tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228164502009-07-07T12:15:01.843-07:00Movie, Book, and TV Reviews for Common Folk, by Common FolkDennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-46412432853635759692009-05-19T21:54:00.000-07:002009-05-19T22:04:35.504-07:00

Last week I developed a theory that was proven true for last week’s vote. Basically I believe that Adam Lambert won’t have the universal appeal to make him win the competition, but that both Kris and Danny were similar enough that they would split the fan base and one of those two would be eliminated. Then my theory continues that whichever of Danny or Kris that remained from the vote last week

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-27346743519751338272009-04-28T21:46:00.000-07:002009-04-28T21:49:27.676-07:00

Tonight’s American Idol on Fox focused on songs from The Rat Pack and the Big Band Era. This theme always bugs me a little because they always keep the songs in the original genre. The problem with this is that the big band sound most definitely isn’t going to be the kind of music they’ll perform once their career starts, so it’s not a very good gauge of what they will record once they are

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-3792242813268667602009-04-22T21:59:00.000-07:002009-04-22T22:08:50.548-07:00

Thanks to Matt Giraud’s save last week, tonight’s American Idol on Fox came complete with two eliminations and David Archuleta. After over 45 million votes, here’s how it played out.Tonight’s filler material started out with a video that showed Paula Abdul choreographing the contestants for their group song. I actually found this a little more interesting that I thought I would. It was nice to

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-56122466079450963632009-04-21T22:33:00.000-07:002009-04-21T22:45:12.547-07:00

Tonight’s American Idol on Fox had a traditional theme that is usually quite a challenge for vocal and dance competitions alike, and that is Disco. The missing element of tonight’s show was that there was no mentor to coach the contestants in their song choices. Either someone had a head cold or the producers are trying to keep the masses from revolting by ensuring that they don’t go overtime

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-18824248497069061502009-04-16T00:03:00.000-07:002009-04-16T08:04:32.038-07:00

"Let's face it... the Ewoks suck, dude."Ok, I have a confession to make. When it was revealed that the main characters on ABC’s Lost were sent back in time to 1977, one of the first thoughts that came to my mind was, “Hey! That’s the year Star Wars came out in the theaters!” So tonight's scenes that featured Hurley (Jorge Garcia) scribbling in his Dharma Initiative composition notebook his own

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-36592105110172655382009-04-15T22:07:00.000-07:002009-04-15T22:19:24.653-07:00

It’s results night on American Idol and even though they could just come out and tell us who’s going home, they have to stretch it out into an hour long show with tons of hype and made-up drama with a couple of guest performers thrown into the mix.The show opened with the group singing Michael Sembello’s “Maniac” from the 1983 movie, Flashdance. Of all the music from movies, I wouldn’t have

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-9951747603712831592009-04-14T23:15:00.000-07:002009-04-14T23:31:02.437-07:00

Contestants Perform Songs of the CinemaOn tonight’s American Idol on Fox, the contestants consulted with Quentin Tarantino to pick out songs from the big screen to perform.Allison Iraheta started off the night singing Aerosmith’s “I Don't Want to Miss a Thing” which was featured in the Bruce Willis movie, Armageddon. With a very subdued beginning she took her time really getting into the mood

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-89555875292024779492009-04-13T23:57:00.000-07:002009-04-14T00:11:09.042-07:00

NOTE: Watch out for spoilers with a bad mood.In tonight’s episode of Heroes on NBC, “1961,” Angela Petrelli takes her family on a trip down memory lane, and in the process, reveals to us how the idea for the original “Company” came to be. During Angela’s flashbacks, we see how she and her sister Alice were taken to an internment camp where Monhinder’s father, Chandra Suresh was researching people

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-211556846453765082009-04-10T09:24:00.000-07:002009-04-11T11:00:03.333-07:00

When NBC decided to take a British show called The Office and make an American version of it, they took the script from the British pilot and almost remade it word for word. For every character, there was an American counterpart. For every joke, it was either retold verbatim or it was rewritten for American sensibilities. The success or failure of the pilot for the American version of The Office

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-6568033989291590592009-04-09T15:33:00.000-07:002009-04-09T15:50:45.011-07:00

“As long as the dead guy says there’s a reason, then I guess everything’s gonna be just peachy.”In last night’s episode of ABC’s Lost, “Dead is Dead,” we abandoned the story of the Oceanic survivor’s escapades in the Dharma of the past, and focused on Ben’s story where he professed to be on a mission to pay the Smoke Monster a visit to atone for his sins. I say “professed” because I never had the

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-91813975113220421082009-04-09T11:04:00.000-07:002009-04-09T11:51:41.568-07:00

Well, two out of three isn’t bad. With yesterday’s review I estimated that it would be Scott, Lil, and Kris in the bottom 3, but America surprised me by sending Anoop to the bottom. With Seacrest’s usual cruel shenanigans, he led Matt Giraud on and then mercilessly let him sit back down. With the few that were left, it was obvious that the bottom 3 would be rounded out with Lil and the new piano

Bryan Osbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615361222760181362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-58483047425234451662009-04-08T01:13:00.000-07:002009-04-08T09:19:24.505-07:00

