Two English Girls by Francois Truffaut is one of The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made – you have a few thousand notes on films from The NYT 1,000 and other sites, along with other thousands of reviews of magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other lists on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you are welcome to subscribe

 

Two English Girls by Francois Truffaut is one of The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made – you have a few thousand notes on films from The NYT 1,000 and other sites, along with other thousands of reviews of magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other lists on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you are welcome to subscribe

 

 

8 out of 10

 

This is one of The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made that has delivered somewhat, there have been a few recently that annoyed, instead of enthuse, that was the case for Weekend by Jean Luc Godard, and https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/01/les-dimanches-de-ville-davray-aka.html Dimanches de Ville d’Avray, although the latter was not irritating, just not good enough for this fussy cinephile

 

I have listened to an audiobook Truffaut/Hitchcock in which the former interviews the latter, revealing what both think about movie making, Truffaut admired Alfred Hitchcock, or else he would not take the trouble with this project https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/08/hitchcocktruffaut-by-francois-truffaut.html

 

Some decades ago, Alfred Hitchcock was celebrated as the ultimate director, we had the ‘film d’auteur’ concept inspired by him, although when they went too far with this adulation, the quality of his oeuvre declined, at least in the analysis of William Goldman, winner of two Academy Awards for best screenplay…

William Goldman has written Adventures in The Screen Trade https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/adventures-in-screen-trade-by-william.html a spectacular book in which he exposes the fallacy of naming one man (the huge majority were male) and saying he made the movie great

 

You need a whole team, actors, producers, writers, without the music, Chariots of Fire would have been just average, Jaws would not be the success we know without the special effects, which today are quintessential, in the future, they may just make the motion pictures with AI and computers, without humans

As for Truffaut and the Nouvelle Vague, I have seen recently what I see as one of the best movies of 2025, and of this century, the director, Richard Linklater is one of the greatest directors of all time https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/12/nouvelle-vague-by-jean-luc-godard.html he shows here how Breathless was made

 

Jean Luc Godard was talented, but also crazy, I have mentioned above that his Weekend repelled me, it has animals killed on camera, a pig is hit in the head and then they put a knife in his heart, after which, there is a goose or duck and we see it moving in inertia, after it is dead – or is it not? – rather gruesome and real

Richard Linklater has also made Blue Moon, shot in Dublin, with a very small budget, on a stage, in the leading role Ethan Hawke is glorious – he deserves the Best Actor Oscar in my view – and playing his alter ego – a short, gay, homosexual writer – with aplomb, superb timing, restraint, humor, it is a class act

 

https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/12/blue-moon-written-by-lorenz-hart-robert.html maybe I should mention that Two English Girls is interesting, a love story, in fact a sort of menage a trois, where Ann and Muriel are sisters, and both interested, maybe enraptured by Claude, this confused French man, courting one, then the other

 

it is an interesting dynamic, though not close enough to the quote below Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…’ that is from To The Hermitage https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/to-hermitage-by-malcolm-bradbury-author.html

 

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…’

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