Film Friday #132

Seven Psychopaths

Hard drinking screen writer, Marty (Colin Farrell) is best friends with actor Billy (Sam Rockwell), who desperately wants to help him write a new screenplay about psychopaths. As Billy isn’t a particularly good actor, he runs a scam on the side with Hans (Christopher Walken) where they kidnap people’s dogs and then collect the reward money. When Billy and Hans kidnap the beloved Shih Tzu of mob boss, Charlie (Woody Harrelson) they find themselves in over their heads, dragging Marty along with them. This oddball film starts well with some cracking dialogue between both the main and supporting characters but somewhere around the middle it hits a lull and sort of disappears up its own arse. I feel like Martin McDonagh might have let In Bruges  get to his head a bit, leading him to just put every scene he’s ever wanted to see on screen into Seven Psyschopaths, which is never a good thing. 2.5/5

What do you mean my dog doesn’t exactly scream master criminal?

Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

Inspired by both Into Darkness and Cinema Parrot Disco, I decided to check out some classic Trek movieage this week. In the second big screen outing, Kirk (William Shatner) comes up against his former nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) a genetically engineered superhuman hell bent on exacting revenge against the man who defeated him. Trapped in a seemingly unwinnable situation, the crew of the Enterprise must work together to stop Khan from unleashing a devastating weapon known as Genesis. Of course the best thing about this iconic science fiction adventure is the interaction between Kirk and Spock (Leonard Nimoy), whose close connection is ultimately far more powerful than any of Star Fleet’s impressive fire power. While the special effects haven’t aged well and the acting can be a little hammy, Wrath of Khan is a lot of fun and deserves its legendary status amongst Trekkers. 3.5/5

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

Total Recall (2012)

In this reboot of the early 90’s classic, factory worker Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell) lives on the colony, one of earth’s last outposts, travelling through the earth daily to work. When he drunkenly decides to visit Recall, a service where false memories of exciting adventures are implanted in your brain, Doug discovers that he may not be who he thinks he is. Suddenly he is thrust into a real life adventure featuring a woman (Jessica Biel) who has been appearing in his dreams. The charm of the original Total Recall featuring, of course, Arnie, is that it’s got a bit of a sense of humour. This version is deadly serious and consequently although it looks fabulous, it’s also deadly dull. Once the seemingly interminable final action sequence kicks in if you’re not a diehard action fan it all becomes a bit tedious and samey. You’re probably better off watching the original in all its three-boobed glory! 2/5

Are you sure this hat isn’t just a bit too much?

Four Brothers

After a pillar of the community (Fionnula Flanagan) is killed during a convenience store robbery, her four adoptive sons (Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson, Andre Benjamin, Garrett Hedlund) come together to investigate her death. Soon they realise that there is more to her death than meets the eye and they are pitted not only against the local gangs and police but also potentially each other. I’m not quite sure what to make of this one. In some ways the idea of four brothers avenging their mother’s death is kind of cool but with such lame dialogue and a level of murder and mayhem that would surely be noticed by some kind of authorities, it doesn’t really work. At one point, Jen (who was watching it with me) and I thought a better title might have been “ain’t nobody got time for that!” Maybe they should have had Garrett Hedlund be shirtless. That makes everything better. 2/5

Dear lord, please may this not be the last film in my acting career

Film Friday #131

Star Trek: Into Darkness

After Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) is killed during a terrorist attack, Kirk (Chris Pine) must lead the crew of the Enterprise on a daring mission to track down the perpetrator (Benedict Cumberbatch). Armed with a cargo of mysterious long-range missiles they head for the hostile Klingon home planet, Kronos. Soon Kirk realises that he and his crew are being manipulated and the only person who might be able to help him save The Enterprise is exactly the person he’s been sent to stop. The latest instalment in the iconic Star Trek franchise is action-packed, absorbing and looks absolutely spectacular on screen. It’s worth watching for the interaction between Kirk and Spock (Zachary Quinto alone), with one moment in particular bringing my Trekkie husband to tears. Bless. Add in action Cumberbatch, who is surprisingly sexy even while playing pure bad, and you’re onto a winner. Unfortunately there is no escaping the fact that Chris Pine is no more than a fair to middling actor with a passing resemblance to William Shatner. He just doesn’t quite have the chops to carry off something quite so epic. 3.5/5

