The Trump administration is withholding more than $1 billion in federal Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota while demanding the Democrat-led states prove questioned Medicaid claims were lawful and not the result of waste, fraud, or abuse.  Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday that the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are deferring about $867.5 million in payments to California and another $199 million to Minnesota after federal reviews flagged high-risk Medicaid claims requiring additional documentation. “Medicaid exists to serve vulnerable Americans — not to bankroll unsupported claims,” Kennedy said in a statement. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are restoring accountability across our public programs and protecting taxpayer dollars.” Kennedy stressed that the money has not been permanently withheld and said both states can recover the funds by documenting that the claims comply with federal Medicaid requirements. “If those states want that money, they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate,” Kennedy said during a press conference announcing the action. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said the agency is abandoning what he described as a reactive approach that attempts to recover taxpayer money only after it has already been spent. “CMS is done trying to chase down stolen and misused funds after they’ve already left the building,” Oz said. “By stopping waste and fraud before the check clears, CMS is delivering record-high savings for taxpayers and ensuring that their hard-earned dollars reach the vulnerable Americans Medicaid is meant to serve.” According to CMS, California’s deferred payments stem primarily from questions surrounding certain in-home care programs after federal reviewers identified spending growth that significantly exceeded national trends. Oz said reviewers also identified claims involving individuals with what he described as “unsatisfactory immigration status,” as well as claims connected to services allegedly billed after beneficiaries had died. Minnesota’s payment deferral follows a review of Medicaid claims across 14 high-risk service categories that federal officials said included providers previously flagged through program integrity investigations along with other claims presenting potential eligibility or billing concerns. The Medicaid payment freeze is part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to combat fraud across federal healthcare programs. Kennedy also announced that HHS is expanding efforts to permanently exclude individuals and organizations found to have committed fraud from participating in Medicare and Medicaid. Kennedy said CMS increasingly relied on artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, and other data tools to identify potentially fraudulent claims before federal matching funds are released.  California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom rejected the administration’s allegations, calling the announcement “the same recycled political stunt we’ve seen before.” “California isn’t being targeted because Trump has evidence of fraud,” Newsom wrote on X. “We are being targeted for political reasons.” Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz likewise dismissed the administration’s justification, arguing the move was designed to finance Republican tax policies. “This isn’t about fraud — it’s about cutting your healthcare so that Trump can afford the tax cuts he gave to billionaires,” Walz wrote. “They’re cutting more money in healthcare than they’ve prosecuted for fraud.”

I wanted to hold my opinion on “The Odyssey” until I’d actually seen it. I know, weird. So, here it is: It’s extraordinary. It’s a grand spectacle with a fascinating moral core. As a director, Nolan is unparalleled. He’s the best director working today without a doubt, and he just keeps creating iconic movie after iconic movie. Also, the actors shouldn’t have said “Dad,” and the casting of Elliot Page is like a chipped tooth — irritating, bothersome, and unnecessary. On a scale of one to ten, where does this movie lie? Somewhere for me between an eight-and-a-half and a nine. It’s really, really, really good. But there are certain flaws in the movie that feel enormous to the viewer — like a chip in your tooth that feels like a canyon with your tongue, even though to everyone else there’s nothing wrong. Now, it doesn’t hew entirely to Homer’s characterization of Odysseus in the original poem. If you’re reading Robert Fagles’ version, for example, the film takes liberties with some of the characterization. But when you’re talking about ancient literature, most of the characters aren’t especially well characterized — we don’t get much interior monologue. The thematic core of “The Odyssey” isn’t particularly clear, either. You get a handful of speeches that might insert a theme here or there, but there isn’t really any sort of overarching dramatic theme other than a man trying to get home. Now, Nolan inserts an overarching theme that I quite liked, but whether you think that’s true to the theme of “The Odyssey” is another matter. But that’s okay. You’re allowed to take liberties when adapting ancient poems. The cinematography is beautiful — it’s well shot, and the images are so iconic that some of them are hard to get out of your head after seeing the film. Everything with the Cyclops is amazing. The scene depicting the Trojan Horse is amazing. I do have somewhat of a problem with Nolan’s sound mixing. He does