I am probably going to continue with this so-called “series” of mine.
It really helps me to cope with the illogical voice of Trump and his supporters. It helps me to laugh…Kind of at them…Which sounds mean, but if they weren’t so illogical, there would be nothing to laugh at. I hope you laugh with me too!
Here we are with another television series review! I just loved this one so much and I wanted to share it with you all, so if it comes up on your Netflix or something, you know…This…I want to watch this.
Dear Lord, now I hope that I do it justice!
What is “Pose?”
First you need to know that Pose is set around the end of the 1980’s. Aids is about and there not yet a “cure” for it. At this point I’m not even sure about the research at the time. Despite that, it’s a show that takes a look at African American, transsexual and gay POC and how they have found the “Ballroom” where they “Pose” (lol). Where they are free to be who they truly want to be, where it was SAFE for them to be who they wanted to be. It takes a look at how society, not only white, religious and the straight community treated trans people. How they treated each other through their placing in society and whether or not they “pass”. By pass I mean that by being a transgender person, whether or not they pass for looking female…or male.
Have to warn you…
I will be writing spoilers….
The characters:
I have to start off by saying that I very much dislike how on the IMDb page they have put Evan Peters at the top of their list. I get that he is more probably well known then the others and he is actually in every episode (I haven’t seen the last two yet though, at this point). However, is he not really a main character, they could have literally any white guy play his part. Peter Evans plays the typical white married family man who…I can’t even say “falls in love”…But he becomes intoxicated by one of the ladies. So, enough about that.
I don’t know which character I loved more to be completely honest with you. What I loved about this show was that the characters were REAL. How can I describe it too you? A lot of the actual actors in this show are actually Transsexual AND Transgender to begin with, so they are absolutely coming from a place of realness. Pose is to date, the show with the largest reoccurring transsexual actors.
From the top of my head my favourite character has to be Pray Tell played by Billy Porter. The sassy dressmaker and DJ, speaker and in the opening credit that is his voice. I think I loved him the most because he was just so open and raw. Pray Tell was the character with the boyfriend, dying from Aids. When he finds out that he had Aids, he tries to keep it together but cannot anymore after making a promise to live to his dying boyfriend. It’s not just your usual promise to be happy either. It was a promise to be happy because Pray Tell has the aids and even though Pray Tell does not want to tell his boyfriend, but he can see it in Pray Tells eyes, be happy.
House of Evangelista
A “House” is where you get, pretty much, lost causes, and help each other and support each other to succeed. Well, that’s what they are supposed to be about, not every House is so supportive. They learn, they learn though. Both Houses have a “Mother” and you have to respect their rules, each house has a different mother and different rules.
The House of Evangelista are the main protagonist of the show, other than Pray Tell and Elektra Abundance from House of Abundance (who I also love).
The House of Evangelista consist of “Mother” Blanca Rodriguez, recently diagnosed with AIDS. Finally tired of feeling held back in the House of Abundance (lead by “Mother” the fabulous Elektra Abundance) Blanca decides to head out and start her own House. Along the way she bumps into a young Damon Richards a young gay man whose just been kicked out of his house (for being gay) and a beautiful Angel (that’s her name) a young transsexual having to sell her body for sex, which is where she meets Evan Peters character.
A bunch of misfits, just starting out in the Ballroom world.
What I really love about the show:
Not only does the show have the most transsexual reoccurring actors on a show. It still looks at all the topics surrounding gay people in the 80’s. Unlike a lot of other shows though, it doesn’t get to dark, but still keeps the seriousness. I absolutely love the relationship between Damon and Ricky (played by Dyllon Burnside). In all honesty I think it’s not only the first relationship I’ve seen between POC LGBT gay men, but it’s the most sweetest relationship I have seen between two men, just in general. Without the over PDA…I can’t stand that no matter what!lol
What I love most about the show though, even with the competing House. They are still there for each other. The show shows what a family can be, that a family does not have to be “blood”. They just have to “be”.
I was going to put this in my Category of “Magical Monday” as I try to keep my reviews on a Monday. However, this television series…well it’s a televisions series and it taps onto various themes that are dark. I didn’t feel it very appropriate to call it “Magical”. I think this may also be my first ever television series that I’ve reviewed.
I decided that I wanted to review the series, but I really want to encourage people to find it and watch it. However, beware! It is about a wide range of dark issues. Suicide, Sexual Abuse, Drug use. Before I start to write about the series, I definitely should mention that!
