TechWeb - Microsoft's evolving business services model is expected to include online software, advertising-funded software, and perhaps an acquisition or two.

TechWeb - Panelists at the Software 2007 Conference theorize what kind of real impact social networks are creating.

Motorola’s CEO says sophisticated software and hardware could make the smart phone as central to the home and office as the PC.

The herd has been thinned, the chum discarded chucked to the sharks, and all that is left is the top sirloin. By all accounts, the Top 4 is the best Top 4 in American Idol history. Each performer is talented, professional and for the most part, marketable. There isn’t a Sanjaya Malakar, Jasmine Trias or Constantine Maroulis in the bunch. No matter what the theme over the next few weeks, this foursome can be counted to deliver solid, entertaining performances.

Which just makes the show so goddamn boring!

Where’s the wild card? I hated Phil the Alien as much as the next guy, but at least he brought something off-kilter to the proceedings. Like you weren’t sure what he was doing there, but you’d pay attention just in case he unleashed the awesome might of his extra terrestrial powers. I need that kind of surprise. I need Elliot Yamin in there, singing so hard his head might explode like the girl on House last night. I need crazy shucking and jiving from Taylor Hicks, hypnotizing America into making him the next American Idol instead of the knock-out brunette with the powerhouse voice and the Jessica Rabbit body. Heck, after watching last nights pulse-less show, I would have been content seeing Antonella up there doing her skanky thing.

American Idol thrives off of lunacy. Performers that don’t belong, wildly poor song choices, and outfits and hairstyles that scream “To The Watercooler”! We’re not getting that this year. Instead we just get stupid quality singers. How boring. My ears may be pleased, but my adrenaline gland is as dead as Jason Statham at the end of Crank. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss Sanjaya.

We’re changing things up a bit this week. I’m not going to be grading the singers on their bloop worthiness. They were all relatively “meh”, so instead I’m going to be grading them on how fun they are to actually watch. Grading them on their performance more than their voice. The BeeGees after all, are much more fun to watch then they are to hear. The confluence of the crazy facial hair, the blindingly white polyester jumpsuits, the coifs, and those crazy cool medallions, as well as actually seeing that voice come out of Barry Gibb elevates the group to a level of true pop art. And I was especially happy it was BeeGee’s night because it gives me the opportunity to show possibly the best thing Jimmy Fallon will ever do in his entire life (it would have been JT’s as well, until Andy Samberg got the brilliant idea to put his dick in a box). I’m speaking of course about The Barry Gibb Talk Show. Take a watch and have a laugh.

Awesome.

If the real Barry Gibb was even ¼ as fantastic as that clip, I knew I’d be in for a great night. My expectations were not met. He didn’t unleash a high kick, his chest hair was covered up and I didn’t see even one crazy cool medallion. He was nice enough to the kids, and I always enjoy when the artist sings along with the Idol during rehearsals, but I wanted the Barry from SNL, not the old, slightly befuddled, missing his fast ball Barry that we got. If J.Lo is the top and Peter Noone is the bottom, Barry Gibb was hovering next to Tony Bennett as far as this season’s mentors are concerned.

As far as the performances, I was hoping to see a bit of BeeGee-esque chaotic awesomeness (especially from Blake), but was sadly denied the pleasure. I blame the gender balance. Too many divas, not enough immature guys. You can’t tell me Chris Richardson or Phil Stacey wouldn’t have been A LOT more fun to see strutting around on stage, than LaKisha’s misguided attempt to Blakify “Staying Alive”. Blake gets by because of his production skills; it’s not just him on the stage with a mic, it’s also the lights, the strobes, the reverb, and the house band. The girls just get up there and belt, there’s no pizzazz to it. It’s the BeeGee’s for godsakes! Make it crazy! The show needed more falsettos. Chris’s nasal voice would have been PERFECT for this week. And again, as I said before, at least in terms of last night, I missed Sanjaya Malakar.

Let’s jump right to the grades.

