Author: Jandy Page 101 of 145

American Idol Top 5

On May 1, 2008

Random Thoughts.

1) I’m getting a little annoyed that pretty much all the themes are a person rather than a genre. Okay, so each person sort of represents a genre (Mariah Carey = pop, Dolly Parton = country, Beatles = classic rock, Andrew Lloyd Webber = Broadway, Neil Diamond = rock), but limiting it to that person’s songs is so…limiting. How are the contestants supposed to pick a song that fits them when nothing in the person’s catalog, you know, fits them? It seems to become little more than an exercise in promoting not the contestants but the celebrity performers/songwriters. Plus, I’m sorry, but it gets really boring to watch at times. I’ve been clamoring for a Broadway/showtunes night for two years now, and I only get Webber? Nothing against him, he’s got some great shows, but it’s such a teeny slice of Broadway – what about some Larson (RENT), some Kander & Ebb (Cabaret), some Bernstein (West Side Story), some Miss Saigon or Les Mis, some Wicked or for goodness sake, some SONDHEIM? (Sondheim might be hard to do in 90 seconds, but I’m sure something could be figured out.) The other themes, of course, have similar issues, I just know more about Broadway.

2) The results shows are just getting insanely packed with stupid filler. There is no earthly reason for it to have an hour-long slot instead of a half-hour. The calls from viewers? Stupid. Guest singers with no relation to the show? Stupid. Thank God for DVRs. On the opposite side, how rushed was that performance show? Geez. I’m surprised Ryan didn’t make them all sing in double-time. And Paula had notes from rehearsal, clearly, and got flustered. Let’s not make it more than it is.

3) Okay, performances. Jason’s back to pleasant but not outstanding for me. Ready for him to go not because I dislike him, but because he’s clearly out of his league at this point. Syesha is stepping it up for me a LOT lately. She’s got the most Idol-ready voice at this point, and though she’s still not the person whose record I would buy, I’ve got to admit that she’s probably the strongest vocalist, and has been for a while, even though I tend to ignore her because of my love for David C. and Brooke. David C., incredible, incredible, incredible. I’d buy his record NOW. Brooke, seriously bad choice on the first song, and didn’t even get a good key for herself. Much better on the second – that’s her niche, and I love her in that mode. David A., good vocals, but yeah, I’m sort of bored by him now.

4) Results. I’m not really surprised. I take that back, I’m surprised that Jason is still sailing through. But once he was on the couch, I wasn’t surprised. Brooke’s first song was REALLY rough, and I knew she wouldn’t win anyway. She’s great at what she does, but what she does is not really Idol’s thing. I’m glad she was around as long as she was, and I’m sure she’ll be fine, singing songs that fit her much better than what Idol’s been throwing her lately.

5) Hopefully Jason will go next week. After that, it’s a toss-up. Will it be David C., the most clearly talented singer/musician with the best chance of actually making a hit record, but whose demographic doesn’t traditionally jive with Idol completely? Remember Daughtry went home in fourth place. Will it be Syesha, who’s peaking at just the right time and would be a near-perfect fit for Idol’s niche, but who hasn’t seemed to gather the fanbase she might need to bring it home? Will it be David A., who has the teen girl vote locked up tight, but is starting to bore a lot of the rest of us? Who can say?

Life Update

By Jandy

On April 29, 2008

In Gaming, Personal, School

I know I’ve been lax on the old blog lately. I claim a combination of schoolwork, socializing, nearing-graduation stress, returning television shows, and generally not much interesting going on. Oh, and also the part where I’ve gotten in Twitter a lot more and am post one-off thoughts there instead of collecting them together into a blog-sized post. That gets most everything I want to say out of my system so it doesn’t end up here, which can be good or bad, I guess, depending on how you look at it. The socializing has been largely responsible for my not being around and live-blogging American Idol. Various people have wondered what’s going on with me, though, so here’s a bulleted update.

