‘Neverlake’ (2013) – movie review

‘Neverlake’ is a 2013 Italian movie, apparently made for an English-speaking audience. I ordered it via pay-per-view due to its theme, which I found interesting:

On a trip home to visit her father, Jenny is thrown into a world of mystery, horror and legend when she is called upon by 3000 year old spirits of the Neverlake to help return their lost artifacts and save the lives of missing children.

Actually, the film description for the PPV described “Etruscan spirits.” There is surprisingly little information online about his film, outside of a few reviews… of which I haven’t read, as I usually like to try to relay my interpretation firsthand. I wasn’t able to find out which lake it was filmed at, as the lake reminded me of pictures I have seen of Lake Nemi in Tuscany… a location of many legends and folklore. I think most of the filming was around Arezzo in eastern Tuscany. Lake Nemi is in the west, but this lake was mysterious-looking in any case… looking beautifully gloomy and surrounded by heavy woods.

Some background to the story was a little bit unclear. The main protagonist was Jenny.. a sixteen year old girl, of apparently Tuscan birth and heritage, who had been sent to live with an aunt in England at a young age, and was currently going to school in New York City. The movie begins with Jenny on the last leg of her trip to spent the Summer with her father in Arezzo, which is evidently in a rural hilly part of Tuscany, dotted with ancient villages.

This is a difficult movie to review because it was a steady advance of strange experiences, but perhaps none of them standing out in particular. Basically, in one form or another, ancient Etruscan spirits of “the Lake of Idols” seem to be sending her clues regarding.. something. Throughout the film, Jenny’s poetry relay some subtle messages.

Just the theme of Etruscan mythology, combined with the gloomy environment, set an interesting mood. Jenny’s father, apparently a doctor and amateur archeologist, was working on a project regarding ancient Etruscan artifacts. On his wall was a painting of Etruscans engaging in a ritual by that particular lake.. of which they believed had supernatural healing properties. He told Jenny that the painting was just an interpretation by the artist of how they may have held rituals on the lake. I don’t know if there really is such a painting of this theme, or if another painting was used to fit the story. The mysterious terrain of the the land, along with the father and his wife’s unusual actions, results in one strongly getting the impression that there are some secrets being kept. Jenny is told that her mother had passed away.

Soon Jenny meets children from a nearby home for orphaned children suffering from various ailments. This home/facility was fairly large and very old, constructed of stone walls and tiled roofs. It sat alone amidst the natural landscape. Jenny befriends them and reads them stories.. for example, writings of Shakespeare. They begin to trust her, and allow her into their world.

Jenny’s father had removed 2,600 to 3,000 year old statues from the lake, which ties into the main plot. Jenny begins to have supernatural experiences, including strange dreams about the lake. I don’t think I would be giving away too much by saying that the “Souls of the Lake” were unhappy with the removal of their statues (figurines). He had been working on his “project” for twenty years.

Etruscan temple

I think part of the theme of this film—for me at least—was a folk-pagan concept of reconnecting with one’s ancestors… with a distinction between a true “folk connection,” and one of mere usury. One curious element in the film was one particular character who appeared perhaps dangerous initially, and another who appeared positive initially… well, it turned out to be quite different…

Although this movie moved along with a slow advance—although I found it to be very relaxing and an escape—the ending ties together a large number of loose ends. The film goes from mystery, to horror, to tearjerker at the end. Many things don’t make sense until the dramatic ending scenes. I wouldn’t say that this movie was an absolute “thriller.” It was suspenseful, an escape into the spiritual, and delving into the sensitive theme of child abuse. I guess one could say that it was a common theme of “good vs. evil”… with the adults being the “evil” force… and with the children receiving help from ancestral spirits when they asked for it.

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The Santa Maria likely found

Christopher Columbus Ship The Santa Maria May Have Been Found

Bill Chappell - NPR - May 13, 2014

It's been missing for more than 500 years. But now there are reports that the Santa Maria, the largest ship among the trio that made Christopher Columbus' first expedition to North America, may be found. Undersea explorer Barry Clifford says he thinks he has found the ship in waters off of Haiti's coast.

"All the geographical, underwater topography and archaeological evidence strongly suggests that this wreck is Columbus' famous flagship, the Santa Maria," Clifford tells Britain's . "The Haitian government has been extremely helpful — and we now need to continue working with them to carry out a detailed archaeological excavation of the wreck."

Clifford is a well-known wreck hunter, having found the pirate ship and former slave vessel , which sank off the coast of Cape Cod in 1717. That discovery led to a project with .

