I’d hoped to bring you several book reviews this month, including one for the new novel by Bridget Collins, The Naked Light, which is out later in September.
I wasn’t so keen on her first adult novel, The Binding (2018) but I absolutely loved The Silence Factory, which came out in 2024. You can read my review of that book on Goodreads here.
However, I haven’t even started reading The Naked Light, which will have to wait until I’ve finished No Friend To This House by Natalie Haynes, which I’m reviewing for The Historical Novel Society.
I’m fully immersed in this retelling of the Jason and the Argonauts and then the Medea story, but I can’t tell you anything until the HNS publishes my review.
Anyway, instead of book reviews this month, I bring you some of my observations on the latest film releases. Before I get into that, can I just say how excited I am by the Christopher Nolan epic coming to a big screen near you and me next year.
The Odyssey is such a classic story in Greek mythology. The 2026 version (to be fair, there aren’t many others) features a star-studded cast, led by Matt Damon as the barrel-chested hero who encounters obstacle after obstacle – ferocious as well as seductive – in his ten-year quest to get back from a decade fighting in Troy to rule Ithaka.
Meanwhile, at home on the island, Odysseus’s patient wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway?) is battling off opportunist suitors by the Greek urn-load, spinning them a procrastinating yarn to avoid being hitched up to any of the blighters.
Filming only finished last month, and there’s many a slip between cup and lip, but I’m looking forward to next summer when the movie is due to be released.
I hope it captures some of the lyrical beauty of Homer’s epic poem and isn’t just a nonsense fest in the style of Gladiator II but more like the magic of the 1963 Jason and The Argonauts film and the magnificent stop-motion animation visual effects by Ray Harryhausen.
That film from my childhood, along with Enid Blyton’s children’s book Tales of Long Ago, got me into Greek mythology in the first place, which explains why I was so ill prepared when I attempted a masters degree in classics and ancient history fifteen years ago.
Enough of this rambling. Here are some films I’ve seen recently.
F1 (Apple TV+, 12A)
Starring Brad Pitt as a grizzled and handsome racing driver Sonny Hayes who’s come back to the Formula 1 circuit after a 30- year absence, this sports drama is perfect for those who love the thrills and spills of the race track.
I’m not a fan of car racing, and the plot is pretty pedestrian but the 155-minutes (insert Scream emoji here) passed almost as quickly as Pitt does on screen when he drives to win rather than to aid his young team mate.
Javier Bardem looks great in a suit and nothing like the terrifyingly ugly character in the Coen brothers’ No Country For Old Men (2007). His potrayal of a psychopath armed with a captive bolt pistol has forever haunted my dreams but in F1 he positively glows.
This is a bit of a boys’ movie, although Kerry Condon‘s technical director is a big shout-out to girl power, even though (unsurprisingly) she falls for the charismatic Sonny. I mean, who wouldn’t?
Enjoyable, exciting, predictable.
The Thursday Murder Club (Netflix, 12A)
Like the book by Richard Osman, this film has divided the critics, some lauding it, others calling it a disaster.
I read the novel and, okay it’s not high literature, but it’s well written, witty and driven by a dream team of characters.
The actors playing that group of old sleuths in a luxury retirement home fit their roles perfectly, although Pierce Brosnan‘s character of ex-trade union leader Ron might have been better played by Ray Winstone.
Still, this ensemble cast, including Helen Mirren, Celia Imrie and Ben Kingsley, do great justice to the source material and conspire to create a gentle, funny and typically British whodunnit which is easy on the eyes and an agreeable way to spend 118 minutes (but why are today’s films so long?)
Directed by Chris Colombus with screenplay by Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote, The Thursday Murder Club is destined to go down well in village halls up and down the UK.
Definitely worth a watch.
Jurassic World Rebirth (Universal Pictures, 12A)
As a Jurassic Park fan who goes weak at the knees on hearing the John Williams’ score, I confess to thinking this latest film might end up in the naff pile.
The last few films in the franchise have been pretty dire. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The dinosaur theme park setting has been ditched and a completely new – although familiar in many ways – story is unearthed.
Scarlett Johansson leads a disparate and desperate group to an equatorial island in search of mutant dinosaur samples, which a grasping pharmaceutical company wants to use as a life-saving treatment for heart disease.
She’s paired with a geeky paleontologist played by Jonathan Bailey, who’s come a long way since playing the rookie reporter in Broadchurch. Add to the mix an imposing and steady sea captain played by Mahershala Ali, a snivelling villain played by Rupert Friend and a family rescued from certain death, led by Manuel García-Rulfo, and you have the recipe for some solid family entertainment.
The monsters are terrifyingly hideous, the scrapes the humans get into are nail-biting and if Jaws ever made you think about twice about getting into a boat, then the creatures patrolling these waters will put you off sailing for life.
Complete hokum but surpisingly gripping and entertaining. Recommended.
Maddie Grigg 