Be honest! Have you ever felt like there is something wrong with you? Have you ever felt like you were born in the wrong place at the wrong time? Have you ever felt like there is a curse over you? Have you ever felt like “a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, ready to start again” like our beloved Katy Perry used to sing? Have you ever felt like you would give anything to end this life and just get reborn, hopefully with just a tiny little bit of more luck? No? Well lucky you, I would say. Yes? To at least one of these questions? Then welcome to the club. Not that being part of this club makes you more worthy of anything but at least you know you are not the only one. Cheers. See? There is always something to celebrate!
When I started watching The Leftovers, I was going through a hard time. I just had my hips surgeries (Two. Yes, two hips, two surgeries!), I was stuck in bed, yadda yadda, I was binge watching Tv-series and movies like eating bonbons, really, and it literally messed up my mind. Every time one episode ended I had this heavy feeling weighing on me, the music, the soundtrack was so melancholic and sad, terrible and haunting, (well I guess thank you Max Richter) that not even Ludovico Einaudi makes me feel that way (and of course I used some of the songs in my short, a project for filmmaking class at BC that you can find here) …long story short, it was a total body experience. I definitely needed some music therapy after watching this show. I wonder if this is the reason why it took me so long to start reviewing it? Nah, it’s just me and my procrastination issue. I tried to see if there’s some AP meetings around but no. What do you mean “what is PA”? Procrastinators Anonymous of course. Dudes, dudettes, this is a serious issue you guys. Beware! Ugh uh. Anyway… the ways in which this series captures you (or that’s what happened to me at least, and you’ll see why even more later, going through the plot) are infinite. It pushes you through philosophical reasoning, adding psychological traits that you cannot avoid to take into consideration, picking on social and moral issues, religious ideas, ethical reasons, basically it makes you think, and that’s not something to underestimate nowadays. No wonder you start taking seriously the concept of feeling like an actual leftover of society by the end of the show.
Like the TAO symbol, (the Ying Yang you all, come on, be smart) the stories entwines two sides of the same coin: faith vs lack of faith. Not only faith in God per se, but the meaning behind the actual act of believing (or not) in something, humanity included (yes, indeed, welcome to the club, like I said). The unbalance and the mess that reigns in this picture where the world and society have been completely compromised by something supernatural (the sudden disappearance of 2% of the world population) makes you lose faith in almost anything, even you and your power, and your existence. Everything. But, (why, yeah, of course there was a “but” coming!!) the only ones who seem to handle this situation pretty well, are those who believe in God, such as Matt, who sometimes I can’t even stand with all his “manners”… but one thing at a time, we’ll get there.
I asked myself multiple times if what made me relate so much to this show was the fact that it seriously makes you wonder what is going on in the world today. It shows how society is fucked up, pardon my French, and not only on the fictional level: fanatics are all over the places, believers and non-believers, people who simply can’t take it any longer, others who grasps on each other to survive, and then all the rest that simply exists around us, just –occurring– to us. Fate. Faith. Destiny. God. Chance. What is it all about? We don’t know. And this show tells you exactly this. It is all a real frigging mess. There is not a psychological process in this. Or better, this is what you want to believe: after all, it is a tv-show, there has to be something, a clue, whatever, to connect the dots eventually, but no. You are left with a disturbing question mark even when, slowly, things start to be disclosed. And always expect the unexpected.
The Leftovers
Genre: they want to call it “psychological thriller”
Based on: The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
Starring: Justin Theroux as Kevin Garvey, Amy Brenneman as Laurie Garvey, Christopher Eccleston as Matt Jamison, Liv Tyler as Meg Abbott, Chris Zylka as Tom Garvey, Margaret Qualley as Jill Garvey, Carrie Coon as Nora Durst, Ann Dowd as Patti Levin
Watched on: HBO
Three seasons, Twenty-Eight Episodes binge watched in: I wonder. I watched religiously the first season on SKY Atlantic, if I remember well, then I moved so I must have binged on the second season, and eventually I binged also the third I believe. Oh Oh, yeah yeah, I was in Boston at the time so yeah. Totally.