This is not the luxury full-body massage I paid for

The Black Dahlia

It’s 1946 and cops, Dwight ‘Bucky’ Bleichert (Josh Harnett) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhard) are brought together for a boxing match in order to raise the profile of their police department. The two become firm friends and partners, taking on the high profile case of a young murder victim known as the Black Dahlia. It doesn’t take long for the case to start to affect their personal lives, while dredging up old grudges from the past. I have to admit that I found this attempt at a vintage noir clumsy and difficult to follow. There are so many subplots on the go at once that it involves a monk-like level of concentration that I just couldn’t be bothered to muster. I also found the heavy handed lesbian storyline exploitative without adding anything. 1/5

Cause of death: boredom by subplot

A Dangerous Method

At the birth of psychoanalysis, psychiatrists Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) are at the forefront of the new movement. As the two develop an intense and sometimes explosive relationship, Jung tries to balance the rigors of family life with his intense attraction to a patient (Keira Knightley), who enjoys a bit of recreational spanking. I rather enjoyed the beginning of this film and found that Knightley was a lot less annoying than usual and pretty good at playing insane. Goodness knows what was happening with the accents though. Towards the middle it started losing its way and by the end I was bored and just wondering what the whole point was. It can’t just have been Fassbender putting a corseted Knightley over his knee… surely… 2.5/5

Mike had just broken the news to Keira that she’d won a date with Nigel Farage

Kaboom

After attending a party strange things start happening around college student, Smith (Thomas Dekker). He is blacking out, being followed by shadowy figures in animal masks and also oddly sleeping with pretty much everyone he encounters. As things get weirder and weirder he realises that the father he believed was dead might not be so dead after all and that he might also have super natural powers. This is an absolutely bonkers film that makes next to no sense. It seems like writer/director, Gregg Araki, just wanted an excuse to write up a bad acid trip and show loads of beautiful young people getting it on with each other. A theory further supported by the fact that it ends abruptly, seemingly at the point where Araki wrote himself into a corner and gave up. I have to admit though that I found myself weirdly sucked in so I can’t write it off completely. Also if there are any Secret Circle fangirls out there (highly unlikely since it never got past a the first season) they might enjoy watching Dekker lust after his onscreen roommate and Secret Circle cast mate, Chris Zylka. I imagine reams of slash being written. 1.5/5

It’s Keira Knightley. She says she’s been kidnapped by Nigel Farage

See you all in a week

Mr Osbiston and I are heading to Vilnius in Lithuania for a week tomorrow. So there will be no bloggage next week… well apart from Film Friday, which I have lovingly prepared in advance so keep your eyes open for my review of Star Trek Into Darkness. Try not to miss me too much!

Film Friday #130

The Place Beyond The Pines

When daredevil travelling motorcyclist, Luke (Ryan Gosling) returns to Schenectady he discovers that his former lover (Eva Mendes) has given birth to his son without telling him. Determined to be a better father than his own was, Luke decides to stay and provide for his family but with limited marketable skills he resorts to robbing banks. This thrusts him directly into the path of Avery (Bradley Cooper) an ambitious cop trying to escape the shadow of his Supreme Judge father (Harris Yulin), who also coincidentally has a baby son. As these two young fathers cross paths they set off a series of events that will stretch forward over years to come, with devastating consequences for their sons. This is an engrossing, beautifully acted film but I’m not sure I was always convinced by the characters motivations, particularly Luke’s teenage son, Jason’s (Dane DeHaan) rapid personality meltdown. And if the overarching message was that nature triumphs nurture and all boys turn into their fathers, I’m not sure I agree with that either. I think for me it suffered from being over-hyped. I expected an absolute masterpiece and got something solid but ultimately underwhelming. 3.5/5

Hey, girl… I know my beauty is blinding. Just look away and everything will be fine.

