American Idol Goes to the Cinema: A Recap for April 14

With someone like Quentin Tarantino mentoring the Top 7 about the songs they chose from the movie soundtracks, one would hope that the contestants actually take and follow that advice. Lets hope that this week works out better for the contestants and the viewers than last week did. This week, only 2 judges comment per contestant, since having 4 judges speak made the show run long and in some cases cut off for those who DVR or TiVo it.

With very little commentary from Ryan, we got started right away with Allison Iraheta singing "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" (Aerosmith) from Armageddon. She made it her own, she's authentic and does her own thing. According to Simon, she's the girl's only hope left in the competition. She has been week after week, but the viewers and voters don't seem to be in agreement with the judges and continue to send her to the bottom 3.

After Allison, we had Anoop Desai singing "Everything I Do" (Bryan Adams) from Robin Hood. A very tender and touching opening, but he roughed it up some. What started out as very karaoke was made unique. Kara thought it was one of his best performances, he's finally hit his zone with the pop songs. I think that despite last weeks choice; Anoop does a lot better with the pop genre than he does with anything else.

Then we had the dynamic Adam Lambert with "Born To Be Wild" (Steppenwolf) from Easy Rider. Adam's growing on me more. He always does his own thing and makes every song his own. This song suited him perfectly and he really got into it. The crowd loves him, even if Simon compared his performance to something from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Adam is a performer; he has a stage performance background, so he's naturally dynamic and puts on a big show when he puts on a show.

Matt Giraud was up next with "To Really Love a Woman" (Bryan Adams) from Don Juan DeMarco. I think the piano harms Matt more than helps him. His vocals seemed to falter when he plays piano because he seems more focused on playing the right notes. Kara was right; he keeps flip flopping genres and is losing a lot by doing so, especially with his vocals faltering the way they are.

After Matt, we had Danny Gokey performing "Endless Love" (Lionel Richie) from Endless Love. Quentin told him to put his hands in his pockets and I think that if, during the performance, he had kept the hand gestures to a minimum, it would have been a more believable performance. Vocally, he had it dead on, but his performance was more like a cheesy lounge act or wedding singer. Simon was disappointed by the lack of originality in the performance and really it was far from being something original for Danny. He tends to stick to more traditional arrangements.

Kris Allen was up next with "Falling Slowly" (Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová) from Once. Kris did a wonderful job without the guitar, it was nice to see him stand at the microphone and just sing, especially a song like that. It's a fairly obscure song, one that I personally hadn't heard, but Kara thought it was one of Kris' better performances.

And we had Lil Rounds ending the show with "The Rose" (Bette Midler) from The Rose. I have to say that Lil has been disappointing since getting into the Top 13, she's tried to take on songs that have been done to death and she's been far too karaoke. Tonight, she started out the same way, but switched it up by making the song a bit more gospel in the middle, then back to more traditional at the end. She's got the vocal talents to sing the phone book, but it disappointed Simon. According to him, she had some nice moments, but she's not the same artist they met in the beginning. It's true, she isn't and she doesn't seem to be progressing. If anything, she's regressing. It was surprising that she actually fought back against Simon's comments, but is it too late for her?

It seems more and more that Adam, Danny and Allison are the front runners with the judges, but the people voting are not giving them enough credit. It is getting a bit old seeing Allison in the bottom 3 week after when she is doing far better than that. It's getting down to the wire now, so we'll see what happens. I will say that this week has been one of my favorites so far.