Celia

I just complete the entire season of Celia, the life and times of Celia Cruz on Netflix and I have to admit, I was very impressed with all the actors in the series. Wow! is all I can think of. Each character portrayal was done with gusto and exhausting dramatization of her story. Most impressive was the actress who played Lola Calvo. It's almost as though she studied to play that role for years. I never knew Celia's story, but it was a bittersweet and romantic one. If anything, it's climbing the charts as one of the most romantic true stories of our time. I rarely ever write reviews because life is so time consuming, but I had to make mention of this one. If they could make it in English for Americans to watch without the subtitles I'm sure that everyone would share the same thought. Excellent series. Excellent actors. Excellence! Excellence! Excellence!

PLEASE read the opening credits so that you will know this is NOT an actual biography of Celia Cruz? Even with this being said I am really enjoying the series, and it is getting more interesting as it moves along. Jeimy Osorio is doing a good job and I think Celia would be proud of her, the other cast members performances are extremely moving as well (Modesto Lacen as Pedro Knight, Carolina Gaitan as Lola Calvo,Brenda Hanst as Ana, Indhira Serrano as Mirelys, Luciano D'Alessandro as Alberto Blanco just to name a few). Even though it's NOT Celia's biography, the performances are good (some outstanding), but it would have been a little bit better to get Celia's still living husband's take on some of what's being presented (if he didn't have any that is). Feel sorry about her Mom and didn't know she (Celia) died without ever being able to go back to Cuba (according to Wikipedia). She really was one talented lady. Can't wait to see how this ends.

Some characters turned 45 or older and the others hardly aged. raquel's child was only about 6. pedro's kids were still in high school. the inconsistencies were distracting. the original cast, the younger versions of the characters, particularly carolina gaitan was more enjoyable to watch. good, convincing acting. the mature Lola overdid the fingers over the mouth gestures, like she had to make sure to do the thing that Lola does, all the time! would've given more stars if not for those inconsistencies. Loved the representation of Afro Latins, loved Celia and the bands, salsa, rumba, the rhythm and music ! that's a 10!

I am a big fan of Celia Cruz. I loved her. She was a unique world-class talent. I don't know where to start in listing the worst aspects of the telemundo series. But It may be helpful to start out by saying that, despite the fact, that they cast an excellent singer in the role, she rarely sang. I scanned through the ridiculous story line to find moments where she was actually singing. Not surprising they got the racial aspects all wrong for Cuba at the time. Celia was a black singer, singing an African based musical form they could've done so much to educate the audience about its origins and history. Despite the fact that Cuba has many people of mixed race at that time black people knew who they were and Sonora Mantancera was predominantly a black group. Almost all of the plot lines were ridiculous.But most egregious was the depiction of Pedro Knight as a horny buffoon. Shame on Telemundo!

I was really into this for the first 50+ episodes, as I thought the "young"/"original" versions of the key characters were great actors...and then they replace half of the characters and age them to their mid 40s, all in one episode. To make it more confusing, they keep some random people the same, and the storyline itself only passes about 2 years max...smh. And then you're stuck trying to decide whether to sit through the next 30 episodes because you just watched 50 of them...and be annoyed the whole time by the character change. Whyyy does this always happen in telenovelas? Am I missing something? Are makeup artists not in the budget??