Hollywood's Magical Summer and My Favourite Film of 2026 (so far)
Hollywood is having its best summer since before Covid. This wouldn’t normally attract my attention, since relatively few of my favourite films of any given year come out of Hollywood, but I’ve watched six major Hollywood films this summer (ouch!). One of them is my favourite film of the year so far (wow!) and another is likely to make my favourite list. PART 1 No, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey , which I had the opportunity to watch in an IMAX theatre in Winnipeg on opening weekend, is neither of those. I do think The Odyssey is an excellent and entertaining film. The cinematography, the non-CGI special effects, the sound, many of the performances and much of the dialogue impressed me. My favourite scenes include Circe (what a performance by Samantha Morton!), Hades (Elliot Page doesn’t get much screen time, but his scene in Hades is one of the highlights of the film) and the confession of Odysseus (Matt Damon) in which he laments his role in the fall of Troy, breaking Zeus’s law ...
