Month: February 2012

Thirteen Men Perform on “American Idol” on Feb. 28, 2012

On February 29, 2012

In Music, Pop Culture, Reviews, Television

Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez and Randy Jackson: "American Idol" Judges.

Feb. 28, 2012, Tuesday, Fox, 8 pm – The “American Idol” men performed tonight. Only half of the thirteen allowed to sing will be passed through. The thirteenth lucky “Wild Card” performer was Jermaine Jones who sang Luther VanDross’“Dance with My Father.”

Finalists?

The Six Best, for me (in no particular order) were: Reed Grimm, Adam Brock, Joshua Ledet, Aaron Marcellus, Phil Phillips and Deandre Brackensick. Some will have found Colton Dixon’s moody Paramour piece entrancing. For me, he was just all right.

Reed Grimm

It felt as though the performances started on a high note and went downhill. Although I am uncomfortable watching Reed Grimm move, he sings well; his version of Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger” was good. Reed’s movements are offputting. He tries to be sexy. He comes off looking as though he has to go to the bathroom. Incorporating the drums at the end of his song, however, earned him great reviews from the judges. (“Very nice choice” from Randy; “Great choice, jazzy and musical good job” from Jennifer and “I loved it, Man. Good for you,” from Steven Tyler.)

Adam Brock

Adam said, “There is a large black woman trapped inside my body.” He proved it by singing “Think!” by Aretha Franklin. Steven Tyler called his version “Brilliant!” Jennifer Lopez said, “You definitely delivered at the end.” Randy referenced Adam’s “throwback vibe” saying, “Job well done!”

Deandre Brackensick

Deandre of the fly-away hair, who is only a senior in high school in San Jose, California, sang an “Earth, Wind and Fire” song and received rave reviews from Jennifer Lopez (“So perfect to me.”), Steven Tyler (“Good choice of songs.”) and Randy Jackson (“One of the most commercial voices we have this year. I’m pullin’ for you. Lovin’ you.”)

Aaron Marcellus

Wearing a hat and stalking the stage, Aaron sang a Jackson Five song, “Never Can Say Goodbye,” hitting an incredible high note at the end.

Joshua Ledet

This Louisiana boy sang “He Pulled Me Through,” a Jennifer Hudson song. Definitely one of the most vocally talented.

Phillip Phillips Last, but definitely not least, the Dave Matthews wannabe did a very different version of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” He was told by the judges, “There is no doubt that you are one of the most special talents that we found on the road.” Steven Tyler praised his performance as, “A really good job.” Randy said, “I love this guy. So unique for ‘American Idol.’”

Stay tuned to find out who America voted the six male “American Idol” finalists.

24 Contestants Are Selected As Semi-Finalists for Eleventh Season of “American Idol” on 2/23/2012

By Connie Wilson

On February 24, 2012

In Music, Pop Culture, Television

"American Idol" judges Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez and Randy Jackson.

The final twenty-four semi-finalists were selected on “American Idol” on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012, in Las Vegas. Let the games begin! The twelve male semi-finalists will rise to thirteen as a final boy is selected from one of four contenders. A poll taken on my.hsj.org, asking which of the four potential male contestants deserved to be placed back in the competition, favored Johnny Keyser, with 41.1%. David Leathers, Jr., received 29.1% of the votes, Germaine Jones 23.6% and Richie Law—the arrogant cowboy-hatted bossy contestant—got only 6.1% of the vote.

