WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER: 21 isn't a perfect film by any means, but that doesn't mean it's not a lot of good fun. The basic story's been well publicized--team of MIT math whizzes, with the help of a professor, tries to take Vegas for all it's worth with an elaborate card counting plan. Needless to say, infighting and fights with casino staff ensue. Kevin Spacey is pretty damn great as the professor who brings the team together, finally finding a role that allows him to pitch his performance just right rather than over the top (though he crosses that line in the film's last act), and for the first time in her relatively short career, Kate Bosworth is memorable rather than just being a blank slate. Sure, I called several of the plot twists well in advance (though a few still caught me by surprise), but it's still a good time.

Yes, there's been some controversy about lack of faithfulness to the real events that inspired the film, but the story changes from the book are largely for the better--in the book, there's no clear villain who gets a comeuppance at the end. Here, there is. One thing that bugged, though--one of the "big scores" is at the Riviera--based on my limited experience there, young, high rolling dot com billionaire types (the cover used by the team) would be entirely out of place there, with its aisle upon aisle of people mechanically pulling the slots.

STILL IN THE RUNNING: Two minor notes on the current cycle of America's. Next. Top. Model:

1. I cannot even begin to communicate the level of joy I feel each time the competitors are forced to read the Tyra Mail aloud off the slow-moving LED display screens. Why? Because it makes each of them sound like Cycle 8 winner Jaslene Gonzalez narrating her My Life As A Covergirl spots, and I find that inexplicably hilarious.
2. When did they get rid of the last-minute challenges in the judging room?

All comments on Cycle 10 are welcome. It's quite a disagreeable bunch we've got.

ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM: In his (out and out rave) review of the new production of Gypsy starring Patti LuPone, NYT drama critic Ben Brantley observes that Laura Benanti (as the title character), "obliges with examples of the ecdysiast’s art in the second act." My first though was that the word choice might be spurred by NYT standards, but in the next paragraph, the word "stripteases" is used, so apparently the word choice was Brantley's own. Perhaps I'm oversensitive on this point as I've spent the better part of this week dealing with an individual who likes to use unnecessarily large words in an effort to "facilitate appropriate communication and knowledge," but isn't Brantley just showing off and kind of making an ass out of himself?

THREE VARIATIONS ON ANN POWERS: The LA Times pop music critic penned a provocative piece on Chikezie's ouster, American Idol and race, in which she bemoans the fact that "Aside from Ruben Studdard, the Velvet Exception who proves the rule, black male singers have a tough time on 'Idol,' hanging out on its bottom tiers," and is troubled by what she describes as "white America's seeming reluctance to universally embrace a strong black male voice, unless it belongs to a rapper selling blaxploitation fantasies to teens."

To which three of us have responses, as part of our ongoing ALOTT5MA Symposium About The Sensitive Subject of Race:

Me: Look, this wasn't Nikki over Tamyra bad, or certainly John Stevens and Jasmine Trias over Jennifer Hudson (and with Fantasia and LaToya joining her in the bottom three) level of bad, but there's no question that Chikezie is more talented than, and performed better on the show than some of the people who are continuing in the competition. And I think it's also undeniable, as Powers writes, that there's a certain profile of singer -- Brandon Rogers, Anwar Robinson, Gedeon McKinney and Rickey Smith (and I'd add Nikko Smith) -- that does not progress in the competition as far as his talent would suggest he should.

The question is why, and I do think race is a factor. If nothing else, I think African-American performers have been more vulnerable to the random "one bad week" ouster than others, and this especially seems to happen earlier in the competition. Do I think voters are racist? I'm not as prepared to say that this season as I have in the past, but I do wonder if stereotypical assumptions about race mean that singers like Chikezie are seen as more "naturally" talented and not as compelling to root for as folks like Jason Castro and Brooke White, who make the effort show more clearly. Or a Taylor Hicks, who carefully and deliberately calibrated his stagecraft and shtick every week to convince people of how hard he was working.

Chikezie wasn't going to win this competition, but he still went earlier than he should have. Part of the impetus behind my whole "tiers" theory is to ameliorate the pain from an ouster like this, but it was still premature. Thank goodness it's only Idol, and not something that matters.

Kim: My dad always likes to say that when you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras. And yet here’s Ann Powers, spotting one zebra after another. The last black male singer on AI gets booted the week he sings a godawfully boring Luther Vandross song, right after a year in which there was not a single “traditional soul man” represented in the top 20 best-selling albums of the year (never you mind that the #2 album of 2007 came from Akon, a real live black man, because he’s not a traditional soul singer). That can’t be coincidence, right? Right?

