A Series of Darkly Enjoyable Events: A Review of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

If you are looking for a review for a wonderfully amazing series featuring amazing adventures, wonderful triumphs, a happy ending for all, I'm extremely sorry to say but this is not the review you should be reading. This is because this review is about a show with not only no happy ending but no happy beginning and well very luckily a few good happy things in the middle. This is because the children focused on this series named Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire have suffered A Series of Unfortunate Events. This review of the series also has a few spoiler alerts. A "spoiler alert" is a modern slang phrase meaning "a revealing of an event in a story that will ruin the plot for those who have never watched it." But this case a spoiler alert is needed for such an awful and miserable series. Wouldn't you rather be interested in a review of a series about how prison colors are in as a new black, or a Cuban-American family tackling life one day at a time, or maybe focus on an animated series with gigantic fighting robots in space controlled by humans inside them?

Plot:
The story of the Baudelaire Children takes place at first on a Briny Beach where the children have a natural day of fun on a cloudy, murky day. Murky is a phrase which hear means "Gloomy due to the mist around the beach." And in that murky misty fog around the beach, Mr. Poe, the children's banker and executor of their parent's estate, meets them to give them the most unfortunate news that their parents have died in a fire that also destroyed their mansion. Thus he takes them to visit Count Olaf, their 3rd cousin 4 times removed or their 4th cousin 3 times removed, as he is their to be their guardian. However, he tries but luckily fails to usurp their fortune in the first two episodes. However, Olaf and his evil theatrical troupe, all of which are not only the most despicable people I would ever not wish to meet and also never involve myself at a dinner party with were also terrible actors, have disguised themselves very badly but have failed to be noticed by anyone until too late. Also involved in the series is a mysterious, often limited, narrator named Lemony Snicket who is responsible for chronicling our story. Chronicling is word which hear means "recording the story from every terrible moment and event that would put tears in your eyes."

The series itself is based off of the 13 books by Lemony Snicket. The first season focused on the first four novels respectively named The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, and The Miserable Mill. This series known for its very forsaken drama with the children, the usage of figurative language and word play, overuse of dramatic irony, and a unique syntax (syntax is a word which here means the styling of the sentence structure intended to emphasis a specific purpose especially to that of 3 orphans in melancholy)that adds to the word play in these stories. Also included is the many musings and interruptions of our narrator, Lemony Snicket, with telling this tale as well as learning more about him and his motives for weaving this tale of woe. This was the primary challenge with adapting this series with including the every unique word told with a very forlorn definition, Lemony's interaction with readers turned into audience viewers at home or on the train, plane and automobile they decide to watch in, and the linguistic (which here means a gigantic love of words) adoration given to reading and the spoken word. Fortunately, that aspect was translated successfully into this TV series.

Writer Daniel Handler, the official name of Lemony Snicket and real author of A Series of Unfortunate Events, has written 5 episodes with Emily Fox, Joe Trancz, and Tatiana Suarez-Pico each writing one. Every episode faithfully retells Snicket's style from the wordplay to the many pop-culture and high culture (authors primarily but also musicians, directors, scientists, and books) referenes. All episodes give each book time to breath to allow the books to be told and every episode not only feels like the misadventure of a lifetime, but also a hide and seek game for every cultural reference made to every Latin phrase and dictionary word included in the screenplay. A minor but just as important element in this series are the anachronisms found. From the clothing styles from various decades in the 20th century to the mixed technology to the pop culture references each of these give a slight unease to pinpointing not only when but where the series does take place as part of the original story. So as Netflix marketed the series to all demographics, the children will see the fun and amazing clever antics and story of the children with the script being enjoyable for the adults.

Characters and Actors:
The children are played by Malina Weissman who is Violet, Louis Hynes plays Klaus, and Presley Smith as Sunny with her voice for her shrieks being played by voice actress Tara Strong. Each child is given their chance to shine with Violet's inventions, Klaus' knowledge in an assortment of ideas and subjects, and Sunny is exceptionally good with biting objects but her character is expanded upon with being a poker hustler as well. Each actor does an excellent job with portraying their Baudelaire character and have truly pulled their weight in getting the audience to feel sympathy and pity for the children as they continually try to escape and end foiling Count Olaf's schemes.

