'American Idol' Goes to the Movies, Adam Lambert and Kris Allen Best of the Night

My favorite use of music in all of cinema? Jaws. I doubt any of our "American Idol" contestants will be performing that tonight. However, if anybody could find a way to pull it off, it would be Adam Lambert. Join me as we live-blog the performances and see if any of my picks make the cut.

I have to confess right up front that I'm a Quentin Tarantino fangirl. He gets to say, "THIS... IS AMERICAN IDOL!" and I squeal and clap my hands! I need a group of girlfriends some Halloween who will all dress up as The Bride and the assassins from the Kill Bill movies. So awesome.

Ryan says hi to the judges. Randy has on another fugly Mr. Rogers sweater, Kara is looking smashing in a simple gray dress, and Paula is wearing a diamond-studded horse-bridle-Iron-Maiden thing around her neck. I don't even know. Simon has on a gray sweater. Natch. Simon blames last week's over-time on "the girls," meaning Kara and Paula. Also natch. But this week they are judging only two judges per contestant. Hmmm. I don't like that because only Simon says anything worth a crap, so half the contestants really get shafted.

There is some large man in the audience wearing a 'do rag who I think I am supposed to recognize. Hmm. Alfred Molina? I don't know. Tarantino Montage!!!! LOVE. IT. Reservoir Dogs is my favorite, guys. You know what else would keep us from going long? Montages like this. I love me some Tarantino, but my god. Out in the audience, I'm pretty sure Linda Hamilton circa "Beauty and the Beast" is over his right shoulder.

Allison Iraheta, "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith (Armagedbrucewillisdies)
Okay, right off... I hate this song. HATE. IT. It's a terrible ballad from a crapfest of a movie and Steven Tyler starts screaming at me at the end. We all know how I feel about that. Oh, Allison. She starts off very subdued, almost too much so, and she's dressed like the lost Bangle. But when the chorus and bridge kick up, she blows it out like we all know she can. Is Allison sick this week? She sounds a little off to me. Hmm. Man, not my favorite Allison performance but there's no way she should go home.

**Hey, look! Katie Couric! I bet Allison could see that smile from the stage.**

Paula says Allison has the same "special sauce" as Adam and that she is remarkable. Does that "special sauce" go on Paula's "word salad?" BA DUMP CHING! Simon calls her hot, spicy and the "girls' only hope in this competition right now." Well, considering that there are only two left and it took you 3 months to realize Lil Rounds is NOT as good as you think she is... hmph.

Anoop Desai, "Everything I Do (I Do for You)" by Bryan Adams (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves)
I confess to loving this song but I think it's a tad boring for this competition. Tarantino agrees and tells Desai to rough it up. I have my doubts that Anoop and his cable-access child's show and dissertation on BBQ can pull it off. Tonight he has on a jacket... that looks like if a suit jacket and a letterman's jacket got drunk and had sex. It's awful. Did Randy dress him? Vocally, this is very pretty but he just doesn't have the raspiness of Bryan Adams to make this interesting to me. The tweenies and middle-aged-Clay-Aiken lovers will eat it up, though.

**They're not saying "booo," they're saying "Anooooop."**

Randy thought Anoop found the zone and that he did a good job. Kara likes that he took a pop song and added his soul to it. They just like it that Anoop stayed in his R&B ballad box. Idol is all about boxes, people!

Adam Lambert, "Born to Be Wild" by Steppenwolf (Easy Rider)
Perfect choice for Adam. Perfect. He's back to the swoopy hair and black fingernail polish this week but it works for this song and movie. The vocals are all over the place without becoming Shriekfest 2009. It's sort-of like somebody told Adam, "Do the EXACT polar opposite of what Anoop just did." I think he lit my bed on fire from the stage.

Paula says that Adam "dare[s] to dance in the path of greatness." That is... so very dramatic of her. He's not, like, winning a Nobel prize here, Paula. Simon says vocally it was incredible but it was a little like watching Rocky Horror. He should've done "The Time Warp," like I said!

