This post has all of humanity wrapped up in your glorious words, Jill, from your hilarious review of a real bottom-of-the-barrel film through to the heartbreaking climax of the no-funding bombshell. Whether or not the river is yours remains an open debate - no, okay, fine, it's not yours, but it's definitely 'yours', right?
Awesome writing. Another treat of a post. Thank you. 😀
I wish all movie reviews were like this: cutting, clear, and funny. I remember hearing about Napoleon during it's pre-release promo. I've since forgot about it and sounds like it would be wise to forget about it again.
Hi. I’m sure I would not meet your exacting standards for humanity all that often and am, by nature I fear, at least as curmudgeonly from time to time (my wife and children have suggested thus). I’m also fond of Joaquin as a rule. But filmic dramatic licence hasn’t really done this work any favours, has it? Nor historic licence (extremely egregious).
I suggest “Inherent Vice” as a cure (the film) - it’s great to my mind, goes nowhere (or wherever it is that Pynchon goes) and is poignant and funny in parts. The acting is fabulous. Don’t expect plot as you have come to know it.
Anyway, still sad about the pub for you, but you seem both to be adjusting. All the best, John.
Hey fellow curmudgeon ✊🤝 never seen Inherent Vice but I’ll check it out. And agree re Joaquin, he’s normally wonderful, so this is a putrescent aberration. Thanks for the kind words about the pub, it makes me very sad every time I walk past it. Hoping I can eventually share some happy news about its reopening, one day.... in the meantime, thanks for being here John, and for reading 🙏
Napoleon had bad movie vibes from the start. With Maximus dead, a Gladiator sequel is bound to be awful.
I grew up in an apartment above a very proper and wealthy man with an English accent. One evening, while I was playing football (American) in our hallway with my younger brothers, he called. Our parents were out, and I answered the phone. Our neighbor asked whether we were moving furniture or enjoying our pogo sticks. We stopped our game.
I know, the trailer was so bad but I’m ever a sucker for historical fiction so couldn’t resist. Wish I had. Gladiator 2 has no chance, the name “Gladiator 2”should be a meme for any shit and unnecessary sequel ever. As for the neighbours, while I have a little more sympathy with downstairs neighbours in an apartment building complaining of noise, I have zero for detached-house-in-the-countryside-with-large-garden neighbours. They can fuck off into the river. ☺️🤝 Thanks for reading, David ❤️🔥 glad you enjoyed x
Gladiator 2 could be the movie version of "jumping the shark!"
That's a good distinction between apartments and detached houses.
Although a neighbor in a very detached house well down the street from us in East Hampton once played music so loud that it was shaking the dishes in our cupboards. I walked over to that house and was greeted by the house manager (of course!). He told me that the owner had constructed some sort of elaborate barrier to (unsuccessfully) moderate the sound. My suggestion/request to turn the volume down fell on deaf ears (so to speak).
Thanks Jill - that's Napolean settled... ;) It's a beautiful post about trees - we had a 100-ft redwood in our yard in the States, every August to December it would drop old bits like copper-brown snow. Wouldn't hear of cutting it down (and, luckily, it is protected) but that didn't stop all the neighbors also implying it was ruining their lives...
Incredible isn’t it. Who are these pod people who wage quiet war on our trees. They look human but... (and have you seen Napoleon yet? I had a guy in work today tell me he’s seen it twice and I was like 😐😐🤐)
Have not, will not, would not have seen it anyway - I really don't care for war movies, or for biopics of "great" men, which usually translates to "ruthless" men, etc etc. Did once go on a date with a guy to see "Titanic" (yes that long ago) who said, "Oh I'm so glad you could come, this is my 14th viewing, in the theater..." I never ran so fast in my life...🥜🤪🏃
Categorically fuck Napoleon (film). We lasted until the embarrassing scene with his mother and the pregnancy and are still offended by the life it took from us, for nought.
That orange splodge instantly made my stomach flip. We also have neighbors that want to cut down oaks that are many hundreds of years old because a room of theirs would get a bit more light. The mind boggles.
