The Story Punk Podcast

Episode 054 (PART 1): How do you take a story people have been telling for thousands of years and turn it into a Christopher Nolan movie?

This week on Story Punk, we start a two-part deep dive into The Odyssey, Nolan’s massive 2026 adaptation of Homer’s epic, with Matt Damon as Odysseus.

After ten years at war, Odysseus is finally trying to get home to Ithaca, his wife, his son, and the life he left behind. Of course, this is The Odyssey, so getting home involves monsters, temptation, violence, terrible decisions, angry gods, and a journey that becomes about a lot more than simply reaching a destination.

In Part One, we get into Nolan’s approach to adapting one of the oldest and most influential stories ever told. There has already been plenty of debate about what the movie changes, leaves out, modernizes, or completely reinterprets, so we spend some time asking how faithful an adaptation like this really needs to be. When a story has survived thousands of years through oral tradition, translation, theater, film, television, and countless retellings, maybe putting your own stamp on it is part of the tradition.

We also talk about this version of Odysseus and why he feels less like a simple mythological hero and more like a complicated guy carrying the weight of everything he has done. His greatest weapon is still his intelligence, but that cleverness comes with consequences. We get into the trauma of his journey, the choices he makes during the Trojan War, and the idea that winning the war may have helped create an even larger collapse waiting on the other side.

There’s also a lot to talk about with the cast, including Tom Holland as Telemachus, Himesh Patel as Eurylochus, Jon Bernthal as Menelaus, Benny Safdie as Agamemnon, Robert Pattinson as Antinous, and Ryan Hurst as Mentor, along with the ways Nolan reshapes familiar characters from Homer’s story.

And for all the scale, spectacle, monsters, armies, and mythology, some of our favorite moments are surprisingly small. A dog recognizing the master who has finally come home. A son beginning to realize who his father really is. A dying friend discovering that the man he waited years for actually returned.

We also get into Trojan horses, Zeus’s law, terrifying giants, the Sea People, modern dialogue in ancient Greece, Christopher Nolan discourse overload, internet arguments about Homer, some extremely imposing armor, and why changing an old story doesn’t necessarily mean betraying it.

There was way too much here for one episode, so this is only the beginning.

Part One starts here. Part Two continues next week.

Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

Episode 053: This week on Story Punk, we kick off a new season and celebrate one year of the podcast with Rebel Ridge, Jeremy Saulnier’s tense, tightly constructed 2024 thriller starring Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, David Denman, and Emory Cohen.

Aaron Pierre plays Terry Richmond, a former Marine riding into the small town of Shelby Springs with a single purpose, post bail for his cousin before it is too late. But when local police seize his cash through civil asset forfeiture, Terry finds himself trapped in a corrupt system where the law is being used less as protection and more as a weapon.

We dig into why Rebel Ridge works so well as both a modern action thriller and a story about restraint, justice, and moral pressure. This is not a movie about a man looking for revenge. It is about someone capable of extraordinary violence choosing, again and again, not to become what the system expects him to be.

The conversation explores Aaron Pierre’s commanding performance, Terry’s controlled physical presence, and the suspense created by the gap between what he could do and what he refuses to do. We also discuss Don Johnson’s quietly dangerous small-town sheriff, the realism of the civil asset forfeiture setup, and how the movie builds dread from the opening traffic stop through its explosive final confrontation.

We also get into Jeremy Saulnier’s precise direction, the film’s sharp editing, its Southern setting, its political relevance, and why the movie feels like a cross between First Blood and Cop Land without simply becoming a familiar one-man-army fantasy.

Plus: Iron Maiden, competent villains, corrupt systems, small-town rot, David Denman’s exhausted conscience, Emory Cohen getting repeatedly humbled, AnnaSophia Robb as the court clerk caught in the machinery, Netflix movies varying quality, and why sometimes the most powerful action hero is the one trying not to hurt anyone.

Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

Episode 052: This week on Story Punk, we close out Psycho Summer with Normal, Ben Wheatley’s 2026 action thriller starring Bob Odenkirk, Henry Winkler, and Lena Headey.

Odenkirk plays Ulysses, an interim sheriff assigned to the quiet town of Normal, Minnesota, a place that seems peaceful, friendly, and almost aggressively ordinary. But after a botched bank robbery exposes something hidden beneath the town’s polite surface, Ulysses discovers that Normal is not just a name, it's a performance. And almost everyone in town is part of the act.

We dig into how Normal fits into Psycho Summer’s theme of protagonists surrounded by people who want them dead. This time we're not dealing with a supernatural cult, a cursed family game, or an eye-contact plague. It is something more familiar and maybe more unsettling, an entire community built around shared complicity, protected comfort, and the willingness to do terrible things if it serves their best interests.

The conversation explores Bob Odenkirk’s ongoing transformation into an unlikely action hero, Derek Kolstad’s connection to John Wick and Nobody, and Ben Wheatley’s strange tonal fingerprints on a movie that plays like a neo-western, small-town conspiracy thriller, action comedy, and explosive shootout machine all at once.

