Shock Corridor written and directed by Samuel Fuller is one of The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made – you find many notes on films from The NYT 1,000 and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

Shock Corridor written and directed by Samuel Fuller is one of The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made – you find many notes on films from The NYT 1,000 and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

8 out of 10

 

Shock Corridor is on the New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list, and though it is a good feature, it would not get included on my own Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made selection, unless I run out of material

 

Nevertheless, seeing that we have so much madness at the top, and in general, a film about a mental institution and the patients, guardians, doctor and the main character in it would be interesting, except this issue:

When you look at the news and see what MAGA and their Orange Lunatic are up to (that’s right, he keeps calling the other side radical left lunatics, but he is the epitome of derangement) you feel that you are in an asylum

 

The magnum opus for mental institutions is One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/one-flew-over-cuckoos-nest.html and we have similarities between the two

In One Flew we have McMurphy pretending to be crazy so that he espies his prison term, except if the time incarcerated for his crimes is limited, in the institution, he may have to stay forever, until he is granted exit

 

Which would not be forthcoming

 

In Shock Corridor, Johnny Barrett is a journalist who covets the Pulitzer Prize, ergo he decides to pretend he is mad, get inside and solve a murder that would get him recognition, he will admit to the arrangement after that

What if one becomes sick, in the presence of so many people with challenges – let us call them that – studies have shown that we are vulnerable, you could read the psychology classic Influence by Robert Cialdini

 

In Influence https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/03/influence-psychology-of-persuasion.html you find the principles, but now I have to stop: it is my birthday today, and though I have no celebration, still, maybe a break is needed

 

Let me just mention Mordecai, who gave me the only gift for this day, and he was such an outstanding man, he still, is, but I was thinking about this morning, when I told me about the day, and then he came from outside with a small, but inspiring cake

 

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…’