I cuss a lot. Content is opinionated. There is the possibility of my posting copyright images or materials, but I do not claim pictures as my own unless otherwise stated—they belong to their rightful owners and I will lead you to the source as often as I can. I am not a bacon vendor. I am unsure if Atlantis exists. You are not a chair, etc.
I don't really remember how I ended up at Las Marg. I think I had initiated a Facebook message amongst friends to try to catch some of the Dine Out Vancouver wave that happens mid January to the beginning of February every year. We agreed to go to Las Marg, but there was something silly like how we couldn't access the Dine Out menu if we didn't have reservation.
We went anyways to hang out and ordered off the regular menu.
I'm not going to lie at all-- I was pretty indifferent about going to a Mexican food place. I'm not Mexican, but I have tacos or chili every month, and it just so happened that I was caught during a week when I had already had Mexican food twice. My taste buds were pretty tired of that genre of food, so this review might be a little... biased. I'm not sure if that's the word, haha. But it's going to be skewed because of my very Mexican week prior.
I had never been to Las Margaritas prior to this. I was really surprised at how freaking dark it was in the restaurant. It was lovely though-- the decor made it seem very much like I wasn't in West Van anymore. If there was a dance floor and really loud music, I would've felt like I was in that one club scene from Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights ... LOL
Before I left home, I perused the online menu and Urbanspoon to see what I wanted to eat. After some research, I knew I was going to order the Pancho Villa Tostada and I really REALLY wanted to try Jarritos. I was super excited for trying Jarritos than actually having the food, haha.
Here's the shot of my PVT:
And here are some of the things my friends ordered:
The food wasn't elegantly presented, but I honestly think it's ridiculous to expect legitimate Mexican food to be presented like a piece of artwork. I mean, the ingredients they work with are refried beans. Refried beans will usually be ugly, haha. I enjoyed my meal, the price was what I expected it to be, (PVT for $11.50, I believe,) and I had stuff to take home. And I always love taking food home, because for some reason, I end up sooooooooo hungry when I get home from ANY restaurant.
I don't think I'm going to go back if I have a choice, simply because I already eat enough Mexican food as is-- NOT because I don't like the place. The restaurant is charming and I consider their food, comfort. Our server was really busy but supremely nice. I was also hella pumped because I got to keep the Jarritos bottle and I collect bottles, so that was a plus. =) People should give this place a try if they don't know anyone who already makes a good batch of homemade Mexican food.
Here is my finaaaaaal evaluaaaaaation:
FOOD ♥♥♥♡♡ | SERVICE ♥♥♥♡♡ VALUE ♥♥♥♡♡ | AMBIANCE ♥♥♥♥♡
So I just came back from the theatre with my chums and we saw Hansel and Gretel: Witch Huntersin 3D. And, well...
AH MAH GAH
AH MAH GAH
AHH
AHHH
AHHHH
AH MAH GAH
...
AHH
ahhhhhh ahhhh
omggggggg sooooo GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD AHHHH AHHHAHHH OMGOSH OMGOSH ACK \\sjsadkjfqkwe@#23434tkwenrfn,mqw3jek'p I DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND I DON'T GET IT HOW IS IT SO GOOD WHY IS IT SO WONDERFULAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
But yes, alright, okay, I swear I can make it through this blog post in one lovely piece. Or, er... maybe one kind of... teary, slobbery piece of person. Uh.
ALSO, a disclaimer before you get any further. There MAY BE SPOILERS. This is my first movie review type of thing and I am trying my best not to reveal too much because I hate spoilers myself... So at least now, if I slip up, I've warned you !
I saw the trailer andwasn't too impressed by it at first to be completely honest. My first impression of it was that it was very clever to take an old tale by the Grimm brothers and to revamp it. It looked like one of those beefy movieswith otherwise zero plot but glorious, copious amounts of bullet shells and blood and gore. And I'm not really sure if I make it known, but I'm quite the fan of lighter, unrealistic blood and gore. I watch American Horror Story, so maybe that will give you an idea of what I mean.
