February 14, 2006

Group sing night --"American Idol."

1. I loved the guys who sang "Fly Me to the Moon." Two of them were only 16, including William Makar, who hit some lovely high notes. All four get through.

2. Terrell and Derrell, the Brittenum twins. What a pair! Terrell talks and talks and makes it through, and Derrell makes it through than insists on talking and talking and quits the show. "My spirit has been broken," he says, and he's going home to make music with his brother. Then we see him learning that his brother wasn't cut. Terrell tells him to crawl back in and apologize. Later we see the twins together asking for forgiveness, and Simon tells them he's sick of their "hissy fits." They're told to go away for 30 minutes. When they come back, they're given a break, and they get to stay.

3. The song "Can't Help Myself" is sung way too many times, but it's all worth it when Brenna Gethers sings the line "leaving just your picture behind" and dances her behind into position to slap it on the word "behind." The song will never be the same. Good! I've never liked it. (And I remember when it first came out.) Accused of being difficult, Brenna launches into a rant, which includes the observations that "It's 'American Idol' with an 'L' not an 'S' or a 'Z' - it's not 'American Idols.'" Hey! She totally stole that from Randal on "The Apprentice"!

4. And now the cowboys, introduced with a "Brokeback Mountain" trailer parody. One, of course, is the turkey boy who made me cry, Garet Layne Johnson. He's reminding me of Michael J. Pollard. They sing "Doo Wah Diddy." You know: "There she was, just a-walkin' down the street, clapping her hands and schwucking her feet." Simon says that they'd live to regret turning their big opportunity into a comedy routine, and, in the lamest comeback in the world, they say they didn't intend for it to be a comedy routine. They got a lot of laughs, and they got sent home. It ends with a big, soppy cowboy embrace, movie trailer music playing.

5. There's an a cappella competition that we see almost nothing of, and then the judges gather to make a final cut. As they sort through the photographs, Simon says, "Why don't we just have: yes, no, maybe, and weird?" The contestants are put into four different rooms to await the news. Three of the four rooms make it. I see my new favorite William Makar made it. With so many through tonight, a lot will need to be cut tomorrow night. We see the highlights, with Ryan Seacrest voicing over: "Hearts... will be... broken." Sounds like great fun. We'll be there.

7 comments:

tiggeril said...

I was out to dinner with my parents and missed this. I'm a little glad I missed Garet getting cut. Poor little cowboy.

reader_iam said...

Find me an Idol candidate--no, that's not right--alert me when there's one who can sing "Fly Me To The Moon" in the mode of June Christy (OK, I'm weird, so ... well, whatever) and I'm there.

I love that song!

I'm actually wishing that I had seen this episode.

reader_iam said...

More, I love June Christy.

I already admitted that I'm weird.

Pete said...

Yay, American Idol blogging! At long last. It's been, what, a week? Thank you, Ann.

Mighty fed up with the twins but, yes, I'll be tuning in to see their demise. Isn't that an awful reason to watch?

(And what about the Brokeback Mountain parody? You had a post a little while ago about Brokeback Mountain jokes. What does that say about the movie that, instead of fostering a sober understanding and sympathy with gays in general, it's generating a new wave of jokes? Or is humor simply the first step of acceptance? Personally, if I had been the writer off the story, I'd be a little ticked off that my beautiful, sensitive story was now becoming the fodder of joke makers. I wonder if Hemingway or Steinbeck or Faulkner ever went through something like this? Somehow I can't imagine a string of Old Man and the Sea jokes.)

esk said...

I found it really odd that the camera came over top of a bathroom stall and filmed a woman and her sister in there crying. Guess when you sign up for this show - everything & everywhere is fair game.

Jinnmabe said...

The twins really aren't that good vocally. In fact, Randy was dead right that, in the first twin's group, he was the weakest vocally (although his fellow complainer got cut). The good looking girl twin who can't sing may or may not make it, but I'll admit, she is very good-looking. Hey, Julia Dematto made it a couple of years ago for the same reasons.

I wish they'd shown more of the a cappella stuff. That's where we'd hear and see the chops. I'm hoping that's what they'll show tonight when they individually analyze each contestant.

Harkonnendog said...

Cowboys are friggin' awesome. The two bigger cowboys didn't have a shot in hell because Garet Johnson just was NOT up to it... He couldn't sing, dance, or keep a beat.

Rather than berate him or ice him out they went the 3 Musketeers route. The result was Simon's chidings about turning their one big shot into a comedy performance.

It seems to me the older cowboys chose to make it into a comedy performance rather than hurt the child.

And afterwards, not only did they NOT lay the blame on Garet, they continued to encourage him. Even when Garet apologized they refused to acknowledge that he'd destroyed their dreams, and instead tried to make him feel better.

Turning that wonderful act of kindness, of love, into a Brokeback Mountain parody was petty. I guess it could not be helped, people would have gone there anyway, but that was a beautiful moment, and all I can say is cowboy's are friggin' awesome.