Mapleton, Ohio. One of the thousands of towns where people suddenly disappeared leaving 98% of the people on Earth… behind. Or alive. Or saved. Who are they? Who are we? We’re The Leftovers. Among the protagonists of this story there is Kevin Garvey, the chief of police, originally married with Laurie, with whom he has two children. Kevin is trying to ease the tension that recently started to escalate between the town-the “normal” citizens and the members of the Guilty Remnant (GR), who go around town dressed in white, smoking cigarettes 24/7 provoking people into remembering. The point is to think of how life has no meaning, personality is nothing, and you could literally disappear suddenly, without any explanation. The show begins when Laurie has already become a member of the Guilty Remnants but we do not know why, yet. Apparently the Garveys are all alive, no one in their family has departed (she was pregnant, yes, spoiler, and one moment the fetus is there, a second later he’s gone). After a few attempts of getting Laurie back, and after some shenanigans with Patty (Ann Dowd, aunt Lydia from The Handmaid’s Tale, among other roles), Kevin gives up (after being forced by Patty to kill her in a very harsh scene) and finds comfort in the arms of Nora Durst, a woman who instead lost her whole family in the sudden event, and she is investigating on the case. Meanwhile Kevin is having nightmares, or so they seem, making him forget where he is and what he is doing, when he wakes up in random places around Mapleton. Moreover, his daughter Jill, a high school girl who seems to have been deeply traumatized by the events, alternates between depression, rebellion, and the need for normalcy, whilst her brother Tommy (who, we will learn, is Laurie’s natural son but not Kevin’s) left home to follow some sort of prophet who has a gift. Kevin’s father, former chief of police, is hearing voices and he gets hospitalized in a mental institution. Nora’s brother Matt, the priest of the town, is taking care of his wife who got hurt by a car without a driver the moment of the departure, and the accident left her on a vegetative state. A whole mess goes on throughout the season until Tommy leaves a special newborn outside his father’s house, giving a sense of relief and a light for a new beginning.
Uh, but no. When things start to make a little sense, season one ends, and the second begins with Kevin and Nora moving to Miracle, TX -originally Jarden, which has been renamed when census showed in that town no one had departed. Here, where things could finally be “normal” again, hell gets unleashed. First, Tommy wants to belong to the Guilty Remnants to reunite with his mother, in order to dismantle the group and take her home. Then, Meg -Liv Tyler, who was Laurie’s mentor, rapes Tommy who ends up pretending to have gained superpowers and starts a lucrative business with his mother. Kevin and Jill are now living with Nora and the special baby Lily, who is the Prophet’s daughter that Tommy left on their doorstep, and the two adults are in a relationship taking care of the baby. Patti, the leader of the GR who Kevin has killed, starts to appear in his delusional visions. Another priest gets introduced when suddenly his daughter disappears from Miracle, and Kevin seems to be involved through some supernatural ways. The brother of the girl takes Kevin to a shaman who kills him making him go to a sort of visionary purgatory hotel. In this, I want to say afterlife, he gets tested, finds and fights Patti’s ghost, and eventually wakes up, or gets reborn, right after he could see Mary, Matt’s wife, in one of the rooms of the ghost hotel, letting the audience understand she may be living through different realities as well as Kevin.
Finally it gets revealed that Evie, the girl who disappeared, actually joined the GR so no second departure happened, and the second season ends with the Garveys back together, Laurie included. Kevin though, saw his father through a video screen in the ghost hotel, and he revealed him he knows the truth, and he is in Australia to stop the end of the world and the second great flood: some sort of Apocalyptic natural event that would fix everything back to normal. So guess what? We are in Australia now. Guess where to be precise? Yes, Melbourne, right there, right where part of my soul is still floating, and right where I was before my hips surgery, but anyway, let’s keep going. Oh, and sorry about the spoilers but I could not avoid it. The whole reality situation is messed up again, with the difference that this time, Kevin is living a parallel life where he needs to kill the president, who ultimately comes out to be… him. In this parallel reality Kevin manages to see he has two roles in two dimensions. The Guilty Remnant group is at power, Patty is alive and Meg is his assistant. Apart from the tragicomical scenes where Kevin’s penis is the protagonist, (told you, super spoilers here guys) and that in which he has to kill himself in order to save the world from a nuclear attack (yes, I know this does not make sense at all, I warned you guys since the beginning that this tv-series is pretty mind twisting, to be polite!), Kevin manages to go back to the real world. Here he finds his father who tells him he can stop the flood only if a specific song from the aboriginals will be sung on the day of the Apocalypse, but Kevin has to die again in order to reach the other world. Talking about twists of plots people, things got really screwed up in this series so eventually you end up believing the dystopian version is the truth and the reality is the lie or vice-versa… Where is Nora though? Well, Nora goes to Melbourne as well, but nobody knows, not even Kevin, because she has found a group of scientists who claim to be able to send people to the place where the departed people are, and Matt? Well, Matt has been writing another Bible. Yes, for real. He believes Kevin is the new Jesus and he will save the world. After all, the Great Departure dismantled every certainty in the world so badly that all the confusion that came out of it was simply considered normal, and the more reality is twisted the more life seems to be worth living. At the end of the day, and of the season and series apparently, the world hasn’t ended, Nora is friend with Laurie, Kevin burns the bible that Matt wrote, and a new chapter begins with the Book of Nora.