Of course it’s not a coincidence. Powers doesn’t think so either, except that instead of concluding that hey, maybe traditional R&B isn’t popular these days, kind of like heavy metal power ballads are going through a bit of a low period at the moment, she makes a Bob Beamonesque leap and concludes that Americans don’t like strong black male voices right now because so many black men are in jail and/or unemployed. (Or maybe I missed the point: is it that all the strong black men who would otherwise be recording great R&B songs are currently incarcerated or standing in unemployment lines?)

Horses, Ann. Look for the horses.

Matt: My total viewing of American Idol is pretty minimal, though I do often wind up listening to the 30 second snippets of performances on iTunes. Having watched the snippets of the performances on iTunes from this week, Chikezie was certainly among the weakest along with Ramiele (and didn't do himself any favors with his song choice). Brooke probably would have been the third member of the bottom three for me because she just completely failed to emotionally connect with the song. It's hard for me to credit "racism" for this particular elimination based on that. Also undermining the argument is that an R&B singer actually has won this competition before over a white guy who played the "non-threatening boy" card as hard as possible.

It strikes me that we need to be careful not to adopt either end of the argument here unquestionably. Are there people who are voting with race as a factor--either consciously or unconsciously? Absolutely. Is "racism" the primary reason why a large number of African-American contestants have been kicked out early? I don't think so. Someone else involved in a major national voting competition that a number of us are following seemed to me to get it pretty well right a couple of weeks ago -- the debate here "reflect[s] the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through -- a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together." Let's not reflexively blame racism, and let's not deny that it may play some role here -- let's talk about it with an open mind.

Paul Simon - Brooklyn Academy of Music - Love in Hard Times - Music - New York Times

THE ARC OF A LOVE AFFAIR: On the eve of a month-long career retrospective at the Brooklyn Academy of Music -- including six nights on "Songs from The Capeman" -- the NYT's Jon Pareles pens an appreciation of Paul Simon:

[T]the thread running through Mr. Simon’s songs is estrangement. From “I Am a Rock” to “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” to “You Can Call Me Al” to the cranky reflections on his 2006 album “Surprise,” he has sung about being alienated, misplaced, restless, disillusioned. Moments of solace or satisfaction are far outnumbered by misgivings and regrets. The material comforts that he recognizes are his — as a wealthy man, as a pop success, as an American in a wider world — don’t bring him peace of mind. Neither does the finicky craftsmanship that has always marked his music. ...

Mr. Simon has turned out to be not a carpetbagger but a connoisseur and, at best, an alchemist. Being an outsider led him to choose musical ideas that didn’t need explanation, that could survive and propagate away from home. And as a craftsman he has tweaked what he borrowed, personalizing and hybridizing it. From “Scarborough Fair” to the Afro-reggae beat he recorded in Bahia with the Brazilian drummers of Olodum, Mr. Simon has been sharing ideas, not confiscating them.

He has been one embodiment of the pop process, that mixture of instinct and calculation that scouts cultural and geographical fringes for the next mainstream treat. And being Paul Simon he doesn’t simplify what he finds. He adds his beloved musical convolutions and verbal conundrums, his layers of New York cosmopolitanism, anxiety and striving. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, for a few precisely constructed minutes, Mr. Simon’s music gracefully holds estrangement at bay.

LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION: As an occasional public service of ALOTT5MA, we like to make sure folks are clear on the distinctions between things that kind of sound the same, but are, in fact, entirely different. Spurred by erroneous DJ chatter this morning, just to clarify:

• OneRepublic--fairly successful mopey band that performs "Apologize."
• The New Republic--Wonky neo-liberal political magazine owned edited by Martin Peretz.

No, The New Republic has not yet been remixed by Timbaland (though that would be kind of awesome).

MAYBE THEY COULD HAVE GONE WITH CAT DEELEY: With the exception of the ill-fated Katie Lee Joel first season of Top Chef, Bravo has generally chosen folks who have some background in the field to host their shows. Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio know food, Heidi and Tim know fashion, Tyson and Niki know modelling, and Todd Oldham knows design. So what exactly qualifies Elizabeth Berkeley to host the upcoming Step It Up And Dance (though points are due for having Jerry Mitchell, choreographer of Hairspray, Legally Blonde, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as the Tim/Tom figure)? Is it her acting? Or her prior dancing experience (NSFW-- even though it's the censored version)?