30 January 2015

Friday Film: The Guest

HI!

I hope you had a fabulous week, how about a film to round it off? GREAT IDEA. 

Today's film is The Guest (2014). I'd heard good things about the film when it was doing the festival rounds and was very excited to see it. Unfortunately, as with all small films, it got a limited release and wasn't in my local cinema for longer than a week. Which was a nightmare. And that's where the internet comes in. YAY FOR THE INTERNET. 
 The film begins with the Peterson family who are struggling after the loss of their eldest son in Afghanistan. They are a family who are slowly falling apart, as individuals and as a unit. Enter David Collins (Dan Stevens) who claims to have been their son's close friend whilst in the army. He is handsome, warm, courteous, friendly and ever so slightly creepy. But in a good way? The family welcome him him wholeheartedly and he serves as a kind of plaster for the cracks that had been appearing in their home. Soon though, events begin to unfold and the eldest daughter, Anna (Maika Monroe), begins to question who David really is and what he's up to. And that's when it descends into bloody mayhem, both literally and figuratively speaking. AND IT'S ACE. 

It's not strictly an unusual plot. The 'stranger shows up, family welcomes them in, all hell breaks loose' plot line has been played out in numerous films, but there's something special about this one. I read somewhere that this is a film for film lover's, and you can definitely see an element of that in how the film is put together and directed. Everything about the film is carefully thought out; from the directing to the soundtrack, nothing is accidental, and there is a glorious element of the 80's thrillers and horrors in the music, set and sheen of the film. There is a definite element of John Carpenter lovin' going on! Directed by Adam Wingard, who also directed the ace You're Next, he skips neatly between thrills, action, horror and comedy. It's a difficult film to pin down in terms of genre, but it's certainly enjoyable trying to. This is a mysterious and atmospheric film that will draw you in until the end. And the end is when it gets batshit crazy. I know there are some people who haven't enjoyed the ending, simply because it is so off-kilter and ridiculous, but I actually really enjoyed it. For a film so difficult to pin down and so very tongue-in-cheek about it's origins (those wonderfully bad and amazing 80's films), it made sense to me that the end would come so out-of-nowhere. 
Special mention has to go to the cast and the soundtrack, not since Drive, have I enjoyed the use of music so much. It is bloody perfect. The cast is also perfect, particularly David and Anna. David is played with the perfect amount of mystery, menace and charm, for the longest time you'll be convinced that he is who he says and that it's a double whammy, just because he is so difficult to read. The whole thing is made even more unnerving when you remember that Dan Stevens used to be in Downtown Abbey. He's definitely changed! Anna, as the detective-type who needs to know the truth, is a strong, capable, clever woman, which is a bloody joy to see in a 'horror' film! Even though she fancies the shit out of him (and who wouldn't?!) she doesn't do the oh-so-frustrating thing of ignoring the fact that he's hella weird for the sake of a smooching session. She actually acts as a reasonable, logical human being, which is fab.
I honestly, don't have enough words to say how enjoyable this film is. It's funny, brutal, outrageous, creepy, intense, bloody and batshit crazy. You'll have no idea by the end who you want to win and possibly slightly confused at how attracted you are to a super weird stranger. If that sounds like something you'd enjoy, you'll love this! 
Alright, I'll leave it there for tonight. If you have any thoughts, leave them down below, or hit me up on my social media at the side. If you've seen the film, let me know what you made of it! Did you enjoy the ending, or did it leave you baffled? I hope you're all well, I will chat to you on Monday!

Be nice and be kind,
Becca xo
28 January 2015

High Street Hits: Sleek Eyeshadow Palettes

HI!

Look! I'm posting when I said I would! I'm not necessarily saying you have to give me a prize, I'm just saying if you wanted to give me prize, I would be a-okay with that.

Onto the post! Like I said in my first post of the year (which you can see here), I am branching out a little on the blog front. Movies are still, forever and always, my true love, buuuuuttttt I am not entirely monogamous in that love. Terrible, I know. 

Today we'll be chatting about eyeshadow, in particular, Sleek eyeshadow palettes. Now, I have been told, on no less than 74 occasions, that I buy 'too much eyeshadow'. If we ignore the outright ridiculousness of the statement because, as everyone knows, there is no such thing as 'too many eyeshadows', the fact still remains that I do have more palettes than the average human being. Like, a lot more. My name is Becca, and I am an eyeshadow addict. 
I told you!
The problem I always found with maintaining this habit is the difficulty in getting good quality palettes for a reasonable price. I love Urban Decay as much as the next person with eyeballs (so beautiful) but spending that much money on a palette isn't always achievable. And that's where Sleek comes in. 

