One of the foundational stories of the Western canon has a grand, sweeping, meticulously diligent new version in writer/director Christopher Nolan’s epic version, bristling with Oscar-winning talent and impressive seriousness of purpose. It is, with a few significant exceptions, true to Homer’s story dating back to at least 300 BC and probably earlier. But there are also vestigial reflections of Nolan’s previous film, “Oppenheimer,” both about men who must grapple with the consquences of their destructive, even ruthless, acts during wartime.

Matt Damon plays one of history’s most complex heroes, Odysseus, whose name and story still define journeys of adventure thousands of years later. The Odyssey follows Odysseus on his long voyage home after the victory of the Greeks, led by Agamemnon, with Achilles, Ajax, and Odysseus, in the Trojan War. Paris, a Trojan prince, had been asked to decide which of three goddesses was the most beautiful. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, bribed him by saying that if he picked her, she would give him the most beautiful human woman in the world. That woman was Helen (Lupita Nyong’o). She was the wife of the Greek king, Menelaus of Sparta (Jon Bernthal). But she is known throughout history as Helen of Troy, because she was kidnapped (or ran away with) Paris, leading to the war that made her known as “the face that launched a thousand ships.”

That war lasted ten years. It was Odysseus, known for his trickery, who came up with the idea of getting the soliders inside the Trojan’s impenetrable city by hiding in a gigantic statue of a horse, with a soldier named Sinon (Elliot Page) left behind to lie that the Greeks had retreated, leaving the horse as a tribute to the goddess Athena (Zendaya). When the Trojans drag it into the city, the Greek soldiers come out to win a decisive battle and end the war. This story is told in Virgil’s Anead, and in Nolan’s film we see parts of it more than once in flashbacks, part of elliptical, non-linear story-telling that may be confusing to those not familiar with Homer’s tale. (To refresh your memory or just get a quick recap, try this.)

But really, all you need to know is that Odysseus is on his way home, leading his men in (to start with) three boats, hoping to make it back before Agamemnon reaches his home just to be competitive. (Agamemnon will get home first but then be murdered by his wife, Helen’s sister (also Nyong’o).

It will take Odysseus a decade, with many stops along the way as the crew tries to replenish their provisions. The most well-known of their adventures are all brought to screen in unprecedented splendor by Nolan, and his “Oppenheimer” team, editor Jennifer Lame, production designer Ruth De Jong, and Oscar-winning cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, filming in Greece, Italy, Iceland, Morocco, and Scotland. This is the first-ever feature movie filmed entirely with IMAX cameras (in tribute, you can even get an IMAX camera popcorn bucket) and shown in 70 mm. The visuals are never less than spectacular. Odysseus and his men are traveling by boat and the sky and “the wine-dark sea” Homer described is filmed with a power and grandeur of a true epic. We get a visceral feeling of just how alone these men are, not just before GPS but before maps and navigation, entrusting to the gods to guide them home but knowing that the gods may be even more devious tricksters than Odysseus himself.

Odysseus tries to follow the “laws of Zeus,” particularly with regard to hospitable treatment of strangers, and killing even animals with honor, plucking his bow string to give them a chance to escape. When lives are at stake, though, he will do what is expedient. On their first stop, he leads his men onto an island where a cave is set up as a home, with a cozy fire. According to his beliefs about what the laws of Zeus require and assuming that the inhabitant of the cave will believe the same, he orders his men to stoke the fire to welcome their host. But the inhabitant is not a man. He is a gigantic cyclops, and in a genuinely terrifying moment, as soon as he enters the cave, he grabs one of the men and bites his head off. It is hard to understand why Nolan chose to omit one of the key elements of the story, Odysseus refusing to give the cyclops his name, instead saying he was called “Noman.” This is a very significant part of the story that is parallel to his not using his own name when he returns home, both relating to his sense of himself and his identity.

After a few more deaths, Odysseus is able to lead his men to an escape. But he violates his obligation to give the murdered men a decent burial. The conflict between his obligations under the law of Zeus and the choices to save as many lives as possible are a theme.

