NOTE: Italicized text under pictures are the pictures’ captions, not me randomly spewing off sentences that have nothing to do with the post.

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In the words of good friend of mine, while watching the opening credits of the movie:

“Oh, I thought it was Angels versus Demons. This is gonna suck.”

LOL.

Sadly, my friend was right, though not exclusively due to a misinterpretation of the title. Still, the movie was quite a disappointment. Who am I kidding, I totally walked into that movie theatre expecting something akin to a victim of bad plastic surgery. Why, you ask? I’ll break it down for you in five digestable parts (but considering horridness of those five parts, you may suffer from indigestion). (I am so full of weird metaphors today).

1) Tom Hanks.

This man was a subject on my friend’s blog (Dongju) that I think she covered quite nicely. I’ll just throw in some opinions of my own. First, WHY Tom Hanks? Just let that question sit there for a while. Ponder it. Contemplate it. Shake your fists to the sky in despair about it. WHY TOM HANKS? I was always under the impression that Dr. Robert Langdon would be one of those nerdy-yet-irresistably-cute-and-strangely-attractive professors, like Michael Gubler on Criminal Minds as Dr. Reid. I mean thats how Dan Brown wrote him in his books. But wow, I guess the casting team of The Da Vinci Code and consequently Angels and Demons didn’t share my impression.

Here’s what I saw in the book:

“Although not overly handsome in a classical sense…Langdon had what his female colleagues referred to as an “erudite” appeal – wisps of gray in his thick brown hair, probing blue eyes, an arrestingly deep voice, and the strong, carefree smile of a collegiate athelete. A varsity diver in prep school and college, Langdon still had the body of a swimmer, a toned, six-foot physique that he viligantly maintained with fifty laps a day in the university pool.” (Brown 5)

Here’s what I saw in my head:

<3

+

<3

=

oh yes.

Here’s what I saw on screen:

+

=

Leonidas does not approve.

Not only does the passage written provide a new SAT vocabulary word to know (”erudite: having or showing great knowledge or learning”), but it provides a VERY CLEAR DESCRIPTION of what dear old Langdon looks like.

THICK hair: This man has none.

DEEP voice: Again, this man has none. But he does have the nasal voice of a middle-aged man trying too hard to be sarcastic and witty.

CAREFREE smile: Well, it depends on how one defines “carefree”. I, however, do not define it as “Tom Hanks baring teeth”.

BODY OF A SWIMMER: Well, so Tom Hanks was swimming in the movie. That got that much right. Can’t say much for the body.

TONED, SIX FOOT physique that is VILIGANTLY MAINTAINED: Fail.

NOW, if Tom Hanks still looked like THIS:

Then why the monkey not? But oh wait, he doesn’t. FAIL.

2) Max Kohler

Or lack thereof. Ok ok, I understand that Angels and Demons was BASED off the book, not a literal page-to-screen translation of it. But it really annoyed me how little detail the movie actually had about the very things that made the book so intriguing.

For one, MAX FREAKING KOHLER was completely cut out of the script. In the book, he is one of the central characters of the story. He’s the one who calls Robert Langdon for help. He’s the one that Dan Brown makes off as the bad guy until the very end when the truth is revealed. Sadly, they deemed him unimportant and disregarded him. Not only did the scriptwriters cut out one of my favorite characters, but they all cut out a character that added significant meaning to the whole point of the book. The book was trying to reflect the struggle between SCIENCE and the Catholic Church. Now in the book, Max Kohler represents the scientist and Church represents, well, the Church (bet you didn’t see that one coming).

Max Kohler is shown as the skeptical science freak trying to bring down a thousand years of human faith. He exemplifies the theme of church vs. science. But he isn’t there in the movie, so now theme of church vs science is all muddled up because it’s the CHURCH that invites Langdon in yet it’s still science vs church but science actually plays a very small role in the movie WHICH IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO and just…fail.

3) Art

So much more important than it looks.

While the book makes the hunt for the four churches look like some sort of amazing, intellectual, artitsic treasure hunt, the movie makes it look like a deranged life-size version of Clue. With cardinals that have punctured lungs. Or something. In Angels and Demons the book, art plays a fundamental role in the plot and the message of the book. The moving force of the plot is Bernini and his sculpture, and his apparent placement of pagan symbols in Christian churches and works of the art. Whether Dan Brown’s analysis and assumptions are correct or not, it’s still extremely interesting. The book makes you realize the depth of art, the possibilities of interpretation and the double meanings artists skillfully and cleverfully place in their works. In the movie, it’s more sort of like brain vomit:

“OMG! Pyramids in a Christian temple? A star – a pentagon! It leads to…the SOUTH! Tombs worshipping the sun! AHHH! WE’RE TOO LATE! IT’S 10:00! BURNING CARDINAL! SKULLS! SKULLS!”