The Santa Maria sank after hitting reefs off the Haitian coast around Christmas of 1492, months after arriving from Spain. It is believed that Columbus ordered some of the ship's timbers stripped from the wreck in order to build a fort on land near the shore.

According to The Independent, Clifford closed in on the Santa Maria's possible location by combining two separate historical sources. After archaeologists announced new details suggesting the location of Columbus' fort in Haiti in 2003, Clifford used information in the explorer's diary to narrow down a possible location for the Santa Maria's sinking.

It turned out that Clifford's team had already located a wreck in that spot, in 2003. Now they're working to prove its identity as the ship that sailed from Spain along with two smaller ships, the Pinta and the Niña.
But verifying the wreck's identity will be harder now than it would have been in 2003, when Clifford took photos of the site that included a cannon like what the Santa Maria would have carried. When they returned recently, "all the key visible diagnostic objects including the cannon had been looted by illicit raiders," The Independent's archaeology correspondent, David Keys, reports.

Professor Charles Beeker, who directs the Indiana University's Office of Underwater Science and who has visited the wreck with Clifford, tells Keys that there's "some very compelling evidence" that the wreck is the Santa Maria. But he adds that a full excavation must be carried out to be sure.

The Santa Maria was a carrack, a craft that was "the definitive beast of burden of the Age of Exploration," according to the site . "Magellan, for example, had an all-carrack fleet with which he set to circumnavigate the globe in 1519."

One of the ship's advantages was that it was roomy enough for plenty of provisions — a capacity that could also be used to bring treasure back to an expedition's sponsor.

Clifford tells The Independent he'd like the ship to stay in Haiti:

"Ideally, if excavations go well and depending on the state of preservation of any buried timber, it may ultimately be possible to lift any surviving remains of the vessel, fully conserve them and then put them on permanent public exhibition in a museum in Haiti.

"I believe that, treated in this way, the wreck has the potential to play a major role in helping to further develop Haiti's tourism industry in the future."

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Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli (Wikipedia)

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli: 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He was for many years an official in the Florentine Republic, with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs. He was a founder of modern political science, and more specifically political ethics.

He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is renowned in the Italian language. He was Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power. He wrote his masterpiece, The Prince, after the Medici had recovered power and he no longer held a position of responsibility in Florence.

"Machiavellianism" is a widely used negative term to characterize unscrupulous politicians of the sort Machiavelli described in The Prince. The book itself gained enormous notoriety and wide readership because the author seemed to be endorsing behavior often deemed as evil and immoral.

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Personally, I think the philosophy of Georg Hegel and Adam Weishaupt have had an infinitely worse affect on the world than Machiavelli, because their methods have become systemic and long-term.

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'What the Ancients Knew: The Romans'

This was an interesting Science Channel documentary from a couple of years back. It's worth watching for the technological innovations alone. I believe that the Etruscans were the rightful founders of Cisalpine civilization; but one cannot deny the influence of the Romans.

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Häagen-Dazs gelato commerical

Some of these types of ads are silly, and usually not very applicable to us, but I thought this one was kind of funny. Häagen-Dazs was actually founded in New York City.

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Ennio Morricone: Legendary film composer

"If i ruled the world there would be an international Ennio Moricone Day! We all stay home and savour the legends brilliance." --jackthehatuk, YouTube user


Ennio Morricone (Wikipedia)

Also known as: Maestro, Dan Savio, Leo Nichols
Born: November 10, 1928 (age 85)
Origin: Rome, Italy
Genres: Film music, classical, absolute music, pop, jazz, lounge, easy listening, funk
Occupations: Composer, conductor, orchestrator, music director, producer, trumpeter, pianist
Years active: Since 1946
Website: www.enniomorricone.it

Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, is an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor and former trumpet player, who has written music for more than 500 motion pictures and television series, as well as contemporary classical works. His career includes a wide range of composition genres, making him one of the world's most versatile, prolific and influential film composers of all time. Morricone's music has been used in more than 60 award-winning films.

His absolute music production includes over 100 classical pieces composed since 1946. During the late 1950s Morricone served as a successful studio arranger for RCA. He orchestrated over 500 songs and worked with music artists such as Paul Anka, Chet Baker and Mina. However, Morricone gained worldwide fame by composing (during the period 1960-75) the music for Italian westerns by directors such as Sergio Leone, Duccio Tessari and Sergio Corbucci, including the Dollars Trilogy, A Pistol for Ringo, The Big Gundown, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Great Silence, The Mercenary, A Fistful of Dynamite and My Name is Nobody.

