On Monday night, I saw Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey on a 75-foot-tall IMAX screen at AMC Lincoln Square in Manhattan. Believe me when I say Matt Damon's Odysseus, the Cyclops, the fall of Troy, Ludwig Göransson's pulse-pounding score—all of it—lives up to the film's immense hype. Anthony Breznican, who wrote Esquire's review of The Odyssey, says it might even change your life. See why below. —Brady Langmann, senior entertainment editor
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The Oscar-winning Oppenheimer director has richly adapted the ancient Greek epic into a modern search for meaning.
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A lot can be said about the technical achievements of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, but this clash between staying true to course and falling off the rails is the theme that gives their work its soul. This film represents a team of masters, all working at the peak of their powers to breathe impressive new life into this 2,800-year-old tale.
Most of The Odyssey’s behind-the-scenes artists won Oscars or were at least nominated for their work with Nolan on Oppenheimer, and it’s clear that the filmmaker and his team are among the few people alive who could take a story like this and, well … bring it home.
At its center is Matt Damon, who at 55 has finally shed the last remnants of his Good Will Hunting boyishness, delivering an Odysseus who is “a complicated man,” “a man skilled in all ways,” and “a man of many twists and turns,” as various Homeric translations over the years have described him. The early 1600s translation of The Odyssey by George Chapman describes the hero as a man that “many a way wound with his wisdom to his wished stay.” That’s the Renaissance way of saying “he learned things the hard way,” and Damon gives us all of this weary dimension and strength—and then some. His performance made me question whether there is dual meaning in Chapman’s wound, a reference not only to the character’s winding journey but to the bloodshed and scars Odysseus carries, both seen and not seen, as a cost of his victories.
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There has perhaps never been a better time to be a watch collector—or even, more simply, a watch owner. Because a single, well-produced timepiece that brings its owner joy thanks to its utility, looks, or tie to a special occasion is no less valid or exciting than a vast collection of small ticking wonders that may rarely leave the family safe. Best of all? This single watch need not be expensive. Au contraire, a wristwatch in the 2020s can be an almost laughably value-laden object while still commanding a price that more jaded collectors might scoff at. And to show you what we mean, we’re beginning a new series that includes all the information you need to purchase a watch within a specific price segment, from market information to the key players to examples of excellent timepieces. For our first installment, we’re limiting our theoretical budget to $1,500.
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Good sleep is hard work. If everyone could just flop down and immediately drift off, the world would be a different, more agreeable place. Instead, we all live life under-rested and over-caffeinated. The market’s response has turned sleep into a multibillion-dollar industry. You need the right pillow, the right mattress, silky sheets, and a few cozy pieces of loungewear. But it doesn’t stop there. There’s the alarm clock engineered to improve your habits, the lamp that wakes you up like a sunrise, not to mention the bed frame and rug that make your space feel like a true oasis. These are consumer choices, sure, but they are choices that have a real effect on your day-to-day life.
With every new direct-to-consumer furniture brand and tech company promising you percentage points of improvement on sleep, the hard part is figuring out which products are actually worth a damn. The days of grabbing a pillow off a department-store shelf are long gone. That’s where our testers come in. Our editors have spent the past year working hard at sleeping and constantly visiting showrooms, swapping out bed frames, and testing the most outlandish tech you’ve ever heard of.
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