I will totally skip on the fact that 
The second season is the one that everyone is praising for Aziz’s choice of setting it in Italy, at least for the first two episodes, and eventually bringing Italy to the US through Francesca (now seriously? How cliché is this name? As if all Italian women were named Francesca, come on!!!) and the titles of the episodes together with the soundtrack which keep on representing the culture of the “”il 
Did I really say it? Am I trying to say the Germans outsmarted Hollywood’s geniuses? Uhm, not necessarily so, but I am honestly taking my hat off, chapeau! We are so used to the Hollywood style, or at least I am, that it surprised me to watch such a good TV show that captured me since episode one. As the binge watching queen that I am, when 
I would rather put it on a list where I would also add The O.A. (which I reviewed 
Apparently, there are secrets in a small town in Germany. Children are disappearing and weird events are repeating after a certain amount of years. When we get familiar with what could be the cause of the disasters occurring (i.e. there is a nuclear-power-plant which may be the direct link to these strange horrifying events), the attention is moved to something else, a diversion in the storyline: lights fading, animals falling from the sky, people appearing in places that are not from their time clearly by the way they are dressed… we are only certain about something haunting this German community but nobody talks about it, except for those who are labelled as crazy. It sounds a little familiar actually, considering what is going on today in the world, but this is a different story.
Time travel, mystery, police knowing but not telling, old people revealing truths and other details entwined in the story, reminded me of my beloved Lynch’s Twin Peaks: supernatural lies underneath what we see and what we perceive as reality because there is something else… beyond us. Maybe this is what makes of these TV series a sort of more than fascinating shows, worth binge watching on a Saturday night. You get lost in the time of your binge watching session and you get lost in the complicated plot they try to mix with a good dose of soundtrack and colors. Cinematography is growing wiser, sexier and more interesting, or am I growing fonder because I am growing older? Nice question. No answer. As of right now, I am going to giggle at the idea of having another Country, Germany, producing amazing pieces for TV which are adding up to what Hollywood has been offering us. More work for me to do. More binge watching sessions, more food for thought, more nutrition for my majestic curiosity and visual need for detachment from this… reality.
Let’s start the new year with the Alternative Review of a series that I honestly loved, not only for its adaptation from a book I read, but because it took me back to my first year of graduate school (the first time I attended, not the second) when I took a class in Canadian Literature and I studied Margaret Atwood‘s artwork. Who would have thought I would meet her in person something like ten years later at a book festival held close to where I used to live? Well, it happened, and here I am now, talking about the TV-series they made out of her novel The Handmaid’s Tale: simply genius. Another book I loved from Atwood was The Edible Woman, so once you’re done watching the show and reading the book (because really, you have to!) I would recommend catching up with all of her works. So actual, so accurate, so powerful. Do it, you fools!
Many have talked about the novel as one of the most feminist of the eighties, why yes, people, Atwood wrote it in 1984 and her feminist views are kind of obvious back then, if you study her works, but what was outstanding about her ways of showing ideals (and it still is remarkable also now, after watching the show) is the fact that it does not feed your brain with concepts and beliefs, instead she raises questions, she wants her readers to reach their own conclusions by simply reporting a truth, although through fictional events, that are still too real, so far.
The show begins with Offred (who is not Offred yet) and her husband, trying to escape from the police to save their child. Other details of her past are showed only through Offred’s memories and flashbacks, because from the moment they capture her, we only see her new life at Gilead. After a civil war, the United States have created a totalitarian government based on “Christian” rules. For some odd reasons, women are not fertile anymore, and they need to resort to a sort of surrogate mothers in order to have babies. What will happen though, is that these surrogate mothers are handmaids, they get impregnated by the most powerful men of the Gilead republic and they leave their children with the family that abused of them. They get assigned to their owners and they must undergo a treatment, a ritual, more easily said a f* rape, in order to give the family a child. Society is divided into classes (again?), handmaids are dressed in red (oh, by the way, read also The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne when you get a chance!), marthas – housekeepers and cooks- wear green, and wives wear blue. Of course we could not miss the prostitutes for those elite men in need of … well, they’re men, so at Jezebel’s there are women who work in secret brothels to satisfy them. Not to be contentious (or am I) but what I saw through all the episodes does not deviate much from what I see everyday. Of course the story is exaggerated (I mean, it is first a novel and then a television adaptation of it, so it has to be a little fictional, don’t you think?) but, as I said before, it gives you hints to reason, to process your thoughts, and I would appreciate to know what this TV shows creates in your …guts. About the colors and the perfect contrast the filmmakers decided to create, well, I’ll touch this topic later, waiting for season two, and after I’ll get more experience on the field… eh-hem.