Storage 24

On the day that Charlie (Noel Clarke) is going to meet his ex, Shelley (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) in their underground storage unit to divide up their stuff, a military plane crashes and loses its highly classified contents. Soon Charlie, Shelley and their friends are trapped in the storage facility being hunted by a scaly alien monster intent on chowing down on their faces. Will the two star crossed lovers resolve their issues before one of them becomes lunch? Eh… who cares? The acting is a bit wonky, the dialogue is hackneyed at best and although it succeeds somewhat in creating a claustrophobic atmosphere, the monster isn’t really that scary and soon if you haven’t dozed off, you’ll be gunning for everyone just to be eaten and be done with it. Hopefully sometime soon Noel Clarke will realise he doesn’t have to be in every film he writes. 1.5/5

Somehow Charlie had thought the hand of fate would be a little less… scaly

Mean Creek

When Sam (Rory Culkin) is beaten up by the school bully, George (Josh Peck) his older brother, Rocky (Trevor Morgan) and some friends plot revenge. They will lure George into the woods and play a humiliating trick on him to teach him a lesson. Unsurprisingly things get out of hand with terrible consequences. This is a relatively predictable story but also impressively nuanced. The bully is not a caricature or a monster and every one of the young characters is in some way the victim of a bully themselves  - demonstrating a seemingly inescapable vicious cycle. It’s an unsettling watch that will make you constantly wish you could intervene to stop the inevitable from happening. 3.5/5

Look I’m robbing you… but at least I am conflicted about it

Welcome to the Rileys

After the death of their daughter, married couple Doug (James Gandolfini) and Lois (Melissa Riley) are trapped in their grief. Lois is unable to the leave the house and Doug has lost all passion for his business… and Lois. When Doug meets a young runaway stripper called Alison (Kristen Stewart) on a business trip he feels compelled to stay and take care of her, spurring Lois into action. This is a fascinating and very look into the mechanics of grief and the affect it can have on both an individual and a relationship. Kirsten Stewart does well to commit to a role that requires her to look like a crack whore but then I suppose she had some practise in Breaking Dawn. This indie drama is not without flaws but it has a strong heart. 3/5

There was nothing Edward liked better than stripper night in the Cullen house

Things I have been cooking lately #33: Grilled asparagus and courgette salad with haloumi, semi-dried tomatoes and basil oil

As the weather warms up, I am finding myself craving salads more and more for dinner. I am not much of a leaf eater though. The best way to put me off a salad is by putting in piles and piles of leaves, which is why I love this hearty salad, which made a great main meal for Paul. I and it packs both a flavour and colour, which is precisely what a spring salad should do.

Grilled asparagus and courgette salad with haloumi, semi-dried tomatoes and basil oil
Adapted from cooksister.com, originally a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe

350g cherry tomatoes, halved
24 asparagus spears
2 large courgettes
250g haloumi, sliced into 0.5mm thick slices
A large handful of rocket
Olive oil
Black pepper
Sea Salt
A little flour

For the basil oil
60ml olive oil
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
25g fresh basil leaves
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
Pinch of salt
Pinch of black pepper

Preheat your oven to 170 C (160 C for a fan oven). Toss the cherry tomatoes in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and season with a good whack of salt and pepper. Spread the tomatoes out skin side down on a baking tray lined with baking parchment paper. Bake in the centre of the oven for 50 minutes.

In the meantime, bring a large pan of water to the boil. Trim the hard woody ends off the asparagus and add them to the boiling water. Boil for 4 minutes. Then drain the asparagus and put them in a bowl of cold water. Drain and repeat until the asparagus spears are cold. Toss the asparagus spears in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and season with a good pinch of salt and pepper. Set aside.

Cut the ends off the courgettes and slice very thinly using a vegetable peeler or mandolin. Toss the slices in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and season with a good pinch of salt and pepper.