Here's the trailer, so you might make an opinion of it all yourself:
Coming back from watching it, I took another gander at the trailer... And I really do not feel that it did the actual movie justice. It didn't represent the experience well in the sense that the movie was actually better than the trailer. And it's weird, because I don't think that's ever really been the case for me. I find movies have a tendency of either 1) getting all the good bits and putting them in the trailer so that the movie actually falls below your expectations, or 2) the trailer is equivalent to the hype, like it usually is with anything Marvel, I find.
Ooh, update! I just found this trailer, which isn't really aired because it has a mature rating. So be warned, there's a lot more blood in this trailer. I just realized that maybe that was why the previous, generally more publicized trailer didn't really represent the movie quite as well. I had forgotten than not everyone is over 18 =p
This is definitely more representative of the actual movie, and it does give away too much I think. But there's still lots of good stuff in the movie itself, so it's not too bad !
I won't go into the plot because I really need you to go see this movie, and hopefully I motivate you to at least get curious about all this H&G, buttttt the plot was so odd that it ended up working quite well. It reminded me of Sucker Punch, Snakes on a Plane and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. They all have staying power in the memory because of how kooky they are.
Also, seeing grown-up versions of childhood characters has always been something that has appealed to me, so this was great to see two hot (HOT) siblings kicking witch booty.
The dialogue was base, but there was effective use of the script. Excellent comedy pockets here and there. It is, after all, classified as a "Action/Adventure/Comedy/Horror" movie (thanks Google,) so I guess asking for a nice juicy script would be too much because time has to be made for all of the blood and the jumping around and kicking witches.
Something I do with movies is that sometimes I view them andassess them as stills, or photographs. If there are stills that I would want to hang up on my wall in my bedroom, then I know that this movie has done it for me. And I'm pretty picky about what I put on my walls. I also did film for a year in secondary school, which kind of ruined movies for me in a way because I sometimes see them from the filming perspective. I turned that off for this movie and really just focused on consuming the story-telling, but the shots were generally average. Nothing going on like breaking the rule like The Matrix did with a 360 rotation, haha. There weren't any still images or super beautifully filmed tidbits that I would seclude and surround myself with, unfortunately. Anything to do with the siblings in the candy house, watching the witch burn is lovely though. That was the bit that I favored most aesthetically.
Something that got me real good through, and thatI am thoroughly impressed with though is the costume and make-up of all the witches. Hooooooooooly crap, I have so much respect for the people who conceptualized the witches. There were so many of them and I loved that each of them was unique in appearance and ability. They were pretty ugly, but ugly in a beautiful way haha. I am so damned impressed with dem witches. Here are some of the ones you'll get to see =):
I almost died at the beginning of the movie for another reason entirely. There was a shot of a bow and I swear I knew subconsciously that Hansel's weapon was NOT a bow, but I freaked out in the theatre for a little bit until I rediscovered that Gretel's weapon of choice was a bow. I was like "HNGGGGGGG HAWKEYE IS HANSEL IS HAWKEYE WITH BOWWWWWWWWW YEAAAAAAAAAAH!" But no, it was Gretel with the bow... LOL.
Hansel's designated weapon was a really big gun. Which my friend pointed out one-third through the movie, looked a lot like a dick. I didn't even think about that and throughout the rest of the movie, I couldn't un-see Hansel's "ween-gun." THANKS ELLEN LOL.
HAVE YOU BEEN RUINED YET?
WHOOPS, SORRY.
I went to see this movie for the opportunity to chill with my friends and fan-girl about Jeremy Renner but ended up liking this movie much more than I have liked a movie for awhile, (The Avengers.) SO YEAH. THAT IS MY FIRST EVER MOVIE REVIEW, I AM ALIVE ='D
SO SO SO
MA RATINGS:
PLOT ♥♥♥♡♡
"CLASSIC TALE, NEW TWIST" as they say. Not a super-creative concept, actually quite simple, but it got a lot of mileage from that.
DIALOGUE ♥♥♥♥♡
Packed a lot in there for a script with a very lean script.
