Questions to ponder as we get ready for American Idol

We are getting ready for Season 9.  (Wow, season 9).  As we get ready here are some things we need to be thinking about:

1) Will we miss Paula Abdul?

Of course, she was fun to make fun of.  People enjoyed speculating as to if and why she seemed, well “off” on certain nights.  Her banter with Simon was at some points fun and some points contrived and annoying.  I wouldn’t say she added anything in the insightful commentary arena, so we’ll see if we miss her.

2) Will Ellen DeGeneres be a positive addition?

There is no doubt that she is funny.  There was a time when everything was political with her and she stopped being fun.  We seemed to have moved past that.  Will she try too hard in the commentary?  Will she not want to be funny but “helpful” and lose who she is?  Will she just be funny and be somewhat pointless?  Can she find a good balance?  I’m optimistic.

3) Will Idol make any subtle or not so subtle rule changes to make sure their favorite wins?

The overwhelming support from a small area (here in Arkansas) took Kris Allen to a huge victory.  Any fans of the show would know that the producers and judges were not happy about this.  What will they do, if anything, to try and prevent that?  Will they relentlessly shove someone(s) down our throat?  Will they make sure that someone with local appeal and charm never gets to be voted on?  Or is there no conspiracy at all and Idol just loves cashing checks and they don’t care who wins?

4) (ongoing debate question)  What percentage of the bad singers know they are bad singers and just want to get on TV?

I think most do know.  Heidi says most do not.  We will be discussing this here in detail over the first couple of weeks.  Clearly, the ones who dress up are just trying to get on TV.  What about the rest?

5) Is it possible that without the local rooting interest that Cloften will still be as “into Idol” as he was last year?

I can answer this for you.  Yes.  We were into Idol all the way back to the Clay/Reuben debate back in 2003.  We were major Rueben supporters.  Last year was not new for us/me.  It was just the first time I had such a public forum to expose it.  For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, just wait.  Follow me on Twitter or FB and sit back and watch.

Thoughts?

BONUS

6) Will Simon be “mailing it in” this year?  If he is really out, does he even care any more?  He gets paid the same 36 million if it’s successful or not. He doesn’t care about next year.  If he does mail it in, wouldn’t that make him meaner and care less and therefore even more funny?  Is it possible that X Factor could be bigger than Idol in 3 years? Is all of this a gimmick like the first seven Brett Favre retirements?  Are they just generating more hype for the most hyped show in television history?  I’m going with the publicity/conspiracy theory.

Men’s Leadership and Braveheart

I am putting together a series for our Men’s Leadership class that uses scenes from Braveheart.  Something along the lines of Biblical lessons on servant leadership from Braveheart.  I hate title.  We’ll get a better one.  As the series unfolds, we will put on cloften.com so people could go through it online or use it in other ways.  Anyway, what are the most inspiring scenes from Braveheart for you?

Caption My Favorite Family Photos

This is one of those family photos that I like to say tells you just about everything that you need to know about my family if you look hard enough.  Caption this photo.  Give it a title or even better give “thought balloons” to each one of us.  Get your creative juices going.

Best Movies of 2000-2009

Post your comments below for the Best Movies list.  Find the list here:

http://www.cloften.com/?page_id=307

Suggestions for best movies for 2000-2009

What were the best movies of the last decades?  While I am semi-open to suggestions such as Million Dollar Baby and Slumdog Millionaire, keep in mind who you are trying to lobby here and pick movie less artsy and more awesome.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel

I know that I just said that I won’t do many of these just a few days ago, but here we are again with another movie review.  If there was going to be another one, surely it wouldn’t be this.  Shouldn’t it be something more manly?

Nonetheless, here it is the much anticipated sequel to Alvin and the Chipmunks.  I went to go see it with my nine year old daughter Lauren. It returns Earl from My Name as Earl as Dave and “What was that guy in?  Arrested Development? Yeah, that’s it.” as Ian.  It also stars Chuck from NBC’s Chuck and that retired model from Just Shoot Me.

Expectations:  I saw the first one and loved it.  I am not ashamed to enjoy kid movies.  It was cute and it made me laugh.  We ended up buying it for the girls and I watched it again.  I tell you that so you will know that I am not a hater or too cool or manly to say that I enjoyed a kid’s movie.  All that to say, my expectations were very low.  There’s no way it could be as bad in reality as it was in my head.

