Sunday 13 April 2014

Seven Years' War and its peculiar yet relevant consequence

By a mere happenstance Seven Years' War  brought independence to the 13 colonies and the creation of the now most powerful country in the world, United States of America, yet nobody could have guessed so back then, although that is another story that will be explained soon because we are to focus on the Seven Years' War.


Seven Years War
Seven Years' War

Seven years' War 1756-1763 ended without a clear winner as all contenders  were severely damaged. 

In fact, United Kingdom lost so much money that its King decided  to rise the taxes on many products inhabitants of the 13 colonies would purchase, as a result, discomfort and anger followed amongst the first inhabitants of United States of America who brimming with anger and pride they defeated the most important Army at that time the mighty British Empire. 

Everything started with Boston Tea Party but the unpopular decision of the British King was because of the economical losses of Seven Years' War.


Seven Years War
Seven years War

Seven Years' War lasted from 1756 until 1763, it is also said that Britain was the winner as its position as colonial power rose and other countries such as France, Spain or Prusia saw their colonial power diminished but it s not so clear given the huge losses in people and money they faced thereafter. 

There were several treaties that ended Seven Years' War such as Treaty of Saint Petersburg, Treaty of Hamburg, Treaty of Paris and Treaty of Hubertusburg. France ceded New France to Great Britain and the Indian part named Bengal was recognised as British, Spain ceded Florida to Britain, France ceded Louisiana to Spain and Britain returned Cuba and Philippines to Spain. 

Europe, North and South America, Africa or India were the main parts of this conflict. The main countries involved on Seven Years' War were Britain, France, Austria or Prussia

Seven Years War
Seven Years' War

One of the best writers ever is, in my opinion, William Makepeace Thackeray being The Luck of Barry Lyndon one of his finest books (movie adaptation by Stanley Kubrick may be the best movie ever done) that makes some references to this historical passage as Voltaire´s masterpiece Candide also does, Seven Years' War is depicted as a ludicrous, preposterus, wasteful and even strange event where the only thing did happen was death, multiple deaths as it did not change anything but the whole world was suffered from a severe war with plenty of losses and deceases. Seven Years War

Once Seven Years' War ended everything was more or less as when it first began.


Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon Seven Years' War

All in all, I have always found peculiar that a decision based on a war it was supposed to help Britain dominance  was the corollary effect to the creation of the most important country in the world, USA, the one it has had plenty of relevance since it was first originated whose Independence from Great Britain was won and it did start after a strange war called Seven Years' War wherein Barry Lyndon was able to participate as well


Seven Year War
Seven Years' War

Wednesday 2 April 2014

Lazaretto and High Ball Stepper the new material of Jack White

The new album of Jack White has been announced, it is to be called Lazaretto, its first new track is entitled High Ball Stepper and you can enjoy it now.

Jack White Lazaretto
Jack White Lazaretto

HIGH BALL STEPPER

Jack White High Ball Stepper

Jack White Lazaretto
Jack White

Lastly, Jack White has presented two new videos one for his song Lazaretto that is also the name of this new album and other video that has been directed by Gary Oldman, the splendid Racounteurs song Carolina Drama.

LAZARETTO VIDEO JACK WHITE

JACK WHITE CAROLINA DRAMA 

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Gossip Girl cast

To say the truth, I am not  a big fan of  television series, let alone of those concerning teenagers, yet Gossip Girl is somewhat original and fun nonetheless as it is focused on the troublesome lives of boys and girls of Manhattan elite but with the new Social Media tools (Gossip Girl is an unknown personage that tells of everything that takes place within Manhattan Upper East Side to the one interested on it due to our beloved Internet) Updated Version Gossip Girl

                            Gossip Girl cast
Gossip Girl

Gossip Girl is good on its two first seasons, it is not a masterpiece as you can imagine, everybody knows all television series are always overly complicated with love stories and these are always artificially extended so that obtain much more audience and money therefore, something that annoys me (Watch out  fanatics of Game of Thrones!!! )
        Notwithstanding, I had plenty of fun watching Gossip Girl  on the first two seasons and it is interesting above all because of the group of actresses. Later on, the story gets so wearying that I could not be able to end it. One day thereafter  I watched a chapter of the last season and it was as if time would have not passed by as I were experiencing  the same tenor, the same boring plot, the same kind of jokes and conversations that made you feel you were watching a ludicrous story, it was as if they were repeating the same chapter all over again even though you were supposing watching the exciting finale season of Gossip Girl.