We also discuss the town of Normal as a mask, Henry Winkler’s charmingly suspicious mayor, Lena Headey’s underused but dangerous presence, the movie’s Yakuza connection, its western structure, its Odyssey references, and whether all those literary and genre ingredients deepen the story or just decorate the gunfire.

Plus: Mr. Show, Free Fire, Hot Fuzz, Fargo, Nobody, yarn-store carnage, Home Alone-style death traps, moose metaphors, Chekhov’s Gun, small-town secrets, and the eternal action-movie question: how much character do you need when Bob Odenkirk is already bleeding, limping, and shooting his way through town?

Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

Episode 051: This week on Story Punk, Psycho Summer continues with the French genre thriller Vincent Must Die, Stéphan Castang’s strange, unnerving 2023 film about one man who suddenly becomes the target of almost everyone he meets.

Karim Leklou stars as Vincent, an ordinary office worker whose life turns violently upside down when people begin attacking him for no apparent reason. The rules are simple enough to be terrifying: once someone makes eye contact with him, they may instantly become murderous. Coworkers, neighbors, strangers, police officers, random people on the street, anyone can become a threat. There is no plan, no conspiracy, no obvious explanation. Just one increasingly battered man trying to survive a world where looking someone in the eye might get him killed.

We dig into why Vincent Must Die fits so cleanly into Psycho Summer’s theme of hunted protagonists. Vincent is not being chased by one killer, one family, or one cult. He is being hunted by potential violence itself, hiding inside ordinary social interaction.

The conversation explores the film’s clever premise, its low-key approach to horror, its refusal to fully explain the phenomenon, and the uncomfortable survival questions that come with a world where basic human contact becomes dangerous. What happens when ordering food, talking to police, going to work, seeing a therapist, or even passing someone on the street can become a life-or-death situation?

They also discuss the movie’s shift from workplace satire to rural survival story to something closer to apocalyptic breakdown, along with Vincent’s connection to Margaux, the online Sentinel community, and the way the film turns eye contact, public spaces, hospitals, police stops, grocery stores, and family gatherings into traps.

We also debate whether the film’s ambiguity works, whether the ending expands the story too much, and how much explanation a movie like this actually needs. Is Vincent Must Die a zombie movie without zombies? A pandemic movie about social violence? A dark comedy about the threat of being perceived? Or simply a survival thriller where the monster is everyone?

Plus: self-stitching wounds, dangerous grocery stores, dogs as early-warning systems, It Follows, The Crazies, Looper, Tenet, French dubbing frustration, septic-tank combat, and why avoiding eye contact may be the most useful survival skill in cinema.

Listen now to Story Punk, because story matters.

Episode 050: This week on Story Punk, Psycho Summer continues with They Will Kill You, the 2026 horror-action bloodbath starring Zazie Beetz, Patricia Arquette, Heather Graham, and Tom Felton.

Zazie Beetz plays Asia Reeves, a woman who takes a housekeeping job in a strange New York high-rise known as The Virgil, only to discover that the building is controlled by a demonic cult of wealthy immortals who have been feeding on sacrifice, power, and the kind of fine print no employee handbook should ever contain.

We dig into why They Will Kill You feels like a deranged cocktail of Ready or Not, Kill Bill, John Wick, Rosemary’s Baby, Evil Dead II, Death Becomes Her, and 1990s action movies. It is not subtle, but subtlety was clearly never invited to this party.

The conversation explores the film’s gleefully over-the-top supernatural violence, its aggressive title, its cult mythology, and its sharp class-war setup: rich people making devilish bargains while the people beneath them are treated as disposable. We also talk about the movie’s opening quote, “When the poor give to the rich, the devil laughs,” and how survival itself becomes an act of rebellion against a system designed to consume anyone without power.

They also discuss Zazie Beetz as a protagonist who may be trapped, but is more than capable, Patricia Arquette’s stern and sinister presence, Heather Graham’s unforgettable role in the movie’s strange undead chaos, and the way director Kirill Sokolov turns the whole thing into a hyper-stylized carnival of sharp-edged weapons, blood spray, regenerating bodies, secret passageways, and people running around inside the walls.

Plus: Dante references, demonic hotels, pig-headed voices, Jackie Chan-style physical action, grindhouse energy, practical stunt work, fire stunts, wide-shot fight scenes, 1990s action throwbacks, From Dusk Till Dawn vibes, and why sometimes “style over substance” still works when the style is swinging a flaming axe directly at your face.

Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

Episode 049: This week on Story Punk, Psycho Summer continues with Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, the 2026 sequel that picks up almost exactly where the original movie left Grace: covered in blood, surrounded by burning wreckage, and apparently nowhere near finished with homicidal rich people.

Samara Weaving returns as Grace, whose escape from the Le Domas family has triggered a much larger and more dangerous game. Four powerful families are now competing for control of a supernatural throne, and whoever kills the surviving bride before dawn inherits enough influence to shape world events. Unfortunately for Grace, the game also pulls in her estranged sister Faith, played by Kathryn Newton, forcing the two women to survive both an army of privileged lunatics and years of unresolved family resentment.