Anything that stars both Benedict Cumberbath AND Hugo Weaving, you know is going to be a great series…I am very happy to say that it was!
The Breakdown
Patrick Melrose is a drug addict, alcoholic, messed up … well I’m not sure if he even does work. I don’t think so. It’s a five part television series, partly based on the upper-crust of English Society semi-autobiographical written by Edward St Aubyn. After the death of his father in the 80s, Patrick Melrose (Cumberbath) attempts to overcome his addictions and demons rooted in abuse by his father (Weaving) and negligent alcoholic mother (Leigh).
The series has a set of flash backs between each episode, but they are fluent and make sense. I swear that no one else knows how to do a mini series like the English.
Positive
This is exquisitely uncomfortable and will make you feel frustrated, but in a good way. because that’s what is suppose to happen. The whole premise of the show is to show how sexual abuse (especially when it’s perpetuated by someone you know) affects people, how it use to be quiet. How it was covered up, how people would never talk about it. They knew what was going on, but it was the “done thing” to do anything about it. The people I was watching it with would constantly say “Why aren’t they doing anything!” “How could you live in that kind of atmosphere”.
That is the what the show is supposed to highlight. It’s a dark comedy and you will feel uncomfortable. I have to say “Bravo” to Hugo Weaving. Being a huge fan of all his characters, I truly hated this character. I think it was very brave of him to take on this role. It would have been a difficult character to play and I love the ending of the series, because of the twist to his character. Think of Agent Smith, but even darker and much more menacing. I would be very surprised if he didn’t get a Emmy nomination for it.
Of course Cumberbath is superb in it. I would have to loved to have seen him play the role of the father. I know he’s not old enough to play the role, and I loved/hated Hugo Weaving, he was perfect for the role. I think it would have been interesting to see Cumberbatch as the father.
Negative
The only real complaint I had about it was there wasn’t too much of a warning about the topics in the series. For such a dark series and dark topics, I would have hoped that they would have had more of a “trigger warning”. They had the general age rating warning, but not about the topics.
I just felt like people needed to be warned before watching. There is so much going on with this at the current time and it’s bringing up so many issues. That people may be feeling particularly vulnerable right now.
I was watching Willie Garson (Stanley) from Sex and the City, being interviewed and they asked him about the the SATC 3…Apparently they were only a few weeks from shooting…
BUT…
Can I just say that I don’t actually mind there not being a 3rd movie…The first two were horrible! I mean the last once Carrie cheats on Big with Aidan and Big gives her a ring and everythings forgiven? That was it…No, talking about it…Carrie has a history of cheating, let’s not forget!
Anyways
I have absolutely no problem with no more movies…I like to pretend it finished at the ending of the series.
Currently and at the moment I am reading Kresley Cole’s “Endless Knights”.
Straight away I was thinking “It has been at least a couple of years since I’ve read “Poison Princess” and I have remembered…Nothing!”
Then it got me thinking how often does this happen to others?…As I read on, because I was enjoying it, I started to remember bits and pieces. However, I did think, some series’s that I’ve read…The next book in the series will give a bit of an explanation of what happened before. I felt like this book “Endless Knight” was missing a lot of that…and it really needs it! It talked about the relationships and what happened previously, but even that I felt was very scarce. There was not enough description of the monsters and how the character had encountered them before…It just feels like that little bit of detail is missing.
What about you readers, have you read a series with a large time gap in-between?
*Spoiler Alert – I’m not 100% sure how much I’ll be giving away in this review, but I do discuss things I don’t understand in the book. Which might contain sneaks and peeks at the book.
I have only read one of Cassandra Clare’s series so far “The Infernal Devices“. I absolutely loved the series and I feel so bad that it’s taken me such a long time to get around to reading another one. I feel like I should also point out that I do believe and it is highly suggested that Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunters series are supposed to be read in a certain order which you can find here.
(My personal opinion here) The main players in this particular books are:
Emma Carstairs: a Shadowhunter,
Her parabatai (and “secret love” interest): Julian Blackthorn,
Mark Blackthorn: who was kidnapped five years ago and now has been returned to the Blackthorn family after being kidnapped by the fairy people.