Twelve Female Semi-Finalists
The twelve girls left in the competition are: Jessica Sanchez, Jen Hirsch, Hayley Johnsen, Elise Testone, Chelsea Sorrell, Baylie Brown, Brielle Von Hugel, Erika Van Pelt, Hollie Cavanagh, Skylar Laine, Hollie Day and Shannon McGrane. It is no accident that I placed Jessica Sanchez’ name first in this list.
Twelve Male Semi-Finalists
The twelve male contestants selected, so far, are: Creighton Fraker, Joshua Ledet, Reed Grimm, Heejun Han, Colton Dixon, Phil Phillips, Deandre Braceknsick, Chase Likens, Aaron Marcellus, Jeremy Rosado, Adam Brock and Eben Frankewicz. Eben and Randy Leathers, Jr., were the last two to be notified and each looked like they were among the youngest, although Randy has a two-year advantage on the 15-year-old Eben. Randy was shown with his father, after he was cut, describing himself as “devastated” but saying Eben deserved a spot. I hope the poll mentioned above is wrong and either Randy or Germaine is placed back in the group. For that matter, I thought Neco Starr deserved to go on for the boys, and cutting 29-year-old Wendy Taylor was singled out by www.theclicker.today.msnbc as particularly brutal, since she will not be able to compete again. Wendy of Crosby, TX, sang in the group (with Mathene Treco and Lauren) “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and was quite good.
The two-hour program on Wednesday night dragged on and on as the same “bait-and-switch” tactic for delivering the good news was employed over and over again, reducing many of the stressed-out contestants to tears. I don’t believe I’ve seen so many male contestants in tears before this season. (Steven Tyler even said, “I like to see a grown man cry” when Adam Brock broke down on Thursday night’s program.)However, it is also true that the Korean-American contestant Heejun Han from Pittsburgh cries when he’s happy and cries when he’s sad. So, go figure.
Momma’s Boys
I also don’t remember a season when 26-year-old contestants like Reed Grimm were on their cell phones to Mommy quite so much, or when a gentle giant like Germaine Jones is shown devotedly telling viewers that he calls his mother “My Beautiful” and she calls him “My Handsome.” My only conclusion: this year, they don’t have as many truly tragic backstories of sickness or handicaps overcome.
Of course, the producers could simply be waiting to display all that pathos for the coming programs. (I have never seen such blatant tear-jerking maneuvers as those used by “Dancing with the Stars;” the “dedication” of each night’s dance to this or that cause gets to be a bit much.) Somehow, you expect a 15-year-old, like the very young Eben Frankewicz, to lean heavily on his parental units, but for those pushing thirty, it seems immature. Of course, with contestant Reed Grimm, (who sounds good if you don’t have to look at his weird presentation(s) and slinky-like dancing, what is “normal,” really? I, personally, like Dave Matthews wanna-be Phil Phillips, 21, of Leweesburg, PA, even though his voice may not be the best in the competition. That honor may go to Joshua Ledet from Louisiana, or even young Eben. I would not expect Jeremy Rosado or Deandre Brackensick of the long, wavy locks and the high falsetto to go very far.
“American Idol” vs. “The Voice”
Meanwhile, a flap has broken out on Ellen DeGeneres’ show over Randy Jackson’s supposed comment that “The Voice” was a show on which rejected contestants from “American Idol” go to compete again. Adam Levine did not take kindly to Randy’s off-the-cuff remark, saying, “Shame on Randy Jackson for saying that, because he, out of anybody, should know that if you’re in this business you need second, third, fourth and fifth chances. So, we love and embrace that being part of ‘The Voice.’…It was an irresponsible thing to say that.”
Randy Jackson immediately responded with a semi-apology, trying to clarify what he had meant, saying, “It’s all love. Adam is a friend of mine. He and I and Ryan (Seacrest) have hung out a zillion times. There is no disrespect…I’m just saying the difference in our show is new people. We try to find those.”
Since its 2002 launch, “American Idol” has been a ratings winner and it still beat “The Voice,” which pulled in 16.3 million viewers, 13% less than “American Idol.” “The Voice” is doing well for NBC, however, scoring second only to Sunday night football and attracting an audience that is slightly younger, with an average age of 43, while the average age for “Idol” viewers is 47.

The Color of Evil by Connie Corcoran-Wilson

By Connie Wilson

On February 23, 2012

In Uncategorized

“American Idol” Group Night Aimed to Appeal to New, Older Demographic

By Connie Wilson

On February 19, 2012

In Music, Pop Culture, Reviews, Television

"American Idol" 2012 judges Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez, and Randy Jackson.

AmIdol2012After many years of faithfully following “American Idol,” this year, for the first time, the group performances have been as polished as those from Hollywood. One-hundred hopefuls out of over 1,000 would-be singers formed groups in Las Vegas for the February 16, 2012, program, but, this time, the contestants sang on a big stage with costumes, props, choreography and bells and whistles that we usually don’t see until Hollywood. The goal: to whittle the troupe down to forty (forty-two fortunate souls were passed on).

Changing Audience

The young singers performed songs from the fifties and sixties. This may well be because the demographic watching the show has become older and more mainstream. Other programs, like “The Voice” and “The X-Factor,” have siphoned off the younger viewers, but “American Idol” is still doing fine with middle America.