1. Jordin Sparks – She didn’t try to overdo the song, she kept the melody relatively intact, and she delivered a controlled, beautiful vocal. For the first performance anyway. The second song was a bit out of her league, but she acquitted herself better than the rest of the Idolists. I like that she didn’t let the band or production overwhelm her (as she did on JBJ night), and that she modeled her look on the type of songs she was singing (classy dresses and slick, straight hair). Jordin is either great or lazy depending on the night, an attitude that fits her age but may lose her points next week. I’m not sure if she can top Blake AND Melinda to get into the finals, but if the first performance of last night were any indication (not to mention Barry’s hyperbole about her), she’s going to pull an upset next week (and maybe the week after that).

Grade: A

2. Melinda Doolittle – Things you are never going to get from Melinda: dancing, spazzing out, a view of her neck, sloppy vocals, real risk. Paula keeps asking for Melinda to wow her, but it’s not going to happen. Melinda can sing just about any song she wants and pull it off convincingly (heck, Tony Bennett wanted to marry her and JBJ asked her to join Bon Jovi), but the assimilation stops at the vocal. She’s not going to dance like Paula Abdul, vogue like Madonna, rooster dance like Mick Jagger, throw a guitar like a hard rocker, or stage dive like an idiot. She’s gonna walk out on that stage and belt. And it’s going to sound great every time. That’s Melinda in a nutshell. You know what you’re going to get, and that’s ok. She sounded just fine last night, but it was no different than five or six performances I’ve seen of her this season. I still think she’s the winner, and the judges seem ready to crown her already and hit the beach, but she’s certainly not the most electrifying of artists. Then again, what’s better, the high risk flash and dazzle of Blake, or the poised perfection of Melinda? I guess it depends on your mood. And I’m willing to bet America is in the mood for perfection come the end of May.

Grade: B+

3. Blake Lewis: The great thing about Blake is that he’s always operating on the razor’s edge. He pushes his limits and tests his audience. Yes, Paula was right in saying that he can do the beatboxing because he can, but the better answer is that he does it because no one has said they don’t like it. He’s only been in one bottom three all year (Melinda has never been in the bottom three, just by the by); it’s a testament to the audience’s appreciation for his musicality. Even though I don’t always like his style of singing (his voice is a bit weak, and he uses his dancing and beatboxing as a distraction from it), I always enjoying watching him. He’s definitely the best performer American Idol has ever seen, but he’s also definitely not the best singer. He wouldn’t have last this far against Bo and Carrie. Fantasia has him beat on watchability. Clay outnerds him. And I bet Taylor and McPhee would have taken him down also. Does he make the finals? I think so. No one wants to see a Melinda vs. Jordin diva off. But if I were voting, it wouldn’t be for him. I’ll buy his first album, but I wouldn’t pick him as the next American Idol.

Grade: B-

4. LaKisha Jones: Part of the reason I changed up the formula this week is because there really isn’t any tension as to who’s getting kicked off. Everyone knows it’s time for LaKisha to get back to her kid. She was back to the shrieking, as Simon pointed out. And now that all the boys are gone, she is vulnerable to the audience love for Melinda and Jordin. There hasn’t been much keeping her around these last few weeks other than people more deserving of getting kicked off. She’s not as controlled as Melinda, not as raw and passionate as Jordin and not as fun as Blake. She brings nothing to the finale fun. I’ll miss the potential live hardcore sex between her and Simon if she had won the whole shebang, but sometimes the potential is better than the reality.

Grade: C

Bottom Three: There won’t be one.

My Prediction For Who Gets The Axe: LaKisha Jones

So until next week, we’ve been…

Talking it up!

On American Idol!

Talking about Simon, talking about some gay sex with Seacrest!

Talking it up!

On American Idol!

Talking about Melinda, talking about crazy cool beatboxing!

Talking it up!

Bangarang!

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Reuters - Red Hat Inc. said on Wednesday
it formed a partnership with IBM to develop and sell
software for mainframe computers, in what analysts said was a
blow to chief rival Novell Inc.

Agreement applies to use of Linux in IBM’s System z mainframe systems, which currently use software from Red Hat rival Novell.