I actually discovered Sleek after doing my routine trawl through my baby sister's makeup collection (I really love looking through other people's makeup, I'm not the only, right?!). She had the Au Naturel palette which is a beautiful neutral palette and as soon as I saw it, I was onto the website so fast even my head spun a little. 
As you can see, I have built up quite the collection now and they are some of my most used. They are £7.99 and although you can find a wider range online, you can also find them in Superdrug and Boots across the UK. It's great to be able to get Sleek in store now. If there is one area the High Street fails in the beauty market, it's in the lack of range, quality and availability in eyeshadows. L'oreal do some lovely single shadows like the Colour Riche or the Infallible range, but not only are they not widely available in the UK in terms of the shades, they also cost around the same price for one shadow as it is for the Sleek palettes. 
Top; V2 (mattes), 2nd Row; Primer, Oh So Special, 3rd Row; Bad Girl, Storm
The Sleek palettes come with 12, largely shimmery shades. Most of the palettes come with at least 1-2 matte shades, which is one of the only problems I have; I would love a couple more matte shades for blending. Having said that, they do have 2 strictly matte palettes; V1 and V2, the former are bright mattes, the latter a lovely range of more neutral colours. V2 is actually one of my favourites of all my palettes just because of how versatile it is. The shimmery shades are amazing and incredibly smooth and pigmented. There is a little bit of fallout, but nothing that isn't manageable. Overall, I am deeply in love with them and we're getting married. If you are as in love with the eyeshadows as I am, you can find them in Boots or Superdrug or at www.sleekmakeup.com. Have fun!

Alright beautifuls! I will leave it there for tonight, if you have any thoughts, leave them below or hit me up on my social media. Let me know if you've tried these palettes or if you have any other hits that you want to share! I'll chat to you all on Friday.

Be nice and be kind.
Becca xo

P.S. This totally just happened too...I have a problem! A problem I am very happy never fixing. I'm no quitter!
26 January 2015

How Harry Potter changed my life.

HI! 

Prepare yourselves for the nerdiest post OF ALL TIME. Although, reading the title, you should have already prepared yourself for the onslaught. You've been given two heads up so don't be surprised by the nerd-fest that is about to happen!

I've always loved reading. It started off as a competition with my older sister (not that she knew it was a competition of course. It was a stealth competition!) who is some sort of brainy prodigy type that could read from the womb. I remember sneaking into her room when she was 10 years old to see what she was reading and knowing then that I was just playing catch-up with her. I mean, what kind of 10 year old gets an autobiography about the last Tsar of Russia from the library for light reading?! After that I settled myself into reading what I wanted, which was on occasion books I'd seen her read and enjoy, but was mostly Sweet Valley High (no shame, amazing books!). When I would go shopping with my Mum, which was always a long-winded affair that involved trying on clothes that she thought were 'just lovely', but that I thought made me look RIDICULOUS, as a treat I could go to the bookshop. I love bookshops. I love reading the backs of all the books and deliberating over what special book I would spend my hard-earned pocket-money on. It nearly always ended up a Point Break/Horror book (so good) or a Sweet Valley High (or University, if I was feeling sassy) because I don't like to branch out. Or, I didn't. This fateful day my Mother actively banned me from buying either and begged me to pick something else. Never have I been so glad for her interference, which is probably the only time I've ever said that. After stropping for about 10 minutes, I finally began the search for the book that would change everything. I couldn't tell you why I picked it up, my copy doesn't even have the distinguished looking Dumbledore on it. It's one of the first prints though, which makes it even more special to me. After reading the first page (in the middle of the bookshop, obviously. Along with the entire first chapter) I was hooked. 
I know the writing isn't necessarily groundbreaking, and there has been a decent amount of criticism surrounding J.K. Rowling's adoration of adjectives, but who doesn't enjoy a good description?! Regardless of all that, and regardless of the fact that anyone who read these books in Secondary School was mercilessly teased, I was, and am, unashamed in my love of Harry and his world.  After reading books all based in some version of reality, albeit a very OTT version, reading something magical was awe-inspiring. And I don't mean it was just about magic, obviously it is, but the way her words drew me in, made me ignore everything for a precious few hours, was nothing short of magical. I didn't have the easiest time in my own head or in school growing up, and these books gave me a place to escape. They gave me characters to grow to think of as larger-than-life, characters I wanted to be best friends with and a girl who could kick more ass than any of them. When I was younger, Harry was my favourite because he was the main guy to love, but as I got older, every re-reading has made me love Hermione more and more. This was a book series that I grew up with, and to be given a character like Hermione was a gift. She was a reminder that I could be brave and strong and important and I loved that. In a time when I was convinced I didn't matter and that nobody would notice I was gone, having her there was always a comfort and a source of strength. 

