How to Get Away with Murder

Now that the season has made a -very early in my opinion- finale, it might be the perfect time to talk about this show that made the top of my list of things I have mixed feelings about.

How to Get Away with Murder premiered on September 25 2014 and even before they realised the first episode I was very excited about the show - which happens quite rarely on my add. And I believe it's fair to say that I fell in love with the show right after the first episode. The biggest reason on that might be the ammmaazing Viola Davis. She is so ridiculously talented that I am unconsciously divinise the woman from time to time.

For those of you who have never seen the show before it's about brilliant defines lawyer (Davis), who teaches a class in a law school called How to Get Away with Murder and somehow she and her top students who find themselves in the middle of their own murder plot.

Even though the show is broadcasted on ABC, it has broke off of the general family friendly frame of ABC and set it's own path which I admire about the show. They were never afraid of graphic depictions of violence or openly gay interactions -and by interactions I mean mostly actions.

The show has concluded it's first season just last night and there still might be people who have not seen the show yet but planning to; that's why I promised myself that I'm nor going to get into spoilers as much as possible. And again that's why I am going to talk about one of the most important things for me in a TV/movie production... Acting.

There are three people I am specifically going to talk about and of course I just have to start with the spectacular, talented, beautiful, perfect Viola Davis (told you I divinise the woman).

How do you even begin to talk about Viola Davis? She began her life as the second youngest of six children of a horse trainer and a maid. She describes herself as having "lived in abject poverty and dysfunction" during her childhood. Despite all that after she fell in love with acting at high school years, she graduated from the prestigious Juilliard School in New YorkCity, she appeared on Broadway and received a Tony award for Best Featured Actress in a Play, was nominated for 3 Golden Globes and has 2 Academy Awards nominations. And now she is portraying Annalise Keating in one of the most popular shows and definitely the most radical show of this year. Anyone who is not convinced just go watch Doubt (2008) and The Help (2011).

Now I am going to talk about the second lead on the show who I have never felt the need to make a research on before I've decided to write this piece and now I am in deep shock with the information I've found. 

Alfred Enoch, is portraying Wes Gibbons, the unexpected top student of Annalise Keating and even though I can't say anything bad about his acting or about anything about him truly, until this point he has always failed to attract my true sympathy. And now that I've found out not only he is originally British (yup!) also is the son of William Russell, one of the very first companions of Doctor Who back in 1963. He was also an actor in Harry Potter and Sherlock? Okay, I need a break! 

(This whole breakdown of mine may and must sound very ridiculous to you; because I forgot to let you know that I am British obsessed and the biggest Doctor Who fan I know.)

And finally, a person that deserves one of the biggest tributes, Jack Falahee. 

In my humble opinion, Falahee's character Connor Walsh is the most radical part of the show. Connor Walsh became the very first gay character on network television whose sex life isn't depicted allusively but has been portrayed with the same sensuality of the straight sex scenes. What fascinates me the most was how Falahee's responds to this sudden interest, especially concerning his real life sexual orientation. 

Right after the very first episode was aired, the media has been after Falahee to receive a comment on his characters sexuality and to find out whether he is into girls or boys - or both. And despite all this pressure from the media, Falahee still supports that the thing that matters is how you feel about someone rather than how you feel it for. Even though I'm dying to find out the actors interests - for some reason- I don't think that I could respect someone this much.

Now that we covered the non-spoiler part...

HERE'S THE SPOOIILEERSS:

What A Season Finale! I have been speculating the whole season as every other fan and I had everyone cross my mind from Annalise herself to Bonnie. But Frank? I really really didn't see that coming for some reason. The reason might be that he is one of my favourite characters in the show and knowing that he was the one who killed -at least physically- Lila didn't make me disfavour him at all. 

What is great about the show is even when we know that the major crimes were committed directly from the hands of only Frank and Wes, no one and and really no single person in the show is really innocent. Big or small everyone has a contribution in a crime committed during the series. It is going to be kinda deep but the show forces us to think of us in real life. Is anyone really innocent? 

Apart from all this I was very curious about how they were going to keep the pace of the show in the second season since obviously the real killer of Lila was going to be exposed at the season finale. I had my doubts and they certainly didn't disappoint me. 

Let's just hope that the well deserved success of the show continues in the next season.

And thank you for reading my humble opinion.

Birdman

 It may or may not include spoilers – At your own risk

What do we talk about when we talk about love?

