Legal, Free Listens?

Are you a believer in internet radio? I am a halfway fan. Sites like Pandora and are great if you are in the mood to explore and have time to stop what you are doing and skip through the occasional horrendous melody. Even then, you don't get to play exactly what you want to hear. You put in your favorites and wish for the best, right? Then, of course, there is iTunes, which lets you listen to your perfect playlist - for a price. If I had saved all the money I've spent on iTunes I might not be eating so many Totino's Party Pizzas.

Enter "Just Hear It"- Still in beta form, Just Hear It was created by two USC students. The site allows users to search for songs, listen to full tracks and create multiple playlists. Genius, no? The perfect combination of free music and user controlled experience.

"Members" (by invite only for now) can create a media library and listen to it from anywhere. Sign up via email address to get updates and learn when the site is fully up and running. You might even get picked to be a super secret beta member.

According to the creators, Just Hear It is legal because "it pays for licenses from all major performing rights organizations which then pay the publishers and writers in proportion to the number of plays they get."

What do you think? A perfect combo or too utopian to be true? Check it out here.

Saturday Morning Movie Review with Al Borlan

Friday night is movie night in our household. So every Saturday morning Al Borlan and I will let you know what we watched and whether or not it's worth your time. Ok, so it's not the real Al Borlan, but close enough, right?

1st Up - "Special"

I thought this was going to be a dark, dry comedy and while it started out that way, it moved very slowly and switched quickly to a cringe-filled train wreck. Micheal Rappaport stars in this grainy tale of a man who participates in a drug trial who's side effects leave him believing he has super powers. Maybe I went into this one with the wrong mindset but I was ready for an intelligent comedy and I got one man's downward spiral into madness. I love downward spirals and I love madness (Aronofsky is my favorite director) but something about this didn't taste right. Special's identity crisis made the film confusing and feel too long at a mere 75 minutes. IMDB voters give it a 7/10, for whatever that's worth. Al Borlan slept through this one - he has no opinion.


2nd Flick - "Shuttle"

I can' t give this a full review. I fell asleep halfway through. I'm not going to watch the second half, so that should tell you something. Two girls get on a late night airport shuttle only to realize the driver is a madman. I love horror movies so I always give the new ones a shot, but the first half of the movie was filled with ridiculous scenarios and illogical situations. Many times I turned to Al to say, "Why wouldn't she just....?" His response - "Because this movie is bullshit." He did watch the entire thing, but I think that is because of his power nap during "Special."




Sorry-no good films to report this week, try back next week. I did, however, get free Cinna Stix from Dominos by using the online coupon code "online". So, I've got that going for me.