June (name that in the novel is never mentioned but left for granted) played by the Emmy and Golden Globe winner 
I’m back. Well, I just spent a whole bunch of time binge watching shows, and actually, I also invested many hours catching up on movies I could find on Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Amazon Prime Video, any platform really… long story short, I had to be ready for the 
We are back to black. How? Black is one of my favorite colors. It is considered to be the absence of light, or better, the absorption of light that can no longer be reflected. To me, black is at the same time power, mystery, authority, fear, elegance, formality, death, evil, aggression, sophistication… rebellion. You need black to have depth and variation of hue in any other color. You all other painters over there, do you agree? You do, don’t you? Black is often given a negative connotation. As many said last night, when Natalie Portman and other goddesses of mine started sharing the hashtag 
I won’t talk about the nominees, the winners, the host Seth Meyers who had a tremendous monologue, the series and the movies because these are basically details that turned out to be futile in such a night of revelation, of empowerment and awakening and, hopefully, this will last until it becomes normality. Not a movement, not a revolution. Normality. As for the reviews of movies and series that were competing for this year Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s award we’ll have to wait until Thursday, as the day of Thor is the designated weekday for the Binge Watching Queen’s Alternative Reviews. 
Prince, founder and author at the 
The OA received several contrasting comments and opinions among the experts. While I personally loved it, I can understand that the critics might be a little reluctant in showing appreciation when it is a little hard to see through, a little deeper, a story that makes no sense to the Western culture. Moreover, both plot and style are entwined, the story pops like a bubble during the season finale, leaving the spectators speechless, and those charming dance moves are definitely not accepted, or simply not understood, by many: too spiritual, too superficial, too …stupid.
As always, when a TV series catches my eye (I mean, literally), it is because of something they say, a song from the soundtrack or some other features I can relate to, easily. It is in the very first episode that the protagonist, the OA, says “It’s not really a measure of mental health to be well-adjusted in a society that’s very sick,” referring to an outburst of violence of one of her friends. For instance, violence, pain, isolation and trauma, not only suffered by the OA, but by other people as well (spectators too?) seem to be the “leitmotivs” of the whole story, making it more relatable to a more general public, well at least more to me. When you’re trained to find allegories, symbols, metaphors, (I was a student of literature for a long time, after all!) it is a little easier to go further, to look for what is hidden behind the written words because the author might have wanted to say something, although not explicitly. What I wanted to see in this case is how, by using scenes that to most are normal fiction-based images, a message of freedom, an open door from 
That was the moment when I opened my eyes. Social isolation is real. When a person starts avoiding social interaction well, as they say, the “shit has hit the fan”, but being an introvert, it may not be as clear as it should be. Have you ever stopped to think about this? Have you ever had a friend denying offers to go out, even to just have coffee and not necessarily to go partying all night long? Have you ever thought of a friend “what a bitch” for canceling last minute on you? Have you? Do not feel bad (yet). It’s ok. As far as you’re concerned, it is not a big deal. When does this go from “not being in the mood” to isolation? When this denial, this resistance, this rejection of interaction persists for a longer time than usual, and it is well often a consequence of a period spent in a depressive state, sometimes caused by a sense of shame, or low self-worth (rings a bell!). What many do not understand is that there are several factors that can impair social skills leading to isolation, and it is not always by choice.
Prairie survived because she was not alone. When you spend most of your time all by yourself though, you get used to be alone. It only takes time to realize that eventually being alone sucks. You start avoiding not only social interaction but professional events as well. You make up excuses and you miss that chance to meet new people, new opportunities, turning your isolation into a vicious circle of worthlessness. You register to be a reporter for a cultural festival where you really want to interview people who are successful, who made of their passions their job, and their daily inspiration, to potentially stumble upon people you used to know, to breathe fresh air and walk down the crowded roads of the historical center of a town -that you used to know, but -you- are no longer who you used to know or used to be. You choose your aloneness over opportunity. You choose vacuum over fullness. Withdrawal over moving forward. You choose to let go even of all those things you may want to keep…
In conclusion, why was this show important, from my perspective? Because it opened a door on the so called “mental illnesses” that can be part of a person’s life without interfering so very much with their social life. I am not saying it does not affect their own lives, because it does, but it creates no harm, no danger for their social behavior if taken good care of and most of all, if responsibly studied and handled. 
