A Sad Day has Occurred.

Danny Gokey has been voted off American Idol. I am continually amazed at the public's ineptitude to at all judge good singing. As I mentioned in my last post on this subject, Allison Iraheta was voted off last week. Allison, Danny, and Adam Lambert are all clearly superior vocalists to Kris Allen, but somehow he managed to make it to the finale with Adam. Allison is a powerhouse, rocker singer, who can really belt it out and sound great. Danny can sing great in a soft voice, in loud voice, in falsetto, and he has excellent control of tone in whatever range or volume he has to sing in. Adam, can hit some of the highest notes I have ever heard anyone hit, and he's perfectly on key. None of this did Kris have. Kris is a competent vocalist who is almost always on key, but there ends his singing ability. All three of the aformentioned are also much more talented than him. I guess I can't blame America, because loyalties easily suprecede objectivity. However, there's one thing lurking in the darkness that no one probably wants to talk about. It's that element that has most likely gotten Kris this far when he probably shouldn't have even been in the top ten. Neither Danny nor Allison have it. That's right, it's girl appeal. Kris is the young, "cute" guy of the bunch, and perhaps for no other reason than that, he has advanced to the finale.

In any case, Danny will be missed. I hope he goes on to have a great career and prove America wrong in voting him off. He was just so on, on everthing he sang (except, of course, that one note last week he sang wrong). He was so balanced. Any range or volume he had to attack, he did it with great control. The one thing I like about him more than Adam is that he didn't scream out every song, but had the reserve and control to be quiet and tender sometimes. Here's to you Danny, an awesome vocalist and one of the best at that!

Star Trek review up over @ GM4R!

After staying up late last night watching Star Trek I woke up late today and headed on over to Wendy's to have some double stacks for breakfast (Seriously, it's a guilty pleasure of mine. I'll post about it later). Following that I finally got up the gusto to take a few hours and write up a review of Star Trek. Check it out over at GM4R!

Star Trek Surpise

It appears J. J. Abrams and co. have decided to pull a fast on the world and release Star Trek a day earlier than the announced US release. It comes out tonight at 7:oo pm in theaters. I have no idea why they decided to do this. Everyone is expecting to see it "opening night" on Friday. Why release it a day early when no one knows about it? At any rate, I may hop over to a theater tonight (if there are any tickets left) so I can give it a day-of-release review over at GM4R. Stay tuned!

For American Idol followers...

For those of you who have been following American Idol this season, today's episode (May 6th, 2009) was a shocker! Allison Iraheta got voted out, making the top three all guys! Though Allison may have had some minor flaws in her singing, Kris Allen has definitely been putting out consistently weaker performances.
Now it comes down to a manly man face-off. Will the underdog Kris go all the way and sweep the season; will Adam Lambert and his stratospherically insane vocals carry him high above all the rest; or will Danny Gokey and his all around balanced style give him a perfect 10?

All is up to the American public. Yes, I'm talking about the untamed, usually bias, and passionately loyal American Public (myself included). Over 20% of America voted in this last show. Think about that. That's over 60 million people. The competition is definitely heating up. It's going to be a very exciting next three weeks. Be sure to tune in, everyone, for the climactic final battle going down every Tuesday and Wednesday night at 9 o'clock on Fox!

This Week over at GM4R

That's right folks, expect a late Friday night/early Saturday morning review of Star Trek over at my media review blog George's Mostly Methodical Music and Movie Reviews(GM4R!). That's pretty much how I'm going to break up my blogging. All reviews on relatively new media (not including video games) will be at GM4R. Everything else goes here. I'll post updates here every time there's going to be a new review over there. Well, that's it. This is George "013" Hastings signing out!

013, a Seminal Post

"So, George," you might ask, "why the '013' after you name?" The 013 refers to a running joke I had with a friend when we were growing up. You see, along with our regular aspirations, we both wanted to be secret agents. My friend said that he was 014 because that meant he was twice as good as 007. I, needing to choose a number close to his, chose 013 because 13 represents a number of significant dates for me. I won't get into the specifics. So, I am therefore alternately known as "Agent 013," but don't tell anyone you heard that from me *wink*. Laughing out loud, this is George "013" Hastings signing out!

Enter District 9

Once upon a time, a once unknown Neill Blomkamp, was contacted by a very well known Peter Jackson. Pete wanted Neill to work on a little film based on a very well known video game franchise. It 's a franchise involving missile launchers, Warthogs, space rings, and exoskeleton battle armor. You guessed it, its Halo. Then, Pete got ambitious and decided to have both Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox back the project. Unfortunately for him, the studios didn't want to play nice and share profits with Microsoft(because Microsoft owns the rights). As a result, the studios decided to back out of the project. Besides, they didn't trust Niell, the new guy on the block. And everyone lived happily ever after...

Wait, what? We all know that can't be the end of the story, after all, the protagonist didn't get to direct his movie. Indeed it is not the end.

Niell Blomkamp was a short film and advertisement director before Jackson contacted him. One of the short films he directed was called Alive in Joburg. When the Halo movie fell through the cracks, Jackson decided to give Niell a whack at making Alive into a feature length picture.

Enter District 9.

District 9, or D9, which is the feature length extension of Alive, is about an excluded demographic in South Africa which is confined to a certain area in Johannesburg called district 9. The catch is, the demographic is not human. Detailing an alternate present day, D9 chronicles humanity's attempt to coexist with space aliens who have come to earth seeking energy and refuge. The above picture is of one of the main characters who has been infected with alien bio-technology, hence his eye. (image retrieved from Slashfilm.com)

This is looking as though it's going to make a very interesting movie. Besides the concept being intriguing, Neill has a very visceral and edgy style of directing. As further example of this, one of his other short films is Tetra Vaal, which is a fictional promo video for a sort-of robocop for third-world countries. Additionally, some of his advertisement efforts include: two Citroen ad's featuring a transformer of the car dancing and ice skating, two Nike ads called Evolution and Crab, and a Gatorade Rain commercial.

I am certainly looking forward to this film, as this style has not really been explored in a big-budget sense. Simply put, this is a film to look out for.

For more information about the film, and to see it's official trailer, go to www.d-9.com