Sun releases Java’s source code under the GPL–except for some third-party chunks and the compatibility test kit.
Video: Gosling on Sun’s JavaFX

Company looks to bake business intelligence and access to documents in next version of the flagship database due out in 2008.

TechWeb - Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff and representatives from FedEx, Unilever, Motorola, and Walt Disney highlight their success with on-demand services.

TechWeb - "Nothing is better than showing
a two-minute video of how something works," said SAP chairman Hasso Plattner, at Software 2007.

InfoWorld - Sun Microsystems, which continues to plan for upgrades to the core Java platform, announced Tuesday at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco that Java Standard Edition (SE) 7 will feature a "superpackage" capability for improved distribution of small pieces of software.

Reuters - Corporate software need
not come as complicated hairballs of code, but can work as
simply as YouTube or Google Web search does, the chairman of
SAP AG, Europe's largest software maker, said on Tuesday.

An alternative to a $100 laptop: Sun hopes selling JavaFX Mobile to phone makers will bring cheap Net access to the masses.

Photos: JavaFX Mobile

AP - Business software maker SAP AG announced plans Tuesday to buy OutlookSoft Corp. and its line of technology products tailored for budgeting and financial forecasts, the latest development in SAP’s duel with Oracle Corp.

InfoWorld - As it rolled out its revamped Windows Live Hotmail Monday, Microsoft also promised it would deliver replacements for the Outlook Express and Windows Mail desktop clients along with new software to integrate Web mail with the corporate Outlook program.

InfoWorld - Business applications vendor SAP is making another acquisition aimed at filling out its product portfolio to better meet the needs of CFOs. The company announced late Tuesday plans to buy U.S. corporate performance management software company OutlookSoft for an undisclosed sum.

InfoWorld - Sun Microsystems announced Tuesday it has finished the process of making the bulk of its core Java technology available as open-source software under the GNU general public license version 2 (GPLv2). The vendor made the announcement at its JavaOne conference in San Francisco.

Some actors you just can’t help but love. Here’s my brief history with one of them…

You catch the cute blonde girl making you laugh in a bit part of the B-story in an episode of Married With Children when you’re fifteen, and that’s all it takes. Every so often you’ll catch her in a few minutes of some other random show, a brief bit on Debra Messing’s first sitcom abortion, Ned and Stacey. A couple funny scenes in a Step By Step you happened to be watching because your plans fell through on a Friday night and you’re comforting yourself with a little quality mid-90’s TGIF. And after a time, having seen her do her thing on multiple occasions, you start to take real notice. You start looking out for them.

You shamefully stay up late one Saturday night to catch a David Schwimmer HBO movie that happens to have her in one scene (though in my defense, it was called Breast Men and I was sixteen). You happily sit through Jennifer Love Hewitt’s attempts at being a poor misunderstand prom queen in Can’t Hardly Wait because your girl pops up every fifteen minutes to make you smile (Seth Green as Special K certainly helps, too. “92%!”). You even reduce yourself to watching Kristie Alley’s network TV cry for help, Veronica’s Closet, on the off chance your girl pops up, cracks a smile and smacks Dan Cortese in the mouth (what, he had it coming!). The things you’ll do for actors you enjoy.

And then one day, a breakthrough. You flip to the FOX Network, grudgingly, and fall in love with Action, a foul, sloppy, one-camera comedic masterpiece starring the douchebag from Jerry Maguire (otherwise known as Jay Mohr). And better still, as you laugh your ass off at each passing episode, you’re rewarded with your girl showing up in a recurring role! So not only do you have a great new show to follow every week, but it stars an actress you’ve been digging on for some time. All is right with the world. For about five minutes, wherein you then remember that the show airs on the FOX Network and it promptly gets canceled. But for that brief shining moment, pop culture threw you a bone.

You girl shows up on even more shows shows (Monk, Las Vegas, as the legendary Pam Macy on That 70’s Show), and you continue to enjoy her work. You hope one day she’ll break big and you can stop checking the TV Guide for her name and just TiVo her weekly sitcom, but until then you’re content in knowing that every so often while you’re watching something awful (read Navy: NCIS), your girl will pop up and make everything just a bit more fun (and tolerable).

