Wizards of Waverly Place

Reviving the dead blog, to speak of Wizards of Waverly Place. Well, that's as good a reason as any. There's actually a few things I want to talk of them, we'll see how many of them actually make it to posts.

There is a new live action Disney show that I haven't really discussed on this blog, and that show is Wizards of Waverly Place (notwithstanding shows such as Cory in the House or iCarly which I also haven't talked about but which I also have nothing to say about). I have to say that I think it is now the best live action tween/teen/whatever show on TV. Which is not to say that it's on the level of Phil of the Future or Unfabulous but it is a solid second tier Disney/Nick show, much better than Naked Brothers Band and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and other such detritus.

Absolutely, Selena Gomez is the breakout star of this show, but I was and continue to be surprised that the show is as focused on the David Henrie character as it is. Justin plays just as strong a role in most episodes as Alex does, and in many episodes a stronger role. On the whole, they are probably about equal characters. That places the show in the same vein as an Even Stevens or even a Phil of the Future featuring two siblings who are roughly equal characters with separate plots in most episodes. The difference is that Alex and Justin interact a lot more in the episodes than do Ren and Louis or Pim and Phil, which makes their relationship more important and real. That's good to see because I don't think there have ever been any other Disney shows which featured a meaningful sibling relationship. This is not mentioning the Max character, who is indeed completely pointless on the show. But the Alex and Justin characters are two of the strongest and most likable characters I've ever seen on a Disney show.

Then there are the parent characters. There's a spectrum of parent characters on Disney shows and it goes as follows. The parents on Phil of the Future were funny and prominent characters who often featured in plots and jokes. The parents on Even Stevens were 100% pointless except as advice outlets and occasional plot devices. The parents on Lizzie McGuire were somewhere in between. Wizards falls close to Lizzie on this scale, though it does veer close to Even Stevens on occasion. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though I do feel that at times the characters do get excessive face time given their general pointlessness 90% of the time.

But I'm not criticizing the actors, because they do a pretty good job with what they have! In fact, all of the actors are pretty good. I particularly like Selena Gomez, who is far better than Miley Cyrus, though well below the Emma Roberts/Aly Michalka level. But she's cute and she handles the drama OK and usually delivers the jokes pretty good. David Henrie also does a very good job as the older brother character. Further, the show is packed with great and usually really cute plots and situations, and it has a good cast of suitably wacky supporting characters (though the Harper character has to be the most pointless main credits character in Diz history, even more pointless than Oliver, and that's saying something. I would be so mad if I was Jennifer Stone.). In fact I would say the cuteness of plots and amusing side characters are right up there with any other show of its type.

So if the plots and side characters are as good as Phil and Unfabulous why does it still rank well below those two? First, while Selena is v. good, she is just not up to the level of the outstanding work by Aly Michalka and Emma Roberts. Second, and there's no beating around the bush with this, the joke writing is almost undeniably terrible. Whereas those two shows, plus Even Stevens, would not uncommonly make me laugh on their own merits, I've found that the jokes on this show are at best ignorable and sometimes not even to that level. In fact, this show is even less funny than Hannah Montana, though the superior acting and supporting characters still rise it above that show in my opinion.

All in all, it can be tough sometimes to watch a show which is constantly hurling unfunny jokes at your head, but if you like cute shows I think it's well worth it anyways. I love the Alex and Justin characters, and the show is really cute, so that's enough to make me keep watching. Eventually Hannah Montana stopped improving, and the characters became annoying and the cuteness became old. I don't foresee that happening to this show because the characters are more dynamic and the actors are better than the ones on HM. But I've been wrong before so who knows.

Also, as I believe I've mentioned on this blog several times before, the show has an amazing theme song. Right up there with Hannah Montana even!

A Peek through the RD Top 30

I have not listened to Radio Disney in several months. Checking the top 30 I noticed many songs I haven't heard. Let's see what I'm missing...

1. Jonas Brothers - "When You Look Me In The Eyes"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: Actually, this song has generated some airplay on one of the local top 40 stations, and is slowly climbing up the Billboard Hot 100 (currently #27). And I have absolutely no idea why, cause it sounds pretty damn boring to me. Actually, you know what it sounds like? A teen pop Rascal Flatts. And I don't think anybody needs that. 3/10

2. Miley Cyrus - "See You Again" <--Still no official video! Did I Already Know It: Of course. Review: Yeah, I like the song. 10/10

3. Aly & AJ - "Like Whoa"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: This is a superior track from Insomniatic, which was one of my favorite albums of 2007. There's a few other tracks on the album that I like more ("Potential Break Up Song", "Division", "Like It or Leave It"), but this is still a fun and catchy song. Also, I like the video. It's really sassy. This will contend for top 25 of the year. 8/10.

4. Chris Brown - "With You"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: This was a Billboard Hot 100 number one hit, and it has crossed over apparently into Radio Disney. This strikes me as a basically mediocre R&B ballad. I dunno why anybody would listen to this over, say, Ne-Yo or "No Air". But it's not bad I suppose. 6/10.

5. Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana - "Rock Star"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: I think this song is pretty good, though not as good as it could be, but the fact that they've gotten this far means that maybe they've dipped a bit too far into the singles well on the Hannah Montana 2 soundtrack. I mean, this is, what, the 8th or 9th single from it? Some songs were just destined to be pretty good album tracks. 7/10.

6. Sara Bareilles - "Love Song"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: People who know my tastes will not be surprised at all to hear that I love this single. It's just that type of sweet piano based female BS that I always seem to go for. And what's more it's one of the best songs of its type in this decade (behind some TashBed and "Breathe (2AM)" and maybe "Whie Flag"). But it's pretty and catchy and has good lyrics and even though it's been ridiculously overplayed it still hasn't really diminished for me. A possible top 10 of the year entrant. Awful video though. 9/10.

7. Taylor Swift - "Teardrops on My Guitar (Pop Remix)"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: I've never been as big a fan of this song as some other people are, and I like the pop remix even less than the original mix. I'm glad it's catching on on pop radio, if that's a sign that it's OK to play country on top 40. But as an actual song it's kinda boring, and the plainly emotional lyrics kinda go nowhere. A little too weepy for me. 6/10.

8. Selena Gomez - "Cruella De Vil"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: This is at least the third cover of a "Cruella De Vil" by a Disney actress that I know of (the other two are by Hayden Panettiere and LaLaine). And hey this one's got a little edge to it! I like her singing and the arrangement is pretty catchy. This is a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Still, they should have released a full version of the (totally awesome) theme song to Wizards of Waverly Place first. 7.5/10.

9. Mitchel Musso - "Lean On Me"
Did I Already Know It: No
Review: OK, this is the first song on the countdown I have not heard before. And I assume it will be a cover of the classic Bill Withers tune. What I did not expect is that the nerdy kid from Hannah Montana would release a RAP single. And he is a terrible rapper. Holy crap, what a bad idea this was. Not only is this awful, I don't see how anybody could think that it is not awful. This is an embarrassment. 0/10.

10. Miley Cyrus - "Start All Over"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: This was my #25 single of 2007, and if anything it was underrated there. Yeah, energetic and catchy and totally shallow. I really like the instrumental riff that plays below the chorus. Really good video too! 8/10.

11. Emily Osment - "I Don't Think About It"
Did I Already Know It: No
Review: So this is the fifth single so far out of eleven that is by a star of Hannah Montana. Like the Mitchel I have actually never heard this song. After one listen I'm convinced that it was an outtake from the Hannah Montana 2 recording sessions. It's not bad but it is highly reminiscent of a decent Hannah Montana track, and Emily's voice is not nearly as good as Miley's. Also, the track is incredibly repetitive. Despite all this, it's a decent track thanks to its catchiness. 6/10.

12. Jonas Brothers - "That's Just the Way We Roll"
Did I Already Know It: No
Review: This one is certainly upbeat, and I tend to like the uptempo JB songs more than their ballads. And this is supposed to be some kind of band theme song or something? And is that a Hanson bash I hear in the middle? Weird lyrics and pretty lame guitar riff, but the song is catchy and the vocals are decent. I have no desire to ever hear this song again. 5/10

13. Corbin Bleu - "Run It Back Again"
Did I Already Know It: No
Review: Generally, I have liked the Corbin Bleu solo career a lot more than I thought I would. And, whoa, this is a dance track! With dance-y vocal effects and everything. This is from that time travel Disney movie starring Jason Dolley that I've already forgotten the name of. But, man, this is not what I expected at all and it's pretty good. Even though I historically have bashed Corbin, his run of pretty good singles continues. Maybe I'll actually listen to his album. 7/10.

14. Raven - "Double Dutch Bus"
Did I Already Know It: No
Review: Ugh, I am not looking forward to this at all. This is a pretty standard R&B/rap song these days, with the exception that it has horrible vocals, apparently no hook. Man, it just noodles on and on with no content for minutes. I admit that I wanted to hate this song going into it, but the song does a pretty good of making me hate it on its own merits. Still it is marginally better than the Mitchel Musso track. 2/10.

15. Jordin Sparks - "Tattoo"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: This was an inescapable radio hit for a few months there, and I've really really grown tired of it. There's not much to the melody or production and, yeah, Jordin's vocals are good but that doesn't go very far any more after 100 listens. It's not the song's fault that it was so overplayed, but I have to call it like I see it. And the way I see it this is a very mediocre track. 4/10.