Gossip Girl
Gossip Girl

Saying that, I must admit I strongly enjoy the cast, above all the female as it was refreshing to discover great young actors such as Leighton Meester, Blake Lively, Ed Westwitck, Penn Badgley Chace Crawford, Taylor Momsen or Jessica Szohr. The female cast is better and it is the object of this story that I hope you can enjoy.  Leighton Meester, Blake Lively. Jessica Szohr and Taylor Momsen are to be presented and their careers fully explained.

                                   Gossip Girl
Gossip Girl

LEIGHTON MEESTER. Gossip Girl
In my opinion, the best actress without any kind of doubt is Leighton Meester, her character is a perfectionist posh girl, competitive, harsh, cold- hearted whose name is Blair Waldorf and it is a great character. Leighton Meester is an actress with a huge talent, in fact, despite the success of Blake Lively, Leighton Meester is the best of the television series and has appeared on movies like Montecarlo with Selena Gomez o Country Strong with 
Gwyneth Paltrow. Furthermore, she has appeared with a great result in other television series such as House, Entourage, Shark, Law and Order..

                        Leighton Meester
Leighton Meester

I even believe she can win a cinema award one day if she is lucky with roles because in the big screen she has only appeared on minor comedies that even has made Leighton Meester to be nominated to Raspeberry Awards (this is what happens when you shoot alongside Adam Sandler) something disappointed due to her outstanding acting skills. Besides, she has made some records as she is also a singer. For instance,  the song Somebody to love is her most popular, recorded with the at that time little known Robert Thicke has a videoclip that makes her fans more than happy.


   

A special anecdote of Leighton Meester is that her parents were drug dealers, they would bring marijuana from Jamaica in such a huge level that they did have to face justice, when they were doing time, the mother of Leighton Meester was pregnant but was allowed to leave jail subsequently so that give birth, when Leighton Meester was born, her mum left her with the grandmother until Leighton Meester was adult.
Still, Leighton Meester has experienced more family feuds as she has a younger brother with severe health problems  to whom she was giving money away but all the stuff he was receiving was stolen by the mum (who is out of jail as you can see) subsequently, they went to trial which was won by Leighton Meester. To conclude and to make you bite your nails, we ought to say Leighton Meester had an affair with one of the secondary actors of the series, Sebastian Stan whose character was called Carter Baizen. Moreover, one of her favourites movies ever is Goodfellas by Martin Scorsese and she is to star a movie called The Judge. Lastly, we must announce Leighton Meester has just got married to actor Adam Brody.           

Leighton Meester Adam Brody
Leighton Meester Adam Brody
Leighton Meester Adam Brody
Leighton Meester and her newly husband Adam Brody

GOSSIP GIRL-TAYLOR MOMSEN.
Another great actress is Taylor Momsen, her character is a poor soul, widely laughed at on school because of her naivety and humble backgrounds, yet in real life she is a tough girl (or this is what we suppose) she designed clothes with Madonna and has a rock band called The Pretty Reckless, she dropped out of school very soon because she considered it was not longer interesting for her as she was going to triumph without formation. Likewise, she was on the verge of being on the show Hannah Montana but she lost against Miley Cyrus something that I have found peculiar seeing how at that time they were going to be nice, good girls and now they are pop idols who create plenty of controversy.


Taylor Momsen Gossip Girl
Taylor Momsen Gossip Girl 

Taylor Momsen The Pretty Reckless
Taylor Momsen The Pretty Reckless

Taylor Momsen is  now focused on her rock band whose image is provocative and her acting career is a little forgotten, the song Make me wanna die is a good chance to discover The Pretty Reckless

                              MAKE ME WANNA DIE THE PRETTY RECKLESS

It is fully surprising Taylor Momsen´s  image in real life as while on the television series  acts as a humble sweet little girl, a gal whose dream is to labour within the fashion industry but as she is not from Manhattan but from Brooklyn she cannot compete against the money and ego other girls possess, in real life though seems she is not afraid of anything. Indeed, it has been said Taylor Momsen had several problems with Gossip Girl fellow cast members because of her strong character. Talking of her family on Gossip Girl, her brother (Penn Badgley actor who appeared on the movie Margin Call and was also dating Blake Lively) with whom particularly I cannot stand (the character I mean) wants to become a writer and be a household name in New York City. Still, I even stand less her father, a somewhat Peter Pan who does not want to grow up and keeps following a musical career when it is long past. This family is the worst element of Gossip Girl albeit what I dislike is the family no her character so much as Taylor Momsen acts great. We should clarify that Taylor Momsen abandoned the television series in the Fourth Season because she wanted touring with her band The Pretty Reckless and even to those problems (if the rumour happens to be true) she created while shooting Gossip Girl.