I’m sorry about the funding. And that everything is, largely, shit. It is, indeed, worth trying. ❤️
That’s *exactly* where we stopped too. Just too much garbage. Why, Apple, why. And Joaquin, we expected better of you smdh. 😒 Tell your neighbours they’re going to be aching for the shade of grand, old trees round their house when it starts to hit 40 degrees in the summers. Sending you a firm handshake, darl. We think as one 🤝😘 x
I wondered if Napoleon would suck. Appreciate you warning me off before I spent the money. What is it with the tree haters?!?!? I understand taking down a damaged and ailing tree, but there seem to so many people who are deeply and personally offended by the leaves they drop, the fallen sticks, their just being there. I don't get it. But there is definitely a certain subset of this group that is, shall we say, of a certain age. And I believe they are looking for things they can control. It makes them feel safer. "There! That's one tree that won't fall on my house. Ha!" I tell my self I'll strive to remember that I'm really in control of nothing, and hopefully avoid the desire to topple trees when I am old. Thanks for this. It was a lovely read.
Wonder no more! Glad I could help. ☺️🤝 You’re right about the control thing... think it goes along with the need to parcel up and perfect every scrap of a garden too, nothing overgrown or unbiddable... yawn
Great little tale of musing Jill. Like most, I’m distracted by armies of words and time limited in salutes but I read all yours as it jumped from one to another division.
BTW, as an old man, I rue most change but have concluded there’s actually 3 things unavoidable, taxes, death, AND CHANGE. I’d still remove the orange splotch off the tree but understand for a Brit, “that’s not done”.
As to movie dialogue, yes! It’s as if they don’t care. Ah, the oldies where your brain was altered by words like Godfather 1 and 2, Dr. Zhivago, and Lawrence of Arabia.
Jim, thank you for reading. I’m honoured to have you follow my word troops to battle. I’m with you on the Godfathers 🤌 haven’t seen the others (I know) but I’ll add to my list. I’m going to talk to my neighbour who’s on the council and try to work out whether the orange spells the end or just a branch-ectomy... enjoy the rest of your week, my friend
Stanley Kubrick made Dr. Zhivago and Lawerence Of Arabia so the costumes and photography is marvelous. Having studied Russian I was addicted to Dr. Zhivago but as a Brit I suspect you’re going to identify more with Lawrence. Then again, there is no female in Lawrence while Laura is central character in Zhivago.
As to memorable lines, for me there where many but ones that haunt with truth are when Lawrence berated Anthony Quin for leaving the war campaign on capturing a black stallion and saying he got what he wanted replied, “ Englishman, you too will leave back to England once you get what you want “.
For Zhivago it was Peter, (the bad guy) telling Laura not to marry Sasha, the idealistic leftist student, “Don’t marry him, he’s noble and idealistic, the type of man that makes a woman’s life miserable.”
They both sound great. And btw I’m not a Brit! I just live here. I’m half American half Irish.... and the American bit is two generations out of Russia so Dr Zhivago may in fact be more appealing...
Meh, half Irish, half Russian, whiskey or vodka? Actually my 3 week drunk tour of Russia in 1992 as the Soviet Union collapsed revealed Russians also have a proclivity towards cognac after they downed toasts with Kentucky bourbon I’d brought.
My younger brother is in process of getting dual Irish citizenship using our dear grandmother Jane’s Irish birth in 1873. She survived a coffin ship cruise to Montreal.
He’s terrified for his grandchildren and USA . I told him it’s a tad provincial. He toured there during the “troubles “ when it was more interesting.
I haven’t but I’ll check it out if you recommend... good luck to your brother, will cross my fingers for him. Ireland is *nothing* if not provincial 🤣 Awhile ago I went to an Irish comedian’s gig and got chatting to a random woman behind me in the line for the bar, who turned out to be his cousin. Then I realised he must have gone to school about five minutes from my family house in Dublin. Small old Irish world. 🍀 My Irish ancestors never left the island though, suspect the Russia in me is stronger. My Russian ancestors pitched up in New York at the turn of the century with nothing. I’d go vodka over whiskey any day and have a proclivity for swimming in very cold water.... ❄️
In North Borneo I drank Tiger Beer with an Irish Catholic from Boston who literally carried the book in his back pocket. It's a funny story about an American Jew who goes to Trinity college in Dublin and observes the peculiar sexual mores of the locals. He married my girl friend but as I knew, it didn't work out.
So a second generation American Russian went to the bog's capital and met an Irish lass and begat you? Is your last name Donleavy?