Part 2 to come later.

High School Musical 2

A day or 2 later than I hoped to report on this, but I surmise that by now nobody's come to expect timely, relevant content from this blog. Be warned that, as always on this site, the review contains spoilers.

High School Musical 2

High School Musical 2 was on the whole, as expected, a pretty big dropoff from the original movie. It was gonna be difficult to capture the kind of quirky, infectious charm the original film had, but there were several missteps along the way that impeded it here.

First and foremost there was way too much Sharpay and entirely not enough Gabriella. Tellingly, Gabriella's solo number "Gotta Go My Own Way" was in my opinion the best song in the film while Sharpa's solo number "Fabulous" was, in my opinion, by far the worst. Ashely Tisdale can't REALLY be faulted here cause she plays it the same she played it in the original HSM but over the course of a full move it really starts to grate. She really needed to tone it down given the greatly increased scope of the role. And what was with the lack of Gabriella? I would liked to have seen more scenes showing her pain of losing Troy and even some more scenes with her and Troy together, though I realize that the mechanics of the plot complicate this somewhat.

On that note, I thought everybody in the movie was being very unfair to Troy. The basic message of this movie is, what, don't forget your friends? Success means nothing if you have to step on your friends to get there? But, come on, Troy was being heavily recruited by what was, apparently, an excellent college basketball program. His teammates should have been incredibly stoked for him. But they were mad that he ditched their 2 on 2 game and mad that he didn't invite them to the college practice. A real friend would have been thrilled for Troy there, and I was shocked that when Troy and Chad reunited at the end this wasn't addressed. I thought that Chad was being very unfair to Troy and I really feel it was sending the wrong message. Friends should be supportive of each other! Similarly, he was offered a nice, cushy job. What was he supposed to do, turn it down to keep working with his friends? I'm sorry, that's not the way the world works and I highly doubt any of his friends would not have taken the same route he did. Gabriella did, indeed have legitimate beefs with him. He stood her up twice and ditched her in the talent show to sing with Sharpay. Though those are bad indeed, I wish the movie had better acknowledged the incredibly awkward and uncomfortable position Sharpay had put him in.

I guess my main problem, as highlighted by that previous paragraph, is that they didn't devote enough time to the mechanics of the plot. Everything had to be super rushed along so they had more time for Sharpay and non-story advancing songs, which meant the character motivations made no sense. I mean, they basically just said that Troy was being a jerk to his team, so I have to take their word for it, but the facts I saw on the screen did not support it. And, hmm, Ryan doesn't have a song and neither does Chad. I know, I'll give them a completely random duet. I know it's difficult to manage a cast of this size, but everything seemed oddly patched together and it seemed like they were straining to allocate enough time to the supporting roles.

The ending of the movie was genuinely emotional and uplifting, and I can't take that away. It was what it was. However, it was very rushed and I feel like the movie didn't "earn" it. There was no motivation or justification for Troy and Gabriella getting back together. All it would have taken would have been one scene with Gabriella, where she realizes she really loves Troy after all and blah, blah, blah. And the Sharpay redemption arc came out of nowhere entirely. And, wait a minute, wasn't there a Sharpay redemption arc which came out of nowhere entirely in the first movie too? A little continuity please? After acting like an irredemable jerk for the whole movie, there was absolutely no reason to believe she was going to turn around and start being nice. Absurdity! The problem is that the movie starts so absurdly slow that the ending redemption stuff has to be super rushed. About 45 minutes into the movie I was convinced this movie was a horrible bomb. The movie got much better as it goes along, but it took so long to get chugging that I wish they had cut a bunch of stuff off there and dedicated it to the redemption stuff at the end, which may well have allowed it to pack even more punch.

What bugs me, is that I think there might be a really nice message to make with a similar movie. The end of high school, planning for your future, all while trying to still have fun with your current friends and your current life. Planning a future completely separate from the life you've known and which may well tear you from your friends. It is a very scary and difficult time, and requires a tricky trade-off. I wish they had explored that more. Additionally, the idea that success comes at a price and success isn't worth it if you lose your friends and life along the way is a truly winning theme. I mean, lots of other movies use it, but it's a great theme in itself and I always like to see it showing up. I just don't think they displayed it well enough by what was happening onscreen.

All of this is not to say that this was a bad movie or that I did not enjoy it. I realize this post has been excessively negative, but there were several things to like about the movie. Ryan & Sharpay's parents were a hoot and I found them very funny. Lucas Grabeel as Ryan Evans was a particular highlight again. In fact, all of the actors and actresses in the movie, excepting Ashley Tisdale (and I still think it's mostly the writers at fault there) are skilled and do a nice job with the roles. They all have a winning charm, particularly Zac and Vanessa. The ending WAS emotional and a pleasure to watch. And, of course, the singing and dancing.

So what about the songs, which is the main reason to watch the movie in the first place? I though that on the whole the music was very fun, and about on par with the music of the first movie. "Gotta Go My Own Way", "Bet on It" (what an awful and bizarre dance sequence though!), "Everyday", and "You Are the Music in Me" were genuinely good songs. "You Are the Music in Me" and "Everyday" were written by Jamie Houston, who wrote "Breaking Free" in the first movie and has generally been hit and miss throughout his career. For example, apart from the High School Musical success, he has "Amigas Cheetas", a particularly mediocre Cheetas song, "Vertical", a mediocre Corbin Bleu song, and several mediocre Vanessa Ann Hudgens songs. But he knocks it out the park here. "Bet On It" was written by Antonina Armato and Tim James, who co-wrote half of the excellent Aly & AJ album and produced the whole thing, co-wrote many of the good Miley/Hannah season 2 tracks including "See You Again", and have generally owned music in 2007. What an outstanding year for them.

Final Review/Comments: The movie started out really, really slow but picked it up a lot at the end. Despite my many problems with it, the movie was better than I expected and I really enjoyed it, in no small part due to the music and dancing. On the whole it was definitely not as good as High School Musical but it was definitely worth a viewing and comes with my recommendation, contingent that you aren't expecting some kind of transcendent masterpiece. B MINUS.

Album Review: Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus

Really belated review of the new Hannah Montana soundtrack, but better late than never. Or so they say.

The new Hannah Montana soundtrack features two different disks, one of which is by "Hannah Montana" and the other is by "Miley Cyrus". From a musical standpoint, there's not too much of a difference, but from a lyrical standpoint, the first disk consists primarily of lyrics very similar to the first soundtrack: songs that directly reference the show/character, inspirational stuff, etc. Disk 2 seems to have lyrics that are more typical of a teen pop album of this era: boys, breakups, etc. But what they both have in common is their maddening inconsistency. Disney, for the life of them, just cannot seem to develop a whole album's worth of good songs for Hannah. In this case, going with the two disk format was probably a mistake, as a really solid album could be made from the highlights of the two disks.

The main problem with the Hannah Montana disk is the proliferation of really boring ballads that go nowhere ("Make Some Noise", "True Friend") and boring rock songs that go nowhere ("You and Me Together", "Bigger Than Us") and boring R&B songs that go nowhere ("Old Blue Jeans"). Three of the four Radio Disney focus songs to this point (namely "Nobody's Perfect", "We Got The Party", and "Life's What You Make It") are actually quite good songs, somewhat surprisingly. "Nobody's Perfect" is a song that I really disliked originally, but which repeated RD exposure has brought me around on. I really like it now! And "We Got the Party" is just such a fun little reggae rock song. Additionally, "One in a Million" is a really pretty ballad that I like a lot, and "Rock Star", though not quite as good as it could be, is still a good little song. Still, that's a hit rate of 5/10, which is not particularly impressive.

Meet Miley Cyrus opens with a bang, as the first two songs on the album are the 2 best songs on the entire 2-cd album. The opening track is "See You Again" and my God it's amazing. When was it released, 1986? It's got such an awesome retro sound and melody and great lyrics too! The album segues from that to "East Northumberland High", another really catchy number. "ENH" has really great teen lyrics and a fun melody. Unfortunately, it all noodles into pretty boring teen dance stuff and ballads after that, and it's off to snooze-land. There's a bit of interesting musical choices, like the latin tinge to "Let's Dance", but for the most part the melodies aren't too catchy and the sugar rush overload production is a bit too much and gets annoying. Which isn't too say the whole rest of the album is bad: "Right Here" is a good song, so is "Start All Over", just that it all tends to blend together and that it's tough to listen to in long stretches.

Inspired by Dave Moore Here's a one album condensation that might actually make an enjoyable listening experience:

Hannah Montana 2
1. "We Got The Party"
2. "Nobody's Perfect"
3. "Rock Star"
4. "Life's What You Make It"
5. "One in a Million"

Meet Miley Cyrus
6. "See You Again"
7. "East Northumberland High"
8. "Right Here"
9. "Start All Over"
10. "I Miss You"

As it stands, though the highlights are as high as any album released this year, I cannot imagine listening to this whole thing in one go, and I can't in good conscience rate an album like that highly. C+. (The one disk condensation would be like a B+ or something). But you have to at least listen to "See You Again", which is probably the best song the Diz machinery will ever produce. There's a pretty good chance it will end up my single of the year (I like both it and "Shut Up And Drive" better than "Sweet Temptation (Hollow)", my single of the year for 2006).