Playing the role of the "Famously Renowned" Count Olaf is actor, singer, producer, director, and theatrical renaissance man Neil Patrick Harris. Renaissance man is a phrase which hear means a multi-talented person usually in more than one subject. Harris's portrayal as Olaf is the perfect combination of hammy, vain, twisted, evil, and threatening. Unlike Jim Carrey, who was more of a goofball and not so bright Olaf, Harris goes with being as faithful to the source material and even tries his hardest to be a bad actor with even worse disguises. But even the disguises are just as fun when we see Harris don prosthetic, makeup and costume to be all the bad disguises that enables him to fool all adults in his way.

Patrick Warburton plays narrator and series "creator" Lemony Snicket. Warburton for me was the actor I was the most unsure he would excel due to knowing from prior work like Seinfeld and Family Guy and usually Patrick Warburton acts like, well, Patrick Warburton. But every so often he get's a role that I can say he is this character. Lemony Snicket is one of those roles. The way he delivers the lines is in a combination of deadpan and wry humor laced with irony told in the best of way. Warburton delivers his narration wonderfully with being both omniscient as well as being fly on the wall due to his limited knowledge of his research in the Baudelaire story.

As well as a great opening cast, the guest and recurring actors also bring a vibrancy to the world of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Joan Cusack, Aasif Mandvi, Alfre Woodard, and Don Johnson play some of the many adults involved the children's lives (mostly guardians of various helping ability). Each actor breathes life into each respective guardians with both their amazing knowledge in various studies (Law for Justice Strauss, Herpetology for Uncle Monty, Grammar for Josephine, and Economics and Lumber Mill Managing for Sir; each of the actors played each respective role in order) but also their flaws. Each actor gives these characters the much needed personality not given in the 2004 movie adaptation.

Of course when it comes to a movie, so many things can happen as a good thing thing but some can happen as a bad thing. the bad thing happening was that many of the characters did not get fully fleshed out. (The phrase fully fleshed out means to give a good length to understand the characters.) The film adaption unfortunately did not do this. Luckily the series does this with getting everyone fleshed out and had each character shine every time.

But back to the review of our cast, Count Olaf is also given a  odd assortment of actors playing the theatrical troupe Count Olaf has decided to get involved with his antics including a hooked-handed man, two powder faced ladies possibly sisters, a tall bald man, and a person of androgynous appearance. Even these awful people and such awful actors are given their chances in the limelight with terrible acting chops as well as their disguises give them a new enhanced character from the oddly stock character style Handler makes them in the original novels until he fleshes out their characteristics in the later books. The series gives him ample room to develop the theater troupe in their deviously wacky ways.

Settings and Costume Design:
The main settings of the show are inspired by mix of Gothic storytelling, anachronisms, light surrealism, and an extensive attention to details with an extensive color palate, and also using elements of Wes Anderson's surreal and symmetrical style. Also following this style is the lighter colors of the Baudelaire Children and the darker tones of the unsafe environments and villains clothes. Also included is a Burtonesque style in the series mostly from one would see in Edward Scissorhands thanks in part to Bo Welch, who actually was involved in Burton's earlier films including Edward Scissorhands. And despite the the nods I've scene in reference to both directors, the series still feels fresh and original thanks to Handler's creation of the universe and the acquisition of a great crew that makes good use of some of the most attractively made sets in a show that I've ever seen. Sometimes I can tell when the CGI is a little fake like certain parts of the Wide Window's usage of creating the waters of Lake Lachrymose but there are times where it blends well into the scenes too like when it comes to the sky environments of Uncle Monty and Justice Strauss's homes and the eerie leeches of Lake Lachrymose. All in all, the settings are gorgeous to look at and makes one feel like we could be watching an elaborate stage play with a budget they asked for and received.

 Final Verdict:
A Series of Unfortunate Events is a truly fanatical and fantastic and wonderful series with mixing the story's plot line and the twists and turns of new interconnected plots to the story. I give this series a 4.5 out of 5 stars. And good news is that we'll be getting season 2 to get filmed starting in April.

A Merry Late Christmas and Hopes for 2017

 Hello Everyone,

I'm sorry for not posting any articles recently but Christmas time is a busy time for me especially since I have so many family groups to be around and I visited them all and with the recent work of my yard sale and selling of some of my items online, I was a little busy before I could message you all.

All in all, I wish to give you all a belated Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (it's the third day I believe), Yule and Saturnalia and Happy Holidays to all of my friends and family who celebrate all the other holidays not mentioned.

