Hi everyone, I hope all is well. We are into August now and despite how hot and smoky it’s been this season, I’m holding onto summer as long as I can. It goes by pretty quickly here, and we need to enjoy it. Our vegetable garden is pretty much bursting now and what’s worked best this year has been: onions, potatoes, zucchinis, and tomatoes. So we will eat those into oblivion, LoL. Here is a pic of some of the vegetable patch.
This past Saturday we went to see the movie Oppenheimer at an old rural theater near where we live. It’s epic, full of quandary and paradoxes, and worth seeing on the big screen. The camera shots alone are great, as well as the story of the man and scientist who developed the atomic bomb during the war, along with the cast, especially actor Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer. His eyes are very blue and expressive, as if you could see into the soul of the man he plays. Oppenheimer seemed to have genuine worries about what he had created, the horrors of unleashing it, and pushed for regulations thereafter.
Though well done, we thought parts of the movie could’ve been cut shorter. Half of the movie follows Oppenheimer’s life while he’s in charge of developing the bomb in the ’40s, while other parts jump forward to a post-war 1954 hearing about whether to continue Oppenheimer’s security clearance, with some doubting his loyalty to the country. The hearing scenes go on at length and start to drag the movie down a bit. Perhaps a half hour could’ve been edited from the three-hour movie without losing a thing. And the two overt nude scenes of Oppenheimer’s one-time lover Jean Tatlock (played by Florence Pugh) didn’t seem that necessary. The character sort of gets short shrift in the film to begin with, whereas Emily Blunt as the wife is given a little bit more dimension. The movie is rated R and apparently is now the highest grossing movie set during World War II, which is kind of wild to think about. What about Schindler’s List and all the others?
And now let’s talk about August releases. I’m behind in this, but there’s new novels by Angie Kim (Happiness Falls), James McBride (The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store), Jennifer Weiner (The Breakaway), and Emma Donoghue (Learned by Heart) among others due out this month. My three picks would likely start with Ann Patchett’s new novel Tom Lake (out on Aug. 1) about a mother who returns with her three daughters to her family orchard in Northern Michigan and tells them a story of a long ago past love whom she once shared the stage with at a theater company called Tom Lake. Through the story the daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother and reconsider what they thought they once knew. Hmm.
This one sounds good. Usually I like Patchett’s nonfiction books better, but the synopsis of this novel makes me want to read it. It seems quite warm-hearted and moving and perhaps one we all could use about now. If you missed it, Ann was recently interviewed about her new book on the New York Times book podcast, which you can access here.
Next up is Alice Hoffman’s new novel The Invisible Hour (due out Aug. 15) about a young pregnant teen who runs away from home and gets involved with an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts that forbids books and contact with the outside world. The child she has (Mia) starts to visit the library illegally where she takes to Hawthorne’s classic The Scarlett Letter and tries to convince her mother to escape. Alternating chapters bring to life Nathaniel Hawthorne, his world, and his inspiration for The Scarlett Letter. Hmm.
It’s been awhile since I read Alice Hoffman and I like the idea of how she intersperses the two worlds in this novel. It’s a story that apparently celebrates the magic of books and reading and I’m usually a sucker for themes like these. Also the book cover is quite alluring, don’t you think?
Lastly in books, I’m a bit curious about British author William Boyd’s novel The Romantic, which was published in the U.K. last fall and comes out in North America on Aug. 15. It’s about a man named Cashel Greville Ross, born in 1799, who travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, and a father and experiences a wild ride. It’s been called a “beguiling romp of a novel … about the adventures and misadventures of a nineteenth-century everyman.” Apparently Cashel meets prominent historical figures of the day including Mary Shelley and Richard Francis Burton and describes the “highs and lows of a life extravagantly lived.”
I have only read one of William Boyd’s novels and that was Restless in 2006, and from what I hear this one is pretty entertaining.
As for screen releases, there’s Season 3 of Only Murders in the Building, (on Hulu starting Aug. 8), which is a murder mystery comedy that stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez who play true crime buffs living in an apartment building who become embroiled in a murder investigation. I have not seen this show, but Meryl Streep is in it and Paul Rudd too.
It looks a bit too goofy for me, but maybe instead the final season of Billions (on Showtime Aug. 11) might be appealing. It stars Paul Giamatti as a U.S. Attorney who looks to prosecute hedge fund king Bobby Axelrod played by Damian Lewis. I have not seen this drama series, but now that it’s nearing the end, perhaps it could be worth a glimpse. I’ll just go straight to Season 7, without a clue otherwise, LoL.
For movies, Jules (due out Aug. 11) looks to be a cute one starring Ben Kingsley as a retired man in western Pennsylvania whose life is disrupted when a UFO crashes in his yard and an alien takes up residence there.
It sort of reminds me a bit of the movie Cocoon from 1985 … where a few seniors find meaning and connection in their lives thanks to a friendship with a being from outer space. I guess every 20 years or so a friendly extra-terrestrial movie comes out (quite a few were in the 1980s) and this ET looks relatively calm and self-assured.
For new music, there’s new albums coming out by Ryan Bingham, Rhiannon Giddens, and French Canadian Bobby Bazini among others. I’ll pick Giddens’s new album You’re the One due out Aug. 18. She grew up in Greensboro, N.C. and apparently lives in Ireland now with her musical partner and kids. She knows and uses many instruments and brings a lot of musical genres together including: Blues, jazz, Cajun, country, gospel, and rock. Here’s a song off the album.
That’s all for now. What about you — which releases are you looking forward to this month? And what are your August plans?