March, 2009
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Movie Review: Monsters vs. Aliens
March 28, 2009 by Dennis West
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American Idol Final 10, Results Show!
March 27, 2009 by Dennis West
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Thrills! Chills! Surprise Endings! And Romance! All on tonight’s exciting results show on Fox’s smash hit American Idol!
Ok, so it wasn’t all that exciting, but after a lot of manufactured tension and suspense, and a measly little 36 million votes, here are the results.
The finalists opened tonight’s show with a Medley of Motown songs which was followed up by a performance by American Idol Season 2 winner, Ruben Studdard. It’s been a while since I’d seen Ruben, but I know he’s been busy in “Ain’t Misbehavin’” with disqualified Idol, Frenchie Davis.
The first contestant declared safe was Adam Lambert (no surprise), but right away we learned that Matt Giraud was the first to be placed in the bottom 3. Shortly after that, Kris Allen and Lil Rounds were declared safe, but Michael Sarver wasn’t, he was also in the bottom 3.
Joss Stone and Smokey Robinson sang a duet of the song, “You’re the One For Me” which conveniently showed up on iTunes today.
Allison Iraheta, Danny Gokey and surprisingly Megan Joy Corkrey were declared safe, while Scott MacIntyre was placed in the bottom 3. Shocker! Scott didn’t stick around with the 3 very long, though as he was quickly declared safe… psych!
To serenade us as we patiently waited for the final results, Motown legend Stevie Wonder came out and sang a few of the songs that terrible American Idol hopefuls have massacred over the years.
Ultimately, I wasn’t surprised at all that Matt Giraud was declared safe and Michael Sarver was the one who had to sing for his life. I also wasn’t surprised that the judges chose not to save him this week. There are only a couple of contestants that I think would be worth saving in that manner, and I don’t think Michael Sarver was one of them.
So what thrills and chills await us next week? Hmm… I’ll betcha someone sings well, and someone sings bad, and that bad singer may actually go home! But I’ve been wrong before.On another note, if you’re at all inclined to purchase the contestant’s performances from Apple’s iTunes Music Store, you’d better do it before the finale, because if this season is anything like the last one, as soon as the final episode airs, the only songs that will be available will be the ones the two finalists sing. Last year all of the other performances were taken down immediately. Just a “head’s up.”Category Television, Uncategorized | Tags: | Comments Off
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TV Review: Lost, "He’s Our You"
March 26, 2009 by Dennis West
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“A 12-year-old Ben Linus brought me a chicken salad sandwich. How do you think I’m doing?”
Beware of Spoilers!
Tonight’s episode of Lost on ABC started with a flashback that showed Sayid when he was a child doing what his older brother was unwilling to do—kill a chicken. It seems like the message we were to get from this was that he is willing to do what it takes to get things done no matter how cruel it might seem. The next flashback seemed to confirm this because we see an adult Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) hunting down a man and killing him with no more hesitation than he had when he killed the chicken when he was a kid. But in this case he was working for Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson) and we come to learn that Ben sees Sayid as a useful killer, plain and simple. We also learn that Sayid wishes for something different out of life and resents Ben for using him to do his dirty work.
While there were minor brushes with the stories of Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Juliet, most of tonight’s episode, “He’s Our You,” revolved around the interrogation of Sayid by the Dharma Initiative. It’s was funny to see Sayid given a truth serum by the Dharma initiative’s scary interrogator (their version of Sayid—where this episode got it’s name). Funny because, when the true story that the serum brought out was as fantastic as Sayid’s was, the only conclusion the interrogator could come to was that he had given Sayid too much of it and it’s making him crazy.
The main dillema presented by this episode was what would Sayid do with young Benjamin Linus once he realized that he was in the past and could possibly have a chance to change the future, and in doing so stop some of the horrible things that he perceives were caused by Ben once he got older.Would someone who knew what was going on in Germany during World War II, if they were able to go back in time to when Adolf Hitler was a child, would they kill him before he could do the terrible things he did? I believe that the honest answer has to be yes, and I think that it was honest storytelling on the part of the writers to have Sayid, when given the opportunity, pull the trigger and attempt to kill Ben—even though he’s still a young boy. In Sayid’s eyes, this is his “reason” for returning to the island and is an attempt to free himself from the hellish life he’s made for himself.
I said “attempt to kill” because I’m thinking that Ben isn’t really going to be dead and that this event won’t really change anything at all. It’ll be interesting to see what would happen, though, if Ben actually did die. How would that change the circumstances that got them off of the island? Would they have made it back? Will Ben suddenly phase out of existence only to be replaced by Ethan who ends up being the one who does the exact same things?
To answer some of these questions, it’s helpful to look ahead to some of the names of future episodes for clues. Next week’s episode is called, “Whatever Happened, Happened.” This sounds like something Daniel Faraday would say and it makes me think that the creators of the show may be sticking to the premise that, although the characters have traveled back into their own past, they will ultimately be unable to change it.The following week’s episode, however, is called “Dead is Dead,” which makes me wonder if that’s referring to Ben’s mortal state after Sayid shot him.