I’ve seen the movie last night after postponing it for ages and I was… confused? The script is written to be magical realism example obviously. In magical realism –or magic realism- magical or unreal elements play a natural part in a realistic -often mundane- environment. Which I suppose it should be confusing at some part. But what really confused me was this movie won the Oscar for best motion picture of the year. And in my humble opinion that’s some stinky part of the bull.

I adore Emma Stone, I’m a big fan of Edward Norton -I have mixed feelings about Michael Keaton but it’s not that important- and it still wasn’t enough to keep me interested.

The general idea I liked, don’t get me wrong on that. The struggle of an actor going down hill with his career after he has reached the climax… I even liked the magic realism but in my opinion that was all this movie had.

I couldn’t focus on the overall movie that’s why I have only some notes on specific details:

There are definitely spoilers here:

• Firstly, I'm a person of unimportant tiny details; and the fact that at the beginning of the movie they obviously use FaceTime and we can't see that little square on the corner that Michael Keaton should appear is highly disturbing me.
• The score of the movie… nope! It was even rejected by the Academy. (That drummer tho)
• At the end of the last performance on stage, I said “wow, he IS going with a bang” I was excited for the first time about something happening on the movie and….. he didn’t.
• But the bird masky bandage was a nice touch at the end.
• Still… who puts a gun into their head and shoots their nose??? Seriously?!
• Even though this movie is categorized as a comedy drama, the only comedic element in the movie was the dancing Spiderman and Bumblebee punching Iron Man on stage.
• However I can't deny that I was entertained when Keaton had to walk on the Times Square in his underwear.
• I know Michael Keaton was Batman but I don't think that it was necessary for Birdman to be this similar to Batman.
• Finally, in the original ending there was supposed to be Johnny Depp and instead of Birdman's voice Captain Jack Sparrow's voice was used; but later on it was changed to the version in the final cut. I think keeping on with Birdman is the right thing to do considering the context of the scene but I really wouldn't mind seeing Depp at the end.  

I didn't want to elaborate on this because... well... there is not so much to look forward to in the movie. That's why if you are willing to watch it, it is best that you know as little as possible about it.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that it is a bad film. I'm just saying that in my humble opinion it is not supposed to be the choice as an Oscar winner comparing to all those other amazing nominees.

And again, thank you for reading my humble opinion.

Mozart In The Jungle

Have you seen Mozart In The Jungle yet? If you haven't you're really missing out on a great experience. 

But how to begin describing this amazing journey? To begin with it is by far the best music related tv show I have ever seen. And this comment is definitely not related to my obsession with the original Mozart. The show is not about Mozart anyway. The story revolves around Hailey a struggling oboe player and the  new young, talented -hot- maestro of the New York Symphonie Rodrigo. Neither of them is Mozart. The whole idea of the show apperantly started from the question "Is classical music dead?" It's not! Not my humble opinion, a fact! Still in a way it's a point on question because even among my friends there are people who decide to ignore this brilliant show just because it's about classical music. 

My favorite thing about this story is how it denies the cliches and doesn't brag about how it denies them. Even when it's building up in the structure of a comedy drama mixture, it never creates unnecessary trouble for attention. The storyline advances in an unexpectedly realistic way and it doesn't bore you for a second. 

The show was created by Roman Coppola, the son of cinematic giant Francis Ford Coppola, and his cousin Jason Schwartzman. Can we call this a family business then? Schwartzman fits himself into the cast of the show as a classical music podcast celebrity and interviews the one and only Malcolm McDowell as the ex-conductor of the symphony who doesn't take being replaced by a highly attention attracting new conductor very well. This of course brings us to my newest discovery, the talented, attractive, amazing and all the other good adjectives that you can use for a man... Gael Garcia Bernal. 

Bernal is portraying the prodigy of the show, the modern day Mozart, Rodrigo De Souza. Would it be too much if I say latin perfection?  Let's create a recipe for the perfect man. Musical, funny, silly, clever, handsome and oh my god that accent... Now add the latin charmes, the taned skin and beautiful eyes; that is Rodrigo ladys and gentleman. Spoiler alert: that beautiful hair gets cut at some point. And what happens? Even more gorgeous. Unbelievable! And there is Lola Kirke as Hailey Rutledge; she's cute, nice, plays with blood blah blah whatever.