Arg, why can't American Idol ever end on time. I finally had to set my Tivo to record a few minutes longer. Tonight I totally missed the last singer, Adam, which I wouldn't have been sad about, if I wasn't going to review the show. I finally found it on the computer and watched though.The theme for the night was songs from the year the contestants were born. Wow, another fat topic giving the

Bryan Osbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615361222760181362noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-57303660743178145782009-04-02T00:06:00.000-07:002009-04-02T00:23:26.024-07:00

Being a fan of Science Fiction, you’d think that I’d love stories about time travel, when actually the opposite is true. I’m frequently frustrated when I’m brought through a series challenges and triumphs that the characters are experiencing and something happens to the timeline and everything they had experienced is suddenly wiped away and nobody’s the wiser.You often see stories like that in

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-67102317092244099732009-04-01T21:37:00.000-07:002009-04-01T22:06:49.516-07:00

Let me start by sharing my opinion about something that I’ve heard people say over the years about American Idol and how more people vote for this show than people vote for the President. Well, let me just throw my 2¢ in the ring by saying that you can only vote for President of the United States once, but I know there are many people who gang up and vote multiple times for their favorites.Well,

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-89833970312686872792009-04-01T20:18:00.000-07:002009-04-01T20:27:36.101-07:00

Ok, so this is a belated review of American Idol, but I had a big project to work on so I didn’t get to watch it until tonight. Thank goodness for Tivo. Anyway, on with the show!If it wasn’t obvious that American Idol is heavily sponsored by iTunes, it was made sure by last night’s theme of anything that can be downloaded from iTunes, which is virtually anything. So what would you pick if you

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-89289093256176333612009-03-27T22:26:00.000-07:002009-03-28T09:30:48.178-07:00

“This place has been X-filed, wrapped in a cover up, and deep fried in a paranoid conspiracy.”I laughed pretty hard when I saw the first trailer for Monsters vs. Aliens from Dreamworks so I was expecting an extremely funny movie. While there were quite a few laughs in it, I think that this movie has a lot more heart and story than I was expecting.The movie begins on Susan Murphy’s (voiced by

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-53008234046417223582009-03-26T22:29:00.000-07:002009-03-26T22:40:37.172-07:00

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

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-45617073497334191412009-03-26T00:52:00.000-07:002009-03-26T01:08:51.415-07:00

“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

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-36978698603807816502009-03-25T22:40:00.000-07:002009-03-26T01:05:49.620-07:00

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

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-92214756797650897672009-03-21T01:07:00.000-07:002009-03-21T01:23:46.087-07:00

“What happens when the numbers run out?”What do you do if you know that a devastating disaster is about to occur and where it will happen? Do you make sure that you are far away from the event so you can be kept safe? Or do you try to warn as many people as you can and even try to be on the scene to aid as many victims as possible? What if there is nothing you can do about it? Does knowing about

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-65273367731217756072009-03-19T00:39:00.000-07:002009-03-19T08:02:58.650-07:00

To start things off on tonight's episode of ABC's Lost, we see the crash of Flight 316 from the point of view of the pilot, Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey). Through the course of events we see that the Oceanic Survivors that were on the plane all disappeared except for Sun (Yunjin Kim), and went back in time 30 years to be synched up with Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and the others who

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-60595604614749303062009-03-18T21:45:00.000-07:002009-03-18T22:05:38.260-07:00

At the beginning of tonight’s American Idol on Fox, Ryan Seacrest teased us by saying that tonight’s results “may shock you.” The thing is, though, that I think they are all so good, that any of them could go at any time, really.The contestants began the night performing the song, “T-R-O-U-B-L-E” by Travis Tritt. I was amazed by how in sync they all were with the fast lyrics of the song. Having

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-25428514243430038562009-03-18T01:04:00.000-07:002009-03-18T01:41:04.759-07:00

The theme for tonight’s show is the music of The Grand Ole Opry as coached by Country Music star, Randy Travis. Anyone who has watched the show over the years will know that Simon Cowell has a particular dislike of Country Music so it was interesting to see how objective he could be or if he would let his musical preferences cloud his judgment. I don’t really care for Country Music either, so I

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-75879520833426481332009-03-14T23:00:00.000-07:002009-03-15T07:32:03.774-07:00

Disney has a recent tradition of taking their older, more dated, properties and making newer versions with mixed results. For the most part they are commercial successes, but I can’t say that I’ve seen any of them that I prefer to the original. It’s probably because I grew up watching and enjoying the originals and I can’t help but compare them. Also it’s probably because most of them star

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22816450.post-37969564433921769452009-03-14T22:40:00.000-07:002009-03-15T00:28:50.901-07:00

This might seem like a strange thing to create a new post about, but as I was in the theater getting ready to watch Disney's Race to Witch Mountain, I was thoroughly entertained by two movie trailers and I just had to tell you about them.The first one for the upcoming Disney/Pixar animated adventure titled Up, which is about a crotchity old retired balloon salesman and an eager young scout as

Dennis Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05624598292546340900noreply@blogger.com0