I think we've always had shit movies, but I commiserate with you. I have little interest in most of the "big" ones these days, though I did enjoy the Barbie one. I don't know what it is with homeowners and hating trees. My neighbor cut down two healthy ones, and all I can think of is they were tired of cleaning up leaves and needles. My plot has the tallest tree in the neighborhood, a tulip tree, and I clean up its leaves, fallen branches, flowers, buds, and samaras, and find the pollen all over my car, and honeydew if I park under it. I can wash the car. I'll never cut down a tree unless it is dying, and a danger. I am privileged (or blessed? "Brian Blessed" perhaps?) to be a large, loud, hairy person who few people approach with an attitude. I lend my services to friends who dislike confrontation, and will politely ask rude people not to be. It is what it is, until we decide it ain't.
Tulip tree ❤️🔥 she’s the absolute Queen. Take care of her, you lucky thing. You’re probably right about big movies always being shit. We all just like to think they live in the most interesting (worst?) times there have ever been ...
The urge of a certain sort of suburbanite or upscale villager to chop down garden trees is pretty universal and international - I'd have to cross the Atlantic to drink in your pub when it reopens but we have them here too. Fight the good fight - a local council that cares helps a lot (here).
What is with people always cutting down old trees that were there well before their stupid house and road even existed. I would like to sell my house, but 90% of my resistance to doing so is the knowledge that the buyer is likely to be some young well-to-do couple that will probably cut down the big oak in my yard that blocks the view of the hills. (I live in a college town in a “trendy” neighborhood, so I know the type comprising the pool of potential buyers here.) Gah. Anyway, good luck with the pub. Fingers crossed.
Ack that makes me want to move to whatever leafy college town you call home and be the one to buy your house to save the oak!!! 🤣 But also: it sounds awesome so maybe you shouldn’t sell ❤️ either way, thanks for the crossed fingers 🤞 mine are too, and toes...
This post has all of humanity wrapped up in your glorious words, Jill, from your hilarious review of a real bottom-of-the-barrel film through to the heartbreaking climax of the no-funding bombshell. Whether or not the river is yours remains an open debate - no, okay, fine, it's not yours, but it's definitely 'yours', right?
Awesome writing. Another treat of a post. Thank you. 😀
It’s definitely ‘mine’ 🤫🤫🤫🤣 Thank you for reading and for such a generous comment. 🙏I’m so glad to have you as my online neighbour 🥰❤️
Awww, me too!!!!! 😘
How much do the shares cost?
£100 for 100 shares minimum. Thank you for reading my work, Margaret. It is noticed and appreciated more than I can say 🙏
Nothing like a good ruminative walk, and an ear for dialogue!
🙏 Kenneth 🫶
misplaced White Male Confidence is now how I will refer all the men in my teams (my teams are all white men)
I’m sorry 😣 ubiquitous innit
I wish all movie reviews were like this: cutting, clear, and funny. I remember hearing about Napoleon during it's pre-release promo. I've since forgot about it and sounds like it would be wise to forget about it again.
That would indeed be the wisest course of action. Unless you plan on watching it on mute.
Hi. I’m sure I would not meet your exacting standards for humanity all that often and am, by nature I fear, at least as curmudgeonly from time to time (my wife and children have suggested thus). I’m also fond of Joaquin as a rule. But filmic dramatic licence hasn’t really done this work any favours, has it? Nor historic licence (extremely egregious).
I suggest “Inherent Vice” as a cure (the film) - it’s great to my mind, goes nowhere (or wherever it is that Pynchon goes) and is poignant and funny in parts. The acting is fabulous. Don’t expect plot as you have come to know it.
Anyway, still sad about the pub for you, but you seem both to be adjusting. All the best, John.
Hey fellow curmudgeon ✊🤝 never seen Inherent Vice but I’ll check it out. And agree re Joaquin, he’s normally wonderful, so this is a putrescent aberration. Thanks for the kind words about the pub, it makes me very sad every time I walk past it. Hoping I can eventually share some happy news about its reopening, one day.... in the meantime, thanks for being here John, and for reading 🙏
Enjoyed this, Jill.
Napoleon had bad movie vibes from the start. With Maximus dead, a Gladiator sequel is bound to be awful.
I grew up in an apartment above a very proper and wealthy man with an English accent. One evening, while I was playing football (American) in our hallway with my younger brothers, he called. Our parents were out, and I answered the phone. Our neighbor asked whether we were moving furniture or enjoying our pogo sticks. We stopped our game.
