But why is Mr Manhatten always naked in his lab?

Baha. Apparently, a nine year old girl asked Zach Snyder that during a Watchmen Q&A. Yup, that's right. In class this week was the Watchmen. I thought I should blog ASAP since having seen this might actually give me some street cred. I didn't read the books, so I don't know if I would have liked it more or less if I had...

Story: (Attempting to have no spoilers) It is 1985 (for the most part), America and Russia are on the verge of nuclear war and the vigilantes of the past have been banned. The Comedian, a member of a retired group of superheros, is murdered, and Rorschach (another superhero who still wears his mask) believes there is a conspiracy to kill all of the masked men. He goes to warn the others who mostly think he is a crazy paranoid and have better things to worry about like using Dr Manhatten's nuclear powered body to solve the world oil crisis and end the cold war. Natch, they're wrong.

The things I've heard the most criticism about are: the soundtrack, and the very hyper-sexy-sex and visceral violence of the story. People booed the soundtrack for having too many (bad?) popular songs on it. I don't know, I enjoyed it. I thought the songs were a good indication of what time period they were in, especially in the beginning montage where they jumped around so much. Rona was impressed with the music budget. And it's kind of fun to take a few seconds to bop around to a familiar song. As for the sex/violence... Snyder said it was intentional because it was meant to be an overturning of the traditional superhero comic, where you can't be explicit with sex, and you don't show blood, so it was meant to be an ironic statement or something. Personally, I didn't think it was out of place. My understanding of graphic novels (which is extensive, having read at least three) as compared to comics was that they are now much more about the anti-hero who has no qualms bloodying up the page. I know the target audience, his name is Nick, and there is nothing he enjoys more than bad-assness and people getting shot in the knee caps.

Alright, now that I've dealt with that, here are some things that I did have problems with:

Most importantly, dialogue. The same thing happened in Sin City, where the script is full of comic book speak, which is super cool and edgy on the page but actually sounds really really retarded when it is read out loud and often makes people laugh. (Your finger is like licking a battery????)

Dr Manhatten's nudity. Actually, his 'costuming' in general. The shiny blue penis was awkward, but his 'battle briefs' were way worse, and seeing him in a suit seemed unnatrual what with all the glowing. I don't know, there's no way out of that one.

While we're on Dr Manhatten, I think we spent a leeetle too much time emoting on Mars. It was very pretty and stuff but it got old fast because there wasn't much to look at.

I also spent a lot of the beginning confused: I didn't realize that they got new people to take over their superhero roles, I thought they just got awesome makeovers. Also, they are super strong right? How did they find other super strong peeps? The whole hero mythology was not well explained.

Most of all, I hated the bright yellow. Now that I've seen it, I get it, it's a cultural AND character reference. But I still think it's gross and tacky.

Some things I noticed that didn't bother me too much:

Rorschach's mask's (I kept thinking his name was Volcheck - OC reference anyone?) inkstains were sliding around all over the place and I really wanted a clearer indication of what they meant, or if they were just random.

Laurie Jupiter had man shoulders (that's just a little Mean Girls for you). Really, she had a very square face. And then during the sex scene I yelped "SHE HAS A TERRIBLE BODY" which I didn't mean to be quite so loud. Actually, her body wasn't awful, but it was definitely not Hollywood. She was kind of flat chested and not toned at all, which is weird because you'd think a superhero would get a lot of cardio in. Also, her costume required a good brazillian at all time because she was def flapping out.

At the end, Ozymandias had this weird animal that they never explained. I guess it was a fanboy secret.

Some things I adored:

The opening montage was quite beautiful, with lots of remakes of pop-culture moments. Flashback scenes in general. Costumes. Hair. Makeup. Sets. Visual effects. The fact that Denny (from Grey's and PS I Love You? aka the Comedian) was alive! The fact that Raoul from Phantom was pathetic as usual, the guy the chick runs to from her freaky true love. He's like the new James Marsden in the slightly more messed up version of every romantic plot. Sally Jupiter and how adorable she was and then aged into an alcoholic. Awesome. I was also quite fond of Ozymandias, there was something quite pristine about him and his golden hairband.

DENNY! You're alive!

I think you can see, generally, the movie LOOKED amazing.

Yay or nay? I liked it more than the batman movies, but they left me very bitter. Yay for the fanboys and gamers and the fans of gore, nay for my mother and maybe if you're bored for the girls who don't really care.

Wait... No butter?

The NB has moved into the co-op, which is a large orgy full of hippies and pot and some cats under one roof. They do cute community-type things like have a roster for who cooks dinner for everyone one each night. There are 16 of them, so this is no small task. And, three (or more?) of them are vegan, so all the dinz have to be vegan. You know, like even more than just vegetarian, like zero animal products? No eggs (bye quiche), no milk or cheese (bye lasagna, grilled cheese, everything good in this life) and no butter (um... goodbye Paula Deen's entire stock of recipes.) So it pretty much goes without saying that there's no bacon.

No bacon???

