March 2009 - Posts
"Dancing With the Stars" pretends to be all about the stars, but the professional dancers can be just as fascinating. This year, I'm having trouble getting too attached to any of the celebrity dancers. But I've definitely developed favorites among the pros.
CONTINUED >>
I’m no expert on animated movies. I loved them when I was younger, but since I don’t have kids of my own, they’ve never been a priority. Until now.
CONTINUED >>
The New York Daily News has a source who's saying the fix is in on "American Idol." It's a juicy headline, but it's also one of those stories that comes up every single year, and that some people will always believe, while others will never buy into unless the judges are caught red-handed crossing out the vote totals or something.
CONTINUED >>
"American Idol's" Michael Jackson Night was not as fun as anticipated. How about One-Hit Wonder Night, "South Park" Song Night, or "Jukebox of Cheese Night"? Someone left the cake out in the rain, after all.
CONTINUED >>
George Clooney, who rose to entertainment fame and prominence as Dr. Doug Ross in the first few seasons of NBC's "ER," returned to the drama Thursday night to help the vaunted series move toward its conclusion in April.
Clooney was featured in a storyline that also featured the return of his longtime paramour Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies), Dr. Peter Benton (Eriq La Salle) and Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle) in a tale of donor organs, history and decisions that change lives.
NBC |
It's been a long time since Dr. Doug Ross was seen on "ER."
|
Clooney spends half the episode talking a grandmother (played by Susan Sarandon) into donating the organs of her brain-dead grandson to needy patients, which includes Dr. Carter, who is awaiting a kidney.
Overall, for all the hype, the end result was less than thrilling. After all the drama that swirled around Dr. Ross' return -- it was a pretty flat return. Once the organs had been harvested, both he and Hathaway were only seen again in a passing moment, once they learned the organs had been successfully used (but never learned one of those organs went to old-time friend Dr. Carter). Did the storyline help the overall conclusion to the series finale? Yes. Was it worth the heralded wait? Ahhhhh ...
On a final note, as someone who lives in Seattle, there was one big faux pas that stuck out. Margulies, as Hathaway, who is now affliated with the organ donor network -- calls Spokane (pronounced Spo-CAN), Spo-CAIN -- please. If she's been living in Seattle for the past 5 years or so, she won't make that mistake (and the show producers shouldn't have either).
What did you think of Clooney's return to "ER"? Was it worth the wait, or did you also ask yourself "is that all there is?"
"American Idol" has announced a new vote change that takes a little power away from the viewers. And that's a good thing.
CONTINUED >>
While sitting around having drinks Friday night, my friends and I started talking movies. Not a rare occurrence to be sure, but one friend suggested that if you named your favorite film by the following five directors: The Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson, Hal Ashby, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, it would tell a lot about the kind of person you were. We proceeded to do just that and had some pretty fun arguments in the process.
CONTINUED >>
Two "Dancing With the Stars" contestants have dropped out at the last minute. Who should fill in? Charlotte Rae? Cher? Rapper M.I.A.? Suggest your own stars.
CONTINUED >>
It came up over and over again last week on "American Idol." Instead of critiquing the singers' voices, Simon Cowell and his fellow judges fell back and blamed the song choice.
AP |
Come on, Simon: Think of better criticism than 'song choice.'
|
"I really like you, but I absolutely hated that song," Simon told welder Matt Breitzke Wednesday night.
"Completely the inappropriate song for you, but you do have great legs," he said to Jeanine Vailes, sounding more than a little like a creepy old man.
Well, I'm not exactly a fan of the Tonic and Maroon 5 songs they picked, either, but should that really be the judging criteria at this point?
Yes, some of the songs the singers choose are awful. If I never hear anyone attempting to hit a Whitney Houston high note again, that will be just fine with me. But if the judges don't want to hear those songs, they should hand out a list of acceptable choices (which does happen once they get to the finals).
I think criticizing song choice can be fair if the singer has gone way out on a limb and picked something that they just can't handle. You need to know your own limitations -- it's hard to argue with that -- and many of these singers don't. But even then, it should be only part of the critique. Too often, it seems like the judges get lazy and blame the song instead of really dissecting the performance of the song, even if they didn't like the choice.
A friend of mine thinks that 99 percent of the time when the judges harp on "bad song choice" they really mean "bad genre choice." They've already pigeonholed the singers into different boxes -- oil rig roughneck Michael Sarver looks like a country guy, even though he hasn't sung country on the show. Don't get out of your pre-assigned box, people! If Simon decides R&B is your genre, don't try a pop song (Jasmine Murray was dinged for this Wednesday night).
The one judge I cut some slack about the song-choice criticism is Paula Abdul. You can see that it is physically painful for her to say anything bad about a performance. She blames the song, which saves her from saying anything negative about how it was sung, and then brightly goes on to compliment the singer's looks. But that's Paula. Simon should know better.
