The Purge

Imagine a day where laws are relaxed to the point that murder is allowed. This is the basis of "The Purge".

"Oh my gah it's Ethan Hawke" - Peter Griffin, Family Guy.

The Purge

It's a very interesting concept, it got me thinking and also discussing what the consequences of an annual cull would mean. It would mean survival of the fittest for sure; natural elimination, more natural than postponing people's deaths when they are unfit and unwell, and would also mean that the human gene pool would be less diluted with weaker individuals.

It would also mean those that could afford private security personnel, or pay for military grade home protection, bunkers or panic rooms would have a better fighting chance of a fighting chance. It would unbalance all the good (if you could call the inhumane way of killing off our fellow man) that this purge allows.

There is a message that is broadcast on the annual day that states how the new founding fathers of America have reduced crime to 1% for some measured period of time, excluding the actual day of chaos. People in support of the day put a certain species of flower on their front lawn to show their support of the day.

Ethan Hawke is James Sandin, and he sells security systems to wealthy people. His own family have profited annually and show their wealth by having the biggest home in the neighbourhood of large homes. There is a hint of jealousy from his neighbours as they wish the Sandins a safe purge night.

The film is quite well put together; there are plot twists, introduction of characters like Zoey Sandin's (Adelaide Kane) boyfriend and a stranger trying to escape from hunters taking part in the purge. We see a development of the Sandin characters via their interaction with these mentioned characters, neighbours and, the enemy in the film, a crazed purge gang of well-educated youngsters.

There are well-placed jumpy scenes where the youngsters, who are dressed in Public school uniforms and creepy white dresses complete with face masks, just suddenly appear. They want something from the Sandins, and they either want it handed to them or they will take it from them with fatal force.

So it is a creepy film, with some genuinely disturbing content to think about, but this makes it an uneasy, but enjoyable watch.

Hawke has done some films of late that seem to poke the audience into thinking while they watch, which a lot of new films do not try as hard to do any more.

Kudos. Go Purge...

:-)

Elky

Iron Man Three

Iron Man times three-hundred.

Firstly I would like to hash tag #foreveralone. Not because I was the only one in the cinema (although this was the case for this 3D showing except for one couple), it's because I'm probably the only one to say this film is actually terrible for the Iron Man franchise.

Iron Man Three 3D

As a stand-alone film for a metallic man, I'm sure it would be considered great, but continuing on from the previous two which were so good this is really disappointing. The Iron Man is a mess, the villain is laughable and it all feels like a build up to an anti-climax. Maybe the Avengers introduced something too exciting for a continuation to live up to the hype, or maybe people got lazy, but apart from the production values which are fantastic, the film falls very short.

"I'm blue daba dee daba die". This was the opening to the film; it excited me to the prospect that opening with this level of awesome would continue throughout the film. My nineties inner-self was disappointed. A New Year's Eve party is a big bang to open with and sets up the film with characters that will be linked back to later on. But it's never really as exciting as party-mode Stark.

The penned villain of the film is the Mandarin. A terrorist who targets America and the West with attacks that incinerate people. I never found his character that interesting to be honest, until later on when a twist made him much more exciting.

A character by the name of Trevor was actually the highlight of the film for me. His leer was the toast of Croydon don't you know? Trevor's character was a welcome comedic entry to an otherwise dull story, but there was always an underlying feeling in me that his character would pan out the way it did even from the start of the film.

Other bad guy characters in the film have an okay power, but are again not very exciting and are seen a mile before they're even relevant to the story. A young kid (Ty Simpkins) that Stark befriends is another comedic character that adds more interesting aspects to the film than the actual story does. If his role was bigger, it would not have been a bad thing.

This is a film about the many Iron Man suits rather than the actual Iron Man. It's fantastic seeing all the different types of suit that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) has created, but I don't feel like this is what Iron Man is about. Stark is about quality, not quantity, and the suits feel really weak compared to what I believed they were capable of. Iron Man previously fought aliens, but Iron Men can't even fly straight.

You don't actually see much of Iron Man throughout most of the film. It's a very limited amount of time that you actually see Stark in the suit and feels like they're trying to kill off the films. You see Stark going through a mental breakdown of sorts and while Downey does a good job of making it believable, it means the majority of the film is about a normal man. If this was to be the case, maybe they should have called the film 'Tony Stark' instead.

I don't know if it was supposed to be a trilogy but this film made it feel like the Iron Man franchise should have stopped while it was on a high if this is what it was going to turn into. A okay film but no Iron Man sequel!