Sense: This picture makes none.

Which leads to my next point…

4) Incoherency and what happened to the demons?

Watching Angels and Demons is kind of like experiencing a fragmented dream…One moment you’re here, and another moment you’re there, but you’re not quite sure what happened in between. In Angels and Demons, one moment Tom Hanks is showing off his bod in a pool, the next moment he’s choking in the Vatican Library, the next moment he’s standing above a 20-foot-deep hole, next he’s in the hole and running over a huge pile of SKULLS (referring to the “SKULLS! SKULLS” remark from before), suddenly Tom Hanks gets a flash of brilliance and runs across to the other side of Rome, then he’s in the Vatican church again, then out of nowhere the antagonist of the story jumps into a car which promptly explodes with NO EXPLANATION GIVEN (was it a suicide? was it an attack? was it a fart gone wrong? WE MAY NEVER KNOW), and then KABAMASPLODE end credits. So perhaps I’m exaggerating things slightly, but it’s not far off. At least in my opinion. And hey, that’s the only thing that matters, right?

Huh? What? How did that happen? Why is he on the roof of the Church?

Not only that. but the entire theme of the book (as said before) is entirely misrepresented, if represented at all, in the movie. This book is about (surprisingly) angels and demons, good and evil, man and god, science and faith. This is not to say that science is a “demon” or anything like that, but the point of this book is to show what happens when two seemingly opposite forces collide. Heck, Dan Brown even threw in matter and antimatter bit if that doesn’t make the theme any clearer (if it doesn’t, go back to English 10. Fail.). The book centers around the reconciliation between scientific progress/natural law and the spiritual faith in man. And what does the movie center around?

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This guy right here.

And finally, the last part of my justification as to why Angels and Demons was a huge insult to the work of Dan Brown…

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5) Will Smith.

Because everything is cooler with Will Smith.

Indeed.

– JANE–

PS) I suck at promises.

As a girl, weight is a huge issue for me. No, I don’t have an eating disorder, thank you. (You know, whenever a girl who is not grotesquely overweight says “I want to lose some weight” people immediately accuse her of having an eating disorder. People need to stop doing that. “You don’t need to lose weight!” Well, that’s my choice. It’s not like I’m going to take laxatives or stick a finger down my throat. Calm down people. BUT I DIGRESS.)

You know, sometimes losing weight isn’t as hard as it is made out to be. It’s just that we associate losing weight with unpleasantness because, well, we make it unpleasant. We force ourselves to devote an hour of our time to exercise, and we make a concious effort to curb munchie cravings at 12 AM (and any person knows that curbing those cravings is PAINFUL). But if you want to lose weight without the dread, then you should find ways to incorporate health into your life naturally so that you don’t have to think about or force yourself into doing them.

So here is a list of ways to help you:

