Split review

January 27, 2017January 24, 2017Leave a comment

This past weekend we went to see Split. I have been waiting for this movie for a while now. I’m a huge fan of James McAvoy and especially like his movies with a psychological undertone. I’ve seen Filth, which was a bit depressing, and absolutely loved Trance.

Image source www.movienewsguide.com

This review contains spoilers.

The movie is about a man named Kevin Wendell Crumb. As a child he had an abusive mother and this caused the young boy to develop 23 distinct personalities. In the movie we are only introduced to 8 of the 23 personalities. McAvoy does an amazing job in portraying all of these personalities. In the movie there is a scene where, faced with the death of Kevin, all the personalities takes a turn in the “light” within a matter of minutes, each with their own manner of speaking, voice, gestures, reported age and physical features, for example Dennis, a big bulky guy is strong and can carry a girl around like she’s nothing while Hedwig, a 10 year old boy personality can’t even push a door open while the girls push it closed. Here McAvay was just brilliant. Its movies like this that shows just how versatile an actor can be.

I’ve always thought that its amazing that a person could split their personalities, I know that its because of trauma that this disassociation happens but its still amazing to think that our minds can help protect us by developing different and sometimes stronger personalities.

In Split, Kevin has more docile personalities and then he has what the other personalities call “The Horde” which consists of the more dangerous/volatile personalities that Kevin possesses. These are the personalities that are more bad-ass, so to speak. For example, Dennis is a perfectionist, that came to the fore when Kevin was just 8 years old. Kevin’s mother was abusive but if everything stayed clean then she would punish Kevin less, therefore the perfectionist Dennis was a real saviour in this situation.

Overall the movie focused on how one personality may have a physical illness etc while the others had not, it also refers to a study found in 2015 of a blind women who lost her sight after a traumatic event in her 20’s that suddenly regained her eyesight in 8 out of her 10 personalities. According to the study the women’s brain scans showed that her sight spontaneously recovered. Source www.medicaldaily.com The movie therefore focused on the assumption that if a personality believes something to be true it could happen. For example Jade, one of Kevin’s personalities, had diabetes while the others did not, even though they all live within one person.

The 24th personality the trailer talks about is called THE BEAST by the others, according to Dennis’s description of THE BEAST, he is much bigger than all the other personalities, he has long fingers that enables him to climb walls like a spider and his skin is impenetrable, he also feeds on young girls…EEEEK. When the Beast finally makes his appearance all these unbelievable characteristics are in fact true.

I really loved the movie although I thought that it dragged on a bit long before reaching the climax.

What did you think of this film?

Vampire inspired food ideas

January 26, 2017January 24, 20174 Comments

This week has been so much fun preparing so far. Today we can put together all the foods for our Vampire Valentines dinner. It will include some lovely tomato soup,some medium to raw steak with a cherry wine sauce and red velvet brownies. Also don’t forget your Vampire Blood cocktail

I’ve tried to use foods with shades of red because vampires when I think of vampires I always think of red and blacks.

Tomato soup

I’ve used my homemade soup recipe for this meal.

Steak and sauce

Red wine and cherry sauce

1tbs honey
2 tbs sugar
1 cup pitted cherries
1 cup red wine

Heat the honey in a pan on a low heat, add the cherries then add the sugar. Let it simmer until the sugar has disolved. Add the wine and bring to a simmer. This sauce is great to add to steak. You can even cook the steak or pieces of beef in this sauce for a lovely bold wine infused taste.

I’ve chosen steak because vampires would probably be more into meaty dishes than vegetables…. you can cook the steak the way you prefer, but I made mine extra raw for visuals.

Red Velvet and Oreo truffle brownies.

Red velvet brownies. To keep things simple for the brownies I used a red velvet mug recipe as it reduces the baking time especially since Valentines day is on a week day this year and you might not have a lot of time to prepare your meal.

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INGREDIENTS

3 tbsp buttermilk
1½ tbsp vegetable oil
red gel food colouring
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
pinch salt
4 tbsp self-raising flour, see notes

Truffle topping

4 Oreo cookies
1 tablespoon cream cheese
100g melting chocolate

Mix all the wet ingredients together. Then and the sugar cocoa and salt. Whisk mixture together. Fold in the self-raising flour. Grease a square (5×3 1/2 inc) microwave proof container. Microwave at high for 1-1/12 minutes.