I know, the trailer was so bad but I’m ever a sucker for historical fiction so couldn’t resist. Wish I had. Gladiator 2 has no chance, the name “Gladiator 2”should be a meme for any shit and unnecessary sequel ever. As for the neighbours, while I have a little more sympathy with downstairs neighbours in an apartment building complaining of noise, I have zero for detached-house-in-the-countryside-with-large-garden neighbours. They can fuck off into the river. ☺️🤝 Thanks for reading, David ❤️🔥 glad you enjoyed x
Gladiator 2 could be the movie version of "jumping the shark!"
That's a good distinction between apartments and detached houses.
Although a neighbor in a very detached house well down the street from us in East Hampton once played music so loud that it was shaking the dishes in our cupboards. I walked over to that house and was greeted by the house manager (of course!). He told me that the owner had constructed some sort of elaborate barrier to (unsuccessfully) moderate the sound. My suggestion/request to turn the volume down fell on deaf ears (so to speak).
Thanks Jill - that's Napolean settled... ;) It's a beautiful post about trees - we had a 100-ft redwood in our yard in the States, every August to December it would drop old bits like copper-brown snow. Wouldn't hear of cutting it down (and, luckily, it is protected) but that didn't stop all the neighbors also implying it was ruining their lives...
Incredible isn’t it. Who are these pod people who wage quiet war on our trees. They look human but... (and have you seen Napoleon yet? I had a guy in work today tell me he’s seen it twice and I was like 😐😐🤐)
Have not, will not, would not have seen it anyway - I really don't care for war movies, or for biopics of "great" men, which usually translates to "ruthless" men, etc etc. Did once go on a date with a guy to see "Titanic" (yes that long ago) who said, "Oh I'm so glad you could come, this is my 14th viewing, in the theater..." I never ran so fast in my life...🥜🤪🏃
Categorically fuck Napoleon (film). We lasted until the embarrassing scene with his mother and the pregnancy and are still offended by the life it took from us, for nought.
That orange splodge instantly made my stomach flip. We also have neighbors that want to cut down oaks that are many hundreds of years old because a room of theirs would get a bit more light. The mind boggles.
I’m sorry about the funding. And that everything is, largely, shit. It is, indeed, worth trying. ❤️
That’s *exactly* where we stopped too. Just too much garbage. Why, Apple, why. And Joaquin, we expected better of you smdh. 😒 Tell your neighbours they’re going to be aching for the shade of grand, old trees round their house when it starts to hit 40 degrees in the summers. Sending you a firm handshake, darl. We think as one 🤝😘 x
You have a way with words. I find myself nodding along to everything you say. Especially about old walls.
Thank you Andrew 🙏 glad you’re with me on the walls...
I wondered if Napoleon would suck. Appreciate you warning me off before I spent the money. What is it with the tree haters?!?!? I understand taking down a damaged and ailing tree, but there seem to so many people who are deeply and personally offended by the leaves they drop, the fallen sticks, their just being there. I don't get it. But there is definitely a certain subset of this group that is, shall we say, of a certain age. And I believe they are looking for things they can control. It makes them feel safer. "There! That's one tree that won't fall on my house. Ha!" I tell my self I'll strive to remember that I'm really in control of nothing, and hopefully avoid the desire to topple trees when I am old. Thanks for this. It was a lovely read.
Wonder no more! Glad I could help. ☺️🤝 You’re right about the control thing... think it goes along with the need to parcel up and perfect every scrap of a garden too, nothing overgrown or unbiddable... yawn
Great little tale of musing Jill. Like most, I’m distracted by armies of words and time limited in salutes but I read all yours as it jumped from one to another division.
BTW, as an old man, I rue most change but have concluded there’s actually 3 things unavoidable, taxes, death, AND CHANGE. I’d still remove the orange splotch off the tree but understand for a Brit, “that’s not done”.
As to movie dialogue, yes! It’s as if they don’t care. Ah, the oldies where your brain was altered by words like Godfather 1 and 2, Dr. Zhivago, and Lawrence of Arabia.
Jim, thank you for reading. I’m honoured to have you follow my word troops to battle. I’m with you on the Godfathers 🤌 haven’t seen the others (I know) but I’ll add to my list. I’m going to talk to my neighbour who’s on the council and try to work out whether the orange spells the end or just a branch-ectomy... enjoy the rest of your week, my friend
Stanley Kubrick made Dr. Zhivago and Lawerence Of Arabia so the costumes and photography is marvelous. Having studied Russian I was addicted to Dr. Zhivago but as a Brit I suspect you’re going to identify more with Lawrence. Then again, there is no female in Lawrence while Laura is central character in Zhivago.