Now grill the asparagus spears and courgette slices. You can either do this using a hot griddle pan on the stove top, or like I did it, using a George Foreman grill or similar. Either way you want to grill the veggies until they are just tender and have those sexy grill marks on them. No more than 2 or 3 minutes at a time.  If you are going to use a pan I would suggest adding a little oil to it to make sure things don’t stick. Set aside the veg to cool a little.

Lightly dust the haloumi slices in flour and grill for 2 minutes on each side in your griddle plan or on the George Foreman.  Set aside to cool a little.

To make the basil oil, put all the ingredients in a blender and whizz until smooth.

Arrange the rocket leaves in the bottom of a large salad bowl or platter. Arrange the remaining veg and haloumi over the top. Drizzle with basil oil

Serves 2 – 3 as a main course or 4 -6 as a side.

Film Friday #129

Iron Man 3

In this third (and possibly final) chapter in the Iron Man trilogy, we find Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) tortured and sleepless after his recent battle with aliens. With all his energy focused on making new and better suits, his relationship with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) is suffering along with his mental state. When a new villain in the form of terrorist The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) takes responsibility for a series of mysterious explosions, one of which has almost killed Pepper’s bodyguard (Jon Favreau), Tony makes an angry threat that results in the destruction of his mansion and most of his equipment. Forced to go to ground, he employs the help of a small boy (Ty Simpkins) to rebuild the one suit he has left. At the same time Pepper comes under threat when she rejects the potentially unethical plan of a former colleague (Guy Pearce) to rewire people’s DNA in a way that makes them “better”. Could these two things be connected? Well… duh! I am somewhat agnostic about superhero movies. Some are great some are absolute tosh. This one is somewhere between the two. The middle third drags rather a lot and while it is nice to see more of “Tony the man” than “Tony the suit”, the best part of this film is the ass-kicking final third. Whether you enjoy this or not will probably come down to how much you believe in the cult of Tony Stark. If you love the character, you will love this. If you’re less bothered about him then you’ll probably find this much as I did… a middle range superhero movie with some fun bits. One this I will say though is don’t bother to see it in 3D, there is no point, the adaptation is barely even noticeable. 3/5

Oh Iron Man, what a big slit you have!

Silver Linings Playbook

Shortly after Patrick (Bradley Cooper) is released from a court ordered stint in a mental institution he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a widow who has been dealing with her grief by sleeping with everyone she meets. As both of these damaged individuals lack any kind of social filter, the meeting is explosive but it doesn’t take them long to form a fragile friendship and for Tiffany to convince Patrick to enter a dance competition with her. Patrick sees this as a way to convince his estranged wife, Nikki (Brea Bee) that he is a changed man, while Tiffany sees it as a way to connect with a potential kindred spirit. It’s a relatively odd yet simple plot but the joy in this film is more in watching how two very strange individuals fit together so perfectly – it kind of made me think of Harold and Maude. The other interesting thing is coming to the realisation that everyone around Patrick and Tiffany is more than a little crazy themselves. Sweet, funny and more than a little weird this is an excellent vehicle for both Lawrence and Cooper’s not insubstantial acting talents. 4/5

look, ignore the garbage bag, I AM your postman!

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

After scientist Will Rodman’s (James Franco) research into an Alzheimer’s cure is shut down, he takes matters into his own hands by sneaking home the baby of one of his chimpanzee test subjects, who he names Caesar (Andy Serkis). Caesar’s mental development is beyond anything could have imagined and he becomes like a son to him and a grandson to his Alzheimer’s afflicted father, Charles (John Lithgow). But when Charles is threatened and Caesar loses his temper, he is locked in an ape sanctuary tormented by his sadistic keeper (Tom Felton) and unable to understand why his “dad” won’t get him out. Soon Caesar realises he is not like humans but not like other apes either and must decide who he really is, with devastating consequences. I expected to absolutely hate this, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the story engrossing. It has some pretty big plot holes but I think it got a bad rap at the time of its release. The star of the show is indubitably Serkis, who has a true gift for performance capture roles and manages to be recognisable despite not being visible. Worth a watch. 3/5

