My favorite review: Clay Aiken’s tone deaf doppelganger and a missing Cher
The funniest review of Wednesday night’s star-studded American Idol Season 5 Finale is written by Michael Slezak of Entertainment Weekly. In Soul on Nice, Michael writes:
Maybe five months of churning out the American Idol TV Watch column has turned my center all soft and gooey. Or perhaps, as a child of the ’70s, I harbor a deeply suppressed longing for the TV variety shows of my youth. Then again, it could be that everything simply looks better in the righteous glow of Taylor Hicks’ well- deserved triumph over the inconsistent Katharine McPhee. Whatever the case, tonight’s Idol finale — which played out like the Freakiest Variety Show on Earth — was as surreal as it was satisfying. (In other words, I l-l-l-l-loved it.) I call the finale surreal because, well, consider what got packed into a mere 120 minutes: Season 2 runner-up Clay Aiken — rocking a baffling brown mop top — gamely offering a subdued ‘’Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me'’ as his tone-deaf doppelgänger (Michael Sandecki, who got booted during the audition rounds) provided backup; the finalists sharing the stage with artists as disparate as Live, Al Jarreau, Meat Loaf, and Dionne Warwick; a trio of amusing montages mocking the show’s judges; painfully unfunny attempts at comedy by host Ryan Seacrest; a random performance by Prince; a tribute to Burt Bacharach; and, yes, an appearance by David Hasselhoff. All that was missing was Cher in a Bob Mackie gown. Read more...
“I don’t think it’s nice, you laughin’. You see, my mule don’t like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you’re laughin’ at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you’re going to, I might convince him that you really didn’t mean it.”- Clint Eastwood in “A Fistful Of Dollars.”
I hope you caught that line in the movie Wednesday night! Did you watch? If not, you missed a great movie.
All right, all right…I told you that American Idol is now over. You know, if the Cardinals were in the World Series and all you posted about was baseball, I wouldn’t come and bug you about it.
It’s 7:50pm on a Friday night. I just woke up from a nap after driving my son around for nearly an hour after a long day at work looking for a buddy’s house. “For a Few More Dollars” with Clint is on AMC. I’ll go watch it.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. And if the Cardinals do make it to the World Series, feel free to try to distract me from it before some American League teams pummels them again!
Congratulations to Mr. Hicks.