Thoughts on Jump In!

I'm not going to do a full, formal review of this because there'd be almost no point, but here are some general thoughts on the newest DCOM Jump In! in no particular order:

1. Corbin Bleu, as annoying as he may be in Flight 29 Down and as little as he may have brought to the table in High School Musical, has a great deal of natural, easy charm. Keke Palmer, as expected, did a great job with the material she was given. They didn't have a crazy amount of on screen chemistry or anything, but then again they didn't totally fizzle either. They were cute together. Corbin is incredibly easy to root for as a main character, no matter how thin his character is written.

2. Having a real life father and son play father and son in a movie can be a good thing if it creates a realness to their interactions and allows the actors to be more comfortable with each other. See also Hannah Montana where Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus are both at their respective bests when working with each other.

3. You expect a certain amount of cheese and over-sweetness when watching a DCOM. And yeah, this did have some of it, but I do believe this was the least saccharine Disney Channel Original Movie that I've ever seen. There was a true sincerity and earnestness to this that is rare from one of these movies and was kind of refreshing. Even among my favorites, Life-Size was one of the silliest, cutest movies I've ever seen, High School Musical had not a single sincere or earnest bone in its body (which was its appeal in many ways), Read It And Weep certainly had some sincerity to it (probably not as much as I implied in my initial review), but was also packed with over-the-top, ridiculous comedy. Jump In! had about as little saccharine-ness as a completely cliched DCOM can have.

4. Main character is well known for doing one thing. But he really wants to do something else. He starts to secretly do it, but it's detracting from his primary skill! He must make a choice, oh no! Will he go with his friends or his heart? I'm really glad there was a DCOM with this general plot because it's so, so rare to see one.

5. I really underrated the music for this before, whoops. I took it off the hates list. "Push It to the Limit" is a good song and "Jump to the Rhythm" is just as good as the rest of the non-"Outside Looking In" Jordan Pruitt songs. Robyn Johnson and Kirk Fitzpatrick (who wrote "Jump to the Rhythm") are legit songwriters, and I'm so glad to see Diz going outside its stable of songwriters for a change (Not that Matt Gerrard and Jamie Houston aren't legit songwriters, of course). Anyways both of the songs are really catchy, 7/10 type songs. The Keke Palmer song isn't bad either.

6. The choreography in the jump ropes scene was fun.

FINAL COMMENTS/RATING: Despite an incredibly cliched plot and thin, one-dimensional characters, winning and charming performances from the leads, fun choreography during the jump rope scenes, and an overriding sincerity and earnestness make Jump In! eminently watchable as a movie. 6.5/10 and one of the better DCOM's. But below the upper tier of the movies, which still consists just of RIAW, HSM, and Life-Size as far as I'm concerned.

Album Review: Vanessa Hudgens - V

Back to normal content, for the first time in a while. Yay! I have surprisingly few ideas that I've stored up over the last month, but whatever. Here's a review of an album that I avoided reviewing for a long time. Did my fears play out, or was I pleasantly surprised? Read to find out!!:

Vanessa Hudgens - V

Based on the lead single, "Come Back to Me", I was strongly not looking forward to listening to this album, which is why I avoided it for so long. But I was in my year end album listening mania, and I figured what the hell. But, you see, "Come Back to Me" was one of my least favorite hit Disney singles of the year. It's in that faux, kiddie R&B style of the Cheetah Girls, and it's just so very, very bland. Though I do love the "Baby V!" part. Plus, Vanessa was my least favorite of the four main stars in High School Musical.

However, my opinion of the album quickly swayed. Upon a first listen I started to sweat it a bit "Hey, wait a minute, this isn't half-bad". Swaying to "Man, this is actually good!" After all, "Come Back to Me" is one of only 3 genuinely bad songs on this album ("Never Underestimate a Girl", "Let's Dance"), though a few others are of the bland, filler variety (e.g. "Whatever Will Be", "Psychic", "Drive [which sounds like a HSM reject]). The fact that those 3 bad tracks are 3 of the first 5 songs is what made me so surprised by how much I liked the album ultimately. And the album contains more pretty ballads (which I am still an absolute sucker for) than Cheetah style R&B rockers, and Vanessa's voice sounds great throughout the album. Rather than upbeat, "vacantly inspirational" (tm Village Voice) lyrics, most of the lyrics of this album are of the vaguely confessional variety, which I always appreciate. This makes for a genuinely enjoyable listening experience. And it's not just that it's consistently pretty good, this album could spawn multiple singles in my top 50 singles of the year next year, as long as they pick the songs I like best as singles.

And "Say OK", which is the next single off of the album, is a great start. Clearly the standout track on this album, this is the first great single of 2007, and will likely rank in my top 30-50 of the year at least, depending on how good of a year for singles it is. There are 6 songs on this album (out of 14) that I will legitimately characterize as good, compared to 3 I was characterize as bad. Which isn't a great ratio, but for a Disney tie in album, it's rather good. Here are the 6 songs in the order that they appear on the album:

"Let Go" IS a kiddie R&B rocker, but it has a REALLY catchy chorus. Maybe a little repetitive, but I love the chorus so much, that it can repeat itself as much as it wants. And it has an incredibly bizarre, jazzy bridge that totally works even though it seems like it shouldn't. The lyrics detail Vanessa desiring to go out and party with her friends after, apparently, some kind of particularly harsh breakup. The breakup is only referenced obliquely, so it plays as a pro-partying "Wake Up" style number, but the sadness is tangible in the lyrics. Top 50 contender for next year if released.

"Say OK" I love, love, love. I could listen to this melody for hours on end without getting tired of it, I think, and I love the percussion. In this song, Vanessa is wary of getting into a relationship with a guy because she's scared that he will hurt her and is unsure of how much he really likes her: "But I don't wanna be into you/If you don't treat me the right way/See I can only start seeing you/If you can make my heart feel safe (feel safe)". OK, hardly original lyrics, but it's done fairly well. And Vanessa's vocal performance captures the inherent uncertainty present in the lyrics in the way that somebody with a traditionally stronger voice would be able to. The chorus is washed out in beautiful harmonies that I absolutely love as well. The harmonies don't soar, like they do on HSM, they just kind of wash out, which is appropriate for the lyrical content

"Afraid" is of the pretty ballad variety. I guess some listeners will be bored by it, but once again I really love this type of song. Beautiful, washed out harmonies in the chorus to this one as well, giving way to unharmonized lines sung by Vanessa's little, beautiful voice. The lyrics detail trepidation to get into a new relationship in the face of a bad breakup from her last relationship: "Why am I so afraid to crash down and lose my heart again/I don't know, I can't see, what's come over me". Actually, this song is a lot like a worse version of "Say OK", which isn't exactly high praise, but I like it plenty on its own merits. Fairly simple production on this doesn't distract from the melody, but nevertheless manages to provide some nice instrumenation.

"Rather Be With You" starts out really well with some kind of synth riff and Vanessa cooing over it. The rest of the verses aren't really anything great, but it kicks up in the chorus a whole lot. This is one of the rockinest songs on the album. This is probably the worst of the proclaimed "good" songs on the album, but hell I love the intro/synth riff and the chorus is catchy enough. Plus it's one of the only (maybe the only?) songs on the album with truly original lyrics. In the lyrics, a boy who has a crush on Baby V sends over a friend to feel her out and see if Vanessa likes him back. But Vanessa secretly likes the messenger himself! And she's not afraid to tell him. Nothing too earthshattering I guess, but I've never heard it in another song before and it made me chuckle a little.

"Lose Your Love" is another of the kiddie R&B songs. Which makes me think that I don't inherently dislike the genre, it's just that the songs that have hit on Radio Diz of this style have been bad songs. The lyrics are nothing special, a person begging her boyfriend to stay with her. Bleh. But it has one of the oddest choruses I've heard on one of the Disney songs. Completely washed out in harmony so that it totally removes all the character from Vanessa's voice and seeming to go on for a little too long, mixing in melodies together, it makes for an odd experience. BUT, it's a good chorus, and the pre-chorus is really good too! You think the chorus is over after "Don't wanna lose your love", but it's not! Nice misdirection.

"Make Your Mind" ends the album on a rockin' note, and there's not much to say about this song except that it has a catchy chorus. That melody is almost all it has going for it, as the lyrics are nothing special, and the production is vaguely annoying. But the best pure melody on the album aside from "Say OK" (both in the verses and chorus) make this one of the standouts on the album nonetheless. This despite possibly the most inane love song lyrics on the entire album. Ends with a rather pleasant "Na na na" part.

Final Rating/Comments: This album shattered all my previous conceptions of it rather quickly. Despite all outside appearances, I think this is actually the best of the Diz tie in albums last year. Better than High School Musical, better than Hannah Montana (though clearly the HM soundtrack had better songs at their respective best), better than Cheetah Girls 2, well you get the point. That being said, the album was clearly rushed, and it shows. If they had taken the time to fill out the album with material on par with the best, it could have been really great. Heck, if they had taken more time to take the good material and turn it into great material, the album could have shown big improvement. But, still, this is nothing to sneeze at as a debut effort from the Baby V. 7/10.