This conflict is presented in the immediate consequences of killing the cyclops. Odysseus learns that the monster was the son of the god Poseiden, who will now express his grief and anger by keeping them from reaching home. As in Homer’s original story, it explores the theme of human agency and the interference of the gods. We often see Odysseus near the goddess Athena.

Other adventures include two enchantresses. Calypso ( Charlize Theron) feeds Odysseus lotus flowers that make him forget the PTSD of his agonizing choices but also the fact that he has a family. Circe (Samatha Morton) turns his famished men into pigs (an extraordinary scene of transformation and body horror), and we see how clever Odysseus is in figuring out what she has done and forcing her to reverse the spell and help him get home. He travels to Hades where he meets the ghost of Sinon. He straps himself to the mast of his ship while his men have their ears blocked with wax to pass through the jagged rocks where the sirens sing men to their deaths.

Meanwhile, his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland) are back in Ithaca, with dozens of suitors eating their food, drinking their wine, and trying to get Penelope to marry one of them so he can take over the kingdom. The most odious of the suitors is Antinous (Robert Pattinson), a maniuplative schemer who got Sinon to take his place in the war. Telemachus leaves Ithaca to see if he can find any news of his father from Menelaus.

It will take all of Odysseus’ craftiness and strength to defeat the suitors and reunite with his wife and son. Damon’s performance shows us all of the complexity that makes Odysseus an eternally enthralling hero. Pattinson continues to impress as he subverts his considerable looks and charisma to create a despicable, cowardly character. John Leguizamo is superb as the loyal Eumaeus. Even the three-hour run time cannot find enough time for Theron, Zendaya, and Morton, but each of those encounters could be an entire movie.

Nolan’s screenplay veers into colloquialisms that take us out of the movie now and then. But he has an unsurpassed gift for the language of cinema. The scenes of exploration, combat, and in Penelope’s castle in Ithaca are striking and narratively clear. Penelope fends off the suitors by telling them she cannot move forward until she finishes weaving a burial shroud for her late father-in-law. She weaves during the day and then unravels it at night. She appears modestly behind a screen as the suitors crowd the dining hall.

Nolan’s style is chilly and cerebral, with the female characters thinly sketched and too often just creating problems for or taking power away from men. That may be one reason that draws him to a story where a military hero has encounters with literal enchantresses who impede his progress. His exploration here of the conflicts even successful warriors feel about what they have done and what they have seen is moving. He made very significant changes to Homer’s concluding scenes (admittedly, contested by some scholars as added by others later). But the ending he chose has the same problems as the disputed version and it undermines the weight of what he has presented so compellingly throughout the story.

Parents should know that this film is extremely violence with many characters injured and killed, many with throats slit, monsters, ghosts, and graphic and disturbing images. Odysseus is drugged and characters drink wine. There is some strong language.

Family discussion: Why is this one of the most enduring stories in history? What does Odysseus regret the most? What decisions did he make that you think were wrong?

If you like this, try: the book (Fagles or Wilson translation) and a modern re-imagining from the Coen brothers, “O Brother Where Art Thou.”

A French Officer in the American Revolution is the thrilling story of a dashing and courageous French soldier who joined the Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington to fight in the American Revolutionary War. It is based on meticulous research and the journals of François-Louis de Ménonville, written by his direct descendant as if it was told by the soldier himself, with extensive footnotes for those interested in learning more. It describes not only his adventures in battle and comments on military strategy but his thoughts on George Washington, Lafayette, and other major figures.

The ebook is FREE the holiday weekend in honor of the 250th birthday of the US.

It has been 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed, and we have spent two and a half centuries trying to live up to its ideals.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

Enjoy the parades, picnics, and fireworks, but take some time to remember the vision and courage behind how we began.

1776 I love this film, based on the Broadway musical about the signing of the Declaration of Independence, with almost all of the stars from the acclaimed stage production, including William Daniels as the “obnoxious and disliked” John Adams, Ken Howard as a dashing Thomas Jefferson, and Howard Da Silva as Benjamin Franklin.

