Thursday, September 29, 2005

Happy Serenity Day

Happy Serenity-opens-at-your-local-cinema Day!! May all your Kaylee and Simon Get It Onnnn dreams come true . . .

Monday, September 26, 2005

Rock WHAT exactly?

We will, we will rock you . . . gently in our arms singing rawk tunes really quietly and without any soul or seeming purpose until you fall into an almost comatose-like deep sleep and dream of puppies and ice-cream and Australian Idol 2005 just seems like this really bad idea that someone came up with who was then laughed at by the executives at Channel 10 because they had instead decided that this year they wanted to put together some really good Australian drama instead to make up their Australian content quota. There. Isn’t that better than the reality that was :

DreadyDan. Good work man, way to completely waste a week. I’m so bored, I’m so bored, I’m so bored . . . am I at the NBA?? Deee-fense *clap clap clap* Deee-fense. Dan finally gets my pants off me but only by boring them off . . .

Laura,
the humiliation continues. Flat, bad, pitchless. Laura hit one good note, the others she battered into painful submission. It was like Olivia Newton-John with a bad head cold singing Black Sabbath (which I totally said to Fosse before Mark called her Doris Day). Laura massacred my all time favourite silverchair song. Bah. I can’t be mean to her though, its not like Emilia last year when it was kind of fun to rip her singing to shreds, Laura is just a kid. God. Get her out of this competition PLEASE. I felt sorry for her last night, she is ridiculously out of her depth and should NEVER have been allowed to get this far.

For me, Milly has turned out to be the most disappointing Idol in recent memory. I had such high hopes for her from her first audition and I feel let down. Two bad performances, followed by last nights blah one. She’s consistently pitchy and breathy, she looks really uncomfortable on stage and she’s allowing or permitting or actively participating in some horrendous clothing, hair and make-up choices. Last year the CourtJester rocked this song. He has the best falsetto in the world (NO, I am NOT biased or exaggerating in ANY way) and a beautiful rock voice and without fail picked incredibly brilliant songs (God Only Knows, anyone?? Sigh). Why would you do a song that a previous Idol had nailed? I just don’t get this girl.

THANK GOD FOR LEE. The only person who seemed to notice that each week they get given this really big, gorgeous stage to strut around on and that, you know, it might actually be nice for the audience to have something to react to. Yay for Lee, say I. I loved the arrangement, it suited him to a tee – he doesn’t have a strong voice but I like that it seems like he knows his limitations. Way to know what you can do and freaking DO IT.

Roxane
, looks strange . . . luckily I think she sounds amazing - once again – yay! Still not a great song choice but she didn’t produce a bum note and her lower register sounded a lot more powerful than it has on previous outings. Nice to have you back chipmunk! Unlike some (oh who are we kidding, most) of the other Idols, Roxane sang this song, she conveyed what this song was about, something sorely missing from almost every other competitor’s performance. Nice starting point, nice build, nice crescendo. I liked it. Oh, and SHUT UP MARK.

Anne always sings well, she always picks really good songs for her and she always has her awesome mum in the crowd, but the best thing about Anne? Her ability to connect with the camera. She’s always very convincing when she sings, her heart is firmly stitched to her sleeve.
Sidebar : Hee!! Andrew G just quoted an ‘old Klingon proverb’!! That’s the kind of awesome throwaway line I expect from Mathieson, Lord of the Geeks. It’s official, G is totally flirting with me . . .

I thought this was a smart song choice until it occurred to me that I could totally take Dan in a knife fight. Even if he’s got the type of real chef cleaver that ‘allegedly’ can cut through steelcapped boots and all I have is a plastic foodcourt butter knife? I would still fillet him like a fish before he finished the ‘o’ part of Go. It’s a hard ass song and to quote P-Giddy “he’s not hardass, he’s candy ass”. AC/DC should be sung in the following pose - head down with one arm up in a gesture of rage filled defiance as your frontal lobe SMASHES against the inside of your skull, rendering you unable in later years to adequately feed yourself. S'called Attitude Spillane, you big pansy. And STOP SHOUTING. Gah.

(And now for a glimpse into TallulahBelle’s sordid musical past. As a teenager rifling through the ‘tape drawer’ at home, I was horrified to see that we had the entire back catalogue of AC/DC – at the time, roughly circa 1985 – and was convinced my father was the worst kind of longhaired bogan. Only to be told that in fact my lovely parentals – hola mamma – had in fact purchased them for their longhaired bogan eldest daughter who was THREE at the time, and who would stand in front of Countdown on a Sunday evening and head bang her little heart out whenever they appeared. This story explains why I am not a member of Mensa, have never written the Great Australian Novel and will never understand algebra.)

Kate
? I . . . don’t understand. Why are you not great? Did your kitty die? Is it because the Eagles lost? The first time I’ve heard Pitchy Kate, Breathy Kate and Slightly Off Tune Kate. I am saddened, I don’t like this Kate, I want Great Kate back. She’s still fabulous though (and was awesome at the AFL Grand Final at the weekend and the only one who sounded even halfway decent).
Ahem.
TUCKSHOP ARMS. TUCKSHOP ARMS???!!! Fuuuuuuuuuuck off Kyle.

FIHJ. *snicker* What a shite falsetto. Crap-tastic. I take back all the nice things I ever said about FIHJ – all three of them. Pitchy, breathy, not even slightly charismatic enough to make me like it even remotely (yes I am horribly biased against him but he still sucked. He even gave P-Giddy nothing. Mister Ed. Bwah hahahahahahahah) Bollocks. Go away. You’re not good looking enough, or talented enough for me to have to watch you every week, self deluded toothy freak. (Yes, I’m mean to him – its my blog!)

Emily sings well, but she’s without. I don’t get her. Out of the clones I prefer Anne who connects with the material she presents. Emily on the other hand . . . okay, song about killing a guy and a Faustian type trial, mostly in the protagonists head, culminating with a suicide note to mother. Strange choice to SMILE throughout that song, right? I know when I kill someone I tend to go with ‘furtive’, but hey, that’s me. Bohemian Rhapsody is just not the kind of song to try and do in a minute and a half. Sweet Suzie McNeill sang a longer version on Rockstar INXS and got in all the ‘scaramouche’ and the ‘fandango’ bits and believe me, it was a killer performance. She had a choir and a full on RAWKING house band. Killer. Emily? Had less of the ‘killer’ vibe and more of the ‘oh, I’m sorry, did I step on your toe?’, and I would put good money on Emily having seen We Will Rock You starring Annie Crummer as the Killer Queen**. And Mark? She didn’t do her own arranging, Idol Extra on Thursday showed QUITE CLEARLY that she got John and Eryana to do it for her, so DON’T praise her for it. And Marcia? Don’t be dissing Mark’s dress style girlfriend. House of glass and you with the throwage of stones . . .

** and so has the hairstylist/makeup people of this show because all the girls who sang Queen had Killer Queen hairstyles . . .

Top Three : Roxane, Anne and Lee
To go : PLEASE let it be Laura. Please. Please. Please.

Oh, and I still don't know and am starting not to care, who might win.