Christmas Episodes: Phil of the Future - Christmas Break

Day 8 of the TCR Christmas Extravaganza

Ever since I first saw an episode of Phil of the Future, which was just in February of this year, it has been one of my favorite tween shows on television. I've now seen the entire run of the series, mostly multiple times over, thanks to constant repeats on the Disney Channel. And I have to say that it remains one of my all time favorites. While I unsurprisingly prefer the first season (when it had Kay Panabaker) the second season was still great TV. With that in mind here's a quickie review of one of the episodes in that second season, "Christmas Break".

The Show: Phil of the Future

The Episode: "Christmas Break"
Year of Production: 2005
Episode Number: 36 of 43

Brief Series Summary, For the Totally Clueless: Disney Channel's hit series, Phil of the Future, tells the story of the Diffy family, a futuristic family from the year 2121. When the eccentric dad, Lloyd, rents a time machine for their family vacation, everyone is excited. But then something goes wrong. Their time machine malfunctions and they are thrown out of the space/time continuim in the year 2004. The time machine has broken, and Lloyd is having trouble fixing it, so he, his part-robotic wife Barbara, and his kids: fifteen-year-old Phil Diffy (Ricky Ullman) and his thirteen-year-old daughter Pim, the little menace of the family, are forced to live in the past and pretend to be a normal family in the suburban town of Pickford. The only person who knows their secret is Keely Teslow, Phil's best friend. Together they deal with the things that every teenager in 2004 must deal with: school, bullies, significant others, crushes, homework...and then add the Diffys' habit of getting into trouble by using their futuristic gadgets, such as the Wizrd, the Insta-Morph, Skyaks, the DNA Scramber, and much more. [Attribution to Tv.com.]

Episode Summary [Contains Spoilers, As Such!]: The episode opens with Keely Telsow (Aly Michalka) visiting the Diffys in order to help them trim the tree. After some lighthearted humor, it ultimately slips out that Phil knew that Keely was at one time the Pickford Yuletide Star Princess. But Phil didn't know Keely at that time, so how could he know that? Phil ends up telling the story of how he first met Keely (unbeknownst to her). [flashback]. The Diffys arrive via time machine in the year 2003. They talk a bit about how the kids can go out and explore the area for a while (they want to go shopping at a mall). Opening credits. When the opening credits end, we pick up the story of the Diffys in early 2003. They flip a coin to decide which mall to go to, but the coin slips away from Lloyd Diffy's hand and Keely finds it. The kids have to retrieve it because it is made of a futuristic metal that doesn't exist yet, and they don't want to disrupt the time line. Back in the Diffy's living room, Lloyd (Phil's dad) interrupts the story to start telling about how they bought their house. Lloyd and Barb have stayed behind while their kids retrieve the coin (lazy!) Then, since Barb really wants to see the house, they notice the house is for sale and pose as buyers to get a chance to tour the house. Back to the Diffy's living room, where Phil takes the conversation back over. Phil and Pim follow Keely to HG Wells High. Some exposition from Keely explains that she is the Pickford Yuletide Star Princess and is therefore solely responsible for keeping the antique star safe until the tree lighting ceremony (doesn't really make any sense but whatever). When Keely is distracted, Phil grabs the coin, but Pim steals the star too. Phil tries to make her give it back, but in the struggle, the star is dropped and broken. Phil feels pretty bad, so gets the idea to use the time machine to go back in time and save the star. We cut back into Lloyd's story. Lloyd and Barb continue to look around, and there's a bunch of "The Diffys are from the future" related humor that is mostly lame. What follows next is a lengthy and rather clever montage where Phil and Pim repeatedly go back in time to save the star, only to have it break in a different way. Ultimately Phil is able to save it. Lloyd cuts back to his story. It turns out that the exhaust from time engines are pure, flawless diamonds. Worthless in the future but obviously extremely valuable now. He trades a few handfuls of diamonds for the house (intended to be used as a vacation house). Phil and Pim meet back up with them and they decide to go back to the future, but the time machine is broken! Since they have to stick around anyways, they decide to go to the lighting ceremony because Phil wants to see Keely light the tree. There's a rather cute scene where Keely gives a touching speech and then places the star as they all watch on.

Cut back to the present in the Diffys living room. A little bit of light humor ensues. Some touching Phil/Keely stuff. Then, Pim places the star on the tree and they all sing Christmas carol from the future.

Greg's Review/Comments: Unlike most Christmas episodes, such as the Lizzie one, there are no grand Christmas lessons learned. Nobody learns that the true meaning of Christmas is helping people, there's no religious content spewed, no Santa content, nothing about giving or receiving presents, nothing like that at all. In fact, this episode deftly avoids all the Christmas cliches while still being very heartwarming and giving a positive pro-charity message for the Christmas season. One could argue, and could argue validly, that for a so-called "Christmas episode" there is very little Christmas content at all. The object they are saving for Keely is a "Christmas star" but it could just as well be any other valuable, breakable object and the episode would not be changed at all. Nevertheless, I'm glad this episode handled the Christmas stuff in the way it did, with it in the backdrop, rather than providing the impetus for the on screen action. In addition, rather than being a stand-alone, throwaway episode, this is a vital episode to the overall plot of the series. Most Christmas episodes are intended to stand by themselves, but this one tells the story of how the Diffys first came to 2003, and how Phil first met Keely (stuff you would think they would have gone over in the pilot, but whatever). I'm not sure how I feel about that, but it's certainly something. And once again, though it's never explicitly stated I think the episodes message is an inherently Christmas-y one. That being the joy of charity and helping others out at the expense of yourself. Although a majority of the episode, like a majority of most Phil of the Future episodes, was spent developing the Phil/Keely relationship, that message does shine through, at least to me.

This episode, in fact, highlights a lot of the best aspects of Phil of the Future. First, there's the originality and avoidance of cliches, as cited above. The humor, particularly in the scenes involving Aly Michalka, is often genuinely funny. (Keely: "Oh no, I broke the Christmas star!" Mr. Hackett: "Yes you did. I'd hate to be the one in your size 8 sparkle pumps come the Christmas pageant"). The problem with providing quotes is that what makes the jokes funny is not the quality of the jokes themselves but the delivery and performance of the cast. Aly Michalka continues to repeat that she prefers singing to acting but I refuse to believe that's true. She's just so natural and amazing in front of the camera, and seems so comparatively nervous singing on the stage, that I really hope she continues acting. Which highlights another of the best parts of the series, which is the outstanding acting for a Disney series. The entire cast are gifted comedic actors, with not a weak link in there. But Ricky Ullman and Aly Michalka also have amazing chemistry, and they are very capable of handling the dramatic scenes as well. I've said it before, but I think people thought I was joking: Phil and Keely go together so well on the screen, and the friendship is portrayed so well, that there are literally hundreds of fan-made montages of touching scenes with them together set to pop music on YouTube. This speaks, I think, to how well-crafted the relationship was. And as this is obviously a key episode in the development of their relationship, their on-screen chemistry really helps out matters here. A lot of the humor still doesn't work (especially the humor based on the Diffys being from the future), but the episodes are always fun, and I can always appreciate them for what does work. Not only all of the above, but even for a Christmas episode, the plot is exceptionally cute. And Keely's speech at the end had me way more emotionally affected than anything in "Xtreme Xmas" or Santa Baby could even dream of getting me.

Then again, the episode also highlights the number one problem with Phil of the Future: the mind numbing monotony of the Phil/Keely relationship. Listen, I'm a "Pheely" fan as much as anybody. When Phil and Keely got together in "Back to the Future" I thought it was pretty much the cutest thing ever. Then, when they finally kissed at the end it made me want to get up and cheer. That doesn't change the fact that every episode covers the exact same ground in their relationship from about the 5th episode all the way up to the last one. Phil and Keely are perfect for each other, they are good friends, they love each other but won't get together. It gets extremely tiresome when every episode in the entire run of the series is built around that. At a certain point it started to go on way too long, and as this episode came towards the end of the show's run, it was definitely in the part of the series where the relationship was dragging.

Final Rating: Despite the lack of Kay Panabaker, excellent performances, funny comedy, and a really cute plot make this one of the best episodes in the entire run of Phil of the Future. In all honesty, this is probably my favorite episode from the second season, barring the series finale "Back to the Future" (which made me almost embarrassingly emotional) ("The Giggle" was good too). 9/10. ("I liked it because it was cute")

Christmas Episodes: Lizzie McGuire - Xtreme Xmas

Day 5 of the TCR Christmas Extravaganza

TCR readers, you can look forward to the following Christmas Extravanganza content between now and the big day: Album reviews of Christmas albums by The Cheetah Girls, Girls Aloud, Mariah Carey, Hanson, and Clay Aiken; a review of the Phil of the Future Christmas episode; a review of one of the ABC Family original Christmas movies; a review of some undecided upon children's special, and hopefully more. There's still plenty of room in there for requests, so please leave a comment or email if you have one.

In today's installment, I will do a review of the Christmas episode of Lizzie McGuire, which is for whatever reason entitled "Xtreme Xmas". Occurring late into the run of the series, it's an odd little episode, but yet an amusing one nonetheless. I really love Lizzie and it basically came down to a coinflip as to whether it was this show or Even Stevens which I put in the TCR Hall of Fame. Obviously Even Stevens won out (mostly due to Lizzie's rather weak start), but I still consider both of those shows, plus Phil of the Future, to be a pretty clear cut above all the other shows the Disney Channel has produced. Plus I haven't really written anything about Lizzie on this blog so this will start to rectify that.