Now for 2017, I do have a lot I wish to do for 2017 and with the greatest possibility of more articles that I'll be writing a weekly article on any matter of Subject and include something else other than the issues of politics and economics. As of right now, I'm reading a few books and I'm still trying to get some of them finished as well as planning another yard sale and a couple of other things too especially since New Years is approaching.

I also am still working on Pomegranate Wine but I have 3 other shorts stories I am going to work on soon. I cannot reveal their working titles as of now but I'm hoping with great enthusiasm, I'll finish 2 of them by October. Also I am working on a new play, It's a little unique in my opinion as not too many plays or stories deal with this subject in the way I am telling. All I can say is my main character in the play, Damien, has a lot more than becoming an adult to deal with in this play.

So to everyone. a very Happy New Year's Eve for 2017. Hope you all are having fun!

Ms. Betsy DeVos, School Voucher's won't solve the Department of Education's corruption.

Hello Everyone, Sorry for such a long hiatus after trying to do this but I was interested in doing this since I saw a lot of my Objectivist peers go at it on the subject of whether Betsy DeVos' ideas of promoting school vouchers is a good one. I won't be going into her Christian Values campaign as that is but an effect of the cause of her main goal with implementing this idea in the hopes of getting to privatize the school system. However, after going over this, I have changed my opinion on the issue of school vouchers and am now against them.

I had originally thought that the School voucher program would instill some good effort into the public education system but one of the biggest problems is mainly that School Vouchers don't get rid of the Public Educations system since they are just continuing what Normal Taxation has done. In order for us to realize why this is so, let's define exactly what school vouchers are. School vouchers are government subsidies for children to attend what schools their parents wish. Even private schools get vouchers too under the system. However, because of this private schools will have to go under the standards of the governments education plan if they made one because of accepting the government subsidy. And the way people pay into the system is just the same. People are still being taxed to pay for schools but they just get what is consider the illusion of choice.

And as I said earlier with the issue that private schools go into the public sector, The Private School System will now have to listen to the standards of public education. Now the private sector must do this in order to appease the school choice philosophy with the unintended consequences of stamping property rights and free market interference. This is especially noted in Craig Biddle's article "Louisiana Demonstrates Problem With School Vouchers" in The Objective Standard, A magazine I recommend all Capitalists, Republicans, Libertarians, Philosophers, Free-Thinkers, and even my own Family and Friends read as a main source of information in news in contrast to the yellow journalism of today's media. (I'll leave the link at the end of this article.) This will no doubt hurt the private sector when they lose the choice of how to run their curriculum in response to government propositions.

Lastly, and most importantly, The School Voucher Program doesn't solve the main problems with privatizing the education system. But how exactly is this so? It has to do with the philosophy of education. Two educators helped changed the education system with their work, Maria Montessori and John Dewey. Montessori focused on an individual based curriculum in teaching students all a manner of subjects the individual child is interested in. However, John Dewey believed Schooling was a social experiment where society shapes an individual rather than what Montessori teached with her individualist approach. I had talked to Ms. DeVos about this issue but sadly I was left with nothing and no real answers to what she cares about.

Folks, what we're left with and what we should take from all of this is one simple fact. Government needs to get out of education and only we individuals can make that happen. It's obvious that Ms. DeVos has absolutely no idea about how her ideas actually hinder the free market and make our students even worse of than currently and we had to suffer the effects of both No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Let's not make things come into threes and tell her this is not a good idea and start finding better and more free market solutions to our education mess.

https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2016/01/louisiana-demonstrates-problem-with-school-vouchers/

Updating about me in A Day in the Life and a very early Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

Hey Everyone.

Sorry about promising a post this week when things were pretty difficult with my schedule. Anyway, I just wanted to at least say here is a non-political post. (Sometime covering politics can make me rip my hair out about stupid policies politicians promote and trust me, I'll cover that another day to roast over the coals why school vouchers don't help promote school choice in the near future.)  But anyway, here is a little article about me and what's going on.

As of right now, my family and I are going to dim sum because my Oma Eta asked for some and we all decided to go to a new place recently so I'll post pictures on Instagram and Facebook if you follow me on both social media sites!

In other good news, my sister Lizette will be 8 tomorrow and I'll be dropping by to a special birthday party with close friends and some relatives on my Dad and Step-Mom's side of the family as well.

Now as for my shorts story I told everyone about, Pomegranate Wine, I have some bad news that the story will be delayed as my main priorities are involving searching for work as of the time being but once I find some work I'll update you all and tell you about which draft I'm on or if it is finished.

And one last note I wish to make. I want to let you all know I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays.

