What the Hellenic! Why is Christopher Nolan’s new Greek epic entirely devoid of Greeks?

Set to be this year’s biggest blockbuster, The Odyssey’s cast has been selected to ‘represent the world’. Fair enough – except that one key country seems to have gone completely unrepresented … There are the American accents, gleaming body suits and a muddy Dunkirk palette. And then there is Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, a casting choice that recently drew racist attacks from the usual moaners of the internet , including Elon Musk, who complained it wasn’t authentic. Authenticity matters. He’s just focusing entirely in the wrong place. To many Greeks, what concerns us most about the first look at Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey is the whereabouts of Billy Zane. Zane, like other beloved members of the Greek diaspora in Hollywood, has recently appeared on “Alternative Odyssey” lists on the Greek side of social media, as well as over dinner table debates from Patras to Palmers Green. (Theo James, Jennifer Aniston, Hank Azaria, and Dave Bautista are among the other no...

X Trillion review – all-women voyage to the ‘Pacific garbage patch’ packs a rousing punch

This film following a group travelling 3,000 miles to investigate plastic pollution reveals some shocking truths, even if it feels a little light on science

Co-founded by environmental activist Emily Penn in 2014, not-for-profit organisation eXXpedition has made waves with their all-women voyages to remote sea territories, where their members witness firsthand the startling scale of marine plastic pollution. Taking part in the project in 2018, film-maker Eleanor Church was among a multidisciplinary cohort who set sail across 3,000 miles towards the North Pacific gyre, the infamous “garbage patch” where ocean plastics have been accumulating since the 1950s.

The arduous journey is one of both heartache and beauty. There are moments of sheer wonder, as the awestruck women observe a pod of dolphins spin, jump and glide across the cerulean sea. The same shimmering waves, however, also carry countless pieces of plastic, which irreversibly disrupt existing ecosystems. Throughout their three-week odyssey, the crew collect samples from the seawater, revealing a shocking density of microplastics; their findings suggest that each square kilometre of the surface of the North Pacific gyre can carry as much as half a million fragments.

Continue reading...

from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/KQLIt8x
via IFTTT

Comments