A Hot Village & Greenberg

It has been hot, hot, hot today!
The village seemed deserted when I took the dogs on their walk this afternoon, but as I walked up High Street, I did spy Auntie Gladys (right pic- oh and just to let everyone know that Gladys is called "auntie" by everyone that knows her!) She was having a quiet sun snooze outside her house, which is one of the oldest in the village. At 90 she remains a stalwart on the flower show committee and single handedly has sold almost 300 raffle tickets!
I didn't wake her as she looked so relaxed, sitting there in the sun...I thought it was a lovely and awfully intimate scene of relaxation.

This afternoon we had a bit of a break and went to see the movie Greenberg at the Scala. As it turned out we were the only two people in the cinema on one of the hottest days of the year so far.....It was blissfully cool inside the cinema....pity the film was so bad.

Greenberg is Noah Baumbach's tale of modern Los Angeles and centres upon the realisation by a small group of friends that they are indeed "past their prime" now they have reached their forties . The central character is Roger Greenberg, a prickly 40 year old no hoper who after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital, is house sitting for his successful LA based Brother.

Greenberg ( a dreadfully haggard and sad looking Ben Stiller) is a difficult character. He is overtly angry, emotionally unstable, and is a rather unlikable man who has not quite dealt with the hand that life has given him and amid this background of thinly veiled depression he meets his brother's PA, Florence.(Greta Gerwig). Florence is a similar personality but is young enough to make something out of herself, and the two start a fraught, unstable love affair, overseen by Roger's world weary but ultimately more stable old friend, Ivan ( a good performance by Welshman Rhys Ifans) I am sure Greenberg has a great deal to say about the awful shock it can be when you realise that you are middle aged. It also in its own Annie Hall (ish) way discusses disillusionment,the death of hope and broken dreams.....and does so quite sucessfully in a bleak and souless kind of way....however, in the end I lost interest in what the movie had to say, and this I put down to Stiller's character, who is so awfully unsympathetic that I couldn't bare watching him for another minute longer than the 107 minutes that the movie ran for.

5/10

ps Finally caught up with Nu on the phone this morning......she was in Harrogate going to a wedding....."Just thought of you Jonney!!!" she yelled....."I have just bought a fat bastard from Bettys".........I will tell you the story of all this tomorrow!!! It was lovely to catch up

pps. I spied the Fox tonight in next door's field!