this thing in a lot of his movies where the sound of the score sometimes overwhelms the dialogue, which is a problem when you’re trying to actually hear what the character is saying. Particularly, there’s a scene where Charlize Theron, who plays Calypso, is giving us her rationale for Odysseus’ departure, and it gets eaten up by the score. The score itself by Ludwig Göransson is good, but not great. I think the score of “Oppenheimer” is better. The acting throughout is very good, with a few exceptions, which I’ll get to in a moment. I will admit I’m a big Matt Damon stan. I think he’s great in nearly everything, and he disappears into Odysseus in a way that he doesn’t in his other movies. Robert Pattinson as Antinous is an excellent antagonist. Tom Holland as Telemachus is excellent and well cast. Anne Hathaway does a great job as Penelope. But first, on the theme of the movie: Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is an apologia for Christian morality poured into a Greek vase. The entire movie is rooted in what Nolan terms “Zeus’ Law,” which they keep talking about over and over in the film. The law is essentially this: treat people as you would want to be treated. But it is presented as the notion that any person may turn out to be a god — a direct rip from the Biblical precept of man being made in the image of God. Nolan uses Zeus’ Law as the film’s moral glue: the idea is that Odysseus, in utilizing the Trojan Horse, violated Zeus’ Law and led to full-scale slaughter. He is racked with regret over the loss of his men during the Trojan War, and his sin has led to the unleashing of broader globalized sin (the “sea peoples” who don’t respect Zeus’ Law and are invading surrounding areas). This is a highly Biblical message: That sin is infectious, and that sin also affects the world at large, not just the sinner. Odysseus must atone for that sin through self-imposed exile. But in the film, he is distraught over his crucial role in violating Zeus’ Law because he, as a character, is not someone who tends to fear the gods. He’s not someone who tends to think that fate is in the hands of the gods. He’s constantly rebelling against fate, as he’s informed by one of the other characters, Athena. But it turns out that actually he’s not rebelling against fate as much as he’s rebelling against human nature. Odysseus must learn that human nature is venal, greedy, and bad, and that he’s not in control of everything. Odysseus must also sacrifice his own aspirations to restore the possibility of a moral universe: Because he has unleashed catastrophic violence and violated Zeus’ Law — manifest in the suitors’ cynical use of Zeus’ Law to eat Penelope out of house and home — he must violate Zeus’ Law one last time and then accept the penalty, which is exile. In other words, when Zeus’s Law is violated, it is very difficult to put everything back together. In the original Odyssey, Odysseus just kills all the suitors, retakes the crown, and then he has to broker a peace with all of the remaining lords. But Nolan, in order to respect Zeus’ Law, has Telemachus become the king because he hasn’t actually violated the Law yet. It’s a clever reimagining, and I kind of love it. Now, for the film’s flaws: a lot of conservatives are missing the Biblical forest for the woke trees. There are five flaws with the film that people on the Right have pointed to — four of which are casting criticisms. Travis Scott as the bard or Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy doesn’t change the story in any fundamental way. I’m not going to go crazy over those choices. Although Lupita Nyong’o is obviously a beautiful woman, Nolan goes out of his way to explain that the war wasn’t even launched over Helen’s beauty in the first place. He then underscores the point by making Helen and Clytemnestra twins — the idea being that Helen’s beauty is not unique. Regarding Zendaya, Nolan does something super clever with her character that I loved: In a flashback near the end of the film where Odysseus is recalling the slaughter of Troy, Greek soldiers take Zendaya, who is a young woman living in Troy, and behead her in front of him. At the exact same time, Odysseus is watching a statue of Athena get beheaded. From then on, in Odysseus’ mind, the young woman beheaded in the siege is tied to Athena. Athena is Zeus’ Law in practice: any god can be a human being. Nolan cleverly weaves it into the script, and Zendaya does a fine job. For those asking why everyone in the movie isn’t Greek: No one in the movie is Greek. Matt Damon is of Nordic extraction. He does not look Greek. Tom Holland does not look Greek. Anne Hathaway does not look Greek. If you want to make the case that everybody needs to be Greek to be authentic, I think you can make that case. But saying everybody has to be white is a lesser case because white people and Greeks are not quite the same thing. What was actually bothersome was the use of language like “Dad” or “Mom.” It totally takes you out of it. They could have just said “father” and “mother,” and it would have worked, and as far as I’m concerned, anything that takes me out of the film is a thing that should not have happened. Which brings us to Elliot Page. This is an absolute puzzler of a decision by Christopher Nolan. Elliot Page’s character is a part of crucial plot points, but Elliot Page is a woman who has had surgeries to make her appear more manly, but still she is about 5-foot-2, 105 pounds soaking wet, and has the voice of a woman. It doesn’t work. Page’s character begins as a