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CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN

All anybody in Hollywood wants to do is win an Oscar, but oftentimes obtaining that brass ring is the worst thing that can happen to them. Marisa Tomei hasn't exactly been slaying 'em at the box office since nabbing an Oscar, and there seems to be a particular region of Hell assigned to directors who come out of nowhere and make impeccable costume dramas that win a million awards: Hugh Hudson went from CHARIOTS OF FIRE to disasters like REVOLUTION and I DREAMED OF AFRICA, and Roland Joffe started off big with THE KILLING FIELDS, somehow got away with THE MISSION and showed his true stripes on crap like THE SCARLET LETTER.

The danger of a breakout Oscar winner is all in the follow-up. Once everyone in the industry has gushed all over you about what a genius you are, you're faced with the requirement that your next film prove that all those glad-handers and sycophants were right to regard you as a superior human being. So most Oscar-winning directors head straight for their public library in search of uplifting literature to adapt. John Madden, whose SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (with the mighty assistance of Miramax's PR department) walloped Steven Spielberg's SAVING PRIVATE RYAN at the Oscars, chose Louis de Bernières' popular comic novel CORELLI'S MANDOLIN, and seemed confident that an exotic locale, Nicholas Cage and current zombie-like "it girl" Penelope Cruz would get the butts in the seats.

Unfortunately, CORELLI is one of those movies that asks the viewer to be constantly overcome with how adorable its characters are, particularly the music-loving Italian-American officer Captain Corelli (Cage), who responds to a Nazi's "Heil Hitler!" with "Heil Puccini!" Oh, that irrepressible Captain Corelli! It's all high-grade schmaltz that launches with the old "love at first sight" set-up, requiring Cage and Cruz to do nothing more than stare blankly at each other while Stephen Warbeck's score swells.

Warbeck has had as hard a time as Madden measuring up to his renowned work on SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. An unexpected stab at a special effects comedy, MYSTERY MEN, didn't turn out too well and was reworked before the film's release; more successful were BILLY ELLIOTT and QUILLS, although neither flew off the shelves the way SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE did on CD. CORELLI features the same stately, inevitable rhythms and swollen string passages, and its primary romantic melody is admittedly lovely while seemingly owing something to Randy Edelman's popular score to DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY. Constant repetition of the theme does prove overbearing, however, and it's always vital to hammer home that whole exotic, period feeling on these albums, so the soundtrack CD crams in traditional Italian songs like "La Donna E Mobile" and "Lilli Marlene" (apparently performed by a bunch of rowdy but patriotic Italian soldiers) and "Santa Lucia."

When Warbeck tries to accentuate the movie's tragic overtones in cues like "The Arrival of the Italians" and "Surrender," the dirge-like passages quickly become unbearable; Warbeck's technique of steady, pulsing rhythms and overarching themes works better in suspense cues like "Escape From the Island." But there's still an edge missing from this music, which means that the album will no doubt appeal to anybody snowed by the movie's glossy romance. And yes, there is mandolin music.