The Show: Lizzie McGuire

The Episode: "Xtreme Xmas"
Year of Production: 2002
Episode Number: 51 of 65
Key Guest Stars: Steven Tyler as Santa Claus, and playing Kate's eeeeevil cousin Amy is...



That's right, eagle-eyed readers, it's Hilary Duff's older, inferior model, sister Haylie Duff. Haylie appears as Kate's even more stuck up cousin Amy in a few episodes. Her role in this episode is extremely brief, and frankly rather pointless, but she does a decent job with what she has. Gee, Kate's cousin sure does look an awful lot like Lizzie. Odd. Also odd is that it kind of looks like Kate is about to cry in this screencap when actually she's delivering yet another of her charming witticisms.


Brief Series Summary, For the Totally Clueless: "Get inside her head!" say the advertisements and you can do that when you watch this Disney Channel family comedy, the most successful of their "Zoog Weekendz" shows. It's all about the ordinary and not-so-ordinary adventures of a junior high student [Lizzie] and her two best friends [Gordo and Miranda] as they try to deal with the ups and downs of school, popularity [In particular, the EVIL popular girl Kate, Lizzie's archrival. As pictured above next to Haylie], boys, parents, a bratty little brother [Matt]--just life in general. And if Lizzie leaves anything unsaid, you can bet that her cartoon alter ego will say it for her! [Attribution to Tv.com, with extra information in bold added by me.]

Episode Summary [Contains Spoilers, As Such!]: The episode begins with Lizzie and Gordo meeting in line to meet Santa Claus. In this activity, apparently, students are encouraged to give away old toys for less fortunate kids during Christmas. Nice idea. Anyways, Lizzie is there to give out the old toys, and she and Gordo are discussing the Christmas parade float competition. The winner of the competition wins a ski trip, and Lizzie really wants to win! [Opening Credits]. After the opening credits, we are viewing Lizzie and Gordo in some sort of garage building their float. The theme for her float is going to be "Rock & Roll Christmas", and there's some cute comedy as they have float related conversations with Larry and Kate. Anyways, the Christmas action really heats up when Lizzie and Gordo then meet Knobby, who claims to be one of Santa's elves (Elf owes this royalties!) Knobby seems odd, but harmless. The whole McGuire family then comes to meet up with Lizzie and ends up meeting and ultimately hanging out with Knobby. Lizzie is upset that her family would rather hang out with Knobby than help with her float. We cut to the McGuire house, where an exasperated Lizzie learns that the plumbing at Knobby's retirement home is busted, so he will have to stay with the McGuires for a few days [good work Ma and Pa Mcguire, for all you know this guy is a serial killer]. Some weird scenes follow where the family hangs out with Knobby. Ultimately, Mr. McGuire gets the idea to help out trying to fix Knobby's plumbing himself, as the plumbing company can't fix it due to people being on vacation. So the whole family sans Lizzie, and Gordo too, pitch in to fix the plumbing. Lizzie is left trying to make her float on her own, and is really upset. She collapses and falls asleep in exhaustion. But she's met by Knobby in her dream! Knobby shows her the true meaning of sequence, in possibly the weirdest Lizzie McGuire sequence I've ever seen. She first meets with the "Ghost of Christmas Past" (her mom) who partakes in some "hilarious" comedy, and then just flat out tells Lizzie that she has lost sight of the true meaning in Christmas because she was too wrapped up in the float. Uh, what? Why did they get the Ghost of Christmas Past to tell her that? It's something that's happening right now! Then they get Matt McGuire to tell her the "true meaning" of Christmas, in a humorous parody of the famous Peanuts Christmas Special moment. Lizzie realizes that the true meaning of Christmas is helping people, so she decides to help her family fix the plumbing. At the end, Santa (Steven Tyler) magically builds Lizzie's float at the last second and everybody loves it. It was the best Christmas ever. The episode ends with Steven Tyler singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town".

And They All Learned a Valuable Lesson: The true meaning of Christmas is helping people, not building badass floats to burn your social rivals! Though it undermines its own message by having Lizzie get a badass float that burns her social rival anyways. So, you should help people out, because if you do, you'll just get whatever you selfishly wanted anyways.

Greg's Review/Comments: First comment is that, like a lot of the later Lizzie episodes, Miranda does not appear in this episode at all. I'm not sure what happens here, but I liked Lalaine as Miranda a lot, and her absence was a big flaw with the show towards the end of its run. One of the reasons I consistently rank this show below Even Stevens is that it was weak at the beginning and end. At the beginning because Hilary's acting was rocky to start with, and and the end because of the lack of Miranda, who really did contribute a lot to the show. Despite that flaw, this manages to be a very cute and fun episode. Some of the jokes I found funny, particularly the parts where Lizzie is interacting with Gordo and her other classmates (Tudgeman, Kate, etc.). In actuality, the jokes are primarily based on pop culture references, and as is par for the course on this show, are very hit or miss. That being said, this was definitely one of the odder Lizzie episodes I've yet seen.

The character of Knobby in particular, was very odd. He claims to be an elf, but yet dresses in normal clothing! In addition, the fact that he claims he is an elf is pretty much irrelevant to the episode. He's basically just a random old man. But yet everybody trusts and loves them from the moment he meets them! The McGuires invite them into their home! They agree to fix the plumbing to his retirement home even though they have no formal training as plumbers. OK, that part of the episode is extremely unrealistic. I wish they had thought of a different way for Lizzie to learn the simple joys of helping out her fellow man, by having her whole family work together to help on something that was at least slightly realistic.

Anyways, this episode ultimately succeeds on the merits of everything that makes the show succeed in general. Hilary Duff as Lizzie became excellent at the role by the time of the end of the series, she was expressing her emotions great, and you could really relate to her. Her interactions with her classmates can sometimes be genuinely funny, and anyways, even if they aren't funny, the show does a great job of getting you emotionally involved in them. Hell, I felt frustrated for Lizzie when nobody would help her build the float, even though the show was depicting her as selfish. Like always, the non-Lizzie scenes tend to drag, and this episode is much less centric on Lizzie and her school drama than most Lizzie McGuire episodes are. For that reason, it doesn't rank as one of the top episodes in the series run. But then again, a common complaint about the show, that it was highly repetitive and unoriginal throughout its run, definitely does not apply here. Additionally, this show's top notch supporting cast was either not in the episode at all (Lalaine) or in the episode for so little time as to practically add no value (Ashley Brillault, always excellent as Kate).

Final Rating: Not the best episode of Lizzie but a fun watch if you are a fan of the series. This episode was a good microcosm for the problems I had with the series towards the end of its run. Namely, too little Miranda, too little Kate, too much Tudgeman, and too much of the McGuire family other than Lizzie. Like most Christmas episodes of long running series, this episode is basically designed to be a stand-alone. No reference is made to any long running plots on the show, and no real prior knowledge of the show is needed for watching. 7.5/10. Also, why in the world is this episode called "Xtreme Xmas"? There's nothing remotely extreme about it. Odd.

Album Review: Hilary Duff - Santa Claus Lane

The TCR Christmas content officially begins today, with a review of Hilary Duff's comparatively little known Christmas release, Santa Claus Lane (whoops, maybe it began two months ago). Like I said in the last post, there will be much, much more to come, including reviews of Christmas albums by Christina Aguilera, B2K, Hanson, Girls Aloud, The Cheetah Girls, and Clay Aiken, along with hopefully some others if I can track them down. If you have any ideas for other Christmas albums, or for any Christmas TV or movie related content, I once again urge you to leave a comment or e-mail me. As much as I hate blatantly begging for comments and e-mails, I am having trouble coming up with ideas on the TV and movie side of the equation. Please don't make me resort to doing a review of Home Alone.

The Vitals

The Album: Santa Claus Lane
The Artist: Hilary Duff
Year Released: 2002, originally, though I will be reviewing the 2003 re-release (featuring the new track "What Christmas Should Be") herein
Length: 36:42, including the new 2003 track.
The Covers: "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", "Jingle Bell Rock", "Sleigh Ride", "Last Christmas", "A Wonderful Christmas Time"
The Originals: "What Christmas Should Be", "Santa Claus Lane" (yes, it is a different song from the classic Christmas carol), "I Heard Santa on the Radio", "When the Snow Comes Down in Tinseltown", "Tell Me a Story (About the Night Before)", "Same Old Christmas"
Inevitably Sad, Anti-Christmas Tune: "Last Christmas"
Religious Content: Nil. Not a single song on here even hints at any religious significance behind Christmas
Santa Content: High. 4 of the 5 cover songs have no mention of Santa Claus at all ("Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" being the obvious exception). Of the originals, "Same Old Christmas" and "What Christmas Should Be" have no Santa content. The remaining 5 songs all either heavily reference or are directly built around Santa Claus. A nearly 50% Santa hit rate.