Another day, another interview. It happened by chance that I got to know the existence of an actual profession, the ghostwriter. I applied to a job post that was asking for a content writer, a passionate thinker, yadda yadda yadda. A few days before my interview, while browsing new series on Netflix, I found this interesting animated sitcom I decided to binge watch …just because. I started watching BoJack Horseman, attracted by the presence of Aaron Paul (although as a voice-over only), on a warm summertime weekday in LA, after taking some time off my job hunting routine.
Once the flash-back was over, I realized the main character, the one I was supposed to “get introduced to” at this moment of my life was not BoJack but Diane. Diane is a ghostwriter. She was hired by BoJack Horseman to write his autobiography. She is an wannabe writer, who feels like nobody actually understands -or even sees, her potentiality, she is originally from Boston, and she is dating famous actor and BoJack’s rival, Mr. Peanutbutter. Yes, apart from the romance, the other details are pretty familiar.
BoJack hires her to ghostwrite his autobiography when, at a night party, he gets fascinated by her personality. By the end of the very first episodes you forget you are watching an animated series, and I personally watched the rest of season 1, 2 and 3 as if I were actually watching a normal, human based, show. Aaron Paul‘s voice triggered my imagination to the point that I was actually seeing his face instead of the cartooned character who was awkwardly too similar to Breaking Bad‘s Jesse Pinkman. But how did I get here? I was halfway through the first season when I had my Skype call with the recruiter. She asked me the usual questions: could you tell me your story? How do you see yourself in a couple of years? Why would you be the perfect fit for this job? And last but not least: who is really LG? How would you describe yourself? Honestly, it felt like she just asked me “Who is Gossip Girl?” …How would you answer? How would I answer? I am… me. I clutched at straws for a couple of minutes until she answered for me. “You are the Binge Watching Queen, you want to be heard, your voice is captivating, your blog is nice to read… and you will never bend to be a ghostwriter”.
Stranger Things is captivating for those kids like me who were born in the ’80s and by watching a show which offers old school music and references to that time, you can’t help but remember the Goonies, the Gremlins, Stand by Me, and others, maybe with a little bit of nostalgia. If you have a keen interest in vintage and old style cinematography, welcome aboard. Honestly I am not a huge fan of those years, (so not technologic, evil laugh) but probably it is just because those old movies scared me when I was a child. I always had a very rich and detailed imagination, so watching ambiguous images only contributed to have nightmares, until rationality took the lead. I was still having bad dreams, but at least I knew it was just that. A “This isn’t real!” kind of awareness. I am not sure this was actually a positive change, but at least I stopped worrying about aliens flying bikes and calling home, close encounters of any kind, cute little things turning into evil monsters after midnight, cheeky human-like ducks coming from the future, and ufo navigators.
We used to have horror movie nights on TV, not sure if it was on Wednesdays or Thursdays during the summer, when the school was over and kids could stay up late, as they were usually broadcasted late night. As of today, I should ask young millennials how it works, considering they have everything they want (and do not want) available anytime, anywhere. They may have thought that the setting of this show was tremendously old fashioned and out-dated, kind of what I used to say when I had to watch spaghetti western with my parents. Yeah, let’s not rub it in. Instead, the reference that the producers and the writers gave to the show is not as heavy as someone would expect, it is actually fascinating, also considered that they rendered the idea by using the instruments we have today, so chapeau!
I particularly appreciated the fact that those who appear to be the strongest and coolest characters of the show are women, Eleven and Will’s mother, among the others, are essential for the balance that the story keeps throughout its development. They could have used a normal boy, instead the supernatural magical kid is a girl and she.is.the.bomb.
We are in Indiana, USA in 1983. A twelve-year-old Will disappears mysteriously while, on the other side of the town in a secret laboratory, a monster creature comes to life. A young girl trapped in the laboratory, manages to escape after the accident with the monster. She is running away from the lab agents who are chasing after her, when the girl meets three kids who are Will’s best friends: Mike, Lucas and Dustin. Mike understands something is wrong with the girl who does not speak, and the only thing she manages to tell him is her name is Eleven, after reading the number she has tattooed on her arm. He eventually hides her in his house and takes care of her feeding her with Eggo (I know, I had to point this out). Eleven knows what is going on and she helps the boys look for Will, who apparently got trapped in another dimension, where monsters and evil creatures live. 
Winona Ryder is Will’s mother, who does not believe the agents when they say her son is dead. Everyone in town starts thinking she is going insane when she says supernatural events are happening in her house: it is Will’s way to get in contact with her mother, asking for help from “the other side”. Will’s brother and other people from their town unites looking for the truth behind this evil laboratory, which seems to be the source of what is going on. Meanwhile the agents try to capture Eleven to take her back to the lab.