The actress, if you haven’t already guessed, is Jennifer Lyons. And like Vinessa Shaw and Monet Mazur, two other random, underutilized actresses I try to follow whenever possible, Jennifer Lyons is someone whose work I really enjoy. She’s got great timing, knows how to sell a joke, and unlike other girls in her type, she seems to be keenly aware of how to use her (crazy good) body to her comedic advantage. She always brings the goods in whatever she’s in (yes, even Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman. In fact, especially in Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman!), and I always look forward to her next guest starring role, or commercial (see below for her Bacardi and Cola spot).

So with that all said, imagine how stoked I was when she agreed to let me interview her for PopLoad. We recorded it last night, and it was excellent. Beyond being fun, funny, down to earth and strikingly hot, she’s also charming as hell. We talked about her start in the industry (two lines on an ep of 90210), her familial roots in entertainment (her Uncle was Roscoe in The Dukes of Hazzard), what it’s like to be a total hottie actress (and all that entails with regards to industry perceptions of your talent), and of course, about her experiences making Action. She was quite candid about working in Hollywood; in fact, I was surprised how loquacious she was about her profession. Most actors are somewhat reserved in interviews, but Jen was quick to respond and quite engaging about her craft. I may be a little biased because she flirted with me, but I’d have to say that it’s probably one of the best interviews I’ve ever done (right up there with Zabka).

So take a listen and enjoy my interview with the totally cool character actress (and my future gf), Jennifer Lyons.

CLICK HERE FOR THE INTERVIEW!

Bangarang!

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Now that its battle with investor Carl Icahn is behind it, the company can focus on rolling out new, innovative cell phones.

TechWeb - Big companies can innovate, the chairman insists, but the key is not waiting too long. SAP's on-demand, hosted software will come with a choice of interfaces, including an office client, a more configurable smart client, a browser, and a mobile client.

TechWeb - The updated online software features a new interface to help make an organization's Web site usage data easier to understand for a broader set of people.

TechWeb - The Indian outsourcer said it is planning new applications based on Microsoft's BizTalk RFID server software.

TechWeb - Better-than-expected sales of Windows Vista and Office 2007 are pushing the software faster into the mainstream than their predecessors, Microsoft managers suggest.

PC Magazine - Sonic Solutions' Roxio division released Roxio Crunch on Tuesday, a software package that is being pitched as an easy soluton to transcode video to the Apple TV and other Apple hardware.

TechWeb - New e-mails advertising an online prostitute finder could invite more trouble to your PC than at first glance, the security software company said.

PC World - LSI Corp., a semiconductor, systems and software vendor, is evaluating whether it should continue its consumer electronics business, consisting of sales of chips for DVD recorders, set-top boxes and portable devices such as personal media players.

Increase of about $1.4 billion, or 18 percent, over initial plan for rollout through 2008, company says.

It was reported last week that famed hobbit documentary filmmaker and giant CGI ape enthusiast, Peter Jackson, had officially begun a studio dating game for his latest production, the adaptation of Alice Sebold’s best-selling (and utterly fantastic) drama The Lovely Bones. Now, ordinarily this bit of news would go unnoticed by me. All it really is is a director making a new movie. It’s not relevant that Jackson hasn’t made a straight-up drama in more than a decade, or that he’s coming off a particularly divisive remake of King Kong. And it’s even less relevant that while I can appreciate the merits and technical achievements of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the peculiar, dark humor of The Frighteners, I’ve never actually been a fan of his work or style of filmmaking. It’s not even troubling to me that a director I don’t care for is attempting to slag off his fan base in order to indie it up on a property I find to be of unending quality and lyrical mastery.

What is troubling (and quite significant) to me is the reported budget he is looking for.

Peter Jackson is asking for a whopping $65 million dollars to make what is essentially a small, weepy family drama with very slight fantastical elements. For all that don’t know, The Lovely Bones is a book about a murdered 14 year-old girl who recalls what happened to her while in heaven, as she watches the effects of her death on her family. Aside from having to visualize heaven (think white clouds), the movie is a four-wall set and some heavy dialogue. At no point should this film cost more than $30 million, and that’s counting Jackson’s A-list salary.

