The most ironic thing about the reaction to Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is that so many people are treating Nolan like a god when one of the film's most significant lines is Odysseus' warning: "Don't look for gods in men; you'll just be disappointed." For years, it has felt as though audiences have placed Nolan on a pedestal. Elevating any filmmaker to that status ultimately does a disservice not only to the artist, but also to ourselves, because it discourages us from engaging with their work critically. Prior to seeing the film, I came across early reactions that hailed The Odyssey as one of the greatest films ever made, as if we were witnessing cinematic history in real time. To be fair, the film does represent a substantial technical achievement as the first feature film shot entirely on IMAX film cameras. However, that accomplishment alone does not make it a masterpiece. While people are entitled to their opinions, I disagree with the hyperbole surrounding the film. The highest praise I would award Nolan's adaptation is that it may be one of the best versions of Homer's The Odyssey ever brought to the screen. That said, I suspect I would have been more impressed by Nolan's film if I were less familiar with Homer's epic.

As someone who’s spent most of her career working as a writer and is obsessed with movies, I couldn’t help but notice a recurring trend throughout the 2000s: the protagonists of so many movies—especially rom-coms—were writers, journalists, or worked for magazines. These characters did work they were proud of and somehow managed to afford lavish apartments in New York City, making journalism seem like the dream job. Even when The Devil Wears Prada (2006) pulled back the curtain on how exhausting and demanding that world could be beneath all the glamour, it still made surviving in the Big Apple on an assistant’s salary at a fashion magazine seem plausible. But perhaps times were different then.