Song Selections

Every group performed a professional rendition of a song that those who are older than twenty-one would know and remember. Examples: “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?,” “Rockin’ Robin,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes,” “I Guess It Doesn’t Matter Any More,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” “I Only Have Eyes for You,” “Sealed with a Kiss” and the Elvis anthem “Blue Suede Shoes.”

Standout Performers

There were some standout performers: David Leathers, who looks like an elementary school student, was outstanding. Reed Gramm, 26, from Wisconsin, who kept phoning home to talk to his mother on the last show, continued to please the judges, who were heard to mutter that he was “like Casey (Abrams).” Reed seems to be a crooner in the Michael Buble mold, but he’s better heard than seen.
The villain of the show has already been cast. He’s Richie Law, the cowboy wearing the hat and acting arrogant. Richie teamed with Jermaine Jones, a fine singer with a great voice but a bad lisp when he speaks. Both have deep bass voices like last year’s winner, Scotty McReery.
The camera consistently followed the Asian contestant Heejun Han from Flushing, New York, who has a very sweet tone to his voice, but who locked horns with the cowboy early on. Also in Heejun’s group was Neco Starr, whose lead vocals on “I Only Have Eyes for You” were great and Phil Phillips, who seems to have modeled his style on Dave Matthews.

There are too many good voices this year to start taking odds, but I was particularly impressed with 16-year-old Jessica Sanchez of California, whose group sang “Guess It Doesn’t Matter Any More” and with Joshua Ledet of Lakeview, Louisiana. The weird hair guy whose sister (Skylar) got cut is really starting to creep me out, so the less said about him, the better.

The Color of Evil, 1st in a Trilogy, Nearly Ready to Launch

By Connie Wilson

On February 17, 2012

In Books, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Reviews

Tentative cover for "The Color of Evil," available soon as an E-book title on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The Color of Evil, the first novel in a trilogy about a young boy with paranormal abilities, is about ready to launch. I sent it out to be reviewed, without realizing that they were going to post the review so quickly. Here it is. It’s good, but I don’t have the book totally converted, yet, so no cover picture, and you can’t buy it yet.

Here’s the review link:

http://wordalert1.blogspot.com/2012/01/color-of-evil.html

But soon.

Passing of Whitney Houston on Eve of Grammys a Tragic Tale

By Connie Wilson

On February 14, 2012

In Movies, Music, Pop Culture

Whitney Houston, a tremendous talent, dies tragically at 48.

Whitney Houston possessed one of the most beautiful female voices of the past quarter century. She was the only female singer to have won a Grammy Award, an Emmy, an MTV Video award, an MTV movie award, a People’s choice award and a Billboard Music Award. She won six Grammies and earned twenty-six Grammy nominations, as well as twenty-two American music awards and thirty-eight nominations—a record.

But the Whitney Houston I saw onstage at the Moline (IL) Civic Center after her 1992 marriage to Bobby Brown seemed unprepared. She didn’t know what town she was in and didn’t seem to care. She seemed lost in a fog. That fog may have swallowed her up on February 11, 2012, as she lay in the bathtub of her room at the Beverley Hilton Hotel, where singer Ray J around 3:30 p.m discovered her, underwater and unconscious.

The call for help went out at 3:43, but help came too late. Clive Davis, who had launched her career, was trying to help Houston get her career back on track, but the damage was done. She looked weary in the last footage I saw of her, a brief interview with Houston and Jennifer Hudson.

It was too late for Whitney to undo years of damage to her body and her voice, a downward spiral that most believe began with her 1992 marriage to Bobby Brown, with whom she had a daughter, Bobby Kristina, in 1993. Some say her death was no accident. A video of her onstage singing, “Yes, Jesus Loves Me” two days prior was her final performance. The 3 prescription drugs found in her hotel room are not to be taken simultaneously. Xanax, Valium and lorazepam are all powerful anti-anxiety drugs and taking any of them in combination with alcohol would be potentially life-threatening. Did Whitney take a prescription drug by accident, lose consciousness, and sink beneath the waters of her bath by accident, thus dying by drowning? One comment that came out after the tragedy was that there were orders that Houston was not to take an unsupervised bath. (It makes one wonder how something as private as a bath can be “supervised.”) Whitney’s last album, meant to revitalize her career, did not do particularly well, but it was much better-received than her touring, which is where singers really make their money. At several of her latest shows, her voice showed seemed so ravaged by her hard living that patrons demanded their money back. This must have been a bitter pill for the woman who electrified the world with her version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Superbowl in Tampa and whose “The Bodyguard” album sold millions of copies. Did Houston simply give up and give in, purposely taking the pills and slipping into oblivion? If so, she left no note, and she had talked to family members within a half-hour of her death.