The only thing that didn't really dissapoint me but still made me a little confused was that it doesn't exactly brings what the original title suggests: Mozart In The Jungle: sex, drugs and classical music. Yes, the classical music is delivered as promised but the first two does not take a significant place in the storyline and I believe it gives the wrong impression on the show. I know that the show was adapted from a book and since I didn't read it I can't make any comment about how related the title is with the storyline in the book but in my humble opinion the show was better off without this introduction. 

On a final -musical- note, there is not much to say. It's only 10 episodes in one season and I am so looking forward to the next season. So just go watch this damn show for whatever you believe in's sake. Then come and thank me. 

And thank you for reading my humble opinion. 

87th Academy Awards

23rd of February... My first humble opinion is of course about last nights glorious 87th Academy Awards. Yeay! I had my favorites set long ago and I am an impenetrable fanatic so anyone trying to convince me that my favorites are not that good is doomed to listen to an hour long lecture about how I'm right. 

My three favorite movies this year were respectively Whiplash, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Gone Girl. Gone Girl did disappoint me with just one nomination in best lead actress for Rosamund Pike -which I believe was well deserved- which they could't get. I am not going to make much comment on this since I haven't yet seen the winning performance of Julianne Moore. But my biggest disappointment was Gone Girl not even getting a nomination in best original screenplay. In my humble opinion, at the times when most of the content is already used and even overused in the movies, a movie that is able to capture you from the first minute and make you wonder of what happened the entire time and manages to suprise you with even the simplest elements makes one of the best mystery stories of this decade of original script writing. This years winner in this category was Birdman.

The movie that made me fall in love with Wes Anderson's work all over again and cleared up almost all of its nominated categories was The Grand Budapest Hotel. The first thing you should know about me is that I'm a sucker for beautiful colors. And I can very honestly say that I have never seen a movie that has this brilliant usage of colors. Aside from the entertaining script, amazing acting and the amazing score that pulls you right into the no-less than fantastic world of Anderson; the costumes, the makeup and the wonderful production design were the elements that truly deserved their golden statue. I was personally rooting for this great film to add the best achievement in cinematography to their collection but I guess still the academy gave The Grand Budapest Hotel the acknowledgement it merit. 

Finally, Whiplash... How do you begin to talk about a film like Whiplash? Did you know that this movie was shot only in 19 days and the entire process of the filming and editting was completed in only 10 weeks. This really did create a great contrast with Boyhood. 



The script, the acting, the music... Even when I say that every aspect of the movie was beyond perfect for me, still there is this charm about it that I can't explain with my words but only with my ridiculous gestures and my meaningful but funny facial expressions which unfortunately you can't see. I did give all of my own oscars to Whiplash -including best animation and documentary- but I guess they don't really care about the awards I give =/. 

So the golden man that made me the happiest is the best supporting actor that went to J.K. Simmons. Oh the charisma of that man... Terrence Fletcher is the character that you'll love to hate, if not the character you'll just love so much that you won't figure out what's wrong with him. I believe the magic of this film comes from the perfect combination of the prodigal acting of J. K. Simmons and the multitalents of Miles Teller. I knew that he was a very good actor but those drums... They certainly took me by suprise. Spoiler alert: that blood on the drumset is not all fake blood. Ouch! Talk about commitment. 

The movies also won the best film editting award with Tom Cross. I did mention the 10 weeks thing right? The final Oscar they earned was best achievement in sound mixing. Even though I believe that they did fully earn this award I also admit that it was a little bit unfair to the other nominees since before the sound mixing process the material the movie gives is divine on itself. I'm not underestimating the great on the sound production but the music pieces on itself was able to dazzle the audience. My heart was with Whiplash also when the winner of best adapted screenplay was being announced but I think I can let go of that one. 

Aside from seeing my favorite movies being honored one of the moments I enjoyed the most on the entire show was the performance of Lady Gaga. I really didn't see that coming. Beig a huge fan of The Sound of Music, I tried to hold on to my tears for the whole performance. And the moment I failed to hold them was when the no less than a goddess Julie Andrews entered the stage. 

The Oscars were between 2:00 and 7:00 am in my timeline and being on a sunday -which is being on my mondays dawn- it was a challange staying up for the whole show. But if you're going to sacrifice your sleep for something, make sure that it is as epic as this years Academy Awards was. 

Thank you for reading my humble opinion.