Greg's Review/Comments

Quality of the Cover Songs: Unlike many Christmas albums, which simply do a rote regurgitation (*cough*AlyandAJ*cough*), this album actually attempts to add a new spin upon the songs that it covers. The production style on this is very much classic Motown-style "Wall of Sound" (not that the production itself sounds anything like Spector or Motown, just that it's extremely busy). There is little guitar to be found on this record, choosing instead to focus primarily on electronic instrumentation. Very little in the way of traditional Christmas music staples such as bells and strings as well. Sometimes the approach of busying up the classic songs works, and sometimes it really doesn't. "Last Christmas" (which actually features some of the least busy production on the entire album) is clearly inferior to the Wham! version, and the "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" treatment is probably worse than just any old normal version. But sometimes it works really well! I would prefer to listen to Hilary's "A Wonderful Christmas Time" about 10x more than the Paul McCartney version, given that it's about 10x more FUN and about 10x less PRETENTIOUS (wait would that make it 100x better?) than the original. Yes Mr. McCartney, songs declaring the joy of a happy Christmas are, in fact, supposed to be fun. Plus the rockin' electric guitar solo.

Quality of Originals: This album has 6 original songs out of 11 overall, which is an excellent ratio. And the originals are all pretty catchy! "Santa Claus Lane" is a really fun song with a very catchy instrumental hook and chorus, although extremely generic lyrics. "When the Snow Comes Down in Tinseltown" is a real throwaway track with standard pro-snow lyrics and a very "Christmas song" sounding melody. Not much to recommend this song really, but it's pleasant enough and the spoken word parts are so incredibly cheesy that they made me laugh out loud, which is always a plus. "Same Old Christmas" is a similarly pleasant-but-not-great duet with Haylie, which features a pro-Christmas tradition lyric. This leaves 3 other original songs, which are all interesting in their own way.

1) "Tell Me a Story (About the Night Before)" is a "duet" with Lil Romeo that has lyrics adapted from classic Christmas poem "The Night Before Christmas". The song features rapping by Lil Romeo during the lyrics with Hilary piping in for the chorus. And ho-lee crap is it horrible. Wow, Hilary Duff REALLY should not do R&B because her voice is not half strong enough for a decent R&B singer. Also it has so little actual Hilary Duff content that it baffles me that it is included on an official Hilary Duff album. And yet, this was actually the only official single from the album.

2) "I Heard Santa on the Radio" is one of the most bizarre Christmas songs I've heard yet. First of all, it's a duet with Christina Milian, who a lot of people might not know got her start as a Diz singer. OK, to get an idea of this song, here are the lyrics to the pre-chorus/chorus to this song: "Hey hey hey/and Ho ho hoand Now its time/For the jolly DJ show/I heard Santa on the radio/I knew it was Santa on the radio/Mixing up the music like a Santa should/And radio, radio/Never sounded so good". Those are basically the lyrics to the song, about Santa being a DJ on the radio show, "finding bustin beats" (<-- actual quote from the song) and uniting the entire world through dance! The song also (hilariously) implies that there are multiple Santa Clauses. Musically, it's actually really good and catchy, with good production and a nice melody, but the lyrics are just so weird and bad. 3) "What Christmas Should Be" was recorded a year after the rest of the tracks on this album, and you can totally tell! It sounds almost nothing like the other songs. It's based mostly around guitar, features a more mature lyric extolling the virtues of world peace, hope, etc. during Christmas time, and a much stronger vocal by Hilary. She totally changed her entire sound in the span of a year. And changed it for the better, I'd say, because this is the best track on the album. This song, unlike any of the other of these tracks, would totally fit in on Metamorphosis, and would actually be one of the standout tracks on that album, in my opinion at least.

General Comments: Man, if you think that Hilary's singing is thin and bad on some of her later albums, you should listen to this one. She clearly got some vocal training between this album and the later ones, because it's really restricted here. They have wisely decided to mix this album so that her vocals are usually drowned out by the music and background vocals, so it's not bad enough to destroy the album or anything. Hilary Duff remains possibly my favorite singles artist of the 2000's, as she would probably place about 4 or 5 singles in my top 50 of the decade. Yet, she's always been pretty inconsistent as far as albums are concerned, and this one is no exception. I'd probably stick to Most Wanted if you are looking to get any Hilary album (get the signature edition, it has "Jehrico"!), but for a throwaway Christmas effort, this is actually really good. I realize that "really good for a throwaway Christmas album" is pretty faint praise, but I'm not sure I can offer anything stronger. Probably not worth a purchase except for the most hardcore of Hilary Duff fans, but definitely an interesting listen, and several of the songs are catchy enough to get stuck in your head. That being said, the treatment it's being given now (that is, the THIS ALBUM DOES NOT EXIST AND NEVER DID treatment) is undeserved. You will see many massive store displays featuring many Christmas albums this December, and I doubt any will have this album. Her discography as listed on her own official website even excludes this album. OK, maybe not her best work, but not her worst work either, and it deserves a listing!

Standout Tracks: "What Christmas Should Be", "Santa Claus Lane", "A Wonderful Christmas Time"

Final Rating: A lot of clunkers, no excellent tracks, and probably too sugary to listen to in one go, even considering that it's barely a half an hour long. 6.5/10. Not a very high score, but I actually anticipate that this will be one of the best, if not THE best itself, of the teen pop Christmas albums I review this December. I hope I'm wrong. By the way, that album cover makes me laugh real hard every time I see it. Unintentional comedy rating for the album cover is 10/10.

Movie Review: Sky High

Coming up this December I will have plenty of fun Christmas related content for you guys, including reviews of Christmas albums & songs, Christmas movies, and Christmas episodes of TV shows. (I'll have some non-Christmas content too, depending on just how many ideas for Christmas content I can come up with). Given how well I've stated I can relate to "Not This Year" one would think I'm not the biggest Christmas fan, and I'm not! But I do love Christmas themed entertainment. If you have an idea for any Christmas themed material (though with a teen culture interest) for me to review, please leave a comment or give me an e-mail. If you suggest something I will track it down and review it. My e-mail address is in the sidebar. Year-end review content as well! It will be a fun month, so be sure to check back.

Until then, though let's close out November with a review of one of my favorite teen movies of all time, and one of my top 5 favorite movies of 2005.

Sky High




Starring: Michael Angarano, Danielle Panabaker, Kurt Russell, Kelly Preston, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

Plot Summary: It all begins at a secret school in the clouds like none on earth: Sky High, the first and only high school for kids with super-human powers going through crime-fighting puberty. At Sky High, the student body throw flames with their footballs, study Villainy with their Chemistry and are divided into Heroes and Sidekicks instead of jocks and geeks. It's an out-of-this-world yet completely recognizable place where cool gadgetry, rampant bravery and awe-inspiring magical skills mix it up with parental battles, peer pressure and dating trouble--with explosively fun results. This year's class features some of the best, brightest and most powerfully gifted super-teens ever assembled. And then there's Will Stronghold. When you're the son of the world's most legendary super heroes, The Commander and Jetstream, people expect you to live up to the family name The problem is that Will is starting with no superpowers of his own and, worst of all, instead of joining the ranks of the Hero class, he finds himself relegated to being a Sidekick. Now he must somehow survive his freshman year while dealing with an overbearing gym coach, a bully with super speed and a dangerous rebel with a grudge (and the ability to shoot fire from his hands)--not to mention the usual angst, parental expectations and girl problems that accompany teenage life. But when an evil villain threatens his family, friends and the very sanctity of Sky High, Will must use his newfound superpowers to save the day and prove himself a Hero worthy of the family tradition. [attribution to IMDB as always. What a terribly written plot outline.]

Greg's Review/Comments: Sky High is an extremely entertaining teen movie that harkens back to the classic 80's teen movies, while not being merely a pale imitation of the same. In fact, I would stack this movie up against any of those 80's movies that this one has been accused of ripping off. The teen relationships in the movie are very realistic, which makes them interesting to watch. Plus it captures the fear and excitement of entering high school really well! Really, the fear and excitement of undertaking any new project which you feel you may be slightly inadequate for. In addition, the comedy in this movie, while not laugh-out-loud funny, does add to the movie. Particularly of note are the comedic performances of Kids In The Hall alums Dave Foley and Kevin MacDonald. That being said, if you are just going into this movie hoping for sidesplitting comedy, you will be disappointed. Like the best movies of this type, it lightly touches on the comedy, and quickly lets it pass by, to draw laughs but also to lighten the mood of the movie. It doesn't dwell on the comedy to the detriment of developing the characters' relationships, and those relationships are what are definitely at the heart of the movie.

The superhero aspect of the film is what, of course, brings it that extra level of entertainment, above and beyond your typical teen film. Not only do you get very entertaining teen drama with real teen relationships, but you get exciting superhero action as well! I went into this film with extremely low expectations for the superhero action, but it was actually a pretty entertaining aspect of the film. The superhero action scenes are not intense, at all, but they do feature acceptable special effects and very entertaining action, and are well-paced. They additionally are lighly dotted with humor at appropriate moments, and all in all they have just a really fun feeling to them. The movie ends, in particular, with a long and very entertaining action sequence where Will & his friends take on a team of super villians. Although, once again, it should go without saying that you should not see this movie if you are only interested in seeing exciting and intense superhero action.

OK, so if it's not the comedy and it's not the superhero action, what does make this move? The movie has a whole stable of memorable characters plus excellent performances all around, particularly from the female leads, and plus just the inherently entertaining nature of the teen movie formula. All of the characters are basically just your one-dimensional high school movie stereotypes, but they have super powers! That always makes things more entertaining. OK most of the characters end up in a different place, and with a different personality than when they started, but I think most people could predict how this movie will end approximately 1/2 way through the movie. My mom did, and she is horrible at predicting these things. But yet, several of the characters, particularly the supporting characters, have a kind of unique and original edge to them that elevates them above the genre. Plus the main characters of Will and Layla do have a nice depth to them, and really make you root for them. Yay Will and Layla, boo Gwen!

