Week Six Elimination: Maniacs, I tell ya, Maniacs

And we’re back for the elimination show! Seven Idols left…who will it be?

I always manage to turn Idol on late on Wednesdays, so I’ve sadly missed the Pimp my Ford Ride commercials for four or five weeks, but I caught tonight’s. And yet, I wish I hadn’t.

Group Sing- Paula and Kara are super pumped (super pumped for the whole show, really, are they drunk? Clearly Paula is every week. Is Kara?) for the song- “Maniac” from Flashdance. Every Idol gets a solo and I have to say Matt was pretty terrific in it. This is the first time I’ve seen him where he had some lead singer charisma. Then there’s Adam, making dirty eyes at America from the balcony. Eww. Sorry Val, I’m not Glammin’ for Adam.

To continue to movie theme/shilling for corporate America, the Idols go to a real life movie premiere! They go to see “Big,” starring Tom Hanks and…wait, this looks like “Big.” It sounds like “Big.” It’s not “Big?” No, it’s “17 Again,” which is like “Big,” but now with more High School Musical dance numbers. We cut back to the studio, again the Idols are hamming it up, “zOMG! We saw Zac Efron!” He’s in the audience, too….he didn’t have time to shower? National television, promoting your new movie which is certain to be comedy gold, and…you can’t take five minutes to shower? I realize his hair probably takes longer than mine to style in the morning, but I’m sure Adam would have volunteered to help him out.

And finally- dim the lights, it’s time to send someone to the Spinny Chairs!
Allison: Safe.
Adam: Obvs safe. There is also a Rocky Horror joke (again, would be AWESOME).
Anoop: Ryan talks to him about being in the bottom three before, will he be there again….Anoop is clearly annoyed at the Safe/Not Safe banter. Here is what my dad texted me: “What Anoop was really saying: Come on Ryan, quit (messing) me around, you little (can we say “prick” on work email?).” And Anoop is….Bottom 3.

JHud sings some slow ballad, and you know everyone is thinking about the elephant in the room, though it is not brought up. Irregardless, who doesn’t love Jennifer Hudson? She has such shiny hair!

Kris: Simon butts in to tell Kris that they didn’t get a chance to talk last night, but Kris was brilliant. Naturally! Ryan says he can sit down, and Kris does this super cute thing, Here? Or in the Spinny Chairs of Doom? Awwwww.
Lil: Bottom 3. No surprise.
Matt and Danny: We get a Made It Your Own™ tonight! And the look on Danny’s face when he momentarily thinks he’s out before Ryan says, “You are…………………safe.” is priceless. You know Danny is thinking, “ME? Out? No way, I’m way better than the rest of these poor young schmucks!”

Matt, Lil and Anoop hit center stage, and Anoop is safe, and lives to sing tender ballads another week.

Miley Cyrus sings some big song from her new movie- there are prom dresses, guys in hats, lots of billowing smoke, and a whole lotta off-key singing. Dad called her a robot- “You can see the power pack on her back!” So true, so true. Ryan sends us to the break but…..the cameras don’t stop rolling. Nice one, Ry.

Bottom two: Lil and Matt. Ryan has kind of mean streak in him, because he asks Simon- the least lovable judge of the bunch- if he would use a Judges’ Save tonight on one of the contestants. Simon says they might, but not on the one you’d expect. Ryan says, “So that’d be Lil?” Simon, “Yes.” Good luck, Matt. You can kiss that save goodbye! Or can he??? America has voted: Lil is safe, and Matt has to sing to save his spot. Kara and Paula sway wildly to the song, Paula does a lasso move to Matt…it’s weird. Matt does a much better job singing without the piano and the bad orchestration, although he does wander down into the Mosh Pit of Despair. Much conferring on the part of the judges- Randy, Paula and Kara clearly want to use their save tonight, but Simon brings them crashing down by telling Matt he doesn’t have a shot in heck to win this competition, why should they waste it on him? And yet, Simon tells Matt that he has good news, he’s safe for one more week (then clearly he and Lil are going packing).

Simon wraps us the show thusly: The first piece of bad news- two people go home next week. Second piece of bad news- Next week is Disco Week.”