We have got to stop monkeying around like this

Swinging with the Finkels

London couple Alvin (Martin Freeman) and Ellie (Mandy Moore) Finkel have been together for nine years and the excitement has gone out of their relationship. Mostly because they are a pair of useless tits. They come across the genius idea of trying swinging to spice things up but their one foray into partner swapping leads to even more “weirdness” between them and Alvin moves out. But is the grass really greener on the other side? I have to admit that I picked this film of my Sky On Demand because it was only 85 minutes long and I was running out of time to get through four films for this blog. I almost instantly regretted my decision. It was one of the longest 85 minutes of my life. If the major talking point of a film is whether Mandy Moore removed the plastic covering of a cucumber before magically seeming to come to orgasm simply by shoving into her vijayjay along with whether you’d bring pajamas to a swinger’s party, something has gone wrong. This film manages to be crass, vulgar, cheesy and completely unfunny all in one go. It’s so full of first world problems that it makes you want to punch all of its smug, W1 living characters in the face. Avoid at all costs. 0/5

Bilbo couldn’t help wondering what would happen when the manicurist saw his giant hobbit feet

Things I have been cooking lately #32: Carrot cake with maple cream cheese icing

I used to have this amazing carrot cake recipe a few years ago. It was everything a carrot cake should be – moist, spicy, light… except that somewhere in one of my many moves, I lost it. Bereft and somewhat annoyed with myself for not writing it down, I haven’t made a carrot cake in ages. But after we accidentally ended up with a surplus of carrots, I decided to take the plunge and find a new recipe. This is the result. I think it is every bit as good as the original but why not try it out and see for yourself.

Carrot cake with maple cream cheese icing

Adapted from Rasa Malaysia

2 Cups flour
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 Cup golden caster sugar
1 Cup soft light-brown sugar
1 Cup grape seed oil
1 240g can pineapple slices in juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
3 Cups peeled, grated carrots (5 -10 carrots depending on size)
2 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
Large handful of pumpkin seeds
½ Cup raisins or sultanas

Icing

500g full fat cream cheese
110g butter
2 Cups of icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ Maple syrup

Turn your oven on to 100 C. Put your pumpkin seeds on a baking tray and pop them onto the top shelf of the oven while you grate your carrots. I use pumpkin seeds because I am allergic to nuts and I think they made a great substitute but feel free to use roughly chopped pecans or walnuts if you prefer.

Now grate your carrots. I suggest using the finer side of a box grater and doing it by hand. This will ensure that you get a light and fine textured cake. If you use the thicker side of a box grater or a food processor it can get a bit chunky.

Take the pumpkin seeds out of the oven. Return the shelf to the middle of the oven and turn the temperature up to 180 C (or 170 for a fan oven).

In a medium sized bowl stir together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ground ginger.

Put the pineapple slices in your blender with a couple of tablespoons of their liquid and blend until pureed.

In a separate large bowl whisk together pineapple pure, sugars and oil until well blended. Add in the eggs one at a time. Now stir in the flour mixture until just blended. Add in the vanilla, carrots, fresh ginger, pumpkin seeds and raisins.

Lightly grease and line three 20cm layer cake tins. Divide your batter evenly between them. Bake in the middle shelf of the oven for 25 – 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin for five minutes before removing from the tin and allowing to cool completely on a cooling tray.

Making cream cheese icing can be very tricky and it easily turns to gloop so be careful. First cream together the butter and cream cheese together until mixed together. Always use full fat cream cheese or it will destabilise. Add the maple syrup, vanilla and cinnamon. Now add the icing sugar half a cup at a time. As soon as it starts to get a little runny stop and do not add any more sugar. You want something runnier than a buttercream but not so runny it slides off the cake. Put your icing in the fridge for at least an hour before icing the cake to help it keep its shape.

Once your cakes are completely cold, spread each layer with icing and sandwich them together before covering the entire cake with the remaining icing.

Store the cake in the fridge in order to keep the icing stable. This cake refrigerates and keeps well for 3 – 4 days.