3 weeks from now is where looking forward to future episodes stops giving useful clues because that episode is named, “Some Like it Hoth.” Well, we all know that Hoth is the snow planet in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back where the rebellion suffers a terrible defeat at the hands of the Empire. How this refers to the Lost storyline is anyone’s guess. Could it mean another visit to the frozen donkey wheel? Is there going to be an uprising of some kind that will be quickly thwarted? Is this where Jacob, A.K.A. Christian Shepard appears to Jack and says, “I am your father!” Who knows?
For me, all of these questions are why I love this show. So far I’ve been intrigued enough by the questions to keep tuning in and satisfied enough with the answers to be patient and let the show run it’s course naturally. I’m excited to see how all of this plays out!
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American Idol Final 10
by Dennis West
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Another week, another American Idol on Fox. This week’s theme was The Songs of Motown—something that has become a recurring theme in every season of Idol so. In my opinion, the best thing that a contestant can do is change a song into something different enough from the original so they can’t be accused of sounding karaoke. If they sing it too much like the original, the best they can do is qualify for a retro band. Of course, it’s important that they perform something that we like too. So here’s what I thought of tonight’s performances.
One of my favorite contestants, Matt Giraud, started off tonight’s performances by singing Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” I really liked Matt’s reserved introduction with piano and voice only, but once the band kicked in, it was very much like Marvin Gaye’s version and I don’t think I’ll remember much about it in the future.
Kris Allen sang “How Sweet It Is” which I think was a good choice because, although it’s originally a Motown song, it’s also a very popular James Taylor song which lends itself well to Kris’ guitar strumming. Just like the last time he performed with his guitar, I was disappointed that I couldn’t hear his guitar at all. It was fun to see him play, but it would have been nice to be able to hear it better. Ultimately, his performance was like a cross between the original Marvin Gaye version and James Taylor’s. Not bad.
Next up was Scott MacIntyre playing his piano and singing “You Can’t Hurry Love” originally by Diana Ross and the Supremes. This song is such a signature song for the Supremes so it was interesting to see him slow it down in the beginning and I was wondering if he was totally going to make it into a ballad, but the beat quickly picked up into the style that we’re all very familiar with. While it wasn’t terrible and it was nice to see him do something that’s not one of his inspirational ballads, I didn’t think it was the best choice of song for him to break out of his shell with.
Quirky Megan Joy (sans Corkery) sang “For Once in my Life” by Stevie Wonder. Watching her, it’s plain to see that she probably doesn’t put much time into practicing what she’s going to do with her limbs while she’s singing. Often she looks a little out of sorts. Vocally, I think this was probably the weakest I’ve seen her for a while since her quirky style did not fit with this song. Maybe she needs the flu back?
I think Anoop Desai tried to suck up to tonight’s mentor, Smokey Robinson, when he sang the Miracles’ song, “Ooh, Baby Baby,” I think that after Anoop’s fiasco of singing Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” that he’s hesitant to sing anything other than a ballad. Unfortunately, I was totally bored within 10 seconds and before it was over I was fighting back hitting fast-forward on my Tivo remote. It’s possible that he might be the reason Megan Joy doesn’t get eliminated tomorrow.
The next contestant up was Michael Sarver who sang who I’ve always seen as a more country singer, but he definitely has a soulful sound to his voice too. The song he picked was “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by The Temptations. I think he did a fairly good job and I like the sound of his voice, but it sounded like he was just slightly behind the music a lot of the time and trying to catch up. He’s someone who was one of my favorites in the audition weeks, but I’m not expecting him to last much longer.
Lil Rounds decided to do Martha Reeves and the Vandella’s “Heatwave,” which was a very good choice of song for her style, but I can’t say that her performance was anything that I’ll remember in an hour. It seemed like she too was having a hard time keeping up with the band in parts. I’m sure she’ll stick around for a while, but I don’t think she’s anywhere near as good as some past American Idol contestants like Fantasia, Latoya London, or Jennifer Hudson.
I have to say I was wondering most of the night what Adam Lambert was going to do with his Motown song tonight. He always does exactly what I think all of them should do, which is take the song and change it up and make it his own. The problem is, I usually hate what he changes it into—but he does get points for not being boring. Tonight he sang Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of My Tears” looking quite a bit like Elvis. I loved his interpretation the song though. I love acoustic “unplugged” versions of songs, and this one was great! Made it his own in a great way.
Okey dokey Danny Gokey was up next singing “Get Ready” by The Temptations. He definitely didn’t have a problem keeping up with the music like Lil and Michael did, but it was so much like the original that unless you’re a fan of him specifically, there’d be no other reason to listen to his version. I thought he did a good job, but there wasn’t anything memorable about it for me. There are plenty of weaker performers so I think he’ll be around for quite a while, still.
Another one of my favorites, Allison Iraheta, sang “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” by The Temptations. I could tell from the sound of the guitar in the beginning that she was sticking very closely to the original, which was a bit of a disappointment for me because he usually has a nice rock vibe that I like. I’m still a fan and I enjoyed it, but it didn’t stand out as much as I’d hoped.
The best of the night was Adam Lambert. The worst was a toss up between Anoop Desai, Michael Sarver and Megan Joy. I’m sure those will be the bottom 3 tomorrow.What did you think? Leave a comment and let me know.
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Movie Review: Knowing
March 21, 2009 by Dennis West
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