The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day & Backrooms — Full Spoiler Review | I Watch More Movies Than You
We're back after almost a year off, and we came back swinging with three of 2026's biggest movies: Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and Kane Parson with A24's money bringing us Backrooms! Hosts Ken "KDizzle" and Bobby break down all three films in depth — cast, themes, box office, and where each one ranks against the rest of its franchise or filmography.
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (00:02:48)
We open with a deep dive into Nolan's adaptation of Homer's epic poem, starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Tom Holland as Telemachus, and Charlize Theron as Calypso. Topics covered:
- How Nolan's IMAX-first, all-practical-effects approach (including a real, fully-built Trojan horse) sets this apart from anything shot on this scale before
- Why the Cyclops, Circe's body-horror transformation sequence, and the underworld descent are some of the best practical filmmaking of the year
- A breakdown of Matt Damon's Siren sequence — a strong contender for his best acting moment in the film
- Where we split: KDizzle calls it a near-perfect film and possibly Nolan's best-written work, while Bobby argues Odysseus needed a clearer character arc — starting proud and boastful like in the source material, rather than introspective from the jump
- A theory floated on Film Spotting: is this Odysseus being blown off course by actual gods, or by his own trauma from the fall of Troy?
- The cast, including standout supporting work from John Leguizamo, Mia Goth, Benny Safdie, and Robert Pattinson
- Our updated top-three Nolan rankings (spoiler: we don't agree)
Spider-Man: Brand New Day (00:59:22)
From ancient epic to modern blockbuster — we cover why this is closing in on Star Wars: The Force Awakens for the second-biggest domestic box office of all time, and why it might be Tom Holland's best performance as Peter Parker yet. We get into:
- How the film leans into a grounded, post-No Way Home Peter Parker who's lost his Avengers connections and is figuring out life (and genius-level engineering) on his own
- Sadie Sink's introduction as Jean Grey, and why it works despite the character's rocky history on screen (Dark Phoenix, X-Men: The Last Stand)
- Jon Bernthal's Punisher and a surprisingly great Hulk showdown, plus how the movie borrows visual language straight from Insomniac's Spider-Man video games
- Whether Tom Holland has officially passed Tobey Maguire as the definitive big-screen Spider-Man
- Predictions for where the MCU goes next — including whether Holland's Spider-Man shows up in Avengers: Doomsday or gets saved for Secret Wars, and the case for a full X-Men pivot
Backrooms (01:34:11)
We close out with Kane Parsons' leap from viral YouTube horror to A24 feature film. Adapted from his own liminal-horror web series, Backrooms stars Charithra Chandran, Mark Duplass, and Renate Reinsve. We discuss:
- The "liminal space" horror subgenre and why empty, familiar-but-wrong environments hit differently for a generation raised online. First true GenZ horror movie that they take entire ownership of, and it's amazing.
- Why a $10M budget and a massive practical set (no AI, by design) made for one of the best horror ROIs of the year
- Reading the Backrooms as a stand-in for late-capitalism dread and corporate monotony — and how that theme connects to shows like Severance
- The film's most unsettling visual details, including the wall drawings that hint at just how long Clark has been trapped
- What it means for horror filmmaking that a director this young, with no formal film school background, is already this good
Listen If You Want To Hear
Two movie-obsessed friends going deep on Nolan's filmography, arguing about Matt Damon vs. Tom Holland's best performances, debating Marvel and X-Men's future, and unpacking why liminal horror (Backrooms, Severance, Iron Lung) is resonating so hard right now.
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Movies discussed: The Odyssey (2026), Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026), Backrooms (2026)
