The Coen brothers' movie "O Brother Where Art Thou?" is a retelling of Homer's "Odyssey" which concentrates on the comedy elements present in the original - basically, Odysseus is a massive egotist who thinks he's far smarter than he really is, constantly tells unnecessarily elaborate lies, and only appears to be clever because everyone around him is clinically thick - set in America in the 1920s. George Clooney is perfectly cast as a half-smart fool who never has the slightest doubt that he's the cleverest person in the room, even if that room is collapsing around him and it's his fault. It's also a really good film. See also James Joyce's Nobel prize-winning novel "Ulysses", in which all the major events in Homer's epic tale are mirrored by the totally unimportant things that happen over one day in the life of a Jewish shopkeeper living in Dublin in 1901. Oh, by the way, the movie "Forbidden Planet" is a loose remake of a play called "The Tempest" by some guy called William Shakespeare....