And if you know how marvel films end, there's usually a small clip at the end. It really wasn't worth hanging back to see. It isn't a hint at a new marvel film and it isn't really very funny. In fact it teases at what could be elsewhere with other Marvel characters.

Tony stark will return apparently, but if it's anything like this, why bother? Make a film about Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) instead!

:-)

Elky

Hairy Biker Brownie Bodge Bake

The weighing scale wasn't working properly. This meant when we tried to measure out our ingredients, we weren't really sure if having a barely-budging scale was a help or a hindrance.

My sister and I had seen 'The Hairy Bikers' on TV a week or two ago; they had made chocolate brownies. They looked delicious, and my sibling and I had talked about making them ever since. Today was the day we put the brownie where our mouth is. Where our mouths are. We ate brownies basically.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/bikers_chocolate_46736

We used 'The Hairy Bikers' recipe, as closely as we could. We had no fruit, but used a combination of dark and white chocolate, and walnuts. Melting butter was unexciting, as was measuring out ingredients; I left these jobs to my sister.

I dealt with manly things, like cracking eggs into a bowl and whisking them. I also whisked melted butter with (brown / Demerara) sugar before combining this with the beaten eggs. Then cocoa and flour was sieved and mixed into the sugary, buttery, caramel-egg liquid.

My arm still hurts. Never send a man to do a machine's job.

The "batter" got a nice helping of chunks of dark and white chocolate, as well as some chopped walnuts. We added these when the mix had cooled a bit so the chunks didn't go-to-goo before they hit the heat.

We parchment-papered a silicon baking square (it's not really a tin, and it's weirdly flexible) before tipping the mixture into the tray and putting it in the oven, making sure to set timers for 25 minutes.

The raw batter in the bowl tasted good.

When the buzzer beeped, I can't say I delayed in prodding the cake-like end-product eagerly. It needed another 7 minutes of cooking time before we took it out to cool, but there it was.

Brownie goodness. I don't know what 'The Hairy Bikers' brownies tasted like, but our attempt tasted very strongly of chocolate. There's a load of sugar, butter, and chocolate in this recipe so it definitely isn't low in fat, but that obviously isn't the point.

The square I had was so indulgent that I had to stop at one molten chocolate piece. I'm really looking forward to a cool, more solidified brownie tomorrow.

Bring on the breakfast brownie!

:-)

Elky

Curly Kale Crisps

All recipes state kale chips rather than crisps, but over here in Blighty we know them for what they do! They (are) crisp!

I read somewhere that kale was a new super-veg / leafy thing from the cabbage family sporting magical properties such as the same vitamin k content as 242 baby carrots and other similar super-facts which are actually accurate. I've been looking for more green in my diet for a while and was getting bored of the same old ways that I eat spinach or lettuce so this was a welcome new addition.

The first time I tried the it, I put a bit of olive oil in a pan and sweated off the kale until it was slightly wilted, and it was really quite enjoyable! This brings me to today. I've seen a bunch of recipes and videos on how to bake kale crisps that are as good as, if not better than, regular potato chips / crisps.

The problem with all of these recipes is that they start with whole kale leaves, which are then are ripped into bite-sized pieces. However, no matter how hard I look (my local supermarkets and markets), I cannot find it in this form. It is already pre-cut into thin strips, which is not ideal. But I tried it out anyway.

I started with my kale which I washed and drained in a colander. I then laid out half of my 200g packet on a tray with grease-proof paper / parchment paper and drizzled a bit of olive oil over the top. I also seasoned it with (too much) salt.

After 15 minutes in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius I nibbled on a few of the leaves and found them still ... leafy and hydrated; they hadn't crisped up yet, so I put them in for a bit longer. When I eventually took out the blackened, salty kale crisps, I was underwhelmed. It was like eating crispy seaweed, which is fine at a buffet but not something I go out of my way to find, make or eat.

Maybe it's because my batch was over-salted, or perhaps because the kale was thinly cut rather than in large crisp-shapes, but I don't think I'll be cooking kale this way again.

I will however be eating kale again. Two-hundred and something-or-other baby carrots-worth of vitamin-something? That's a big number, and I don't like carrots. Vitamin intake win!

:-)

Elky

Bacchus Belgian Cherry Beer

Oh cherry-flavoured everything. How sweet you are. I'm a die-hard Cherry Coke fan, in a can. I don't like the flavour that comes in a plastic bottle, and I'm yet to have found or tried a glass bottled Cherry Coke, but I digest (pun!)

This flavoured beer has the lovely essence of sweet cherries juxtaposed with the bitterness of beer. The balance is quite brilliant actually. It's surprising because beer usually has the ability of giving me a shudder depending on its bitterness, but not with this beer.

