Nothing Better Than Bush Food And A Movie

I love Callaloo. Anybody who doesn't like Callaloo is an idiot. You know what I like about Callaloo, you can practically just put any kind of greens in it and it will ultimately taste like the best bush food you have ever eaten.
Don't bash my way of cooking, it is all about the taste.




You can also use it as a way to describe how I live my life. I partake in any and everything at least once, and I also put this type of thinking into what type of movies or tv shows I watch. I am a movie freak. Ask my cousins, their nick name for me was TV FREAK back in the day. Yeah they weren't very creative.
Multi-cultural shows are the best. People tend to drift towards the Asian aspects of shows sometimes and I just noticed that the Indian Media Market is booming these days with foreigners. Personally I can't stand it, every 5 minute of the show they practically show you every pore on the actors face with the amount of face shots they do. Over and over again. 30 minutes of face shots 30 minutes of really really bad acting.

But to each his own so, today I am going to be blogging about the different types of tv shows or movies I have watched over the years that have caught my eye and enjoyed.

 First up is Sarafina. This was my very first taste of a musical actually, back in the day. TV 6 was showing it sometime around one of our many many holidays and I was hooked.

"The plot centers on students involved in the Soweto Riots, in opposition to the implementation of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools. The character Sarafina (Leleti Khumalo) feels shame at her mother's (Miriam Makeba) acceptance of her role as domestic servant in a white household in apartheid South Africa, and inspires her peers to rise up in protest, especially after her inspirational teacher, Mary Masombuka (Whoopi Goldberg) is imprisoned."

This was released in 1992 in South Africa and was well received and personally I would categorize it as Whoopi's best work like ever, well after The Color Purple that is.

Ok so second on the list we have Vampire High. This is Canadian TV show I happened upon on one of my Friday nights raiding of the refrigerator and binge eating in front of the laptop.
The series made its debut on January 7th, 2002 in the USA and kind of disappeared after that. You have to watch it to understand. Now it isn't bad or anything it's just not this generations cup of tea.
When I started it it was just something to get me to sleep but as I went from episode to episode I kept having this nagging feeling that it reminded me of something then BAM! When Drew gave me a close up of those side burns

 and looked into the camera I had just about choked on my brothers cake he was trying to hide in the fridge. It was like watching a broken down version of Twilight. Just about made my night.
I have come to notice that Canadians have a thing for vampire shows, but I would categorize this as one of their most interesting.

"The opening title sequence featured Murdoch narrating the brief history of the experiment - "When The Great Eclipse plunged the world into darkness, the vampire race erupted in a civil war. The bloodthirsty 'Fury' battled the enlightened Elders for domination of the undead. In desperation, the Elders gathered up those young vampires that could be saved and entrusted them to me. To humanize them, to tame their instincts and teach them how to live among mortals."

Mansbridge Academy is a private boarding school, the last stop for troubled rich kids. The parents, not knowing what to do with the teens leave them at the secluded boarding school hoping for some resolution. But the main focus of the series is the school at night... five vampires; Drew, Karl, Essie, Marty and Merrill are also students at the school trying to become more civilized, from the instruction of Murdoch, the head teacher of Mansbridge Academy. Sent to the school by their Elders, the vampires try to come to terms with the problems that occur.

When we begin at the start of the series, we are introduced to Sherry, a mortal female who feels lost and lonely in life. Not only does she crave love but she needs it to survive but can only seek comfort in her best friend Mimi. Knowing her boyfriend Nick is not the person she is destined to be with Sherry spends her time working, thinking and recording her thoughts on a Dictaphone.

As night falls we are introduced to many vampire characters. Karl, the sporty, troublesome teen and the youngest of the vampires who yearns to return to his life as a human; meek Merrill who is smart and wants to do well, and dreams of making Drew her soulmate; popular and beautiful Essie, a royal by birth, hides her emotions behind a vain and fashionable exterior; bad boy Marty who only joined the experiment for the endless supply of free blood; and Drew, a dark and mysterious vampire who falls in love with the mortal student, Sherry."

Third on the list we have First Love also known as A Crazy Thing Called Love. A Taiwanese Movie that I have watched a total of six times. It was beautifully done and simply made because Taiwanese movies arn't known to be very compelling since they all act like they are on drugs half the time and the female actors have some high ass voices. But this movie really depicted what a first crush can turn into first love and then only love for some people and how it affects their lives and their inspirations.

A 2010 Thai Romantic Comedy film and also a 2011 sleeper hit film starring Mario Maurer and Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul. It took approximately 4 years to complete because they didn't want to change the actress who played the young girl Nam so they waited and groomed her to become a 'flower' and continue to do the older version of the character Nam. Dedication I tell you.

Fourth on the list is none other than Dance Hall Queen. A Jamaican Movie that came out in 1997.

"Marcia (Audrey Reid) green is a single mom and street vendor barely scraping by even with a financial assist from the seemingly avuncular Larry (Carl Davis), a gun-toting strongman with a twisted desire for Marcia's teenage daughter who then decides to pursue her, Tanya (Cherine Anderson). Complicating things is Priest (Paul Campbell), a murderous hood who killed Marcia's friend and now is terrorizing the defenseless woman. Facing three big problems—Larry, Priest, and a lack of money---Marcia arrives at an inspired solution: develop an alter ego, a dancing celebrity called the Mystery Lady who can compete in a cash-prize contest and put both of the men against one another. Which is exactly what she does, and it's great fun watching Marcia instigate her complicated plan with a little help from sympathetic friends."

I am not a lover of anything the Jamaican's bring out in the media, mainly because everything is so repetitive. But this movie made me laugh. The characters behaved like the roles they were playing were really their everyday life, not just something the woke up and started to read from a page.
They also touched on a few things that seem to be a norm in the households of single mothers whose sole worry is money first and their children second.

Last but not least we have I saw the Devil. Now don't let the name fool you there wasn't any satanic rituals or other hoopla just a simple man with a simple need for revenge.

I Saw the Devil (Hangul: 악마를 보았다; RR: Angmareul boatda) is a 2010 South Korean psychological thriller/horror film directed by Kim Ji-woon, written by Park Hoon-jung, and starring Choi Min-sik and Lee Byung-hun.

The film introduces the character of NIS agent Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun), who embarks on a quest of revenge when his fiancée is brutally murdered by a psychopathic murderer, Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik). The line between good and evil begin to blur when the two play a dangerous game of cat and mouse.

I stumbled upon this one while going through my fathers pile of CD's. I mean the man hoards the stuff. I had just taken like four pain relievers and was walking on sunshine when I watched it so I watched again and again just to see that I wasn't hallucinating. 

Koreans to me have this way with thrillers. It's like they know what will make a seriously emotionless person's skin crawl and boy did it crawl. 

Even though he is like the senior to my senior, I would marry the man. Choi Min-Sik made me fall in love with him with this one movie and being the healthy stalker that I am I practically devoured all his movies from before to see if he was just as phenomenal. He did not disappoint. I tip my imaginary hat off to the fifth love of my life. 

Those of you who don't know who he is, it's the guy who acted as the drug lord in LUCY with Scarlett Johansson.

Cute isn't he?
So this concludes my love of Callaloo in foreign films for today, hope to be on later to blog away my life to you all. Cha-cha-cha-cheeah!