AWESOME. Bring it on!

Week Six: Are you read for Movie Night, America?

Because Ryan is! He tells us that girls talk too much and that’s why the show ran over last week, so instead, this week, only two judges can critique any one contestant. Oh, Ryan! Stop macking on the contestants (he later asks Anoop if he sang the song to a special someone…you know Ryan wants to be that special someone!) and the show would be half as long.

And now onto the theme….A Night at The Movies. It’s like Prom! Except with creepy Quentin Tarantino. Taking a page from Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers: Really, American Idol, really? Because when I think “movie theme music,” I definitely think Quentin Tarantino. Forget John Williams, Randy Newman, Alan Menken, Diane Warren, anyone with a song on tonight’s show, or anyone who can actually sing. Bonus moment: Combover much?

First up, Allison Iraheta singing Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” from Armageddon. This is one of my least favorite songs ever but I thought she did a’ight. Paula compared her to Adam’s special sauce (barbeque!) and Simon says she’s the girls’ only hope to win this thing. Sorry Lil!

I had the same reaction Randy did to Anoop Dogg singing “Everything I Do (I Do It For You) (yeah, I know the parenthetical title!).” I am not ashamed to admit I know this song by heart and have loved it since seventh grade, so when I heard Anoop was going to try to match soulful singer/guitarist/rocker/Canadian Bryan Adams’ performance, I thought, “NO WAY!” But he worked it out! Randy began to say that Anoop Made It His Own™ but stopped just short.
Made It Your Own™ tally: .5

Stage lights? Check. Tight pants? Check. Guy liner? Check. Must be Adam Lambert! He camps up “Born to Be Wild” from Easy Rider, and Simon compares it to Rocky Horror Picture Show. Which? WOULD BE AWESOME. Here’s the thing though, dawg, I would have really liked to see Adam take a non-campified song like “Everything I Do” and mix it up. Anyone could take “Born to Be Wild,” throw on some leather pants, flash the stage lights around, stick their tongue out, and dazzle Simon (not that the other milquetoast contestants on this show have the cajones to do that, but I digress…). But I want to see Adam really Make It His Own™!

The teaser for After The Break shows Matt Giraud standing down in the Mosh Pit of the crowd, also known as You Will Be in the Bottom Three if You Sing From Here Pit. But wait! He instead plays the piano for another Bryan Adams song, “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman.” It starts out awesome, and I’m like, ooooh, I likee! But then the band comes in and he sucks and then there’s a high note….It’s not good. I left my notes at home so I don’t know what the judges said, but I’m pretty sure Simon was making faces at Kara while she was politely telling him it sucked. See? It’s funny when only two judges talk and the one who REALLY hated it can’t say anything at all!

Go Go Gokey does a mediocre performance of “Endless Love,” and we get a Make It Your Own™ …but for someone from last season! Burn! Simon says that when David Cook did a song like that year, he made it a David Cook song, not just a pretty song. But clearly they love Danny and want him in the finals so they tell him he’s adorable without glasses, looks like he’s lost weight, and let him go on his merry way. Most of that is true.
Made It Your Own™ tally: 1.5

Be still my heart, what is Kris singing? “Falling Slowly,” an amazing but unknown ballad from the amazingly talented Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova? What, you missed it at last year’s Oscars? It’s okay, I have three versions on my iPod. Go Kris! (Full disclosure: I wish he would have done this a capella because it would have been better than the weird swell of the orchestra, but Kris can do no wrong with me.) Randy thought it was just okay, but Kara knows where it’s at and loved it. Yay!

Oh, Lil. This sucked from the minute you started singing and you knew it. You could see the tears in her over-glittered eyes as she realized she was off-key, off-tempo, and drowning in a sea of suck. Simon spared nothing in his critique of Lil- but she was having none of it. She snarked back about how she tried to make it her own (lil R&B, lil gospel, lot of suck), even though it was a (GASP) Bette Midler song. Girl….do not diss Bette. I have seen her in person (tenth row!) and she will cut you. Just sayin’.

The show runs over yet again, even with half the snark. Tomorrow night? Lil goes home, fo’ sho.