Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres looked at here http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/02/note-1-on-captain-corellis-mandolin-by.html - 8 out of 10

 

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres looked at here http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/02/note-1-on-captain-corellis-mandolin-by.html

8 out of 10

 

 

On quite a few levels, the adaptation of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is a disappointment, for you have such a team of extremely talented, Oscar Winning artists, and yet the performances, especially that of Nicolas Cage, are not satisfying, but in the case of Cage, this is downright irritating, annoying and really bad

 

Never mind Leaving Las Vegas, for which the actor has taken home an Academy Award, but Antonio Corelli gets a treatment to put Wild at Heart, Leaving Arizona, and Peggy Sue Got Married http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/05/peggy-sue-got-married-written-by-arlene.html to shame, however worse this gets

Nicolas Cage has had serious money trouble, according to those shows that look at actors, how they shone, but in situations, the troubles they have gotten into, this one has gone on a shopping spree, including something to do with dinosaurs, relics most likely, and then found he is broke or nearly there…

 

So, like others, he took on roles that make no sense, in movies that are so bad, it makes you wish to turn back the clock, if you see them, on condition that they pay the high fee he wanted, some of these productions have taken him here, and the word is, the man is not just unlikeable, he is worse than that…

Together with Cage, other talent is wasted, from Penelope Cruz http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/02/note-on-hable-con-ella-aka-talk-to-her.html to John Hurt, who was one of the titans of the screen trade, who has been glorious in so many movies, such as Midnight Express

 

The Elephant Man is another example where you see a huge talent, surrounded by a splendid cast, in a remarkable, outstanding motion picture http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-elephant-man-by-bernard-pomerance.html

As for Christian Bale, this list of massive successes, of both critic and box office nature, is just as long, from Ferrari vs. Ford, to The Empire of the Sun – wherein he was just a child – Escape at Dawn, American Hustle, and on to The Big Short http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-big-short-based-on-book-big-short.html

 

The nature, background for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is impressive – I have wanted to move to and live on a Greek island, preferably Crete, Santorini, or another – and it takes place in World War II, when the Italians fight alongside the Nazis, pushing into Albania, Greece, only to get bogged down, losing battles

 

One of the humorous scenes refers to these defeats, on the island of Cephalonia, the Italians want the local authorities aka the mayor and the officials in his office to surrender, but at the town hall, the message they get says ‘fuck off’, and when they insist, the Greeks say they want to surrender to a German officer

They brought in the captain that is the liaison with the Italians, only the Greeks are disappointed, saying they had asked for an ‘adequately ranked officer’ and they feel that captain is not good enough for their honor, and so Captain Corelli has to explain that there is no higher ranking German on the island

 

They only have few men there, so the officials get in congress and talk about them, insulting the Italians, saying they had won over them in Albania, so they deserve no respect, so they will eventually capitulate to ‘the German captain’s dog, rather than surrender to the ones they have so humiliated in their fight’

Something to that effect, hopefully, there is hostility, as we know from history, although I had no idea it was such a tension between the Italians and the Greeks – maybe it goes back to the days when the Roman empire had conquered Greece, at that time past the zenith of its Socratic days, though with a colossal culture

 

In ancient Rome, the sophisticated had to take Greeks to be somewhere on top, the latter were held at high esteem…now there has been a great hostility between Greece and Turkey, going back to the Ottoman Empire, and that was ‘common knowledge’ around here, however bizarre is to have it within NATO

Erdogan is nonetheless such a fool that he creates problems on all fronts, with Greece, even with Sweden, he has held their application to join NATO on hold, rejecting their wish for long, but that is the character of the beast, he keeps on the good side of…Putin, and that alone, would say it all, enough to exclude the guy from good company

 

He is a tyrant, who most recently has called Hamas a…liberation organization, disregarding the murderous, terrorist nature, yes, innocents in Gaza should be protected, just like anywhere else, in Ukraine, where Putin is bombing them to death, but to praise a group of mad terrorists is beyond the pale…

To conclude with Corelli, which did not get too much attention, it is not the best film one can see, on the contrary, it is pretty much spoiled by Cage, in particular, and we can presume the director was not on top of the game…

 

 

Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – 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 befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

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 Heritage 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…’

‚parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”