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| Vanessa Williams is one of those stars who can seemingly do it all. She shot to stardom as the first African American Miss America, then overcame the scandal of losing her crown to go on to major success as an actress and pop diva. Her latest musical foray is a fantastic album that shows off her wonderful vocal abilities in fine form. The Real Thing is a fitting title for this CD and its most engaging track by far is Breathless. Lush and filled with soulful melody, the rest of the album is outstanding too. Hello Like Before, Loving You, Just Friends, and the gorgeous October Sky really deliver and Williams has never sounded better. From a Latin swing to a jazzy sensation, and including the perfect pop feel, The Real Thing is more than worth a listen or two. It is Vanessa Williams doing what she possibly does the best. This is a real treat. One of 2009’s best album releases to date. Grade: A+ |
| Katie Kampenfelt is young, energetic, and ready to take on the world as she turns 18 and leaves high school for her debut in the adult world. Undiscovered Gyrl is Katie’s life, told within the confines of her blog, in a narrative fashion that begins as her own attempt to chronicle what she considers one of the most exciting times in life she’ll experience. Readers find Katie battling with her mother, contemplating a break up with her longtime boyfriend, toying with the idea of sleeping with her 32 year old cinema instructor, landing a job as a nanny, and discovering a disturbing reality about her new boss. A story of what one teenager goes through in her search for self, related in words constructed from sheer emotion, all the while confronting the dark recesses of her own mind as they lead her from the anonymous veil of her online moniker and dangerously invade her reality. The author of the award winning novel Christopher and its sequel The House Beautiful, Allison Burnett now gives us a story that is impossible to put down. Undiscovered Gyrl will stay with you long after the last word is read. Grade: A+ |
One of Bruce Willis’ best film performances ever, 12 Monkeys is the riveting story of
a world gone mad because of plague and the lengths mankind will go to stop it from
happening in the first place. Willis portrays a criminal suspended in an underground
prison with the rest of humanity’s survivors after the plague renders Earth’s surface
uninhabitable. Sent out on expeditions to see what the world is becoming as it
recovers from the blight brought upon it by terrorists, Willis is recruited to travel back
in time and find the man whose group began the apocalypse and stop him (Brad Pitt in
an Oscar nominated performance.) Told in a frighteningly forthright first person
narrative, escaping occasionally into the minds of its supporting cast, 12 Monkeys is
not just a tale of what we might do to ourselves through bioterrorism and madness, it
is also a story of hope, faith, and one man’s journey to find himself as not only an
adult, but also as the child who still is suffering from the hellish life he, and all mankind,
have been plunged into.
Grade: A+
a world gone mad because of plague and the lengths mankind will go to stop it from
happening in the first place. Willis portrays a criminal suspended in an underground
prison with the rest of humanity’s survivors after the plague renders Earth’s surface
uninhabitable. Sent out on expeditions to see what the world is becoming as it
recovers from the blight brought upon it by terrorists, Willis is recruited to travel back
in time and find the man whose group began the apocalypse and stop him (Brad Pitt in
an Oscar nominated performance.) Told in a frighteningly forthright first person
narrative, escaping occasionally into the minds of its supporting cast, 12 Monkeys is
not just a tale of what we might do to ourselves through bioterrorism and madness, it
is also a story of hope, faith, and one man’s journey to find himself as not only an
adult, but also as the child who still is suffering from the hellish life he, and all mankind,
have been plunged into.
Grade: A+
