Making Up for the Lost Time - I

Last week was full of work and social commitments and I had to take a break from my usual routine of watching films/TV shows and reading as much. Thank God I was able to make up for all this weekend.

Aglayan Melek (trans. The Crying Angel) Written and Directed by Safa Onal in 1970. This is a melodrama starring my favorite Turkish actor Turkan Soray. She is gifted both in drama, melodrama and comedy. The film is not great but a good example of the melodrama of those days which closely resemble Korean TV dramas. Turkan plays a young woman blinded when a small kid. She lives with her drunken father and a guy who is sort of adopted. Even though she is suffering a lot and not only due to her disability, she is a kind, gentle soul who only does and thinks good things. Also very forgiving. Someday a rich guy sees her at the sea side at the little island where her father and adopted brother make a living as fishermen. The guy offers to give the money to be examined by famous eye doctors, with the understanding that she is a "good girl". Of course the rich guy falls in love with her (well she is Turkan after all). But the adopted son is secretly in love with her too...
Wall Street Written by Stanley Weiser and Oliver Stone, Directed by Oliver Stone (1987)
I liked this film even better in this second viewing. The cast, the camera, the screenplay, the message are all spot on. We see our protagonist Bud Fox to regain basic morals which he discarded for power and money earlier in the film. Being an 80's teen I remember being really impressed with it the first time I watched it in theaters. Glad to say that this is one oldie which is still a goodie.
Then I started watching

Nodame Cantabile Written by Etou Rin (adapted from manga), Directed by Takeuchi Hideki, Kawamura Yasuhiro, Tanimura Masaki (2006)
This is the second Japanese Drama I have seen (first was Gokusen years ago). I chose it mainly because of music. The story is about a gifted piano player who wants to be a conducter and another piano player who is a prodigy. It is one of those wacky manga adaptations with special effects that make it more like a cartoon. The leads are Tamaki Hiroshi as Chiaki (who is a great looking guy) and Ueno Juri as Nodame. 4 episodes in I'm enjoying it a lot but not really in love with it. I love the music though and so far the soundtrack is mostly Beethoven and Mozart (with some timely instered arias from The Magical Flute and Don Giovanni - in a hillarious scene). Chiaki got to direct an orchestra in the music academy and it was a success of course Nodame helped a lot even though she is just a mascot - being a piano player she is not included in the S-Orchestra.
And Dark Mountain is finished. Predictably the baddies died gruesome deaths and even though there was a casualty the team managed to overcome the weird and terrible experience. It was good and I can recommend it if one enjoys the genre.
And finally I have started
War and Peace written by Leo Tolstoy in 1869.
Despite loving Anna Karenina, I didn't dare to start War and Peace and not because of its considerable length but because all the editions I have seen so far were in such small fonts that it was uncomfortable to read it. Yeah there are Turkish translations but I have found that Russian to Turkish does not really translate well (as opposed to French to Turkish which is a LOT better than French to English) I'm reading the Anthony Briggs translation by Penguin. And understandibly it is a rather large and heavy volume.
Now I'm in Chapter 18 of Part I, Volume I and I'm LOVING it. Tolstoy is great at introducing characters, describing their surroundings, their manner of clothing and their inner thoughts at just the right place right time. So far this novel deserves all the praise it gets as far as I'm concerned.