young, pudgy boy — which is weird — who ends up going to fight in the Trojan War in the place of Robert Pattinson’s character, Antinous. The character gets killed by the Trojans right away, and then reappears in a second crucial scene where Odysseus visits Hades and has a conversation with Page’s character about heroism in battle and how heroism isn’t really worth that much. Coming out of the mouth of Elliot Page, the whole thing just doesn’t land. The shots are beautiful, the dialogue is good — but it’s coming out of the mouth of a woman. There’s just no other way to put it. Now, does it kill the movie? No, of course not. But it could have been easily avoided. Elliot Page’s casting falls into the same category as the use of “Dad,” and “Mom,” because it’s an unforced error with no real rationale behind it. Overall, I would group “The Odyssey” in the same tier as Nolan’s “Inception,” “Oppenheimer,” and “The Dark Knight Rises.” It’s not as good as the movies that are his very best, but “The Odyssey” is better than pretty much anything else anybody else is making today. For those on the Right who were saying the movie would bomb: If conservatives want to be effective in the culture, reveling in being culturally black-pilled while a box-office hit dominates the cultural conversation is self-defeating. This movie is going to make a fortune. It should make a fortune — it’s interesting, visually incredible, and the broader theme is very much in line with what many conservatives believe. If you let Elliot Page kill that for you, I think you’re missing out on an incredible moviegoing experience.

Introduction For generations, Americans assumed that sending a child to college was the safest financial decision a family could make. Today, that assumption deserves far more scrutiny. For many students, college remains an excellent investment. For others, it may become the biggest financial mistake of their lives. In Parts I and II of “Why America’s Colleges Are Far More Fragile Than They Appear,” we were descriptive, outlining the mounting financial pressures facing colleges and universities, pressures that have reshaped the economics of higher education in ways families can no longer ignore. This article is prescriptive. Rather than diagnosing higher education’s structural problems, we want to help families make better decisions before investing tens — or even hundreds — of thousands of dollars in pursuit of a college degree. College deserves the same level of scrutiny as buying a home or starting a business. Yet many families conduct almost no financial analysis before making this six-figure investment. They focus on dreams, traditions, prestige, and acceptance letters while overlooking financial risk. Increasingly, that is a costly mistake that could haunt them for decades. The premise that all students are “above average” and ready for college is fiction. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 43% of students who enter postsecondary education complete no credential after six years. Most of those dropouts — roughly 60-70% — have student loan debt when they leave. Federal student loan balances now exceed $1.8 trillion, or about $40,000 per borrower, not including another $40,000 on average for parents using Parent PLUS loans. The fastest-growing cohort of student loan debtors is seniors aged 60+ — not because so many elderly are going back to school, but because they are turning 60 while still carrying old debt, or borrowing for their younger relatives. This group has grown sixfold since 2004, and their debt has grown 19-fold. Employers think today’s college graduates are less prepared for jobs. A 2026 Lumina-Gallup report found that 58% of employers believe the class of 2026 is less prepared than graduates a decade ago. Another study found 75% of HR managers believe most college educations are not preparing people for their jobs, and 91% say onboarding recent graduates costs more because they lack readiness. The same study found that 85% of graduates themselves say they wish their college had better prepared them for the workplace. One likely contributor is that so many of them weren’t prepared to enter college at the outset. According to a new analysis of scores from ACT college-admissions tests, only one in five high schoolers in the class of 2023 graduated ready to succeed in their core introductory college classes. Many graduates also struggle to find jobs aligned with their credentials. For years, 40–45% of college graduates have worked in roles that do not require a degree. Nearly half of master’s degree programs leave students financially worse off. A college degree still provides value for many students — but the value of a diploma now varies widely depending on the institution, its cost, the student’s likelihood of graduating, and the chosen field of study. Meanwhile, many institutions have expanded recruitment far beyond the traditional college‑bound population. Financial pressures have pushed schools to pursue enrollment growth aggressively, including among students who may not be academically or financially prepared for the challenges ahead. As we previously outlined, many institutions now target these groups specifically — often including underrepresented students who face greater risks. Of course, some students attend college for reasons unrelated to economics. Wealthy families, or students seeking the educational or social experience, may not prioritize cost‑value analysis. But for everyone else — the overwhelming majority of the market — a far more critical assessment is