American Idol – I’ve been ragging on Carly a lot, but honestly, I was pretty shocked when she went home instead of Jason. I’ve also supported Jason mostly throughout the show, but that was a trainwreck of a performance on his part, and I think he’s pretty well proven that, much to my disappointment, he’s a one-trick pony. So America got that one way wrong. For me, though, David Cook has it locked. Which means he’ll probably get voted off next. Just my luck.
School – In case you didn’t catch the edit to my post about the oral exam, I did pass it. Which is a major yay. Actually, it was sort of enjoyable – a conversation about books and film with really smart people. :) Except one professor kept asking me about Faulkner even though I admitted to never reading any Faulkner. Guess I know what’s next on my reading list! And a friend and I gave a joint presentation in Literary Criticism yesterday which went surprisingly well. And now I just have two seminar papers left, and I’m fairly comfortable with them, so stress-level has fallen exponentially in the last two days.
Post-Grad Plans – My current plans are to take a couple of weeks after graduation, maybe spend a week here hanging out with friends minus finals week stress and a week at home, then move to Los Angeles. I’m looking for jobs at USC or UCLA (not teaching; administrative), or pretty much anywhere out there that will pay me to do something I can do. ;) I mostly just want to live in a big city for a while, at least, and LA won out over New York due to climate.
Television – Most of the TV shows are back from the writer’s strike now, which caught me by surprise, a bit – I had gotten used to my DVR NOT filling up every week. ;) The fact that I found the writer’s strike a bit of a relief probably means I’m following too many shows, but I can’t figure out which ones to give up. And the down side is that I ended up picking up a bunch of Bravo reality shows during the strike, and now I don’t want to give those up either. Good thing most of them are short. Anyway, the big television news around here is that Battlestar Galactica is back! After marathoning S3 on DVD, my friends and I jumped straight into the fourth and final season, and it is frakking amazing. If you’re not watching this show, get the DVDs and start. Don’t start in the middle.
Gaming – GTA IV came out last night at midnight, and I went and got it. At midnight. Only time I’ve ever done that for a game, though I’ve been to midnight movie premieres. One. Harry Potter. Anyway. I wasn’t able to stay awake for more than a couple of hours gaming once I got home (I’m getting old, what can I say?), but it’s pretty sweet. Graphics are beautiful, Liberty City is HUGE. I was afraid that it’d seem small after the three-city-plus-desert of San Andreas, but no. It’s ginormous, and with so much stuff going on that I’ve repromised myself never, ever to drive in New York City (on which Liberty City is based). It’s craziness. I also used Amazon.com gift certificates to upgrade to Gold on Xbox Live, so I’m set for multiplayer, once I can tear myself away from the single-player campaign.
Socializing – It’s starting to hit me that I’m leaving here in like a month, and though I feel confident in the strength of the friendships I’ve made over the past two years (and the power of Facebook) that I’ll keep in contact with most of my friends, I have been trying to spend as much time as possible with them all before I leave. And I’m at that place where I’m glad to be almost done with school, and I’m very glad to be leaving Waco, but I’m not at all glad about leaving all the people here. I know everyone goes through that every time we change life situations, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

So that’s pretty much my life right now.

Oral Exam

By Jandy

On April 17, 2008

In School

Update: I passed!

I have my oral examination tomorrow, which decides whether or not I, you know, graduate. It’s really hard to study two and a half years of coursework, especially those parts you didn’t really care for and weren’t planning to need to know again. *fingers crossed* the old memory holds up. My mind is a bit more at ease after the chair of my committee (who’s also teaching my Victorian Lit class) talked to me briefly tonight about how he plans to conduct the exam – mostly a guided conversation, sounds like.

However, he also said “I don’t really know how someone would fail an exam like this.” I never know how to take it when people say that. I know it’s meant to be encouraging, but think of what a catastrophe it would be if I DID fail after he said that? The pressure!