Reality: Really you have to add the Chipettes in the second movie?  Where can you go for the third one? Do you have to add the Budweiser frogs?  Was Jason Lee too good to really be in this?  Was he contractually obligated to be in, but only was willing to break his neck in the first 60 seconds and essentially be done? Anyway, Chuck did a good job in his place, but his role was minor, as this was mostly about developing the characters of the three brothers (that can’t be a serious statement) and introducing the Chipette’s.  All that to say, it was better than I thought it would be.  Again, it would have to be.  It was cute in parts and tedious in parts.  It has already, one week out, been successful enough for a third which is preliminarily titled: Alvin and the Chipmunks 3: The Battle for Christmas with Emmet Otter and His Jugband.

Appropriateness:  It’s rated PG, I suppose because Chipmunks giving wedgies is inappropriate for some children as well as swirlies and a Dutch oven reference.  Sorry, I may have given away some of the best parts.

Rating: (Here is the system)

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely rent it

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Rent it

Avoid it.

I rate it a take your kids to the dollar theater, if they will wait.  When they ask, say “Let’s go get ice cream instead.  We’ll see that later.”  You may get fat on the ice cream, but you will be glad you only paid $1/$1.50 per ticket instead of $6-$10.

(By the way, people keep googling Alvin and the Chimpmunks w/ misspelling.  Mine was misspelled and I changed it.  I am adding in the misspelling again.)

Sherlock Holmes

I do not watch many movies in the theater, so do not expect this too often.  The ones I do see are guy movies that are cool visually that make it worth it to see on the big screen.  I am a guy who likes to own movies and for the price of two people going to see a movie when it’s new, you could own it.  So I go to see movies in the dollar theater or rent them and then decide if I want to own them.  I say all that because I will not do many movie reviews.  If I did, it would be for movies you saw 3 months earlier, and I’m not sure that would be helpful or entertaining.  Also, I am not the kind of person who will ever give spoilers, so if anything my reviews will seem incomplete.

So I saw Sherlock Holmes today with my wife, brother and mom.  Sherlock Holmes has Iron Man as the lead and also stars that weird playboy robot from A.I. and that girl from the Notebook.

Expectations:  It has Robert Downey as the lead so that means Holmes will be a little edgier and more of a cad than what he normally has been portrayed.  They will have British accents, so I will miss a lot of the dialog, and I will be wishing there were subtitles.  I think it will be very intelligent and have a lot of action.  It is going to be good not great.

Reality: Robert Downey was incredible as was Jude Law.  The spin that they gave those two classic characters were great.  The way they interact with each other is both clever and funny.  The Rachel McAdams character was. ..zzzzzz.  I didn’t care and I found it hard to believe that she was some sort of challenger/foil to Holmes.

The action was exciting and the plot was very smart, but without being hard to follow.  (My barometer for this is Heidi.  This was what I call a 1 “what?” movie.  A “what?” is the number of times Heidi leans over and asks, “what?”)  Any movie that my mom, wife, brother and I all enjoy has to be working on a lot of different levels.  I like great plot twists.  There are no huge plot twists, but zigs and zags enough to make it quite interesting.  There were no “Dude!!” moments which is something that is so awesome that I will shout that out in the theater or at least in my heart.  However, it was consistently entertaining and I never lost interest.  I never messed around on my phone, which is quite rare.

Appropriateness:  There was no profanity that I can recall.  There was almost no sexuality in it at all.  If you have seen the preview of him mostly naked and chained to a bed, that’s a small part of the movie and not what you think.  There is violence and some grossness, namely some pig carcass slaughter that made me laugh and freaked my mom out.

Rating: (Here is the system)

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely rent it

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Rent it

Avoid it.

I rate it a see it in the theater and might own it.

Words we love to misfrounounce

Post your comments here for the Words We Love to Misfronounce List

http://www.cloften.com/?page_id=238

Fashion Poll

My wife and daughters are trying to stretch my fashion sense.  They bought me a vest today.  I am naturally skeptical, but I resist change.  So we need honest feedback here.  You can also mock me if you want, but we would like honest assessments as well.

Merry Christmas–Loften Christmas Card

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