The question here is, what’s all the money being used for?

It’s no surprise to me that studios were hesitant to buy the rights to the project. Though Jackson is a mega-successful commercial director, he has never proven to be a viable entity in and of himself. He received widespread critical acclaim for his little girls lost drama Heavenly Creatures (which launched Kate Winslet), but just as soon as we started plotting him in for a yearly Oscar nod, he parlayed his newfound fame to bask in the bloody dead genre that started his career. The Frighteners was an anemic, disappointing follow-up, and after that he moved to the LotR trilogy. He never capitalized on his talents as a dramatic filmmaker. Sure, he can make an epic battle scene better than just about anyone not named Spielberg, Cameron or William Wallace, but can he deliver the goods with two people in a room sharing their feelings? Will his hugenormous geek audience come to see a Peter Jackson movie that doesn’t include orcs, apes or Elijah Wood? I have my doubts, and so does the rest of Hollywood.

This is all before we get into the budget concerns. Unless the film is stocked with marquee, A-list stars (such as The Departed), or has an unusually expensive quirk (say having to keep a legal action fund in case Russell Crowe got frustrated on the set of A Beautiful Mind), no small-minded drama should dare ring up a budget that high. This is the case for two reasons.

1. Dramas have a limited audience, as teens won’t want to see the movie, and the genre isn’t known for repeat business.
2. The success of the film is wholly dependent on intangibles. Whether the subject matter is relevant in today’s society, whether the marketing clearly sells the project (and to the right people), whether critics champion the film as a must see, the release date (a problem for even BIG dramas like Cinderella Man), the state of the marketplace, love for the cast, etc. While you can always bank on sci-fi movies having a built-in cache, dramas can never be relied upon to bring in a prepped and loyal audience.

Jackson must be banking on his name recognition to float the greenlight, and since DreamWorks did pick it up I suppose he had a point, but that still does not answer the question of why he needs $65 million to make this movie. Or why the studio thinks it can realistically recoup that cost. Here is a small list of high-profile dramas released in the last few years with their domestic box-office grosses, and their budgets in parenthesis.

• Babel: $34 Million ($22 Million)
• Capote: $28 Million ($7 Million)
• Cinderella Man: $61 Million ($88 Million)
• City By The Sea: $22 Million ($40 Million)
• Crash: $54 Million ($6.5 Million)
• The Constant Gardener: $33 million ($25 Million)
• A History of Violence: $31 Million ($32 Million)
• Million Dollar Baby: $100 Million ($30 Million)
• The Weather Man: $12 Million ($22 Million)

Only one of those films earned more than $65 million and that was due to an awards season push (as well as collective audience love for Clint Eastwood). Each of those high-profile dramas were toplined a legitimate movie star and each of them (save Baby) was merely a modest hit. Now note the production budgets. All of them save Cinderella Man were below $40 million. And the only reason Cinderella Man was that high was the salaries for Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. The budgets of these films were kept low because producers knew that the box office potential was dicey, and because they were not that expensive to make.

So again I raise the point, why does Peter Jackson need $65 Million dollars to make The Lovely Bones?

New York Magazine reports that the astronomical figure does NOT even cover his presumably substantial fee for writing and directing the movie. So let’s crunch some numbers. Let’s assume that he’s asking for $20 Million dollars to write and direct the film (making the “real” cost of the film $85 Million). This hubris essentially caps the potential for casting a group of high profile actors, let alone one stand out star. But for the sake of the argument, let’s call his fee $20 million dollars. Now we can assume that a film of this magnitude would keep an additional $10-15 Million for the rest of the cast. So now we’re at $35 Million. The average budget for the films listed above, after salaries, is about $25 Million, putting us at $60 Million already (and these numbers don’t even include marketing and distribution costs)! Even if we assume that Alice Sebold is asking for $5 Million for the rights, where is the additional $20 Million going? Is it that expensive to create a “realistic” depiction of heaven? Is Jackson planning on building a full-scale replica? Babel was filmed in more than 20 different countries, had more than 60 speaking parts and starred two huge actors and that only cost $7 Million TOTAL! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here!