essential. That assessment begins with this fundamental question: Does college make economic sense for me? Answering that question should involve an unbiased financial analysis. Assessing the Odds and Risk With the cost of a degree at a top‑tier university often exceeding $300,000, a non‑wealthy family would be unwise not to evaluate the likely economic costs and rewards. Historically, many families avoided such analysis — confident that the economic payoff would exceed the cost, or citing a student’s “passion” as justification. Few parents would buy their teenager a $300,000 Ferrari simply because he was passionate about sports cars. Yet many spend comparable sums on degrees without demanding any evidence that the investment will pay off. The financial stakes — and potential damage — are similar even at less expensive schools if the family cannot truly afford the investment. Return on Investment (ROI) Colleges often highlight “the college premium,” noting that graduates tend to earn more than non‑graduates. Schools, and even the federal government, frequently imply this is a causal relationship — a classic error of conflating correlation with causation. This is like claiming gym memberships cause longer lifespans. In reality, the correlation reflects underlying factors: higher incomes, healthier lifestyles, better diets, and lower smoking rates. Additionally, college ROI projections often rely on one or more flawed assumptions: Assumption #1: The student graduates.  Only 61% of first‑time, full‑time undergraduates finish within six years. Underprepared students have even lower graduation rates and are a growing portion of the overall student population. Some 60—70% of those who leave college without a degree take student loan debt with them, and they are five to six times more likely to default on those loans than graduates. Assumption #2: College takes four years.  The average time to graduate is five to six years, with only 44% finishing in four. Additional years mean more tuition, room and board, fees, and living expenses. With college inflation at 3–4%, years five and six cost 16% and 20% more than year one. ROI calculations rarely include this. Assumption #3: The major never changes.  Up to 70% of students change their major at least once, often to less rigorous and less lucrative majors — especially true between STEM and non‑STEM fields, and with women disproportionately making this switch. Only 10-15% of students who begin as “pre‑med” matriculate into medical school. The earnings expectations vary greatly across these majors, making huge differences in long-term ROI projections. Assumption #4: Opportunity costs don’t matter. Two major opportunity costs are often overlooked: Alternative uses of the money Assume that a family is considering spending $35,000 per year to fund a student’s education. Alternatively, investing $35,000 per year in an S&P 500 index fund for five years at a conservative 9% annual return would yield $228,000 after five years — and $1.97 million after 25 more years with no additional contributions. Might that be a better investment — especially for one of the four out of five students whom ACT identifies as unprepared for college? Lost earnings during college The median annual wage for non‑college graduates is $47,500. Four or five years of earnings — and savings — must be included in any realistic ROI analysis. Assumption #5: Wage premiums stay high.  The wage premium for college rose sharply from the 1980s through the early 2000s, but since the mid-2010s, the premium has been largely flat or slightly down. More recently, a number of bachelor’s programs have been projected to have negative ROIs. Conclusion Families should approach the college decision with the same discipline they would apply to any major investment: understand the risks, weigh the expected return, and make decisions based on evidence rather than emotion. Doing so will not eliminate risk, but it can greatly improve the odds that a college education, if chosen, becomes a sound investment rather than a costly mistake. Our purpose is not to discourage students from attending college. Rather, it is to encourage informed decision-making based on evidence instead of flawed assumptions. College remains one of America’s greatest institutions when the right student chooses the right school and the right course of study at the right price. But it is not a one-size-fits-all path to prosperity, and the downside risks are far greater for some than others. College is neither a guaranteed ticket to prosperity nor a decision that should be made on faith or passion. It is an investment. Like any investment, it should be evaluated on expected return, probability of success, and financial risk. Families who approach college with that discipline will make better decisions — and avoid turning one of life’s biggest possible opportunities into one of its biggest financial mistakes. *** Greg Salsbury, Ph.D., serves on the Board of Advisors for STARRS.US and is the former president of Western Colorado University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, an M.A. from the University of Illinois, and an M.A. from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC. John Kawauchi, MBA, is a former VP of Enrollment Management and Marketing at Western Colorado University and Lake Superior State University, after spending most of his career in Retirement Planning and Product Marketing in the Financial Services industry. He earned his MBA from the University of Chicago and a B.S. from Cornell University.

