The End of an Era—“The Vampire Diaries"

Back in 2007, when vampires exploded in Hollywood and all teenagers wanted to see was vampires, a wonderful TV series came out by the name of “The VampireDiaries”. The series was based of the novels written by L.J. Smith about a pair of brothers who fall in love with a human girl.  The show had the romance, the sibling rivalry, the supernatural world, and the action. Put all those traits together in one show and it is guaranteed to be a success. After all its success, the show finally came to an end 2 weeks ago, after 8 seasons and 171 episodes.

The finale was ok for the most part—although we were promised an epic ending, epic it was not. In my opinion, I felt the finale was rushed. Putting it into a 2 hour finale would have been better considering everything they were trying to fit into the normal 1hour show. In the finale we got to see some old characters be brought back one last time—including Nina Dobrev. Dobrev, who plays the lead female character named Elena, left back in season 6 to pursue other acting opportunities. While us fans of the show were happy for her and respected her decisions, it was still hard to see her leave and not have that character be part of the show anymore. Dobrev played 4 characters in the show but none were as much of a badass as Katherine Pierce—who also happened to be the villain in the finale.

In the finale, our heroes of Mystic falls had to put their heads together to defeat Katherine who was trying to the unleash Hell fire and set Mystic Falls on fire. Throughout the seasons, Katherine was made out to be this fierce and cunning character who only cares about herself and always comes up on top. Well in the series finale, it would seem she lost those characteristics. She spent a lot of time waiting around and letting the bothers kill her over and over again without much of a fight—spoiler alert, Katherine became the ruler of Hell and thus can walk in and out of Hell whenever she pleases. Perhaps Julie Plec—the executive producer and finale director-- took this approach due to time constraint. Whatever the reason might have been they still did a great job pulling everything off with the amount of time they had. 

“Wicked”—My first Broadway show

Last night I went to watch “Wicked” live at the Gershwin Theater in New York. For my very first broadways show, it was epic! Everything was amazing—from the sets to the costumes to the acting and choreography. The role of Elphaba and Glinda were played by Jennifer DiNola and Kara Lindsay, respectively. The ladies did a wonderful job portraying the characters’ strengths and weaknesses.

Wicked is the prequel to “The Wonderful Wizard of OZ”. It tells the story of Glinda—the good witch—and Elphaba—the Wicked Witch of the West. From “Wizard of Oz”, we are led to believe that Elphaba was the evil one that try to kill everyone in Oz. In “Wicked”, the audience gets to learn the truth and the story behind Elphaba’s actions. In “Wicked,” the audience learns that Glinda is not so good and that Elphaba is not so bad. The first is more self-centered than we were lead to believe while the latter is just misunderstood and very compassionate.

As stated before, the play was incredible. Although it was a serious play, there were some humorous moments and dialogues sprinkled throughout the show that really captivated the audience. From the very beginning of the play, I was hooked. The entire cast was enormously committed to the project, receiving standing ovations for every musical number performed. Both leads were absolutely brilliant—so much so that I could not pick my favorite one. I highly recommend this to anyone looking to watch a great live performance even if he or she is not a theater geek. 

The Oscars

       

                                            

The Oscars was on 2 night ago!!

The host was none other than Jimmy Kimmel. As his opening monologue, Jimmy took the liberty of talking about the nation and how we are all divided. Jimmy brings up an idea that if we all take a moment to call up someone that we disagree with politically and just have a conversation with that person, we can all come together. I could not have said it better myself. Way to go Jimmy!

For years now, Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon have been feuding. The feud of course is all for fun and games but Jimmy did not let the opportunity go to attack Damon on his choice of movie this year. Matt Damon produced one of the films being nominated— “Manchester by the Sea”. Rather than staring as the lead which would have earned him an Oscar, he chose to star in the blockbuster film “The Great Wall”—which for sure would not earn him an Oscars since the Academy only nominates films that are powerful but not a lot of people watch. Nothing and no one was off limit during his monologue. Jimmy went on to take jabs at the President—making fun of his tweeting rampages—and even other nominees like Meryl Streep—saying she was overrated and that this year the academy wrote her name down as a nominated out of habit, sarcastically of course.

Did anyone else watch the Oscars? If so, what did you think of Jimmy’s monologue or the entire show?