American Idol: Movie Blandness

You may or may not know this about me, but I love movies.

As a result, I always get extra excited when “American Idol” brings back its “Songs from the Cinema” theme (or “Idol Goes to the Movies” or whatever the heck they want to call it during any given year) since so many indelible movie moments are tied to specific songs.

In addition to that, all of the different types of movie genres allow the contestants to pick from a wide variety of eclectic and exciting musical styles. At the very least, we should at least get an amusing peek at what kind of movies these people are into.

With all those possibilities, what we got was (needle scratching on record sound) Bette Midler, Diana Ross, Aerosmith’s softest, most overplayed song and Bryan Adams (x 2). If I could allow myself to recap last night’s episode, I’d do so thusly — “UGH.”

It’s not that I’m totally anti cheesy ballad. (Lord knows I love me some warm, cheese-tastic fun.) I guess I just expected more imagination and excitement from musical artists in their 20s (and teenage Allison) than the playlist from any random night of Delilah’s radio show.

Which is why Kris Allen’s performance was my favorite of the night, BY FAR.

I won’t go so far as to say that he was the best singer last night (Anoop was better yesterday, and Adam is just on a different planet). I was just SO grateful that Kris chose a beautiful song that obviously meant something to him, (to be fair, Danny did this too) that was also recorded in the last 10 years and has a chance of being played outside of your local Lite FM station (sorry, Danny) that I’m willing to overlook any minor technical faults.

Sure, his “Falling Slowly” started off too low and a little rough, but Kris certainly pulled it together and I actually don’t mind minor technical snafus when they’re supplanted by genuine emotion. My only other comment about Kris’ performance is that if he was going to sing a song from “Once” he should’ve picked the more dynamic “When Your Mind’s Made Up” instead of the more-famous “Falling Slowly.” (That being said, I don’t agree with Randy that the song didn’t work.)

I suppose I should also give Adam “One for them/One for me” Lambert credit for lightening things up. Anyone can now see that he’s semi-officially alternating between his howling rock god persona (what he really seems to prefer doing) and his more sensitive performances (what the “critics”, like me, seem to prefer.) As far as his “rock god” performances go, I’d put “Born to be Wild” toward the top. (Certainly better than the stupid, completely pointless, “Play that Funky Music.”) Don’t get me wrong: “Born to be Wild” was still kind of pointless, but those howls at the end were fantastic (as usual) and I actually enjoyed the slight changes to the arrangement. Whether he’s actually “dancing on the path to greatness” remains to be seen, since no one (but Paula) knows what the hell that means.

Gimme a second to whip out the wine (or whine) because the rest of the performances were unabashed cheese.

Anoop Desai was the most successful, despite not roughing up “Everything I do, I do it for you” quite as much as mentor Quentin Tarantino would’ve liked. Still, he gave a very confident and emotionally connected vocal. The problem is that Anoop now seems stuck in balladeer mode which, for a guy with so much obvious smarts and personality, is kinda boring.

Danny Gokey did what Danny Gokey does — picked an old-fashioned song that started out sort of rough, but finished very strong. The difference was that Simon finally called him out on the pattern. I really like his voice — and when he was good last night, he was REALLY good — but he desperately needs to prove he’s going to be a relevant artist in today’s musical landscape next week. Maybe a trip to the bottom 3 on Wednesday will be the kick in the pants he needs.

Otherwise, he could end up as the next Lil Rounds.

I actually thought Lil gave her best performance of the finals. However, after so many lackluster, underwhelming, unoriginal performances, she needed to hit a home run to prove that she was a real contender in this competition. Instead, she hit a nice double down the line (at best). I give her credit for doing a better job of working the verses than usual and for adding a little gospel flavor to her rendition of “The Rose.” However, I have to take points away for once again not really ever showing us what kind of artist she’s going to be. (Unless she’s going to be the kind of artist who sings suckier covers of famous songs). I also have to take points away for her defiant/bratty spat after Simon’s (valid) criticism. (There’s just no winning a spat against the judges, unless you’re quick-witted Scott McIntyre.) She just seems like she’s totally over this competition. Oh well, at least she didn’t sing “I Will Always Love You.”

Since I’m pretty much pronouncing that Lil Rounds is done (maybe not this week, but she can’t win), that leaves Allison Iraheta as the last best hope for the women. While it was fantastic to FINALLY see Simon acknowledge this fact, it was puzzling to see him do so after her most lackluster performance. It wasn’t that her take on “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” was bad. It was just more unoriginal (David Cook did a take on the song with the orchestra just last year) and sloppier (she kind of lost it with some of those high notes after the first verse) than her other work.

Still, she held it together more than Matt Giraud (pictured, left), who unfortunately fell apart during the bridge of “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman.” It’s too bad because I was digging the vibe of him at the piano and — holy hell, I just sounded like Randy Jackson. I’ll just stop and say that it’s probably going to take a mad rush from Matt’s fans to save him today.

So what’d you think of this episode? What’d you think of the judges only being allowed to talk two at a time? (This was idiotic — if they just ditched all the nonsense from the judges at the start of the episode about how they ran out of time last week [or if they just ditched Randy], there’d be plenty of time for everyone to talk.) What’d you think about Tarantino as a guest mentor? (I thought he had some good advice — if only anyone had bothered to take it. I’m looking at you handsy Danny and still-too-soft Anoop.) Finally, who do you think is going home tonight? (My money’s on Matt.)