1. Brush your teeth after every meal, especially after dinner. You know that nasty sensation when you eat an orange or a piece of chocolate (or basically anything) after you’ve JUST brushed your teeth? Yea, well, it’s ugly, and no one likes an ugly taste in their mouth. Use this as a weapon against those after-meal cravings. Brush your teeth as soon as you finish lunch, and so when you see a rogue Ferrero Rocher laying around the house, your fresh and minty breath will serve as a reminder of the ugliness you will suffer if you do choose to eat that Ferrero Rocher.
2. Carry around less money. If you’re going out for a walk or jog, carry just enough money for a bottle of water (usually 800-1000 won in Korea). If your going on a grocery trip, carry around just enough cash to get what you need (so plan your budget out ahead of time) or at least promise yourself to not go over on the card. What I’ve found out is that if I ever have a lot of money when I leave the house, I end up buying snacks even if I’m not hungry just because I have the money. Imagine how much money you spend on snacks. WHAT A WASTE. And the only things you get out of using money on snacks is fat and a fleeting moment of joy. So if you limit the amount of money you carry around, you’ll be forced to give up buyingsnacks on whim and on the go.
3. If you have retainers, wear them more often. Especially after every meal. This tip only applies if you actually have retainers, but it can go hand in hand with tip number one. First, you need to brush your teeth before putting on retainers unless you want to risk having decayed food particles stuck between the plastic/metal and your teeth. This already sets up the “minty taste that ruins everything” barricade. Second, retainers are bulky, and it is impossible to eat with them, unless you’re a disgusting person. Once you go through the trouble of brushing you teeth and then washing your retainers and then putting them in, you’ll be too lazy to go through that AGAIN when snack cravings come around.
4. Walk wherever you can. This one is kind of obvious. If you can get to some place by walking (or biking I guess) rather than bus, car, or taxi, then walk. Not only is it better for the environment, but it throws in exercise that you don’t have to set aside separate time in the gym for. You won’t even remember that you’re exercising because you’re too focused on getting to your destination.
5. Or if you do plan on setting aside some time to exercise, listen to music so that you have something else to focus on other than your own panting breath and sweat. This one is obvious too.
6. Adding on to this exercise thing, if you like sports, then play sports. If you’re like me and would rather kiss the feet of John Travolta (who I despise by the way. Hairspray? Drag? Really, John, really?) than play sports, then play WII sports! If you have Nintendo Wii, that is. If you don’t then…GG.
7. Do you eat snacks when you’re studying or working? Do you eat snacks when you’re watching TV or surfing youtube for the latest update of Susan Boyle? Figure out your regular snack eating locations and then put your snacks as far away as possible. Humans are usually lazy, and you, dear reader, are most likely human, and therefore you will most likely be very lazy as well. “But I love snacks so much I’d walk miles for them!” Yeah, no. Don’t count on that. I usually do homework in my bedroom and I watch TV in the living room, and in order to get to snacks I have to walk to the other side of the apartment, into the storage area, and dig through miles of Tupperware containers in order to grab a cookie or some chips. It gets tiring after a while. So even if I want a snack while working on an English essay for a blog post, I’m just too lazy to go through that entire ordeal.
8. Start replacing the unhealthy snacks with healthy ones. Okay, so nothing can really replace the sweet and joyful sensation of eating a piece of Cadbury chocolate (cue saliva), but most of the time when you want to eat a snack, you don’t want the snack and you don’t want to eat. You just want something to do. And eating snacks not only gives your mouth something to do, but it throws in some fun for your tastebuds as well. Really guys, that’s stupid. So if you start placing some HEALTHY snacks around your house (in some easily accessible locations), then you will solve both problems of a bored mouth AND losing weight. Eat peanuts, almonds, or cashews instead of chips. Naturally sugary fruits instead of gummy worms and cookies. Just healthy stuff in general (you can google search this on your own). And if you’re allergic to fruits and nuts and whatnot….then just don’t eat, damnit.
9. To Korean people especially: STOP WITH THE RAMEN!! ESPECIALLY THE CUP RAMEN!!! I personally don’t like ramen so I never had a problem with it, but i mean COME ON PEOPLE. IT’S BASICALLY A CUP FULL OF OIL, GREASE, CHEMICALS, AND GOD KNOW WHAT ELSE. Hell, there could be something like rat feces in that crap. Who KNOWS what gets into those cups of doom and cellulite?! (Actually, that’s kind of redundant in a way.)

See people? It’s not all that hard. It’s easier than forcing yourself to do 30 grueling minutes of Stairmaster at the gym. I’m not saying that Stairmaster is useless, but there are easier ways to lose weight and get healthier for those of us who are less motivated. Like me. I hate Stairmaster. If you’re actually serious about losing a lot of weight, then you’ll have to do much more than the things I listed above. But you know, small steps always come first.

–JANE–

I am writing this blog at 2:38 AM after the LONGEST, most ARDUOUS, most ANNOYING art history review ever. I hate Gothic art and architecture. My brain feels like freakin potato salad with maggots crawling through the decaying lettuce leaves of my brain. Honestly I don’t even know what I’m saying right now. Did that potato maggot brain simile make sense? Most likely not. Perhaps Stephanie Meyer wrote her books in this sort of state of mind as well…hence the uterus-ripping and the stone-placenta of Breaking Dawn. But I digress…well I’m not even talking about anything specific so I’m not really digressing from anything…I’m just ambling..like an ambulatory in Saint Sernin HAHA oh god I will see (<–?!?!) feel so much better after AP art history is over.

I really don’t feel like blogging these days.. I don’t know why. Too much AP stress? But I do need to catch up on blogging.

I promise that I will have a much better post later. Like SOON later.

I’ll leave you with a picture that describes my feelings exactly:

I AM ABOUT TO BURST.

APs DIE DIE DIE

– JANE