Whitney charted seven consecutive Number One Billboard Hot 100 Hits: “Saving All My Love for You;” “How Will I Know?” “The Greatest Love of All,” “I Wanna’ Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)”, “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?”, “So Emotional,” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go?” Those titles parallel the sad rise and fall of this beautiful and talented singer. The female lead in “The Bodyguard” opposite Kevin Costner, she also acted in three other films, including” Waiting to Exhale” and “Sparkle” and was working with Jordan Sparks on a new project, where she would play her mother. (To be released in August).

The Grammys were retooled to include a tribute to Houston with Jennifer Hudson singing a haunting rendition of “I Will Always Love You.”

A Feb. 20^th issue of the Inquirer with unflattering photos of Houston detailed some late-night partying that had gone on in the days leading up to this year’s Grammys. Another article claimed she was broke, dependent on advances from the record company and from friends. Although there will be a surge in the sale of “I Will Always Love You,” it is the very much alive Dolly Parton, the songwriter, who will benefit, not the estate of Whitney Houston. Houston told Diane Sawyer in 2002, “The biggest devil is me. I’m either my best friend or my worst enemy.”

Woody (Harrelson) Is Wonderful in “Rampart”

By Connie Wilson

On February 11, 2012

In Movies, Pop Culture

Woody Harrelson portrays a very bad cop in "Rampart."

Woody Harrelson’s new movie with director Owen Moverman, “Rampart,” is just as intense as “The Messenger,” which co-starred Ben Foster (Russell on television’s “Six Feet Under”). The poster carried the slogan: “The most corrupt cop you’ve ever seen onscreen.”

Those are big shoes to fill. Especially when we have such excellent predecessors as Richard Gere in “Internal Affairs,” Denzel Washington in “Training Day,” Harvey Keitel in “Bad Lieutenant,” Nicolas Cage in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” Ethan Hawke in “Brooklyn’s Finest” and Matt Damon in “The Departed.”

“Rampart” opens wide on February 17, 2012. The cast includes Harrelson and Foster, together again, plus Ned Beatty, Sigourney Weaver, Anne Heche, Ice Cube, Cynthia Nixon, Robin Wright and Steve Buscemi.

Harrelson’s performance is a tour de force. He is definitely not a good cop, but he has standards that harken back to an earlier day. As veteran cop Ned Beatty tells him, “This isn’t your father’s LAPD.” Ben Foster, who helped Woody deliver the messages that a loved one was dead in combat in Moverman’s “The Messenger,” is almost unrecognizable (and irrelevant) as a paraplegic in a wheelchair (General Terry).

Dave Brown’s nickname in the department is “Date Rape Dave” because he cold-bloodedly murdered a business acquaintance he knew had date-raped several girls. He also married two sisters, consecutively. Each couple had a daughter. They are all living under one roof when the movie opens.

Cynthia Nixon plays Barbara and Anne Heche plays Catherine. (This may be the first time two lesbian actresses were hired to play sister wives.) At the height of the film, in one of the most intense scenes, Catherine screams at Dave (Harrelson), calling him a racist, a bigot, a sexist, a misanthrope, a womanizer and homophobic. His own oldest daughter, Helen, (Brie Larson) tells him, “You are a dinosaur, Date Rape.”

When Woody confesses to his daughters, “Every single thing you’ve heard and more, it’s true. I could never change. But I never hurt any good people,” his teen-aged daughter Helen (Brie Larson) says, “What about us?”

On IMDB (International Movie Data Base) this message appeared: “I just saw the screener. They better fix the ending.” Very, very true. Just as Francis Ford Coppola sweated bullets over a satisfactory ending for “Apocalypse Now,” the writers/director (James Ellroy and Oren Moverman) have come up short at the end of this otherwise fine film. For whatever reason(s), the ending is totally unsatisfactory. It just…ends.

It’s really a shame, because the performances of the fine cast and the intensity of Harrelson’s lead role are spot-on. Just when we are anticipating the much-discussed “Rampart” investigation of police corruption (“a shitstorm of epic proportions”), with Date Rape Dave one of its main targets (“Someone like me is more dangerous on the witness stand than on the street.”) there is an abrupt end to what had been a promising follow-up to Moverman’s “The Messenger.”