OK in any movie or TV show with a Panabaker, I of course will have to effusively praise their performance. It's one of the primary laws of the Teen Cultural Revolution. I can't pretend to be objective about a performance from a Panabaker sister. In this case, I will say that I didn't have any clue who Danielle OR Kay Panabaker were when I first saw this movie, and it was only through this movie that I became a fan of Danielle. Needless to say, Danielle's performance in this movie was terrific. She conveys the unrequited love of the character extremely well, and her friendship with Will is touching and fun to watch. Plus she manages to be nearly as naturally charming and loveable as Kay Panabaker. She is an ideal lead for these types of films, and although she is very good at dramatic work as well, I hope she doesn't convert her career entirely over to dramas. The one who really surprised me, though, is Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Gwen. I had seen her before in Final Destination 3, and she was not good in that movie. In fact, I might even say that she was bad. But she's really great in this film. She conveys the popular girl really well, slowly revealing how heartless she really is, while gradually converting over from untouchable perfect woman to the evil, evil woman we all know she really is. A lot of actresses in similar roles, I've noticed, can screw this up one way or the other. That is, act so loveable that we feel compelled to like the character even after her dark, heartless side has come out, or let the dark, heartless side come out too early, so that we don't believe that the main character would really be in love with them (actually, this was a big problem I had with Danielle's performance in Read It And Weep). Yet, Mary perfectly strikes a balance between the two. Plus she's hot. Kurt Russell delivers an oustanding performance as well, as he always does. He's made a lot of poor movie choices, but surely this is one of the most underrated actors of his generation. Show me another actor who can do kickass action movies like Escape From New York and The Thing, subtle dramatic work like Miracle, and lighthearted comedic work like this movie so well, and so effortlessly. There are others out there but they are generally, unlike Kurt, acknowledged as great actors. Michael Angarano and Kelly Preston give adequate performances, but don't really seem to jump off the screen. In addition to the KITH alums cited above, Bruce Campbell also gives a memorable and very funny turn as a professor at Sky High.

And They All Learned a Valuable Lesson: Cliques are bad! Judge people for who they are on the inside! Yes, this is the message to EVERY TEEN MOVIE EVER. But this movie pulls it off better than most, and when Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston acknowledge that the sidekicks are real heroes, it's a great scene.

Final Rating: 9/10. Highly recommended to watch. There are only 3 movies of 2005 that I can definitely say that I would definitely rank above this one on my list of favorite movies of the year (those being Junebug, Brokeback Mountain, and Just Like Heaven). Thus this movie ranks in my top 10 of 2005 for sure, if not the top 5.

Hannah Montana

Certainly, my blog does not suffer from a lack of Hannah Montana related content. But I've been meaning to give updated thoughts on the HM show for a while now, and I can't really think of anything else to write, so lucky you, you get more! My original thoughts on the show were put on this blog several months ago, before the show had really had a lot of time to develop. Additional thoughts to those originals are contained herein:

1) I've insulted Miley Cyrus' acting show frequently on this blog. What can I say, she is such an easy target! Nevertheless, to give credit where credit is due, her acting has improved substantially from the early going. She still seems uncomfortable during the dramatic scenes, she's overly shouty, and her delivery on some of the punchlines is head-scratchingly weird. Nevertheless, she's improving in all areas, and she still brings an energy and charm to the role that a lot of other actors would kill to have. Her acting is still probably a net negative on the show, all things considered, but it does contribute to the cuteness of the show. When they come back for a season 2, I wouldn't be surprised to see her acting improve even more. My touchpoint for this is Shia LaBeouf. When he started on Even Stevens he was just OK, nothing really special. But the more the show went on, the more comfortable he became with the character and the better his comedy became, until, by the end of the series, he was an excellent comedic actor. Congrats, Miley

2) The character of "Jake Ryan" was an excellent addition to the show, and I expect to see a noticeable downgrade in the quality of the episodes now that he is gone. Jake Ryan played a famous actor who started to attend Miley's school, and he and Miley had unresolved crushes on each other. Then Miley would get into wacky misadventures attempting to "get with" Jake. High comedy. The actor who played Jake was a natural comedic actor with an easy, winning charm, and the way he and Miley played off of each other has been the highlight of the season to this point, in my opinion. Plus, I read that he is good friends with Brie Larson, which is always a plus. I really hope he comes back. The one episode that had after his (temporary?) exit from the show was one of the worst of the season so far.

3) The show is not so much a ripoff of Lizzie McGuire as it is a ripoff of Lizzie McGuire via ripping off Unfabulous. It's probably not fair to call it an out-and-out ripoff of Unfabulous given that Unfabulous itself was basically an out-and-out ripoff of Lizzie McGuire, but the show's are just too darn similar. There's the obvious, which I've pointed out before, connection of everygirl main character, two best friends (one male, one female) and one sibling (a brother with whom she has a rocky relationship). This is the traditional pre-teen show formula that I believe was pioneered by Lizzie McGuire (and stolen to great effect in Panabaker-vehicle Read It And Weep). In both Unfabulous and Hannah Montana though the main characters are singers/musicians. This obviously plays a much larger role in Hannah. What bothers me about the similarity is in the two "popular girls" in both shows (Maris and Cranberry in Unfabulous I forget their names in Hannah Montana). The popular girls characters are so similar that it just bugs me. Also Miley (the character) seems a lot more similar to Addie Singer than she does to Lizzie McGuire, in my opinion.

4) I feel really sorry for Mitchel Musso. He paid his DC dues in Life is Ruff (a DCOM that is so bad that even though it stars Kay Panabaker, the official actress of the TCR, even I admit it is a terrible movie). Then he finally gets his shot as the star of a show on the Disney Channel, in a signficant role. And it's the biggest hit new Disney Channel show since, hell, That's So Raven I guess. And then his role gradually shrinks over the course of the season, virtually eliminated during the whole Jake Ryan series of episodes, until he is completely marginalized on his own show. In an average Jake Ryan episode, Oliver would have about 5 lines. And his character is horrible! Every time Oliver is on the screen I want him to be off it, not because Mitchel is bad, but because the quality of the writing for his character is so low. Like I said, poor Mitchel Musso.

THE OFFICIAL OPINION OF THE TCR: All in all, still one of the best shows of its type on TV. of all the current tween shows airing on Disney, Nick, and D-Kids, the only ones I will legitimately defend as quality television are Unfabulous, Darcy's Wild Life, and this show. I still say Unfabulous is the best of the lot by a wide margin, but this is a solid #2. I doubt it will ever reach the upper echelon, as I hinted it might in my early review, but it's the best current Disney Channel show by far. And the show is still pretty young, who knows, maybe they'll all but eliminate Oliver and Rico, add back Jake Ryan, improve the consistency of the scriptwriting, and rocket this show up into the top rung of tween shows.

Album Review: Hannah Montana OST

Hello all. Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but trust me, there has been a good explanation for it. OK on to the actual post.

(same picture of Miley they always use because it's the only one ever taken where her mouth was not open.)

Hannah Montana OST

Well, I was incredibly disappointed when the tracklisting to this soundtrack was released and confirmed about a month ago, and here's why:

1) "The Best of Both Worlds"
2) "Who Said"
3) "Just Like You"
4) "Pumpin' Up the Party"
5) "If We Were a Movie"
6) "I Got Nerve"
7) "The Other Side of Me"
8) "This Is the Life"
9) The Click Five - "Pop Princess"
10) Jesse McCartney - "She's No You"
11) Everlife - "Find Yourself In You"
12) B5 - "Shining Star"
13) Miley Cyrus & Billy Ray Cyrus - "I Learned From You"

Yawn. Hannah Montana's first 6 singles to Radio Disney, plus two songs ("Just Like You" and "The Other Side of Me") that hadn't had full versions released yet, but had been played on the show many times, including snippets that were more than a minute in length. No new Hannah Montana songs at all, unless the ballad with her dad counts. Which it totally doesn't. I was really looking forward to some more Hannah songs! Screw you Diz!

As to the Hannah songs on the mix, there were three that I had not yet heard full versions of (the two aforementioned ones plus "This Is the Life" which got no RD plays at all). You know what, this whole thing doesn't really flow as an album at all, so the most appropriate way to review it is probably track-by-track:

1) "Best of Both Worlds" - Still great. The lyrics are very theme song-ish, which is appropriate, but not meaningful outside the context of the show. I love the guitar riff. 9/10.

2) "Who Said" - You know, I've never really dug the melody to this song too much, though I love the musical backdrop (esp the twangy guitar!). The lyrics are better than BOBW, but still a bit too rah-rah to have any consequence at all. Still, a solid song. 7/10.

3) "Just Like You" - Pleasantly surprised, the full version is superior to the snippets on the show. But the lyrics to the song are revealing her pop star/regular girl double life! Be more careful Hannah! I like the "I'm the lucky girl..." part a lot, but the song doesn't seem to go anywhere. Plus the melody doesn't seem to match her voice very well. 6/10.