As to memorable lines, for me there where many but ones that haunt with truth are when Lawrence berated Anthony Quin for leaving the war campaign on capturing a black stallion and saying he got what he wanted replied, “ Englishman, you too will leave back to England once you get what you want “.
For Zhivago it was Peter, (the bad guy) telling Laura not to marry Sasha, the idealistic leftist student, “Don’t marry him, he’s noble and idealistic, the type of man that makes a woman’s life miserable.”
Those are not verbatim but carry the meaning.
They both sound great. And btw I’m not a Brit! I just live here. I’m half American half Irish.... and the American bit is two generations out of Russia so Dr Zhivago may in fact be more appealing...
Meh, half Irish, half Russian, whiskey or vodka? Actually my 3 week drunk tour of Russia in 1992 as the Soviet Union collapsed revealed Russians also have a proclivity towards cognac after they downed toasts with Kentucky bourbon I’d brought.
My younger brother is in process of getting dual Irish citizenship using our dear grandmother Jane’s Irish birth in 1873. She survived a coffin ship cruise to Montreal.
He’s terrified for his grandchildren and USA . I told him it’s a tad provincial. He toured there during the “troubles “ when it was more interesting.
Have you read “The Ginger Man”?
I haven’t but I’ll check it out if you recommend... good luck to your brother, will cross my fingers for him. Ireland is *nothing* if not provincial 🤣 Awhile ago I went to an Irish comedian’s gig and got chatting to a random woman behind me in the line for the bar, who turned out to be his cousin. Then I realised he must have gone to school about five minutes from my family house in Dublin. Small old Irish world. 🍀 My Irish ancestors never left the island though, suspect the Russia in me is stronger. My Russian ancestors pitched up in New York at the turn of the century with nothing. I’d go vodka over whiskey any day and have a proclivity for swimming in very cold water.... ❄️
In North Borneo I drank Tiger Beer with an Irish Catholic from Boston who literally carried the book in his back pocket. It's a funny story about an American Jew who goes to Trinity college in Dublin and observes the peculiar sexual mores of the locals. He married my girl friend but as I knew, it didn't work out.
So a second generation American Russian went to the bog's capital and met an Irish lass and begat you? Is your last name Donleavy?
I think we've always had shit movies, but I commiserate with you. I have little interest in most of the "big" ones these days, though I did enjoy the Barbie one. I don't know what it is with homeowners and hating trees. My neighbor cut down two healthy ones, and all I can think of is they were tired of cleaning up leaves and needles. My plot has the tallest tree in the neighborhood, a tulip tree, and I clean up its leaves, fallen branches, flowers, buds, and samaras, and find the pollen all over my car, and honeydew if I park under it. I can wash the car. I'll never cut down a tree unless it is dying, and a danger. I am privileged (or blessed? "Brian Blessed" perhaps?) to be a large, loud, hairy person who few people approach with an attitude. I lend my services to friends who dislike confrontation, and will politely ask rude people not to be. It is what it is, until we decide it ain't.
Tulip tree ❤️🔥 she’s the absolute Queen. Take care of her, you lucky thing. You’re probably right about big movies always being shit. We all just like to think they live in the most interesting (worst?) times there have ever been ...
The urge of a certain sort of suburbanite or upscale villager to chop down garden trees is pretty universal and international - I'd have to cross the Atlantic to drink in your pub when it reopens but we have them here too. Fight the good fight - a local council that cares helps a lot (here).
Depressing isn’t it. I don’t get it. Fighting ✊
What is with people always cutting down old trees that were there well before their stupid house and road even existed. I would like to sell my house, but 90% of my resistance to doing so is the knowledge that the buyer is likely to be some young well-to-do couple that will probably cut down the big oak in my yard that blocks the view of the hills. (I live in a college town in a “trendy” neighborhood, so I know the type comprising the pool of potential buyers here.) Gah. Anyway, good luck with the pub. Fingers crossed.
Ack that makes me want to move to whatever leafy college town you call home and be the one to buy your house to save the oak!!! 🤣 But also: it sounds awesome so maybe you shouldn’t sell ❤️ either way, thanks for the crossed fingers 🤞 mine are too, and toes...
Ugh. I keep wondering if you have the pub yet. Fucking Napoleon. This is why we can’t have nice things.
I know right 😓