American Idol's Not So Magnificent 7

I really liked last night's idea of having each of the contestants dish on the others.  The performances, though, were pretty forgettable.  Here's my breakdown of where we stand with only 7 contestants left.

People I Can't Stand

Scotty McCreery: He's right at the top of this list. And it seems like the judges are beginning to agree with me by FINALLY addressing his weird microphone holding routine and lack of anything remotely interesting.  But now I'm equally baffled - he knows it's weird to hold your mic like a flute yet he keeps doing it!  What's wrong with this guy?  And who is voting for him?  Everyone says little girls, but don't little girls vote for attractive guys? He seems like a good kid and a nice guy but attractive isn't a trait I'd expect to be attached to Scotty.  Besides all that, I can't stand him because he said that "Swingin" was a LeAnn Rimes song.  I'm assuming that was just so that it fit with the night's theme of recorded after 2000, but it's still terrible.

Steven Tyler:  That's right, I'm bringing the judges into this now.  Steven seems like a little brother - if he doesn't have the spotlight on him for 30 seconds he starts tugging someone's pigtails or knocking over lamps just to make everyone look at him.  He was great during auditions but has gone slowly downhill since.  He was so proud of that stupid lipstick on his cheek last night - he kept it there the whole night and was dying for someone to ask him about it. Thankfully no one did.  So weird.

James Durbin: Another case of nice kid, annoying performer.  Just vote the guy off and send him on tour already so he can dream up pianos exploding and midgets dancing and lightning striking through each of his songs.  It's funny how they act like he's special because he dreams up cool things to do on stage.  Although I am glad that he takes advantage of Idol's budget and creative license to do something other than stand there and sing.  I just feel like he's trying so hard to be a "Rock and Roll guy" that it comes across totally fake, from the Eeyore scarf tails to the manufactured arena rock each week.  Whatever.  (and yes, I realize that the two contestants I can't stand most are favorites to win it.  Just shoot me.)

Jacob Lusk:  I must admit, I didn't even listen to his song last night. All of his vocal histrionics are just too much for me.  I thought it was strange that Randy told him he needed to let go more and blow out the roof, when two weeks ago they told him hold back more and only rev up for one or two parts of the song.  Very confusing judges.  Jacob lost me when he did "Man In the Mirror" and said that if he was voted off it would be because America couldn't look in the mirror.  Lame. And not true. If he gets voted off it's because he isn't that good and we're tired of his diva act.

Contestants that were already voted off coming back to sing a song:  This was the worst part of the night. Naima was overacting so badly that I think the camera actually melted.  Pia was obviously trying hard to prove that she could be fun and dance around on stage. Paul was bored and waiting for the bus to leave so he could get on tour (and wearing rose suits again - geez).  Thia and Karen ... well, they were just as noticeable during this as during the actual show - so not very noticeable.

People I CAN stand

Randy Jackson: He's like a crazy uncle. He tries just as hard as Steven Tyler does, but he tries to be a cool kid. It's painful sometimes to watch him want to be included with the other famous singers and try to make funny comments.  Last night he gave some good critiques and overall I think he knows his stuff and seems to care about these kids.

Haley Reinhart: She really has a great voice that's fun to listen to but she's just. so. boring.  I thought her song was amazing last night but her personality just put the audience to sleep.  She has no presence on stage and doesn't command anything. Her song choices have been massive hits or misses.

Casey Abrams: I kind of loved him kissing J Lo last night. You could tell that he was half mortified/half thrilled after he did it. Kind of like the kid who pulls off Santa's beard. He's just so talented and fun to listen to.  Sometimes he gets a little too interested in growling and yelling and forgets to be good at singing but he has all of the natural creativity and James forces.

J. Lo: She's been kind of a revelation on this show. She hasn't been near the diva that I expected and you can tell she cares about the kids. I think she takes her judging seriously and even though she has a tough time being harsh or coming down hard on anyone she's been the most reliable judge.  And I don't think she's going out among the masses during commercials and hanging out with Lauren's mom or anything, but she has been pretty approachable and human - which is more than I expected.

