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“It’s Not My Time” is the first single off the band’s fourth album. The song holds a great resemblance to the band’s 2003 hit “I’m Not Gone.” The single was released in February almost a year ago. The song reached as high as 17 on Billboards Top 100 and number one on the Adult Top 40. “It’s Not My Time” is considered one of the top watched videos of the year as well.

The video was shot in Cincinnati. The beginning of the video captures your attention immediately as it shows a mother and daughter in a car with a truck coming towards them then it skips to a man running and jumping through and on top of buildings and on cars and so on. Eventually the man gets to the woman’s car and stops her before she gets hit by the truck, hence the song “It’s Not My Time”. Very cool video and decent song for 3 Doors Down.

Kid Rock seems to be coming to terms with his age in the recently released single “Roll On” off his album Rock n Roll Jesus. He tends to be more laid back in this song than his past work. For fans of Kid Rock they may be disappointed since he isn’t screaming around too much lately. This may be because he is getting older and is realizing there is much more to life than how many women you can have sex with.

The video focuses on the area of Detroit. Kid Rock pays tribute along with capturing the heart and soul of the city by showing various landmarks including Tiger Stadium and Comerica Park.

Alongside “All Summer Long” which is also on the same album as “Roll On” shows a softer side of Kid Rock. He actually sings on this album and turns to a more bluesy sound. He can gain more fans by playing this kind of music and will probably convince the fans of the harder kid rock that this choice of music is just as good. Kid Rock is still grungy and dirty looking and needs a desperate hair cut along with a tattoo remover, but I think he really is growing up and so is his music.

“Piece of Me” is the second single from the album Blackout by Britney Spears. It earned three MTV Music Awards and was loved by most critics. The funny thing is I never heard of the song. I got it confused with “Gimme More” which was her first release from the album. It was also the song she sang on the MTV awards in 2007. Oh well. They are pretty much the same as far as the way the songs drown her voice in synthesizers and altering the vocals. For someone who can’t sing very well anyway will probably have to do that on the albums. I wonder what they do when they perform the song live though. Oh, that’s right. They don’t. Lip syncing comes in handy here. It is rather ridiculous to try to sing a heavily dubbed synthesized song live anyway.

“Piece of Me” is written by Bloodshy and Avant (swedish) along with Klas Ahlund. The lyrics are rather good in this song, but the music itself sucks. Here are some of the lyrics from the song.

“I’m Mrs. Lifestyles of the rich and famous
(You want a piece of me)
I’m Mrs. Oh my God that Britney’s Shameless
(You want a piece of me)
I’m Mrs. Extra! Extra! this just in
(You want a piece of me)
I’m Mrs. she’s too big now she’s too thin
(You want a piece of me)
I’m Miss American Dream since I was 17
Don’t matter if I step on the scene
Or sneak away to the Philippines
They’re still gonna take pictures of my derriere in the magazine
You want a piece of me?”

The video showed Britney going around fighting with the paparazzi and covering from pictures and trying to get through the media frenzy and then it shows her wearing a horrible outfit and trying to dance. She would have been better off to have about two or four dancers behind her and actually do a routine. But it seems this is when she was still putting the least amount of effort towards her work and the video is ruined by her lack of wanting to do better.

Blades of Glory stars Wil Ferrell and Jon Heder who portray singles skaters who fight during a competition and become banned from male singles ice skating. Eventually they become pair skaters becoming the first male pair skaters. This film is jammed packed with corny jokes and unrealistic situations but it is hilarious. Ferrell and Heder make a great comedy team and should think about making a Blades of Glory 2.

Ferrell has many hit and miss movies. It seems to rely on who is in the film with him that he can work well with. For instance, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers were good films for Ferrell since John C. O’Reilly co-starred with him. Semi Pro was one of Ferrell’s worst films and it is probably due to lack of chemistry with his co-star.

Blades of Glory was released in 2007 and is often played on cable. It is completely silly but offers many laughs. Many of the great ice skaters took part in this film and were able to laugh at themselves which made the scenes even funnier. Scott Hamilton played a large part in being an announcer and was surprisingly able to get through his scenes without looking obvious he was holding back laughing. I simply love this film and can watch it over and over again.

Apocalypto was directed by Mel Gibson is very dark. Gibson also had his hand in writing the movie alongside Farhad Safinia. It follows the decline of the Mayan kingdom. The amount of gore and horrific scenes are too much, but the direction and realism is amazing. The viewer believes they are right there with the Mayans as they suffer through their destruction. One scene in particular is very disturbing where the Mayans were captured and sold for sacrafice or slavery. It went on too long and almost made me vomit.

Apocalypto was released back in 2006, but is still effective today. It appears on cable often but it isn’t one of those movies you can watch over and over again. Yet, this film is undoubtedly a masterpiece. Gibson directed Braveheart and Passion of the Christ. Apocalypto is much darker than his previous work but its incredibly realistic and intense. No matter how scary some of the scenes are, I must admit Gibson did a superb job.

