Did you know all Manhattan College students have access to HBO Go? Yes, you read that right. By simply picking Manhattan College as the privider on play.hbogo.com., then logging in with your manhattan.edu email, a new set of movies, series and documentaries await for you. I’ve reviewed my personal picks below.
Game of Thrones
Of course GoT had to be included. Based on George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series, this series is a drama that brings you back to an earlier era. It’s about politics, family, dragons and war. Promising not to bore you, the series has dozens of characters representing the seven kingdoms of Westeros fighting for the Iron Throne with a supernatural outside force — an army of the dead — threatening to beat them all. Watch Game of Thrones for the romantic nature scenes, the mystic creatures, the complex storyline and the shocking plot twists. It’s more than just a show; it’s provocative, immersive, unpredictable and filled with sex and violence. Every episode feels like a whole different movie.
Sex and the City
The show is based on Candace Bushnell’s 1997 book of the same name. It follows the lives of four fabulous New York City women, as they talk about fashion, relationship drama and of course, sex. As a woman in New York, this groundbreaking series is essential viewing because of the way it changed the conversation about women and sex, even if the conversations are often times neutralized by materialism, self-absorption and lack of diversity in its narrative. “Sex and the City” is feminine entertainment at its finest, good for comparing the 1990s with the current era we live in, but awful in comparison of the complexity of women’s experiences nowadays.
Insecure
Derived from Issa Rae’s web series “Awkward Black Girl,” “Insecure” takes us through the romantic and career secrets of an insecure twenty-something black woman. It’s a relationship comedy with a unique, bold, honest and witty approach to her own, relatable experiences. The show also incorporates text messages onto the TV screen, resulting in feeling like watching something from the future.
Big Little Lies
Come for Laura Dern, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley, stay for the character’s female experiences as wives, mothers and depictions of conflict with the men in their lives. The show builds towards a grand climax. Every detail of the finale was carefully prepared for in earlier episodes. It is undeniably a show populated by one-percenters who live in mansions by the sea, but is still suspensefully intriguing. You won’t be able to stop watching only to see what happens next. Best of all: Meryl Streep is set to join the cast in the upcoming second season.