**Hey, look! Kate from "Days of our Lives!"**

Matt Giraud, "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman" by Bryan Adams (Don Juan DeMarco)
I don't love this song but I'll give it a chance because it has a great piano line and could really suit Matt. I actually kind of dig what he's doing with the melody, he's making it his own without going nuts. I have issues with his enunciation but that's probably just his R&B vibe and my personal peeves. Oh god, he completely loses it on the bridge. I rescind my good feelings, that was awful. There was some cat-strangling falsetto going on and he just totally loses the melody at one point. Oh Matt, you were doing so well!

Randy goes, "When it hit the bridge, man..." Yeah. Randy also says that his tomfoolery with the melody fell flat more often than not. Kara didn't like the R&B flavor put on such a beautiful song. I disagreed... at first. It started off awesome, but then he needed to stop the vocal gymnastics and just sing and play.

Danny Gokey, "Endless Love" by Lionel Ritchie (Endless Love)
Hmmm. I maintain "Come What May" would've been better. Anyway, I think this song loses a lot when it's not a duet. There's also a harpist on the stage and I keep wishing the camera would stay on her, which says a lot about this performance. He hits all the notes, but I'm just bored. And then he starts shouting and it sounds really strained. Someone should check him for a hernia after he gets backstage.

**What? Friends listen to "Endless Love" in the dark!**

Paula says something about Danny grabbing us, wowing us and slaying us. Simon says that he can't fault the way Danny sang but he's disappointed that there was a very traditional version of the song and that he was a bit bored. Me too, Simon, me too. Simon then invokes the Dead Wife. Geez, Simon. I thought you were above all that.

Kris Allen, "Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (Once)
I am not familiar with this whatsoever. Wow. This is an incredibly emotional song and Kris does some excellent falsetto. I thought only Adam could pull that off this season. I am quite impressed with Kris this week, well done.

Randy pans it. Geez. The crowd goes nuts and it actually sounds like they are genuinely upset not, not being made to boo and jeer via the electric shock zappers embedded in their seats. I'm with the crowd. BOOOOO, RANDY! Kara says one of his best moments in the entire competition. YES! Kara was listening, Randy was too busy being mesmerized by his own sweater.

Lil Rounds, "The Rose" by Bette Midler (The Rose)
Ugh. I hate this song. Should've gone with "All That Jazz," Lil. Right off the bat she is having some pitch issues. This girl is just not *that* good. Lil is doing The-Rose-meets-Big-Tent-Revival and it does NOT work. I supposed she had to do something with it because it's the most repetitive song on the planet after "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," but I do not like this. The pitch goes completely off-the-rails and I feel like she's going to plant a hand on a crippled boy in the audience and declare he is HAYLED! (Say it out loud, it'll make sense). The last note is breathy and unsupported. Blech.

Paula says that Lil could not have sung a more beautiful lyric, which is more a compliment about the song than about Lil. Simon says she is getting it completely wrong, the song was too middle-of-the-road and that there are no excuses anymore. Lil fires back at Simon and I could see it coming across a little as the stereotypical "angry black woman," which will win no votes in middle America (let's be honest). I'm not saying I thought she was out of line (I did not), but it will play the same way Anoop's back-talking played with the added thoughts of "angry black woman," which is unfair, but there it is. Plus, Paula practically snaps her fingers and says, "You go, girl." This has totally devolved into blech.

Recap: Allison doing a nice job but not blowing me away as much as usual, Anoop's high-school-letterman-jacket snoozefest, Adam being a mile better than anybody else, Matt getting a generous clip on the recap because it doesn't show the suck, Danny looking like Sonny Crockett and putting me to sleep, Kris having a MOMENT and Lil doing horrible things to "The Rose."

Bottom 3: Easily Anoop, Matt and Lil. Please send one of them home, guys. Please. Follow Zap2ItIdol on Twitter!

Related:

'Falling Slowly' lyrics from 'Once' movie soundtrack as sung by Kris Allen
Adam Lambert's 'Born to Be Wild' and the 'Easy Rider' original
What was Quentin Tarantino doing on 'American Idol'?
Danny Gokey and 'Endless Love': Has he seen the movie or listened to the lyrics?
PICS: 'American Idol' movie song performance photos

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