We discuss how the sequel expands the mythology of the original without abandoning its basic engine: wealthy people hunting someone they consider disposable. The mansion is bigger, the rules are stricter, the cast is larger, and the explosions contain considerably more human goo.

They also explore how Grace has changed since the first movie. No longer surviving mostly through luck and the incompetence of her pursuers, she has become a more proactive and dangerous protector. Her relationship with Faith gives the movie a new emotional center and raises one of the episode’s central questions: does surviving trauma make someone stronger, or simply more capable of violence?

The conversation covers Samara Weaving and Kathryn Newton’s sister dynamic, Elijah Wood’s scene-stealing performance as the supernatural game’s strangely relaxed lawyer, Shawn Hatosy and Sarah Michelle Gellar as viciously competitive twins, David Cronenberg as a dying patriarch with global influence, and the increasingly cartoonish collection of families willing to kill each other for absolute power.

We also debate whether the sequel successfully earns its bigger scale, why its new villains are less distinctive than the Le Domas family, and how its expanded world deepens the original movie’s satire of inherited wealth. The people in power will manipulate, murder, and destroy anyone standing between them and their privilege, even when the greatest threat comes from their own greed and incompetence.

Plus: supernatural loopholes, explosive rule violations, satanic weddings, pepper-spray combat, rocket-launcher revenge, industrial laundry equipment, sequel escalation, and the deeply comforting knowledge that even the people secretly controlling the world still need a lawyer to explain the fine print.

Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

Episode 048: This week on Story Punk, we kick off Psycho Summer, a month devoted to movies where seemingly everyone wants the protagonist dead, with Ready or Not, the 2019 horror comedy from Radio Silence directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.

Samara Weaving stars as Grace, a new bride expecting champagne, romance, and perhaps a few uncomfortable conversations with her wealthy new in-laws. Instead, an old family tradition forces her into a game of hide-and-seek where being discovered means being sacrificed before sunrise.

We unpack why Ready or Not works as both a tense survival thriller and a viciously funny satire of inherited privilege. Also exploring the Le Domas family’s supernatural bargain, the violence buried beneath its fortune, and how generations of wealth have convinced these people that everyone outside their mansion is expendable.

The conversation also digs into Samara Weaving’s performance and Grace’s transformation from unsuspecting bride to credible action-horror survivor. We discuss why the audience becomes invested in her so quickly, how the film makes her injuries and fear feel consequential, and why punching a murderous child can occasionally be extremely satisfying.

They also examine the movie’s finely tuned balance of horror and comedy. The jokes never completely drain the tension, the gore never loses its absurd edge, and the villains are not softened into misunderstood antiheroes. They are entitled, dangerous people doing terrible things because they believe their comfort matters more than someone else’s life.

Plus: Adam Brody and Andie MacDowell casting choice, Henry Czerny in full patriarch mode, crossbow tutorials on the toilet, unfortunate household employees, weaponized wedding décor, exploding relatives, and why “eat the rich” may be the movie’s most efficient thematic summary.

Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

This week on Story Punk, we conclude our international cinema series by going gloriously over the top with RRR, S.S. Rajamouli’s 2022 Telugu-language action epic starring N.T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan.

For me (Scott), it was my first experience with Indian cinema. For Drew, it was another chance to celebrate one of the most joyous, sincere, and spectacular blockbusters ever made.

Inspired by the lives of Indian revolutionaries Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju, during British colonial rule, RRR imagines the two men meeting, becoming friends, and unknowingly pursuing individual secret missions that will put them at odds with one another. Their relationship becomes the emotional engine of a movie filled with superhero-scale action, musical spectacle, historical fantasy, revolutionary fury, and enough slow motion to fully satisfy a Zack Snyder fan.

We discuss why the film’s nearly three-hour runtime never feels empty, how Rajamouli establishes its heightened reality from the opening scenes, and why every impossible stunt works because the movie makes the audience care about the people performing it.

The conversation explores the theme of unity, the instant chemistry between Bheem and Raju, and the emotional sincerity that separates RRR from blockbusters built only around noise and digital spectacle. They also break down the bridge rescue, the animal-filled palace attack, Bheem’s public whipping, the prison escape, and the Oscar-winning “Naatu Naatu” sequence, where a dance competition becomes cultural resistance, romantic comedy, character development, and pure cinematic electricity.

They also discuss the differences between Bollywood and India’s many regional film industries, the international breakthrough of Telugu cinema, the movie’s fire-and-water imagery, Ray Stevenson’s vicious colonial villain, and why Hollywood’s largest action films could learn from a movie this committed to friendship, emotion, and story.

Plus: magnificent mustaches, airborne motorcycles, weaponized wildlife, heroic posing, forty-minute opening credits, and why RRR may be the perfect gateway into the enormous world of Indian cinema.

Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.