Crush the Orea cookies and melt the cream cheese in the microwave (1/2 minute). Mix the cookies and cream cheese together and scoop onto the red velvet cake. You will have to help the mixture along with your finger. Top with melted chocolate and cool in the fridge for about 30 minutes. It could also be served warm.

….and there it is, your vampire inspired Valentines dinner.

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Vampy Valentines Lingerie

January 24, 2017January 22, 20172 Comments

In lieu of the vampire theme for Valentines day, you have to FEEL like a vampire and what better way to achieve this than in what we wear.

My father once told me that the devil won’t be ugly, he’ll hide in the most attractive of people. This reminds me of the spell that Dracula use to have over women. Therefore being vampy does not only include looking like a vamp but also having a certain charm over people.

For my vampire lingerie and accessories I have chosen a few things that would be classy and not just vampy. In other words we’ll leave Halloween for Halloween.

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All these items are from Etsy and you can find other really nice ideas for a Vampy Valentines on there too.

P.S.I’m not affiliated with Etsy, but I really like the site 😀

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Valentines day ideas – Vampires

January 23, 2017January 10, 2017Leave a comment

I learned long ago that it is important for your relationship to celebrate the small things. Even if you don’t go all out its important to find little moments in life to celebrate and appreciate your partner. Valentines day may be over rated but it is definitely one of those days where you can show your partner how much you love them. It doesn’t mean you have to spend thousands of dollars to prove your love but rather spending time and putting effort into your relationship. Personally I’ve never loved Valentines day. In fact during my school years I dreaded it because I never got anything from any of the boys.

When I started dating it was a mission to buy presents because they always had simple gifts in store that my boyfriend never really liked. A few years ago however I made him a nice home cooked dinner that we ate on our porch and it was more romantic than anything else I could buy him. This year I’ve decided to theme-up my valentines dinner so for the following 3 weeks I’ll share some of my valentines ideas with you, with a different theme each week.

This weeks theme will be Vampires, not any specific genre of vampire but just vampires in general. Now bare in mind, vampires don’t eat anything other than drinking blood, but we’re still human and this is only a theme :p

For today we’ll be making a Vampire inspired drink. I have an alcoholic and non-alcoholic version.

INGREDIENTS ( 1 serving)

80 ml coconut water
2 tablespoons chocolate syrup
1/2 cup (125 gram) cherry pie filling (check below for substitute)
red food dye
1 drop yellow food dye
Pinch of salt (optional but its pretty sweet so the salt helps to reduce the sweetness)
1 cup red semi sweet red wine ( for the alcoholic version)

METHOD

Mix everything together in a food processor and serve. You could even heat it up

Instead of cherry pie filling you can make your own but its very sweet. Take a cup of fresh cherries pitted. In a pan boil 2 tablespoons honey with 4 tablespoons sugar over a low heat. Add the cherries and stir. Cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes until the cherries are nice and soft. Use same measurements as described above.

Notes: for the alcoholic version of this recipe you can mix 2 tablespoons of the mixture to 1 cup of red wine, mix well and serve.

I really hope you like this idea 🙂

Assassin’s Creed-Review

January 20, 2017January 16, 2017Leave a comment

This weekend we went to see Assassins Creed, its the second time I’ve watched this movie. The idea was to take my dad to the movie to watch Rogue One but it was no longer showing at the cinema so we watched Assassins Creed instead.

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Image from IMBD at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2094766/mediaviewer/rm4179232512

Spoiler alert

I have to say that the movie was really cool. The musical score in the movie was amazing. It made it really exiting to watch. In addition the fight sequences were amazing. I also loved the clothes in the movie and think that they put a lot of effort into little details.

When I watched the movie the first time I thought that the ending was really blunt and felt like they should have drawn out the ending a bit more or put a longer fight sequence into the climax of the movie. But after watching it a second time I decided that ‘they are assassins’ the ending was then suitable because he was so silent that no one even saw him coming. In that respect it felt suitable.

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Image from IMDB at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2094766/mediaviewer/rm4179232512

Although the fighting style was really amazing the stance the Cal Lynch sometimes assumed left all his most vulnerable parts, his chest and throat, vulnerable to attack so in reality it would not have been something that would keep him alive unless all his enemies were rendered motionless. All in all though I really enjoyed the movie and found it a refreshing idea.

What did you think of it?

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