Anyway, because I love to win the hearts of new people with baked goods, and because I wanted to play with the KitchenAid, I ventured to make vegan chocolate cupcakes.

Love of my life...

Here's the recipe. If anyone is ever feeling vegany.

Vinegar in a cupcake?? Let curdle?? BLEARGH!

Here they are before being iced. I didn't take a picture of the after-icing, because first I delivered most of them to the very greatful hippies who happened to be inflicted with the munchies when we arrived, and the few that I left behind were attacked by ants before I could take a picture.

Speaking of icing, I don't think her recipe is quite right. Hers makes 12, so I doubled everything, but the buttercream was WAY to thick. It wouldn't go through my piping tips ( :( no trial run there...) even after I had soy-milked it down, resulting in me spreading the icing rather than piping. Then I checked the KitchenAid cookbook which gave a similar recipe only it was 4 cups of icing sugar (instead of 5) and zero cocoa (which one might need to make it chocolate...) so that kind of explains why it was so thick. So yea, if you do make these, take that into consideration.

Melissa came down halfway through the baking and said that it smelt like bacon, which is ironic, n'est pas? But other than that, both Dad and NB said that they were delish. The hippies also, but they were high so I don't imagine that they were very picky at that point.

I miss Roswell, too!

I was just reading the JustJared history for Shiri Appleby (does anyone else get shocked every time you read that she and Zach Braff are dating? I do!), and he says:

"Scrubs star Zach Braff and Roswell actress girlfriend Shiri Appleby flirt between the windows of Zach’s Porche as he gases up his car during a rainy Saturday in LA. How romantic! (I miss Max and Liz, sniffles.)"

Hahaha. How adorable.

(In case you forgot why you loved Roswell. Because you did. And still do.)

PS. Shiri is a Trojan, woot woot.

Silver Fox

How can Bryan Singer be 43?! He's kinda hot, for a director. Esp compared to Chris Nolan. I def had 'I'd do him' kind of thoughts when he talked to our class tonight.

More on Valkyrie later.

A GG Kind of Day

Campus was bumpin' with cameos today, to the point where it was the most significant part of my day despite 2 midterms.

Here's a listing:

1) On the way to Doheny a pre-midterm iced green tea: My dateless-lunch-date, in our regular spot, eating a miserable looking plate of noodles. It seems Zao's has halved the portions and kept the prices. Laame.

2) Still pre-green tea, Sudoku Sweetheart from my marketing class. She later sits next to me in class and is mad that I beat her at the Sudoku.

3) On the way to midterm #1, post tea: Pope Joan van Bombshell. Casual convo on how our prof is a fool of a took.

4) Somewhere during the day: E Coli, aka scum-of-the-earth, loitering around some garbage can. Home sweet home.

5) At the UV: Ex-roommate and her ex-flame having one of their 'catch-ups'. I guess he could count as my old flame too, if unlit candles count.

6) At the UV: Big Red and his Ethnic-Ex also doing a 'catch-up'.

7) At the UV: Speaking of E-Coli, E-Coli fanclub member, Miss Snobby Stylesaster Screenwriter.

8) At the UV: Still speaking of E-Coli, the ULTIMATE E-COLI FAN, the ex-ex-roommate, seeking midterm notes.

9) Post midterm #2, at the fountain: Little Red Riding H, on the phone.

10) On the way home, Mama and Papa looking all matchy matchy at their sexy dance practices.

11) On the way home, the Ginger Rogers of BCA on a bike.

Boy, what a lot of red heads. See, pretty eventful. If you go here, or if you know my histories, try and figure those out. :)

Uh, xoxo, gossipless girl.

The Death that was Last Campus Movie Fest

Here's my first movie.

Lots of people who worked on it never got to see it, so here you go guys. And you wonder why they asked us if we were high when we arrived for the screening...

That was this time last year. This year I hope to improve a little.

More Olympics

I have just decided that I am rooting for Nicolette Teo, who is swimming for Singapore and is also a tiger baby, despite the fact that she was from MGS and goes to UCLA.



To balance the treachery, WOO HOO LARSEN JENSEN! I believe he is USCs first Olympic medalist this year?

Is anyone else wondering why I seem so invested in the Olympics? Because I really don't care about sports. Like at all.

Some School Spirit

According to the college essay bible that is Wikipedia, if USC was a country, it would be 12th in Gold Medals and 19th in all medals.

(Um, Singapore is #112, with one silver 48 years ago. So you see why it's so easy to jump ship? I guess I could cheer for the UK. Except the little Chinese gymnast girls are so much cuter!)

And we've medaled in every Olympics since 1904.

(Actually I lost that article, but I found a better one with even more showy-off numbers.)

I believe we have 41 Trojan athletes in Beijing. UCLA has 31. SUCK IT BRUINS!

(And I'm facebook friends with one Kami Craig. I think I was her note taker one year. The same year I was Taj Gibson's. Also, same class. Yea, watch me name drop.)

So be on the look out for our peeps!

GO TROJANS!