Send us Fan Mail Mid-2026: it was a Tom Holland and Zendaya summer and now we’re left in its wake, pondering two of the year’s most anticipated cinematic spectacles starring those marvelous newlyweds and their intensely motor-mouthed friend Jon Bernthal where each film was tasked with living up to enormous hopes and sky-high expectations and we’re wondering if those impossible expectations were met. We’re talking about Christopher Nolan’s IMAX epic, The Odyssey starring Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, John Leguizamo, Samantha Morton, and Charlize Theron. And Sony Marvel’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which came out two weeks after The Odyssey, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Sadie Sink and Mark Ruffalo. My guests today are series regulars Roseanne Caputi, Dr. David Johnson DMD, and after nearly a year-long hiatus from the Triple F, Professor Joe Field, Before we remove our critical inhibitors, the synopses: In The Odyssey, Troy has fallen, and a battle-weary king Odysseus sets sail for home — only to be thrown into a decade-long nightmare of cyclops, sirens, giants, gods, and spells, every sojourn testing how far a man will go to see his family again. Back in Ithaca, Odysseus’ wife Penelope and his son Telemachus fight a losing battle against the suitors who have overrun their palace, as the two desperately cling to the idea that Odysseus will one day finally return. In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, it’s been four years after the world forgot Peter Parker ever existed, and he swings through New York as Spider-Man full-time with no one left who knows his identity. Stressed induced loneliness cause his Spider-Powers to accelerate and he seeks the help of both Bruce Banner aka The Hulk and Frank Castle aka the Punisher to keep his powers under control and to keep the city safe as a terrifying new force arrives — a threat so powerful and so personal it may be the greatest foe Spider-Man has ever faced. Do these films speak to each other on a deeper level — or are they simply two big summer movies that happened to star the same people? Find out! Watch the vido podcast on Youtube: https://youtu.be/9s-kY8IIGnQ
