This Is Spinal Tap written by and starring Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean is one of The New York Times Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, it is also included on Variety’ Best 100 Comedies list – you have more than five thousand notes on films from The NYT 1,000 Best Movies and other pages, together with just about as many reviews on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites waiting for you on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you could subscribe if you find it worthwhile

 

This Is Spinal Tap written by and starring Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean is one of The New York Times Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, it is also included on Variety’ Best 100 Comedies list – you have more than five thousand notes on films from The NYT 1,000 Best Movies and other pages, together with just about as many reviews on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites waiting for you on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you could subscribe if you find it worthwhile

 

 

9 out of 10

 

There is a motivational message at the gym downtown, something with ‘your Monday morning thoughts will determine your week’, ergo, the first ‘essay’ of the year may set the tone for the whole thing, Insha’ Allah, this could be a better period than the one we have just finished, or ‘we shall see’, like in the Zen Master Story https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/11/charlie-wilsons-war-written-by-aaron.html from Charlie Wilson’s War

Spinal Tap is indeed a very good comedy, and I have decided to watch it again when Rob Reiner https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/12/a-few-good-men-directed-by-late.html died - and the Orange Abomination attacked the late artist in his usual abject way – stabbed to death with his wife by their son, apparently

 

Two other wondrous thespians act in and co-wrote the script for This Is Spinal Tap: Christopher Guest and Michael McKean, and I have admired them in a couple of other comedies, Waiting for Guffman is at the top of the some lists of the best, just as Best In Show is also fantastic https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/best-in-show-by-christopher-guest.html and brings back memories

Speaking of which, the above could be all I have to say about the film, and I will move on to what is of major, immediate concern- since no one is reading here, not beyond the first couple of lines, I feel as if I have to put in my failure as a father, there seems to be a very feeble (if at all) connection with my daughter

 

Whenever I start talking about some problem I have (granted, it is most often, if not always related to her mother, hence her allergy) it appears that she not only rejects the subject, but she becomes hostile, to the point where I wonder if all I am is some interlocutor for movie talk, we see films together ad that is about all there is

We have seen Sentimental Value https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/12/sentimental-value-written-by-eskil-vogt.html together, and in the plot, the father had been estranged, abandoned the family when the daughters were small children, and at in his old age, he tries to get close, they look as if they might manage that

 

The other concern is material, but it would have all sorts of implications, the firm where I have been a partner has had zero profit for 2025, while the expenses in the house do not take that into account, indeed, I try to bring up the topic with my daughter and it has such a potential to derail so much, instead of cutting we spend more.

It is her mother that does not get it, does not care – on the other hand, I hear at the sauna that the problem is with the industry, at least in this country, and we have a peculiar situation at the firm, where the managing director is a fellow who works…part time, he is a referee, and now what he travels less to games, he has other ideas

 

I was furious and called an associate a couple of days ago, when I saw for the hundredth time  a post of this fella, promoting olive oil, this is his new hustle, another side job, on top of being an assistant referee, which to me seems to add insult to injury, it is not enough that he was promoted to the top, allowed to do games, he now has to spend time (we are told it is his private activity) selling olive oil, to me this is unacceptable, although with 14% I can do nothing about it, the senior partner has 69% and the final say, and he insists the director will see ‘how hard it is’, and presumes that the clients for oil might buy our products as well…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’