“COMMUNITY! LONER? NO PROBLEM? SOCIALISM. COMMUNITY! HUGGING STRANGERS! NO FRIENDS? US NEITHER! COMMUNITY. BASKETBALL! SOCIALISM.” This was the pitch a young Democratic Socialist of America member gave to journalist Nate Friedman when asked to sell the idea. It’s worth dissecting, because this is exactly how the movement gets its converts. It’s easy. It smells sorta nice. It reads like a children’s book. And it’s spreading, thanks to these naive, ruthlessly ignorant, passive do-nothings. Community. Are you tired of sitting alone and being by yourself and having no one to talk to? Be a socialist. It’s all about community. It’s about literally sitting down and having coffee with a random stranger and talking to them about the game. Hell! I have hugged more strangers in this past summer because of the Knicks game. Because of the World Cup. Because socialism works. It’s the watch parties that Zohran [Mamdani] hosted. It’s about the parties that we allow. We don’t have cops hogging every single site and saying oh you can’t be here because there’s too many people, instead of allowing people just being in their nature. A natural element of talking to each other. To bond over things we love and share. So that is what socialism is. It ain’t a scary word. It ain’t me taking your house. It’s about me making sure your house remains in your hands and some millionaire doesn’t take it from you. That’s it. OH?! That’s it, folks. Game over! We won! He’s solved the problem. To everything! Housing, desolation, sports, even cyclosporiasis! Socialism will even fix that pesky explosive diarrhea you got from Taco Bell the other night. Holy cow. (And my generation wonders why our elders don’t respect us.) Immediate takeaways, before I debunk this kid’s entire worldview: One, did this guy just admit he needed one of the deadliest political ideologies in human history to make friends? Is he gonna start claiming a socialist government will also provide you a girlfriend? Two, the NBA and the World Cup are merit-based systems, run by capitalists, sponsored by capitalists, and broadcast by capitalists. Sorry to be the one to tell you. Three, we are in serious trouble as a society if this is what our education system is currently manufacturing. Young people, listen closely: socialism is not benevolent. Communism is not benevolent. “Democratic socialism” is a euphemism for socialism. And it is not benevolent. Socialism is a destructive and deadly ideology whose end goal is communism, the never-before-actualized idea of a classless, stateless, moneyless society. But boy, have they tried, and every time, a body count comes with it. If society doesn’t wake up to its evils, the world our founders built will perish. Which, for the Democratic Socialists of America, is the whole point. Marxism, the broader term for all of this nonsense, targets the aggrieved youth. It finds privileged, bored, generally well-educated young adults whose frontal lobes aren’t fully developed, and piggybacks on their distaste for society. This kid was a perfect target. He’s looking for a home, a sense of belonging, and he’s convinced himself he found it inside a warm collective called socialism. He’s got it exactly backward. Socialism is a system of public ownership over private ownership. Nowhere in that definition is there a clause about hugs. You find community at church, with your family, at your kid’s soccer game, or in a book club. If he found it at a World Cup watch party, that’s despite socialism, not because of it. The World Cup is about as capitalist as human civilization gets: a merit-based tournament, bankrolled by billionaire sponsors, that crowns winners and sends losers home. Given the choice, socialists would flatten that whole format so nobody wins, nobody loses, and nobody, notably, tries. Don’t take my word for it. New York City DSA Co-Chair Gustavo Gordillo said the quiet part out loud to Fox News’ Martha MacCallum this month, defending the city’s plan to open taxpayer-funded grocery stores that undercut the corner bodega. Asked how it’s fair to drop a government-subsidized competitor next to small businesses that can’t match the prices, Gordillo’s answer was, essentially, tough luck: if a publicly owned grocery store that brings prices down in the neighborhood is enough to put someone out of business, maybe they shouldn’t have been in that business in the first place. Funny how “loving and sharing” always seems to end with somebody’s shop boarded up. Pressed separately on how much profit a landlord should be allowed to make, Gordillo said no one has a constitutional right to a double-digit return on their investment. Ruthless. Speaking of housing: the mayor these kids installed on the promise to “freeze the rent” did, in fact, freeze the rent. Meanwhile, Manhattan’s median rent hit an all-time high of $5,295 per month. Turns out, freezing rent for a million apartments does nothing for the immigrants and young people competing for the other million, and they’re the ones absorbing the record highs. For their next trick, the socialists will freeze wages and call it a raise! The mini Marxist in the making also sold socialism as the ideology that will ensure your house isn’t taken by millionaires! Oh, thank gosh. Because millionaires have openly stated, incessantly, that they’re in