CHARACTER ♥♥♥♥♡
I thoroughly enjoyed the sibling chemistry between Hansel and Gretel. They were the perfect duo who played off each other. Something I particuarly enjoyed is that they fit both as two very close siblings, as well as a potential couple. I find that, in other shows or movies, the siblings are too much of siblings or that they are built so that you kind of expect something incestual. But here, it's like a "predictable question-mark," if you will. I'm not really sure if this is making sense, but it makes sense in my head LOL.
OH, and again, they're SUPER HOT.
VISUAL AESTHETIC/FX ♥♥♥♡♡
Costumes ruled, over-all make of the film was average. And I still don't know what's up with that ween-gun. It looks awfully prop-ish too.
Also, this is kind of off track, but Gretel's cleavagewas
PERFECT.
EVERY.
TIME.
Damn it. DAMN IT.
MUSIC ♥♥♥♡♡
A lot of rock in there, which I thought was typical but still really enjoyed. And I found it quite funny that they didn't really use dramatic orchestra music instead, but it matched the idea of revamping this story with lots of blood and bullets.
FEELS ♥♥♥♡♡
Do I feel that the story pulled me into wracking emotion, as in intense joy or intense anger or intense sadness? No, not really.
FAN-GIRL DEATH LEVELS ♥♥♥♥♥
But, on another note, I did almost die a couple of times from seeing Renner this and Renner that... LOL
Overall, I give "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters" my fragile fan-girl heart and a ween-gun up LOL
Now, I will leave you with a lot of Renner gifs so that you may not sleep and possibly explode, if you are anything like me!
I know, I know, I posted a similar image set a couple of days ago.
But this one is a little different because you can see my face. I just uploaded this to Facebook and I usually put stupid, artsy one liners to go with my profile pictures. For this one, I was thinking about saying "People have told me that I try too hard. And I'm afraid they might be right."
But I didn't feel like Facebook and its audience really needed that from me. I felt that I needed to explain that to myself. I think another big part of why that line popped into my head was triggered by watching this video a couple of days ago:
It is for a play my old friend will be in. And there was just so much about identity in it. Questions I thought I knew how to answer, but I really don't. Or I'm learning how to at the age of 22.
I've always had an identity problem. I grew up naturally as a louder kid, but the culture of my parents got them to mold me into something that I, now that I look back at it all, feel that I was never really meant to be. I had a hunch that there was something up because I went to elementary school with kids who were allowed to be loud and mischievous. I feel kind of angry because I don't really think I got the full "kid" experience because I had so many restrictions. But really there's not much use reminiscing about that now because that was the past.
Except not really, no, I still deal with the same problems. My parental units still have these beliefs that blockade me from being what could be the true me. That's what frightens me-- I care so much about other people think. I'm picking up on this better now, but I still have it in me, and sometimes it can be poison.
So that's what that caption meant to me. There were times when I would try so hard to be something I wasn't really, and it would show. I still do that sometimes without fully meaning to. And it frustrates me, because I can never really hit the in-between of all of this. I know I will if I keep trying, but right now, the feedback I've gotten is either that I'm trying too hard, or that I can't be this because it's "unacceptable." And I have unrealistically high standards, so often things are not enough. But you can probably see the problem here. There's not really a place where all of this intersects. I need to work to break all of these down to find a common ground.
I just ended up putting this as the actual caption of the photo:
i've gotten over the fact that i can't really be the conventional beautiful, and it's alright. since when was i ever conventional?
That's enough reflection for now. But I'm on my way, and that's more than I can say about the last while.
Posts
I don't really remember how I ended up at Las Marg. I think I had initiated a Facebook message amongst friends to try to catch some of the Dine Out Vancouver wave that happens mid January to the beginning of February every year. We agreed to go to Las Marg, but there was something silly like how we couldn't access the Dine Out menu if we didn't have reservation.
We went anyways to hang out and ordered off the regular menu.
I'm not going to lie at all-- I was pretty indifferent about going to a Mexican food place. I'm not Mexican, but I have tacos or chili every month, and it just so 
happened that I was caught during a week when I had already had Mexican food twice. My taste buds were pretty tired of that genre of food, so this review might be a little... biased. I'm not sure if that's the word, haha. But it's going to be skewed because of my very Mexican week prior.
