I cancelled my streaming services because I realised binge-watching was even more wasteful and addictive than social media. However, except for saving me a bit of money on subscription charges and making binge material a bit less accessible, it has not really eliminated the pastime. I ended up wasting two nights watching a so-called supernatural drama set in semi-sepia tones, with 30s era cars and people wearing period costumes in a contemporary western liberal (read as US Democrat propaganda) indoctrination series masquerading as a TV serial. All because of a brief flash of flesh in an altogether different film.
Honestly, I started watching it only because Natalie Dormer gave a peep of her stockinged thigh in the "Counsellor," which I consider as one of the most sexually charged scenes in cinema, paradoxically in a film with the most morbid ending I have ever seen.
I had neither watched the Game of Thrones, except for a compilation of all the nude scenes in the series, nor the Tudors, where she had acted earlier, so I really had no inkling what to expect from her. One would also be hard-pressed to call her beautiful in a conventional sense, especially without all the makeup highlighting her elfin eyes.
Yet undeniably Sexy, she is…in Yoda speak!
The serial in question if you have not guessed already is the "City of Angels-Penny Dreadful." I am still quite clueless as to the connection with the original Victorian-era horror mishmash Penny Dreadful, which I also binge-watched, no, thanks to being enamoured with Eva Green. Where despite the impressive sets, great acting, the ample nudity, it largely gets my thumbs down solely because it forced me to endure several gay sex scenes as the writer, director and producer John Logan seems obsessed about pushing forth his sexual orientation. The really dreadful part of the series I concluded, was that everyone from Satan to Dracula and Dorian Gray got to sleep with Vanessa Ives, Eva Green's character, well all except her poor soulmate, the werewolf protagonist - he only got buggered by Gray instead and had to do with a consolation prize of a young witch towards the end.
Though set in the late 30s Los Angeles, the City of Angles is a typical modern Showtime production; meaning it's a crime to be white. The Jews are the valiant heroes(a la David vs Goliath, with the wisdom of Solomon), even their gangsters. The Latinos are the poor but joyful hard-working folks, the victims of racial injustice. The protagonist is a tormented Latino Good-Cop, while his two brothers are both cop-killers (justifiably so, of course) #Latinolivesmatter after all. Quite surprisingly, there are no Blacks or Asians in any role. Again with several (unwelcome for me) homosexual and bisexual scenes imposed upon us, courtesy John Logan and his gay agenda.
The white characters are portrayed as either sadists, racists, fascists or Nazis, the sole exception being a tragic blond gospel singer, the hero's love interest (diversity politics in love, in India they would call it Love Jihad) who is controlled by her hawkish and ambitious, Nazi sympathizer, Christian revivalist mother, but who ultimately commits suicide, probably to make space for a Latino Chica in season two, except that they got panned and rightly so.
The role of Santa Muerte, Mexico's Grateful Dead inspired superstar deity and protector of gangsters and drug dealers, seemed completely out of place in the 1930s context as the cult rose into prominence only in the late 90s. It's as if the storyline got mixed-up with a contemporary Narcos serial. Or maybe the scriptwriters were just promised a discount on their weekly cocaine stash by the Mexican dealer, who demanded the inclusion of his patron saint.
The central figure in the City of Angels is the anti-hero Magda, a multidimensional goddess/demoness of chaos with Caucasian looks, a blend of a Succubus and the Norse trickster Loki. She who thrives on causing mayhem, discord and death played by Ms Flashing Thigh a.k.a. Natalie Dormer in multiple roles, each in a human avatar of the queen of chaos. Can't say she did an excellent job, won't say that she sucked, but yes, she knows how to flash them eye-lashes and stare at you almost supernaturally with those faux elfin eyes.
She did act like a real bitch at times, well play the role that is, but couldn't be the venomous evil incarnate she was supposed to portray. No personification of madness, either, like by Eva Green or our very ow Kankana Ranaut, both on the screen or real life. And except for the sexless, frumpy secretary in all her other characters, her acting was overshadowed with her doing what she does best...being Sexy!!
If Santa Muerte at least has a historical, cultural and contemporary religious significance, Magda is a figment of Logan's imagination, probably inspired by the legions of women who create trouble anywhere they go and for anyone they come across in real life. Believe me they exist, I happen to know a few, and they don't need Ju-Ju to do their Voodoo!!
With a 2020s politically-correct liberal narrative, Santa Muerte transported back in time and a real lacklustre storyline, it is a guarantee of wasted time...the only saving grace was the Vintage Cars and those Elfin Eyes...
The end was even more pathetic and straight out of a Biden-Harris electoral campaign with the hero proclaiming, they are building a wall to divide us!!
Yeah, no female nudity as well, unless you consider some Latino guy's arse, but that's John Logan for you!!
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