favor of the abolition of private property, and the seizure of private property from white families, and the seizure of private property from landlords. Oh wait, the millionaires didn’t say that? That was the DSA activists? Got it. They are all saying the quiet part out loud. (It’s also written into their own national platform.) They want to take your wealth, your property, and your freedoms. That’s the whole communist blueprint: take only what you need, own nothing, answer to no one. Basically, we should all be naked all the time. Don’t build anything. Play in the dirt. Honor the stolen land. Return to the earth, Adam and Eve style. And all of that will work! We’ll all be so warm and collective and together. And poor, but hey, together. It’ll work like a charm until it starts to look like Mao’s China. Brought to America by the great, the mighty, Emperor Hasan Piker. He’s the DSA’s biggest media star, and he addressed the College Democrats of America last weekend wearing a Zhongshan suit. That’s Mao Zedong’s uniform. Mao is the dictator whose policies are estimated by historians to have killed tens of millions of his own citizens through famine and political purges. And Piker has called him “one of the great leaders of this world” who “changed the entire universe.” Not God. Not a supernova. Not a vacuum decay. Mao Zedong. Good stuff, Piker. The DSA’s leadership isn’t shy about where the rest of this goes, either: abolish private property, abolish ICE, open the borders, tax everything you own or create. They’ve turned on the Democrats. They’ve turned on the Republicans. And they will defend a communist dictator’s legacy faster than they’ll defend a shop owner’s right to keep the lights on. Call it Marxist, communist, leftist, anarchist, socialist, or DSA. The nametag changes. The ending doesn’t. It’s not a cute community. It’s not loving and sharing. It’s deadly. And this country would be better off if lonely 20-somethings found their people in a pub instead of a DSA meeting. Lenin himself had a name for exactly this kind of recruit. He didn’t call them comrades. He called them useful idiots, because he understood something these kids haven’t figured out yet: the movement doesn’t need you to believe forever. Just long enough. Socialism has always marched in on the backs of earnest, overeducated do-nothings with too much free time and not enough skin in the game. Look at the DSA’s own bench: candidates with more degrees than job offers, upbringings comfortable enough to make revolution a hobby, résumés heavy on studio art and light on payroll. These kids aren’t the arsonists. They’re the kindling. But kindling burns just the same, and right now they’re the missile the Democratic Party keeps strapping itself to, right before it detonates. Socialism didn’t give that kid a single friend. Capitalism did: an NBA app, a World Cup broadcast, and a bar with a working TV. What socialism is actually offering, once you clear away the vibes and read the platform, meet the co-chairs, and watch the guy in the Mao suit get a standing ovation, is a rent freeze that doesn’t lower rent, a leadership committee stacked with Leninists, and a movement that reveres the architect of history’s deadliest famine as a personal style icon. Go find your community. Just do it somewhere that doesn’t end in a body count.

Matt Damon revealed that a woman served as his stunt double for portions of “The Odyssey,” praising her work and saying she had the “greatest arms.”  During a recent interview with the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Damon said viewers were actually watching a female stunt double for one memorable scene. @happysadconfusedMatt Damon’s stunt double on the Odyssey was a woman♬ original sound – joshuahorowitz “When we did the forced perspective stuff of the Laestrygonians — I don’t know if there’s been a thing about how we did it — there were these stunt men who were all seven feet,” the actor said of the giant warriors.  “And then they got stuntmen who were under five feet, and so my double was a woman, a female stunt performer, who had the greatest arms I’ve ever seen,” he went on. Damon also recalled hugging his stunt double in the catering tent and thanking her for “all the work she put in.”  “So there are those shots in the movie where you see these giants looming over me, and so it was almost 100 percent my arms in the movie, but you gotta give it up where it’s due,” he said. The double was identified as Canadian stunt performer Devyn Dalton. She replied to the clip, writing, “It was my honour to double @matt_damon_official.” Dalton has also appeared in TV shows, including “Once Upon a Time,” “The Last of Us,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” per IMDb.  One of the biggest issues plaguing “The Odyssey” is the casting of Elliot Page, a trans-identified actress, as a male soldier. Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro, who had mostly positive things to say about the film, called Page’s casting “an absolute puzzler” because the actress is “about 5’2 and 105 pounds soaking wet and has the voice of a woman. It doesn’t work.” “The Odyssey” delivered the biggest opening weekend of Nolan’s career, generating $264.1 million worldwide, including $139.6 million internationally and $124.5 million domestically.