I kid, mostly. I’m really not that concerned about it, but it is sort of important, and it is oral (and I tend to get tonguetied), and I’m not too sure what all they’re going to ask. So anyway, if you could have me in your thoughts tomorrow, I’d be appreciative.

American Idol Top 7 – Mariah Carey

By Jandy

On April 16, 2008

In Television

Oh, joy, an entire night of singing Mariah Carey songs. *eyeroll* And most of the singers aren’t really Mariah-style singers – which I think actually turned out well. It meant they had to come up with their own takes on the songs because they didn’t have a chance of singing her version.

David Archuleta – "When You Believe"
Good song choice for David, and he brought it home. Whatever I may think of Mariah (and to be honest, I don’t think about her at all, really), her suggestion to go into the falsetto on that one part was dead on. A bit too many vocal acrobatics at the end, but it is Mariah night. Someone had to do it.

Carly Smithson – "Without You"
I quite liked the low-pitched portion of this, but I always feel like she tries too hard on the high parts. Her low range is really strong and powerful but she’s not as good in the high range as she (or the judges, apparently) think she is. And I think Simon’s comment about her overthinking is exactly right, and I think it’s part of what I sense as a lack of authenticity. It’s like she’s always just performing and never really letting herself go to the music.

Syesha Merado – "Vanishing"
Technically solid as usual, but I just can’t bring myself to care very much. It’s really nothing about her, though, I don’t think. She’s just sort of on the bland side in terms of arrangement and originality.

Brooke White – "Hero"
I was really worried for Brooke having to sing Mariah Carey, which is completely outside her zone. And it wasn’t perfect; she did get a little nervous toward the end, I think, but got it under control. Overall, she remains one of my favorites, and I thought doing the acoustic take was a gutsy move which worked much better for her than any of her options would have.

Kristy Lee Cook – "Forever"
She’s getting stonger every week, which is nice to see. Really good job on the ending especially; I found my attention drifting before that. She doesn’t, I don’t think, have the chops to compete with the top three or four here, but it’s been good to see her improving.

David Cook – "Always Be My Baby"
Holy mackeral, that was incredible! Seriously, I think it’s time a rocker won the title. He’s original, he’s smart, he knows who he is and what he does best, and he capitalizes on it just about every single week. Best performance of the night by a country mile (which is appreciably longer than a city mile, dontcha know). I felt like I wasn’t watching a competition anymore, I was watching a concert.

Jason Castro – "I Don’t Wanna Cry"
Jason’s no longer one of my must-save favorites (that title now being reserved for Brooke and David C), but I do still like him, and I thought this performance was quite good. He kept it where he could handle it and handled it well. He seems to be getting more comfortable every week, too.

Best Tonight: David Cook, David Cook, and David Cook. And David Archuleta. The others were all good but not great for me.
Bottom Three: Syesha, Kristy, and…don’t know.

We can discuss the results in the comments after tonight’s show.

Trailer Watch!

By Jandy

On April 15, 2008

In Film

Haven’t done one of these for a long time, but I defend myself on the grounds that there hasn’t been hardly anything released yet this year worth watching. And Debbie, I promise I will write about American Idol tomorrow.

Baby Mama

Apparently this is the response to all of last year’s unplanned pregnancy movies. Don’t ask me to explain why I guiltily want to see this. Probably something to do with my untold love for 30 Rock. Opens April 25th.

Son of Rambow

This has been knocking around festivals for a year or so, and just because it has a release date now doesn’t mean I’m overly optimistic about it coming near where I am. Ah well. The festival reviews have been glowing, and it looks as endearing as anything. Opens May 2 in limited release.

Speed Racer

So when I first heard about this movie, I wrote it off as another stupid kids-TV-series-to-kids-movie thing. But then I saw the trailer. And remembered that it’s the Wachowski brothers making it. And it looks so totally awesome that it’s pretty much my most highly-anticipated movie right now. Look at it! It looks so gorgeous, like a futuristic 1950s. Opens May 9th.

More after the jump.