What Happens in Vegas is a film starring two great comedic actors Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz. They work well together as they portray two people that meet in Vegas and end up married by the time the night was over. They end up fighting the next night and decide to split when Cameron wins money on a machine that belonged to Ashton. They both want the money of course and go to court to fight for it. The judge decides that they are not going to get a divorce and will not split the money until they go through marriage counseling to try to fix their problems.

The film is funny and very lighthearted. Diaz and Kutcher together make a great pair. Neither one mind making fools of themselves or being the joke. They have a natural ability to make you laugh and like them. With What Happens in Vegas you can’t help but laugh and enjoy the two hours you spend with these two actors. Treat Williams and Queen Latifah also star in this comedy.

I didn’t expect much from this movie after seeing the silly commercials. The trailors are very important when advertising movies and many trailors to films these days don’t seem to be doing a good flick justice. Wrong advertising will keep fans of such a good comedy away and disappoint those that expected something completely different.

Even though Gone Baby Gone is a good effort on the part of actor Ben Affleck in directing, it is one of the worst movies I have seen this year. It was released in limited release in theatres last year, but I just recently watched it on cable. I watched some of it. The mood was depressing, the acting was ok but annoying, and everyone had a problem. The characters weren’t appealing at all and the film was shot so dark that it created a sad mood. There was no real reason to watch this movie other than the fact that Ben directed it and his brother Casey was in it. His brother has the same problem, by the way, that Ben does and that is they both have an ego that is so large that it is difficult for them to walk in the door.

Gone Baby Gone is based in Boston and it follows two detectives that are investigating a kidnapping. The film actually stars some great actors including Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, and (one of my favorite actors) Morgan Freeman. I think this movie had the potential to be much better. Choosing a better lead actor other than Casey Affleck would be a good start.

Kanye West’s appearance on Saturday Night Live this past weekend led some people to believe that he was lip syncing. What ended up happening was that there was a malfunction in the equipment of Kanye’s voice overs. Many artists use this. They will have their own voices in the background as back up. This will only enhance their voices when they sing live. Rather than singing completely on their own when singing live and making their music completely original every time they sing their songs they choose to wimp out and use back ups. Kanye also tried special effects in the back ground which didn’t help the performance either. You could hear his voice and then you hear part of it. You wouldn’t be able to hear him at all if he was lip syncing as the music went off and on. You could still hear Kanye but the quality wasn’t very good.

I am not a big fan of the egotistical rapper/singer. Yet, I do defend his performance on the live SNL show. I don’t believe he was lip syncing at all and even if he was, so what. No one paid to get into the show. These artists only make fools of themselves when they do lip sync and they lose respect of fellow artists. They will not be as respected as some artists as Mariah Carey who will never lip sync since she knows she’s got a great voice. Whitney Houston and Celine Dion will never lip sync either. There’s no need. And when a true artist appears on a show that is live and the stage isn’t very big then they shouldn’t treat it as though it is by having lights flashing and big screens with various forms of light. Sing your song and leave the stage. Kanye thinks he is great which is a much bigger problem than lip syncing or equipment malfunction.

Shooter was released in 2007 in theatres but appears often on cable. The movie stars Mark Wahlberg who came to fame from his starring role in Boogie Nights. Shooter also stars Danny Glover and Kate Mara. This is an action film that also manages to tell a good story. There is some violence, but nothing gory.

Wahlberg portrays a former sniper who worked for the military. After a bad incident in the military he decides to leave and live in the wilderness, far away from civilization. Several years later several men appear at his front door to ask him to help them with saving the president when in reality they were using him as a scapegoat to kill the president.

Antoine Fuqua directed Shooter. The great direction of the film manages to keep the viewers attention and thrill with plenty of action scenes as well as including enough time to build a relationship. Mark Wahlberg does a great job in capturing a good hearted war veteran while Danny Glover captures an evil manipulative U.S. agent. Take time out of to watch this film especially if you love action adventure films.

Adele is a singer from England that has been around for several years and has released her first album “19″ during the summer of this year. Her single “Chasing Pavements” has been nominated for several Grammy awards. I never heard of it and decided to watch the video on you tube. Very interesting video. Love the original choreography, but very unusual at the same time.

Adele has a strong bluesy voice. Her type of music is not something that will be played over and over again on the radio since her songs are not enjoyable enough to listen to more than twice. Once you heard it you feel so sad that you don’t want to hear it again. If you are feeling sorry for yourself you may want to turn on “Chasing Pavements”. If all of her music resembles this song then be prepared to cry all day and by the end of the week you may become a hermit and not leave your home. You will become so depressed you will not want to talk or see anyone. Adele needs to cheer up. She describes her music as heartbroken soul, if that gives you any clue of what to expect.

Aside from Adele’s ability to depress her fans she is a good singer and maybe with the right cheery song she may be a commercial success. But that also may not be who she really is and will not sing a song that doesn’t tell a story in a sad way.