More than all that, more than loving the story, I loved what it taught me; that I should stand by my convictions, even when others don't, to value family and friends above all, and that if I ever own a House Elf, I should be really kind to it because they can do all sorts of awesome shit. 

Loving Harry Potter didn't just give me an escape though; it gave me a dream. I'd always loved imaging my own fantastical world, but seeing a magical world written down and glorious tales spun in word gave me an outlet that I'd never thought of. And from then on I wrote. I wrote fairytales about the life I wanted, the life I dreamt I had and the people I wanted to know, and that dream kept me going.

My copies of Harry Potter are beyond well-loved, they are adored. There is something amazing about having a phenomena like these books to join a generation. We can be defined by something fantastic and otherworldly, which is more than others can say. I can't wait to be able to pass along the copies of something that defined my life to my children and tell them how much it means to me. 
Alright, I'll leave the rambling for there! If you have any books that helped make you who you are today, or even just books you really fricking loved, I'd love to hear what they were. Drop me a comment below, or hit me up on any of my social media that you can find at the side! I hope you're all well and I'll chat to you on Wednesday (ohhhhh setting deadlines! Who even am I?!).

Be nice and be kind, much love.
Becca xo.
                                                                                                                                                                         

17 January 2015

New Year, New Me?

I know, someday I'll actually post a post when I said I would. And on that day fire will fall from the sky, pigs will fly and my boy will finally pick up his socks. 

HI! Excuse the incredibly cringy title. I hope you all had a glorious Christmas and a wonderful New Year! I hope you ate too much food, slept through all of the Christmas TV specials and made many New Year's Resolutions that you'll have forgotten about come February. I had lots of very exciting posts planned out buuuuttttt then I didn't write them, so there's that. Just know they were very interesting and you would've loved them. 

This isn't a filmy type post, but it is to do with where I want this little space of the internet I can call my own (for a small annual fee) to go. 2014 was, in basic terms, a really shitty year. Like, super shitty. I lost two of the most important people in my life, who I loved and adored like it was nobody's business. It made December a rough month. A month I have always looked forward to more than anything became something to dread because I knew come Christmas, two pieces of my family puzzle were missing and that was hard for me to take. Very confusingly though, at the same time I was so excited because it was my first Christmas with Stefan. I don't mean like our first Christmas ever because we've been together for hella long, I mean it was out first Christmas in our flat, with a tree and presents and a big dinner. We decided to have our own Christmas away from home before heading back because we knew how hard it would be to go back home and carry on like everything was fine. So this was our little piece of Christmas heaven. And it was. It was, without a doubt, one of the best, happiest days of my whole entire life because the love of a lifetime asked me to marry him! I told him I'd think about it, but after like an hour I thought 'why not?!' (I'm totally kidding, I cried like an absolute MOFO and threw myself at him. Even I was a little embarrassed, poor lad didn't see it coming!). So we went home and a Christmas I had been panicking about and stressing about, turned out to be one of the happiest, yet most bittersweet experiences of my life. 


After that life update, onto the blog/resolution business. Every year I make resolutions, and every single year I fail miserably. I don't know why, maybe I'm just too stubborn for my own good. As soon as someone tells me I have to do something, I immediately rebel and do EVERYTHING ELSE. This year, I've decided to not do resolutions and instead set goals, which is all very Pinterest/Tumblr/Instagram of me, but that shit is happening anyway. I figure a goal is something that I can work towards, not something I have to achieve in a year, something that will benefit me in the long run. At least, that's what I'm telling myself! So, this all brings me to the blogging bit. From the start of my blog, I knew I wanted to talk about films. I love films, films make me happy; they give me passion and they give me something to work towards. Buuuttttt they aren't the only thing I love. I love television (even I'm amazed at how many shows I can watch in a go), I love books, I love music, I love makeup and I love writing. I also love interior design and decorating, but I'm not sure how I'd fit that into the blog haha. I have been incredibly lax on actually posting this year, and I think it's because I have limited myself to a small focus. Films are something I can, and have, talked about for hours, but I'm not sure that my babbling is entertaining to that many people? So I'd like to branch out into other things I love and hopefully bring more people into the Becca Button world. Because I'll be frank, that is an aim for this year, I want to make this year the year my blog grows and becomes something I can be proud of. I know the last thing the internet needs is another beauty blog (although I freaking LOVE reading them), but I am VERY dedicated to makeup. Too dedicated, according to my bank balance. 


I hope you come along for this new year trying new things and I hope you enjoy them! And if you have an suggestions of things you'd like to see, you can drop me a comment below, or find me at any of my social media at the side. OR you can email me, which you can find under Contact. Have a fabulous day you wonderful people, be nice and be kind :).

Becca xo



Images from Instagram and Tumblr.

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