There has to be a reason he’s asking for so much money. There’s got to be something he needs the money for, beyond the cost of film, set design and salary. And since he won’t own up to his ridiculous demands, I’m left to muse on the possibilities. Here’s is what I think the mysterious extra $20 Million is being used for:

• $3 Million for his new experimental Middle Earth-breeding zoo (containing big ass spiders, orcs, bland elves and Walloping Wallobees!). He has Sean Astin down in New Zealand donating DNA as we speak.
• $3 Million for a letter writing campaign to all the disappointed movie-goers that lost 30% feeling in their asses during the interminable third act of King Kong (did we really need the ice-skating scene? Really?).
• $4 Million for hush money to Elijah Wood, owing to an agreement that made one night on the set of The Two Towers when PJ got a little handsy with Elijah’s personal hobbit.
• $2 Million to have fat pushed back into his body so that he can return to the roly-poly form that made him so fun and creative back before King Kong ate his soul.
• $3 Million to cast Orlando Bloom as a grieving uncle and then CGI some charisma into his performance. WETA technicians are locked in a room as we speak trying to figure out how to do this. The outlook is grim.
• $1 Million for legal representation to get a restraining order against Jack Black and the portly comic’s attempts at once again “rocking the drama salami peppercorn style, man!”
• $2 Million for effects work on an inevitable deleted scene that has Susie, the murdered star of the movie, randomly falling love with a large ape that has a predilection for triple toe loops and double axels.
• $2 Million personally handed to him by the makers of Eragon as an apology for lifting whole passages of the movie from Lord of the Rings.

Let’s use Million Dollar Baby as a cost comparison. Both films are directed by beloved, successful icons. Both are adaptations of well-regarded literary properties. Assuming Jackson acquires a like-minded cast, both films will be stocked with a bevy of heavy-hitting actors. And this one’s the key: both films are about small, interpersonal relationships.

NOW…

Clint Eastwood commands a large fee for his services. By all estimates he makes as much as Peter Jackson. Clint was coming off of Mystic River, a commercial and critical hit. He was starring in the movie with Morgan Freeman, himself quite a box office draw. By all rights, Million Dollar Baby (or even Mystic River) is the exact model that The Lovely Bones should be following. So home come Million Dollar Baby cost half as much? How come Mystic River cost less than 40% of The Lovely Bones? Why are Clint’s movies less expensive than Peter Jackson’s?

I’ll give you one more example for comparison’s sake, just to hammer my point home. 300, which was done completely in a digital environment and made with nearly as many effects shots as an average Star Wars movie, cost only $65 million to make. So unless The Lovely Bones is being re-envisioned as a large-scale digital war movie, replete with eight-pack abs and crazy big warrior elephants, someone made a mistake in the accounting.

Obviously, there is money being spent on The Lovely Bones that no one wants to talk about. Movies cost a lot of money, that’s just the way of the world. And some movies cost more money than they should, for a variety of reasons. Some directors prefer smaller budgets, as it helps them to retain creative control. Others just see no point in excess. Or they just work better under tighter, more demanding circumstances. And some just plain don’t know how to handle money. But this is the first time I’ve ever looked at the production budget for a movie and openly questioned it.

While there are probably solid reasons for spending so much money. I’d rather see Jackson spend less money and try to use that handicap to push his creativity. If he’s really taking a pause from making big-budget sci-fi epics, he needs to embrace the sensibilities of art-house filmmaking. And though he doesn’t get to film a heaven strewn with mythical creatures fighting to the death, he does get to make a wonderfully insightful drama about a family trying to cope with the loss of a loved one. And maybe, just maybe, he gets to be put back on the short list for Oscar.

Here’s hoping he comes to his senses, fires his accountant, and keeps the film under three hours. My ass can’t take anymore of his filmic abuse.

Bangarang!

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Shareholders will vote Monday evening to determine if the billionaire investor will win seat on Motorola’s board.

InfoWorld - Ubuntu Linux developers plan to extend its open-source software development to handheld Internet-enabled devices.