It comes in a lovely half-champagne, green glass bottle which is wrapped in a cherry themed paper. It really is something quite special.

The only thing I can pick on is its colour. It's on the darker side of brown / red. Like an off strawberry Ribena (I can't be the only one that's had it?). But I actually like the colour. And the taste. And the cool.

Cherry deliciousness!

:-)

Elky

Olympus Has Fallen

Gerard Butler is a buffed up spartan warrior who leads his men to victory / lots of death. Well that's how the film '300' works. 'Olympus Has Fallen' puts him in charge of the President of the United States of America's best men.

Olympus Has Fallen

Mike Banning's role is to protect the president, the First Lady and their son at any cost. He doesn't do this very well and at the start of the film he is demoted out of the team, and starts work at the treasury pushing papers, much to his dismay. We see it affect his relationship with his wife; he seems not to function without being out in the field.

As you may have guessed, stuff happens. Bad stuff. Banning happens to be in the (near enough) right place at the (near enough) right time. 'John McClane'- I mean Banning fights through hoards of baddies, who turn out to be North Koreans. Slightly edgy considering America and North Korea aren't the best of friends in the real world at the moment let alone the film one.

He fights through the floors of the 'Nakotomi Plaza'- I mean White House trying to get to the President (Aaron Eckhart) who is being held hostage. Banning's aim is to save him and the world (USA). Super clichéd awesomeness. I love 'Die Hard', so it is no bad thing that the two films are pretty similar plot progression-wise.

The taking of the White House is fantastically well-orchestrated and further control of various parts of the house are genius. Banning communicates with the head speaker and acting president, played by Morgan Freeman, through the president's sat-phone in a similar way to how 'John McClane' communicated with his cop-buddy on the outside of the building in the first 'Die hard'.

So many similarities including a rogue agent acting like a good guy similar to how 'Hans' did in the first 'Die Hard', awesome infiltration sequences, smart double crossing, and cool explosions. There are even humorous script pieces that made me laugh out loud, and had some overly Americanised members of the audience at the cinema applauding midway through the film (but not at the end strangely - USA! USA! USA!).

Is it fair to compare it to 'Die Hard' so much? Yes, yes it is. 'Die Hard' is a fantastic action film of the 80s/90s and stands it's ground to this day. Even the newest 'Die Hard' films haven't been able to come close to the brilliance of the originals. 'Olympus Has Fallen' has the core ingredients of a great action film with a typical storyline, but it does it so well!

Other possible titles they could have used:

'Olympus has been retaken!'

'Olympus does not Die Hard'

'John McClane-esque Gerard Butler's character kicks butt better than Bruce Willis did in 4 and 5 in funnier manner'

I still love 'Die Hard' and Bruce Willis, I only mock it for this reason. But 'Olympus Has Fallen' gives those action-film lovers what they've been wanting to see since after Die Hard 3 came out. Albeit without the white vest.

:-)

Elky

Dredd

"I am the law." The phrase you do not dread hearing from Dredd.

DREDD - You might start to.

Judge Dredd rebooted, or however else you might want to phrase it. Karl Urban is the judge, and he's back being the law and slightly above it, only this time with a female psy'd-kick. The rookie, Cassandra Anderson, played by Olivia Thirlby, has a mutant power where she can read and interact with peoples' minds. Awesome right?

Dredd is asked to look over Anderson in the field for a day, as she didn't quite pass all the necessary exams that she should have. Obviously Dredd is not too happy about the underachiever joining the elite force of judges that defend the Mega City.

I know that Judge Dredd comes from comic book land, and therefore I might be missing some very interesting references in places but, this film doesn't do much for a character that could be so cool. Silvester Stallone had a shot at being the judge before and like the newer Dredd, there's something lacking, somewhere.

The judges are locked down within the Megacity 1 building where Ma-ma (Lena Headey) runs the show. She is the brains behind a big narcotics production line and has a huge army of residents who would do her bidding, because she asks impolitely.

Most of the action takes place within the building, and there are some cool stylistic scenes when people use the 'Slow-Mo' drug to slooooooow eeeeeeeverything dooooooown. The weaponry is also futuristic, voice-activated and multi-functional which makes for some explosive fire-fights.

So there are elements in place to make it a good film, but it just isn't really. Dredd doesn't do much talking, Anderson seems too stiff as a character and there is nothing really that memorable that stands out. The endin especially feels a bit anti-climatic.

More action outside and on motorbikes next time?

:-)

Elky