People I Actually Like

Lauren Alaina:  She just cracks me up.

Ryan Seacrest:  He really is the hardest working guy in show business. But he's so good at keeping that show on the rails. I don't have any idea how much he ad libs throughout the night but he's so natural with everything that it makes the show more fun to watch.  I'm afraid with anyone lesser in his role these episodes could be a real drag.

So what do you think?  Who's going home tonight?  My pick is Jacob but I've been wrong every time before this.

Unstoppable (starring Denzel and Captain Kirk - the young one)

You know the saying "It was like a train wreck but I couldn't stop watching it"?  That's literally how to describe this movie.  The whole thing was so formulaic and predictable that once it started down the tracks there weren't any surprises or twists in the road. And is it bad that everytime young Captain Kirk was on the screen I was waiting for him to say something from Star Trek?  That's called typecasting, right?  Oh well, if he makes a few more movies like this I'm sure I'll forget about him completely.

Here's the basic story:  a low level railroad employee (played with awesome unintentional comedy by "Randy" from My Name Is Earl) puts a train in full speed ahead mode then steps out of the cab (it's a railroad thing, you wouldn't understand).  This starts the train rocketing down the tracks toward a town of 750,000 people, where it will hit a sharp curve and derail.  Oh yeah, there's some kind of highly dangerous (flammable?  radioactive? they never really say) liquid on the train just to up the fear factor a little.  Anyway, the railroad tries everything they can to stop the runaway train but, of course, the only ones who can do that are our heroes, two very brave but sympathetically flawed characters.  (Spoiler alert - in case you've never seen a movie before and can't guess how this ends) These guys do all sorts of heroic things (but not before spending over half the movie just driving backwards in their engine very fast ... it's really as unexciting as that sentence made it sound) to catch the speeding runaway.  Once they've caught up to a high stakes game of tug of war starts between the little engine that maybe could and the big bad runaway.  Of course, despite numerous close calls, they eventually mount the engine, shut down the runaway, and save all of humankind.

The actors in this movie do a really good job and almost pull it off, but the script totally kills them.  It's straight out of acting school 101.  Stop me if you've heard of these story ideas before:

• Long time employee is done wrong by his company but he rises above to save that same damn evil company
• Rookie gets paired with grizzled veteran (they might as well have called these guys "partners")
• Old timer with experience has to put up with Silver Spoon rookie
• Silver Spoon rookie turns out to be a natural talent
• Old timer's street smarts trump corporate stuffed shirts "rules"
• Young hero has relationship problems that get magically solved by his bravery
• Father has a poor relationship with his children that gets magically solved by his bravery
• Ridiculous upping of the ante and overhyping of consequences if heroes fail
• "James Bond villain" solutions to all problems that ensure they don't get solved until the end of the movie
• Corporations are evil and only care about the stock price
• Local employee dares to go against the corporate monolith

I think you get the idea.  I'm not saying this movie doesn't have exciting parts or a decent premise, it's just tough to believe that it's that hard to derail a runaway train.  Doesn't everyone know that if you put a coin or matchbox car or any other tiny children's toy on the tracks it'll derail a whole train?  No?  That was just me that believed that?  Oh well ...  But seriously, couldn't they have just cut out a 50 yard portion of track?

Anyway, there are way too many random characters thrown in as well.  There's a head welder whose whole role seems to be to drive really fast from crossing to crossing so he can watch the train rush past and curse under his breath.  There's a know-it-all from the Federal Railroad Association, etc. etc.  Maybe the director just has a lot of friends who have never gotten to be in a movie before.  This whole movie could have been about 20 minutes shorter (a complaint I'm having more and more these days - where have all the good editors gone?) and it would have been much better.  This movie would have been called "Unwatchable" without Denzel.  I give the script 1 star and Denzel 1.5 stars.