BLAKE LIVELY-GOSSIP GIRL
Surprisingly, the most popular actress of Gossip Girl is Blake Lively, in my opinion she is not so great, I truly believe she is the worst of the four main actresses. I do not think she is a good actress at all, despite my belief, she is the most popular of all Gossip Girl actresses having worked with Oliver Stone and Ben Affleck (Savages, The Town).


Blake Lively
Blake Lively

She is married to the erstwhile Scarlett Johansson hubby, Ryan Reynolds to whom she fell in love whilst filming the movie Green Lantern.

                                        Blake Lively Ryan Reynolds
Blake Lively Ryan Reynolds

Blake Lively is a celebrity and a fashion icon, she tends to appear on several fashion campaigns, she is the image of Gucci for instance, she is very popular amongst youngsters and the American society, she even has a mighty cinematographic career something her Gossip Girl companions cannot assert. Indeed, she was chosen to star the recent movie Side Effects but in the end she was replaced by the great actress Rooney Mara.


Blake Lively
Blake Lively

Similarly, she has won some cinematographic awards thanks to her performance on Gossip Girl although they are youthful ones such as Teen Choices. She is an absolute celebrity in United States, something that should be surprising if we only see her acting skills, the last thing I heard of her is that she has decided to enter the literary sector, writing cookery books. Her character Serena Van der Woodsen has triumphed inside and outside the television series

JESSICA SZOHR -GOSSIP GIRL
Another good actress although much more secondary than the aforementioned is Jessica Szohr, her mixture of Hungarian looks and Somalis make her to own a special beauty and her acting skills are very positive, she acts as a modest girl with artistic aspirations.

                                             Jessica Szohor Gossip Girl
Jessica Szohor Gossip Girl

The problem came when after having dated one of the heavyweights of the television series Ed Westwick (Chuck Bass, idol of many men who want to be like him) in real life and having a tryst that torn the relationship, different characters of the television series behaved bad towards her and she abandoned Gossip Girl afterwards. I think the screenwriters (poor souls when they have to invent such strange stories to kill a character) made her to go to Barcelona to study albeit seems she is working now or at least she appears on the recent movie The Internship 


Jessica Szohr and Ed Westwick
                         Jessica Szohr and Ed Westwick Gossip Girl                                        

Due to different ups and downs that the cast suffered from and also because the television series is really focused on them, the two actresses and main characters and the only two female main stars who started and ended Gossip Girl were Leighton Meester and Blake Lively. Others came, yet they never substituted entirely Taylor Momsen and Jessica Szohr.


   Jessica Szohor and Ed Westwick  
Jessica Szohor and Ed Westwick Gossip Girl

Kaylee DeFer and Michelle Trachtenberg were other actresses who were relevant and somehow were the replacements for Jessica Szohr and Taylor Momsen as I did not see the television series entirely I cannot talk deeply about Kaylee De Fer. Michelle Tratcheberg appeared on several chapters of the first season, she is a correct actress, her character Georgina is a crazy girl who loves partying hard. By contrast, male actors of Gossip Girl are not so fabulous, the only one that I really love is Ed Westwick. Besides, he is British (from the famous Chelsea neighbourhood) and he adopted himself perfectly as you may think he is from New York. His character Chuck Bass is so relevant that he is beyond the mere television series, there are merchandising with many t-shirts exploiting his face and quotes, Chuck Bass is a funny character, the kind of man many dreamed of at night, he is from an important background, being wealthy he enjoys money and the power and ostentation his privileged family does own. His best friend is played by Chace Crawford whose different comings and goings with several female characters is one of the reason to start mistrusting the quality of Gossip Girl. These two male friends are very relevant within the plot of Gossip Girl. In fact, Chuck Bass with his adventures is who makes Gossip Girl be more than a battle between Serena and Blair and he gives the whole television series a deep significance.There are other secondary characters who are from the same main families although they do not deserved to be fully talked about a lot once you have discovered the main ones.

Gossip Girl male cast
              Gossip Girl male cast                     

Anyway, Gossip Girl is a portrait of teenagers who attend to a private School in the most expensive and posh part of Manhattan, New York City. In concordance, the success in economical and monetary terms, social life is extremely relevant for them and as you know you are not to live in such privileged neighbourhood you laugh with their stories and their particular heritage in the two first seasons of the series, leaving the rest for the most fanatics. Gossip Girl cast is very interesting, above all the feminine albeit we must advise nonetheless, one can fall in love with Blair Waldorf and the actress Leighton Meester.


Leighton Meester
Leighton Meester, by far, the best actress of Gossip Girl Leighton Meester Gossip Girl Gossip Girl