During the 1960s and '70s, he built long-term associations with directors such as Gillo Pontecorvo, known for the war film The Battle of Algiers, Bernardo Bertolucci for whom Morricone scored the 1976 epic film Novecento, Henri Verneuil, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Mauro Bolognini, Dario Argento and Elio Petri. Morricone composed music for all film genres, ranging from comedy and drama to action thrillers and historical films. He achieved commercial success with several compositions, including "The Ecstasy of Gold", the theme of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, A Man with Harmonica, the protest song "Here's to You" sung by Joan Baez and "Chi Mai". Between 1964 and 1980 Morricone was also the trumpet player and a co-composer for the avant-garde free improvisation group Il Gruppo. In 1978, he wrote the official theme for the 1978 FIFA World Cup.

 
Since 1977, Morricone boosted his career in Hollywood by composing music for some of film history's most prolific American directors such as John Carpenter, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, Mike Nichols and Oliver Stone. Morricone has composed the music for a number of Academy Award-winning motion pictures including Days of Heaven, The Mission, The Untouchables, Cinema Paradiso and Bugsy. Other noteworthy scores include Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Thing, Casualties of War, In the Line of Fire, Disclosure, Wolf, Bulworth, Mission to Mars and Ripley's Game. In the 1980s and '90s, Morricone continued to compose music for European directors. His music for La Cage aux Folles, Le Professionnel, Once Upon a Time in America and ¡Átame! are among his best-known film scores. He has composed music for numerous television series, including the acclaimed television miniseries Moses the Lawgiver, La Piovra, The Secret of the Sahara, Marco Polo and Nostromo.

He is also associated with the Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore, composing all the music for all his films since Cinema Paradiso (1988), such as award-winning scores for Legend of 1900, Malèna, La Sconosciuta and more recently Baaria (2009) and The Best Offer (2013). Other recent Morricone works include the music for the television series Karol and scores for The End of a Mystery, 72 Meters and Fateless. In the 2000s, Morricone's music has also been reused in movies and television series such as The Sopranos, The Simpsons and Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained.

He has conducted many orchestras worldwide, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra. Morricone is serving as one of the main conductors of the Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta since the mid-1990s. He has conducted over 200 concerts worldwide since 2001 and is still performing regularly. In November 2013, Morricone began a world tour to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his film music career.

In 2007, Ennio Morricone received the Academy Honorary Award "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music". He has been nominated for a further five Oscars during 1979-2001. Morricone has won three Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, five BAFTAs during 1979-92, ten David di Donatello, eleven Nastro d'Argento, two European Film Awards, the Golden Lion Honorary Award and the Polar Music Prize in 2010.

"The good the bad and the ugly - The best theme tune ever" --jordan harding, YouTuber

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Half Moon Bay Joe's (restaurant review)

Just a shot of Half Moon Bay; obviously that's not the place.

Half Moon Bay Joe's Restaurant

I had lunch at this restaurant yesterday, for the first time in a long time. I think I can give some type of reasonable review based on yesterday, past experience, and getting a further idea from reviews. Half Moon Bay is a nice town to visit in general, a basically rural area of San Mateo County along the coast, easy to reach via 92 West. Half Moon Bay Joe's is located right along Highway 1 (2380 S. Cabrillo). It's a very clean and comfortable location just visually, parking-wise, and there's a lot of elbow room inside.. especially during non-breakfast/lunch/dinner hours. The large windows all along three sides provides a bright, cheerful atmosphere; as well as its sizable booths along the outer perimeter. It's open daily from 7 AM to 10 PM. It's an Italian restaurant with a number of seafood items. They have pretty much anything you would look for. I'm old enough to remember some local Italian restaurants where the founding family actually ran the day-to-day operations, and that's true with Joe's. There's perhaps some Catalan/Argentine connection to the family I think.

There's a sizable breakfast menu, and many pragmatic lunch and dinner dishes. It has a solid "4" rating, and deserves more like a 4.5. Some of those Yelp reviewers take themselves way too seriously, so 4 out of 5 is a very good rating. The prices are reasonable and they serve you a lot. I think it's great. You won't go away hungry. From past times I have visited there, the sauce was something that I specifically remember. I had a Calamari steak sandwich yesterday, which came with fries and a choice of salad or clam chowder. The sandwich was good, with two big halves served, each double-thick. I had New York-style cheesecake for dessert, and it was big and very tasty without being too rich. The person with me ordered a reuben sandwich, and thought it was great. The good-sized menu is on the link above. The meal came pretty fast too, and the staff was extremely friendly, polite, and helpful without overdoing it. I would really recommend it.

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