4) "Pumpin' Up the Party" - HORRIBLE. Dear God, what were they thinking. OK the story of this song. The chorus to this song was featured briefly at the very beginning of the Hannah episode "Mascot Love". And, hey, it's a really catchy chorus, despite it's stupidity. Fans started to get anxious...hey, here was this awesome chorus, with no song attached. We want the full version! The full version of this song was very highly anticipated, and RD released it together with "I Got Nerve" with great fanfare! It was played constantly when first debuted. But now they never play it, because even little kids know the difference between a listenable song and an unlistenable one. Still a catchy chorus, but it's amazing they managed to screw this up so badly. 1/10.

5) "If We Were a Movie" - Hannah's only love song! The others are all really rah-rah inspirational stuff ("I Got Nerve", "Who Said") or songs with lyrics that are directly applicable to the show and have no real general meaning ("The Best of Both Worlds", "Just Like You"). Consequently, this is the best of Hannah's songs lyrically, and plus it's got a great melody. I'm not a huge fan of the verses, which prevents this from being one of my very fave Hannah songs, but it's a good one. 8/10. Plus in the 1 minute Typhoon Lagoon video of this song, she does a "sexy" hip roll about 40 seconds in that is hilarious.

6) "I Got Nerve" - I love this song so much. Yeah, the lyrics are nothing special, but I like the melody of the verses a lot, I love the prechorus, and I REALLY love the chorus a lot. Plus Miley is a great singer. Good guitar riff too. I could listen to this song for hours on end. One of the top 10 and possibly top 5 singles of the year. 9.5/10.

7) "The Other Side of Me" - Horrible once again. Was this always a dance song on the show? I don't seem to remember it being that way. Why do they keep trying to do dance songs with Hannah, when Miley's voice is clearly not suited to it. The two dance tracks on this album are clearly and by far the two worst tracks on the album. 2/10.

8) "This Is the Life" - Whoa, where did this come from? I had only heard brief snippets of it on the show. Given how badly the song flopped on Radio Disney I was expecting it to be very bland and stupid, but it's not! It's got a really great melody, and it's perfectly suited to Miley's voice. It's got a real kind of country twang to it that I love. Giving it a 9/10, this could be the second best song on the album. A top 10 single of the year contender.

So based entirely on the Hannah Montana songs, the album would get a 6.44 using the Poptimists scientific album score criteria. That's not a bad score, it's got a couple clunkers, but a lot of great songs. The real problem is the remaining 6 tracks. They aren't awful really, but they are all highly mediocre, they have absolutely nothing to do with the show, and they add nothing to the album at all. I'm really disappointed that Disney put them on, although I should really have learned to expect nothing else other than greedy greed from them by now. The duet is OK, but again adds nothing. I don't skip it on the album, but I can't imagine anybody intentionally choosing to listen to it.

OFFICIAL OPINION OF THE TCR: Miley is a really great singer. She is far superior as a singer to any other Disney product, especially Hilary. Tho some of the songs she's been given are no where near as good as some of the songs Hilary has been given. But a lot of the songs have great melodies and good backing tracks too! Hannah is my favorite singles artist of the year. Five of the above songs would make my top 50 or so of the year (all the RD singles except "Pumpin' Up the Party"), with probably at least 3 in the top 25. That being said, don't waste your money on the album. The highs are high indeed, probably the best top 4 songs of any album released this year. But 3 of those 4 songs are still played on very heavy rotation on Radio Disney. Just listen to Radio Disney, you'll hear about 10 HM songs a day and it's free. Plus if you're less than 14 you can enter their contest to receive a phone call from Miley! Leave this one for the kiddies, where it belongs.

An Overview of Teen TV Theme Songs

I briefly touched on some of these in a previous post on Disney Channel shows, but to flesh out and include the other ones I didn't include in that one, I am going to summarize my thoughts on the theme songs of several of the teen/pre-teen shows discussed here-in. I'm gonna try to minimize repeating what I've said before, so if you're curious what I think of the theme songs to most of the current Disney shows, most of it is integrated within this post which also contains all of my thoughts on the shows in general. This is a non-comprehensive guide featuring basically whatever shows I felt like discussing. So there's going to be a lot of stuff left out. Nevertheless, certainly don't feel scared to leave a comment if you feel I have unjustly excluded my thoughts on a personal favorite of yours.

Summerland
The most timely show (to this blog, anyways), so I guess I should do it first. I'm pretty sure this song existed prior to the show; there's nothing that really connects the song to the show at all (quick internet research reveals it's "Beautiful Day" by Steve Plunkett but I couldn't really figure out whether it previous existed or not). Oh wait, the song features the phrase "beautiful day", and the show takes place in Southern California, where the weather is oft nice? Come on, let's at least attempt to create some connection between the show and song. Not only that, but the song itself isn't that good. A bit too limp and not quite catchy enough to really work as a TV theme song. I should instantly think of the show when I hear the song!
YouTube: Summerland

Phil of the Future
I know I have mentioned this before, and I know my opinion of this song is already noted on the sidebar for all to see, but it quite simply cannot be mentioned enough times. The Phil of the Future theme song is quite possibly not just the worst TV theme song of all time, but the worst song of all time period. You know that when *I* think a pop song goes too far, it's too far off the rails and too cheesy, that it's really hit something special. What absolutely horrible guitar, I don't like the singer at all, and the melody is just far too much. A fairly insignificant stain on an otherwise great show.
YouTube: I really wish I could find it. Somebody help please. I was able to find 50 montages of Phil and Keely moments set to popular songs.

Unfabulous
Totally awesome. Like all the music on the show, this was written by Jill Sobule, who I previously only knew from her minor 90's cult hit "I Kissed a Girl". And I only knew that song because VH1 used to play the video, and they only played the video because it featured Fabio, and thus it was entertaining to make fun of. In any event, contrary to expectation, the song is NOT performed by Emma Roberts (Jill herself performs it), even though she does sing all the songs on the show itself. And there's not even a full-length version, at least that I'm aware of. Emma Roberts' album, which was entitled Unfabulous and More and purported to be a soundtrack of sorts to the show, did not have any version of this song. And you know what, I'm OK with that. Like a lot of other great TV themes, what makes it so great is that it seems like a fully formed song as it is. It's like a mini-suite condensed into 45 seconds! OK, I'd like to see what could be done with this song in a full length version, but it's still totally awesome as is. One of my top 20 or so all-time favorite TV themes.
YouTube: Unfabulous <-- bad sound quality and features Spanish language voiceover at the end, but it's all I could find.

Lizzie McGuire
A pretty good pop song. Nothing too special, it actually kind of has the same problem as the Summerland theme in that it seems a bit too limp and forgettable to be a theme song. I actually had to find the video on YouTube to even really remember how it went. Also it has nothing to do with the show. But why isn't it done by Hilary? If Lizzie McGuire were released today, this song would have been performed by Hilary Duff, it would have had tricked out teen production behind it, and it would have been released to Radio Disney a month before the show even aired. Also Lizzie would have had a twin or something. Interesting to see how the progression of Disney theme songs have gone. Now all of the theme songs are highly memorable pop songs, even if some of them are terrible. But the previous generation of huge Disney hit shows, Lizzie and Even Stevens had fairly bland and forgettable theme songs. I highly doubt too much thought went into the creation of them. Interesting.
YouTube: Lizzie McGuire

Kim Possible
I don't generally talk about animated shows on this blog, but this has to be mentioned because it is, I believe, the turning point in the continuum of theme songs mentioned in the write-up above. The theme song to this is "Call Me, Beep Me", and it was performed by Christina Milian, a legitimate recording artist! As my memory serves, this was the first of the Disney Channel series theme songs that they really heavily promoted. It was quickly released as a full length song, it got a lot of Radio Disney plays, the music video of it played CONSTANTLY on the channel, etc. It was probably with this song that the Disney people realized they could make a pretty decent turnaround of money on these theme songs. As to the theme itself, it's a pretty good song on it's own terms, but kind of silly to have as the theme song to a kid's cartoon. It features the words Kim Possible and that's the only thing it remotely has to do with the show. It doesn't even really sound like a theme song, it sounds like a Radio Disney hit song. But a good Radio Disney hit song.
YouTube: Kim Possible

Zoey 101
Oh, Zoey 101. I know I've said a lot of bad things about this show in the past--bad things that I will totally stick behind--, but to give credit where credit is due, the show has a good theme song. It's sung by Jamie Lynn Spears, who also stars in the show of course, and she's a good pop singer. She still as far as I know has not enacted on a pop career, but I hope she does, because she really does seem to be a good singer of these types of songs. Her career can start with a full length version of this theme song, which I'm pretty sure would be a good song. As it stands, the shortened version is OK, it just needs a bit more oomph.
YouTube: Zoey 101

I'll talk about Hannah Montana later, when I review the soundtrack album. The other current shows all have really boring theme songs that I don't have anything to say about. As for the older stuff, the only one that has a theme song that I really love was Pete and Pete and so much has correctly been written about how amazing that theme song is, that there's no reason for me to repeat it. Boy Meets World holds what may be an all time sitcom record as it had, I believe, 4 different theme songs over the course of its run, and they were all terrible and forgettable. Anyways, the real point of this post was to note that the Unfabulous theme song is amazing and that the old Disney original series had stupid theme songs, and I think I've accomplished that. In fact it only took one sentence to accomplish that, so maybe this post wasn't so worthwhile at all...