Breakdown:
The Dark Artifices series is the latest series in Cassandra Clare’s writings. In fact so far in this series there are only two books so far. The final and third chapter of this series should be coming out in fall of 2018. Look out for that!
This series is based around Emma and the murder of her parents from years ago, she did not believe that her parents death was a robbery gone wrong. She believes that there is more to her parents death than meets the eye, probably something even “supernatural”. Emma has been a Shadowhunter for a very long time and after her parents deaths she was then taken to live with the Blackthorn family. The Blackthorn have also lost their parents and live in the Institute with their strange Uncle Arthur.
Emmas parabatai is Julian Blackthorn, the now oldest sibling of the Blackthorn family, since the others were kidnapped or exile. Julian has been taking care of his younger sibling, Livvy, Ty, Dru and Tavvy since he was 12 years old. Julians older half siblings, Mark and Helen Blackthorn are both half faerie, as their mother was of the faerie people. Emma’s good friend Cristina also lives with the family and in the institute, she is only there for the year…As sweet as she is, no one really knows that much about her.
*For those who don’t know what a parabatai is, it as a pair of Nephilim warriors who fight together as lifelong partners, bound together by oath, regardless of their gender. Their bond is not reflected only in their closeness and willingness to lay down their lives for one another, but also in oath—one sworn in front of the Council. Parabatai cannot fall in love*
Positive:
I absolutely enjoy this book, can I just start off with.
It did reference the other books and what Shadowhunters word meanings are, so you do know what the words mean, as you are going into the book. It made it almost feel like you don’t need to read the other books before this one. (Please do though) The only thing that you would really have to read the other books for is about the attack on one of their Libraries, where a important document was stolen. As well as getting to know the other Shadowhunters as they pop in and out of the book, with a brief history of what their characters achieved.
What I enjoy about Cassandra Clare’s books is that you can get lost in a completely made up world, that makes you feel that this world could actually be possible. It’s why I think her books are so popular, it is fantasy, but ever so close to the real modern world. It’s kind of like Harry Potter and how we, as muggles, cannot actually see the world of Magic, but it’s always there.
Negative:
I always have a hard time picking on the things in a book that I’ve really enjoyed reading. There was one thing that I didn’t really understand and felt like it didn’t really need to be in it. It was right at the end “A Long Conversation”. As I mentioned above, there good be a reason why it was at the end of this particular book, but I felt like it didn’t really need to be there.
It also did bug me a little how I had always assumed that parabatai were supposed to know how the other was feeling at all times. That’s kind of the point of having a parabatai. Somehow though, and when it seems to suit, they completely have no idea how the other feels.
The feud that ruined the Sex and the City movie number 3
Sometimes I am perfectly fine with things just not actually happening…I don’t know how many of you watched the other two…The first one was alright, but I felt could have been so much better. Then the second one…How were they all fine with it? Here are some of the other movies or tv series I could have lived happily without ever seeing are:
Not everything has to happen or come to life…What about yourselves, do you have a book series or a television series or a movie, that you felt could have probably not happened and you would have been fine with that?
So…I’ve been living in the house I am living in now for about 10 years so and the house before this one was larger. Meaning that we now have a LOT of boxes that have not been opened for a long time.
One of mine and my Mother’s goals this year is too clear out these boxes and see what we can get rid of. Now my Mum is always saying that they’re just my boxes and so I offered to start going through and after pulling out 4…That’s 4…of her boxes (I don’t know why she keeps telling everyone they are mine, when they are in her cardboard to even begin with) I finally managed to find my one…There’s possibly another one in there, but they are pretty much all hers.
Anyways, getting past that annoyance…It wasn’t easy to get to them either can I just tell you, because she’s put them all in her walk-in wardrobe, which has stuff on top of other stuff.
The first box that I pulled was full…just of full…of these books that I used to read all the time when I was teenager and some of my favourites that I haven’t read in year. The box also included a very random VHS tape of The Lord of the Rings. I took a few photos, just to show the collection…Oh, the memories they bring back…Especially the classic Judy Blume 3 in 1 books.
I am just going to jump right and ask you all…
What is your favourite movie or tv type marathon and what do you do while you’re “running” through whatever it is you are watching?
So yes, this post is not a about a running type marathon but about what movie (or television) marathons you have ever participated in and I have a whole heap of questions, so lets start chatting!
Did you do the marathon by yourself?
Did you do it with others?
Was it for a cause?
Lolsys Library 