And…..

Independence Day Will Smith, Bill Pullman, and Jeff Goldblum star in one of the all-time great popcorn pleasures. Aliens attack the earth and it takes a quirky engineer, a plucky President, and a heroic military pilot to save the day. What does that have to do with the 4th of July? Listen to the President’s stirring pep talk.

The Patriot There are many films about the Civil War, but not many about the Revolutionary War. Mel Gibson stars in this uneven but stirring film about a farmer pulled into the rebellion.

And don’t forget Schoolhouse Rock!

It was about the time that tourists on a history of Hollywood tour walked past an animated George Lucas in a glass case, speaking with the ACTUAL VOICE OF THE ACTUAL GEORGE LUCAS that I said, “Okay, my critical faculties have been officially shut down and I am just a happy fangirl at this point.” “Minions & Monsters” continues the origin story of the little yellow guys in denim overalls and now adds in the origin story of the movies, plus a robot voiced by Jesse Eisenberg and some love for the fanboys. That’s a quintella of irresistableness and I did not even try to resist.

In a present-day prologue, tour guide (Alison Janney) tells a group to take a seat so she can give them the full story of the two minons who changed everything in movies, history, and the world. We go back in time to see them on their quest to find and serve the most evil master in the world. Unfortunately, the minions keep accidentally destroying their “big bosses.” First there is a “scary, burly, and super-mean”gigantic one-eyed ogre, then a wizard with a book of arcane spells, and a despotic king.

Then, they see another promising bad guy, an old West train robber riding a galloping horse. The minions end up taking over the train, which crashes through the city of Los Angeles circa early 1920s (the history dates here are pretty wobbly, but go with it). This gives us a glimpse of iconic silent film characters and settings including Charlie Chaplin in “Modern Times,” Buster Keaton in “Steamboat Bill Jr.,”and Harold Lloyd in “Safety Last.” That train robber? An actor, in a film the minions have just disrupted to the frantic consternation of a dashing monacle-sporting, tweed-knickers-wearing director named Max (Christoph Waltz). But it turns out the brothers who run the movie studio (both voiced by Jeff Bridges) love the chaos of the minions and soon they are big stars, living in an enormous mansion, adored by fans, and selecting what will become their iconic look: denim overalls.

Like many other stars of the silent era and unforgettably depicted in “Singin’ in the Rain,” things change dramatically for the minions when the sound era begins. The minions do not possess the ability to produce intelligable speech. Most of the minions go off in search of another “big boss.” A few, including James, Henry, and Ed, who is Deaf decide that they need to make a monster movie. And so they use the wizard’s book of spells to call up a friendly little green monster (Trey Parker) who promises to bring them to some scary but cooperative monsters.

Meanwhile, a nerdy robot named Dort (Eisenberg) proves unexepectedly adept at fighting bullies at a sci-fi convention and starts seeing a sweet suffragist named Debbie (Zoey Deutch). Dort is a great new character, with a wonderful retro design and a hilarious, slightly unbalanced walk.

It is exciting and very funny and in love with movies. It even begins with the old Universal logos and the Eadweard Muybridge images that led to the very first development of movie technology. Above all, like “Toy Story 5” (and “Toy Story 4”) this film is a tribute to the joy of imagination. The two new minion characters, James and Henry (like the other minions, voiced by director Pierre Coffin) grew up creating stories and characters. The people who made this film did, too, and they want you to see how exciting and fun and important that is.

Parents should know that this film includes a lot of cartoon comic mayhem, peril, and violence including scary monsters and sharks, chases, punching and slapping, a character’s head is cut off, and another dissolves into dust. There is some rude humor including a character who sits on a toy. A new minion is Deaf and his friends quickly adapt to using sign language.

Family discussion: Why do brothers Frank and Ernest have such different responses? Which of the minons are better at adapting to changing circumstances? Which of their “big bosses” is the scariest?

If you like this, try: the classic movies referenced in the film and the other minions and “Despicable Me” movies