyrcwilson.com/the-odyssey (https://www.emilyrcwilson.com/the-odyssey)
Robert Fagles’ translation of The Odyssey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey_(Robert_Fagles_translation) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey_(Robert_Fagles_translation))
E. V. Rieu’s translation of The Odyssey: https://archive.org/details/TheOdyssey/mode/2up (https://archive.org/details/TheOdyssey/mode/2up)
5 Jun 2022
#21 Sri Lanka in Crisis: Is the Political Elite Doomed? (with Rajni Gamage)
In this episode, joined by Rajni Gamage, we discuss the nature of elite politics in Sri Lanka in the context of the current crisis. We explore what scope there is for a new politics of solidarity and social transformation through the people's protests and the shifts in elite politics this would entail.
Rajni is a politics researcher based in Colombo. She holds a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Queensland.
Rajni is on Twitter at @Rajni_Gamage (https://twitter.com/Rajni_Gamage)
Show notes for this episode, including links to everything mentioned: thebadtake.com/episode21 (//thebadtake.com/episode21)
Credits:
Soundtrack - Downtown Funk by Dj Quads @aka-dj-quads Music provided by Free Music for Vlogs youtu.be/UYBJQkvLTIw (//youtu.be/UYBJQkvLTIw)
Background image - Nazly Ahmed (https://www.flickr.com/photos/nazly/) on Flickr
29 Feb 2020
#20 A Matter of Words (with Carmen Aguilera-Carnerero)
On this episode, we're joined by linguist Carmen Aguilera-Carnerero based in Granada, Spain. She was in Sri Lanka for some months last year, studying extreme speech online. She has also studied graffiti and "wall art" in Spanish and other European cities. This is a deep dive into her findings.
Carmen Aguilera-Carnerero is a lecturer at the University of Granada (Spain), a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right and co-editor of the academic journal GRETA.
Her area of study is Linguistics, and she has explored the syntax and sematics interface in her pre-doctoral phase and the Critical Discourse Analysis of Cyberdiscourse in her post doctoral stage (from 2013). Her areas of interest primarily are the articulation of hate speech online (specially in social media) with cyberislamophobia (both in text and image) and online racism in Sri Lanka in focus.
Carmen has also worked in products of subculture and their subversiveness via linguistics and semiotics such as graffiti.
Carmen is on Twitter at @Carmenable. (https://twitter.com/Carmenable)
Special thanks to our Patron Uditha Umesh for making this episode possible.
Show notes for this episode, including links to everything mentioned: thebadtake.com/episode20 (https://thebadtake.com/episode20)
Support us on Patreon and get exclusive extras: thebadtake.com/patreon (https://patreon.com/thebadtake)
Credits:
Soundtrack - Downtown Funk by Dj Quads @aka-dj-quads Music provided by Free Music for Vlogs youtu.be/UYBJQkvLTIw (http://youtu.be/UYBJQkvLTIw)
Background image - Patrick Tomasso (https://unsplash.com/@impatrickt?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/s/photos/words?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)
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