Marcos

Fidel's Death and Cuba's Future?

When I heard last night of Fidel Castro's death, I thought to myself that there might be some justice in the world after all. Although it took 90 years to do it, Fidel Castro has been officially declared dead. And all in all, I didn't expect myself to write 3 posts in one week of just starting this blog but well hey, I can't resist saying something so I will.

So let me give some of my opinions on Fidel Castro's death. In my honest opinion, when I heard Fidel's brother, Raoul, would take over his brother's position for his illness, I think this was primarily the beginning of the stage set for the obvious transition of power necessary to give the Communists the power they still want and keep things in line obviously. Simple transition of power nothing more and that I also think they kept the illusion of Fidel alive to keep the populace from knowing better and to keep basic morale up. 

Now for Cuba's future and what we can do about it because believe it or not, we can actually do something to stop Cuba from oppressing any more people and stopping them from violating any more human rights. Just because Fidel Castro is dead doesn't fully help us due to his brother and the entire regime still in place but Fidel's lost touch can be an asset to many. The cracks in the walls are there but we need the right tools to break down the walls. One such tool is education. Unfortunately, many books are banned by Fidel's regime and yes it most possibly includes the ones I will put on a list that should be given to Cubans all over. I suggest to any of my friends or any of yours that are deciding to visit Cuba to give Spanish editions of the books I'll put under my list to fire the flames of a true revolution. Yes it's breaking the law but it's out of pure civil disobedience against a tyrannical government. Any government that tries to suspend forms of free speech including banning books should be morally condemned in any way. And anyone here in the US, who can't afford a trip to Cuba should just keep fighting here at home for Western and Enlightenment Ideas. History is a battlefield of ideas and that the ideas that win were the most successful in being argued and persuaded. Right now is that time for Cuba.

And to bastardize what Che Guivera said

Larga vida a la verdadera revolución! (Long live the true revolution!)

Sic Semper Tyrannis!

Thanksgiving Wishes, What I'm Thankful For, and Good News

Since it's already here, Happy Thanksgiving and Turkey Day everyone!

Now here are some things and people I'm thankful for. First and most of all, I'm very thankful for living in this country where I have multiple opportunities and can flourish as much as I want without having to fear constantly for my life. I'm very thankful for my family especially now that we were able to get my Oma Eta (My great aunt actually but she was kind of a grandmother to me and Oma means grandma in Dutch) a new home to stay in and that she'll be surrounded by many of my family members this holiday. I'm also thankful for people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos for creating technology and services we can often take for granted but have helped revolutionize communication all over and making our lives easier too. And to all past inventors, innovators, scientists and others who take pride in their work and truly are focused on human flourishing. And I'm particularly thankful for my grandfather with helping me with my Oma (his sister) through all of this with her transition to 24 hour care and my mom and aunt for finding a wonderful place for her to stay. I'm thankful for my boyfriend for being there as both emotional support and for being invested into my writings and work. Thanks to veterans, thanks to police and firefighters, nurses and doctors, volunteers and anonymous people for helping save people's lives. I'm thankful for having a very large family who supports and loves me very much. I'm especially thankful to my dad, step-mom, and sisters for just being able to spend time with them after so long without being able to see them. And thanks to you for following me at the beginning of my very first blog. It truly is an honor to start this.

Now I said I had good news and I do. I'm proud to mention I'm in the writing draft for my very first short story. It will be published on the site and hopefully be more as part of a short story collection of some of my very first works. All I can say is that this story is called Pomegranate Wine and I hope your very anticipated for future news of this story.

I'm very happy to mention this stepping stone in my journey as an author. And for all to have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Begining Party and Q and A!

Hello! Bon Soir!

Welcome to Marcos' Musings, the blog where I go on about an assortment of discussions and talk about my future writing projects too. I just want to let everyone know this to celebrate on the discussion of the blog so far and that I want to give a brief overview of what this blog will be about.

This blog is dedicated to my opinions on Art, Philosophy, Politics, and my current writing projects. But also, I'll be discussing other things like reviewing certain TV Series and Movies I decide to give down time to see, video games, and my updates on my life too other fun stuff as well. As much as it is hard to make a balance since I am still debating what times I would like to Blog, I do know at least once a week I would like to update everyone on all my projects at least so that's a start.

Thanks for taking the time to come on. For this special event, feel free to ask me any questions about what plans I have for my blog, myself, or any other questions. Thank you very much!