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Tchüss!,

Kameron

xoxo

Gossip Girl… just kidding. It’s Kameron yo.

If you check my last.fm, you’d see that Alexz Johnson happens to be my third most played artist overall. I absolutely love her voice and her music, and naturally I thought she could do no wrong… well that was until I heard Voodoo. This album mark’s Alexz Johnson’s debut as an official solo artist, okay that may sound a bit confusing to anyone not familiar with this Canadian songstress. Have you ever seen, or possibly heard of, the Canadian television show Instant Star? Well it was a series by the creators of Degrassi that starred Alexz as a winner of an Idol-like show, and as it chronicled her life after winning it also created real songs that went along with the series that were compiled on original soundtracks at the end of each season. While the show was mediocre at best, the music was kind of outstanding (esp. seasons 1+2). I’d easily recommend those albums, though I can’t say I’d recommend Voodoo. Now I know there were complications in starting her career after she quit the show seeing how her old label, Epic, dropped her and kept all of the masters of what should have been released (easily 10x better than anything on this album), but I just expected better. Aside from “Gonna Get It“, this album bounces back and forth between being a borefest to being just plain awful. Don’t let the amazing back catalogue or the amazing album cover fool you, Voodoo fails to be nothing more than a bad decision made by a brilliant artist.

Score: 2 out of 5

What Epic decided to keep in the divorce, and what should have been on her debut:

Chicago, Golden, Easy, Running With The Devil, and Swallowed. (there could be more, but these are the ones I know of)

All of the Epic masters are GENIUS, it’s sad that these aren’t being released… as far as I know.

Confession: Ricky’s album sleeve led to many of my fantasies back in the day. Oh Ricky.

After what I would call a not so exciting debut, Gabriella Cilmi is back and definitely better than ever. Aside from “Save The Lives” and the smash hit “Sweet About Me” Cilmi’s tune’s bored me a bit which I found a bit shocking do to the amazing production team behind the scenes: Xenomania. This time around she picks things up with a shift to an electropop, disco, 80s inspired beat that is done the best on “On A Mission” the album’s first single and key track. At first I would have said that it was my favorite track, but after a few listens through the entire album there are quite a couple that come very close to that title.

To start from the beginning of the record, Gabriella Cilmi leads the album with the strong opener, “On A Mission“, and following that the album continues with the possible second single and Xenomania tagged “Hearts Don’t Lie”, a less intense groove from the first track, yet still genius. Cilmi’s album continues to slow the beat down bit by bit with the next midtempo track “What If You Knew” which is a confessional tune about being in love with your best mate, again genius track. The descending tempo graph somewhat levels out to bring you another beautiful midtempo called “Love Me Cos You Want To“, folks.. the title pretty much tells you whats the what for this song. Bringing us back on the descending tempo track theme is the album’s ballad, well it’s one of two but this is the better one… by a lot, “Defender“. This song really puts it’s success in the hand’s of her voice and she nails it! She restrains it beautifully, as to not over do it, and gives the track it’s star power. Ok lets move on before I gush all over this… Okay you can forget the tempo chart because the rest of the album don’t really follow the aforementioned patterned. “Robots“, a brilliant midtempo electo beat filled track talking about that puzzling question of the ages: What if we were robots? Sort of serious yet fun song. Seven tracks in and sadly we come to the last of Miss Cilmi’s five star musical brilliance with “Superhot“, a sexy pace jumping tune that feels fairly 80s. Love it.

Now for the bad news… I’ll make this bit quick. Unfortunately what we have been left with was a half of a masterpiece. Ten‘s last six tracks fail to excite or even keep your focus. “Boys” and “Invisible Girl” bore, “Let Me Know” fits comfortably nowhere on this album, and “Superman” is yet another bore that by this point in the album you could possibly already be sleeping. “Glue” comes in as the best of the worst, a ballad that just doesn’t rise above okay (it’s good, but not great). And to wrap things up there is the absolute “what were you thinking?!?” track: “Sweet About Me (Twenty Ten Version)“… they pretty much took a shit one of Cilmi’s best releases. Shame.

