LAST VEGAS (2013) – My rating: 7/10

Last Vegas is a pretty good movie.  Michael Douglas (Billy), Morgan Freeman (Archie), Robert Di Nero (Paddy) and Kevin Kline (Sam)  are best friends from childhood.  Now senior citizens, they get together to attend a wedding in Las Vegas.  Michael Douglas is getting married to someone half his age and is not in good favor with one of the members of this elite party of long time friends.  It seems they butted heads years ago because Paddy’s wife died and Billy didn’t attend the funeral, among other things.  To complicate matters more, they meet a singer in Las Vegas, Diana (Mary Steenburgen) and both Paddy and Billy fall for her.  Eventually they suck up their differences and the journey continues. Last Vegas is  a lesson in friendship, trust and doing the right thing.  An enjoyable movie with a wholesome message.  Now that it’s out on DVD,  I think it’s certainly worth checking into.  There are some very funny moments and its interesting to see how the team works out all their problems.  

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (2013) – My rating: 7/10

I can’t say I liked Inside Llewyn Davis.  I found it a little weird.  I understand the movie was about a young folk singer who had no where to live in 1961 and that he slept on anyone’s couch, and that he was unsuccessful at being discovered, and of course, he had little to no money but, because the film only spanned over 1 week of Llewyn’s (played by Oscar Isaac) life, I didn’t really get a since of consistency or relevance.  The cast was awesome but the story, for me, was not.  I’m not sure why this movie received high ratings (I looked it up in IMDB and found it received a rating of 7.8) and 2 Oscar nods.  Maybe I’m missing something.  I found it boring, discombobulated, slow and dreary.  I might add Justin Timberlake played Jim, another singer and friend to Llewyn.  John Goodman also starred in the film as another homeless person (Roland Turner).  The movie took place mostly in Greenwich Village in New York.  Apparently, Llewyn had a singing partner who committed suicide by throwing himself off the George Washington Bridge.  Like I said, this movie was all over the place.  It’s probably worth seeing if you’re into folk music and a bit of Greenwich Village history.  Other than that, I would skip this one.

[INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS is nominated for Achievement in Cinematography and Achievement in Sound Mixing]

AMERICAN IDOL’S CHRIS DAUGHTRY

Friday, March 24, 2006

After listening to both performances again, it was clear that Chris’ version was better than Live’s, plus he extended the song adding much, much more.  If you listen to both, you’ll see it was the same but different.

There is a poll on about.com that asks if: he’s great,  sang great, end of discussion; were you a little disappointed; he’s still one of the best performers or did you think he deceived the judges and audience. To my surprise, a whopping 80% said he deceived the judges and 15% said he’s great, sang great, end of discussion.

I am evenly divided between Mandisa, Paris and Chris, giving the edge to Chris. This stupid omission might affect his chances of winning. I’m hoping this blows over because the bottom line is, he is the most professional sounding of all the Idols and is a fantastic singer. At the end of the day, every song belongs to someone else anyway. The judges are the ones who ranted that he made it his own. If you listen to both versions, he did make it his own. I’ve listened to both versions several times, in their entirety, and Chris’ version, in my opinion, is better. He extended the song making it a much different rendition than “Live”.

Check it out for yourself before you judge. I’m not saying Chris was right just that this is a gray area and he’s still an excellent singer. So, here’s an idea, judge him on his singing ability!