Well it seems that this time around Gabriella Cilmi delivered, but where’s the other half? Maybe this could be corrected before it’s given an international release. The brilliance of the first half of the album is just about enough to overlook the mundane second act, but let’s shoot for a 100% when album three comes around cos I’d love to hear more, especially with the new direction you’ve went it. All in all I’d say that this ranks as one of the better releases of 2010 so far.

Score: 3.8* out of 5

*not counting the possible Record Label forced inclusion of “Sweet About Me (Twenty Ten Version)”

Dare was originally a 2005 short film by  Director Adam Salky and Writer David Brind, I guess I’m going to start this off by saying that the short film was very well done. The simple plot had me hoping for what was next and the performance were good for such a small film. It definitely had me wanting more and when I heard that it had been made into a feature film, I was more than excited to see it.

First off the cast was changed and characters were, of course, expanded on. In the short the two leads were the bad boy named Johnny and the shy loser named Ben. The 2009 version starred a partially talented trio, with the role of Johnny played by Zach Gilford, Ashley Springer as Ben, and a somewhat new character named Alexa played by Emmy Rossum. The story now has turned into more of a coming of age / teen drama that splits our focus by trying to develop each character with their own portion of the film. The deal is that geeky and unpopular friends Ben and Alexa fall for the school’s resident bad boy Johnny, who is dealing with his own demons. Things get complicated as both go pretty far with Johnny and he isn’t picking favorites. Confusion and chaos ensue.

As much as I wanted to love this film I didn’t. While the short left me wanting more, the feature left me wanting something different. There is potential with what the filmmakers were trying to do, but it’s sad that it wound up on the disappointing side of things. I’ll start with the fairly bad bits…

Ashley Springer delivered a let down of a performance as Ben. The character, which was suppose to be your typical unpopular geek, turned out to be kind of a creeper. His mannerisms, they way he talked, everything was really off putting. I’m guessing he was badly casted because the orignal Ben was a 100% better. They also could have written him a bit better.

Next there was Alexa’s change from loser to poser. It was all a bit rough and way too quick. The filmmakers seemed to have wedged this plot point in even though they knew the piece didn’t fit.

Both Ben’s and Alexa’s character didn’t really do it for me, but here is the film’s saving grace: Zach Gilford.

The performance, the character, the looks… all dare I say perfect? It kind of caught me off guard that he would be the single epic thing in this lackluster film. Zach’s Johnny was a not-so-bad bad boy with a lot of issues that instead of being overdone or annoying, were actually endearing and made you actually give a shit. Could we please just fix this film to have Johnny as the feature focus?, because that’s were the magic is happening. Just like the short, Zach Gilford’s portrayal and the filmmaker’s character itself left me wanting more, more about him, what is he going to do? What happened? Loads of things. His sensitive demur and likable quality alone steal the film and boosts the grade to a very-on-the-edge C. All in all I’d recommend seeing this for the sake of seeing Zach Gilford and his character Johnny so you too can imagine what a better feature this short could have been.

Watch The Original Short Film

See The Feature Film via Netflix

Artist: Kate Nash

Song: “Do Wah Doo”

It’s the first single off her upcoming second album called: My Best Friend Is You which is released o April 10th, 2010 in the UK, hopefully followed by a US release soon after.

Current feeling: “I’m in love with this track! The video is amazing. The Nash is back.”

That is all.

Volume 1. | Volume 2. | Volume 3. | Volume 4. | Volume 5.

(click the pic to maximize it for your pleasure)

I’d settle for a nice “thank you” or “cheers”, this seems a little much. I love me some Jade, just not some Jade, you know?

Florrie – “Call 911 (Fred Falke Remix)”

Download this track for free @ Florrie.com