Author Archives: Jeremy Einbinder
AGT’s Final Performance Night
David Garibaldi and His CMYK’s stand in front of their painting of Albert Einstein.
After a long season of America’s Got Talent, Wednesday was the last chance for the six remaining acts to prove they were worthy of a headline show in Las Vegas. This season has had a lot of ups and downs, but the show was certainly more entertaining in the latter stages of the competition. This finale had more variety than past seasons, so the show will finally have a second non-singing winner. Some of these acts will probably have a promising career in show business. However, the performances on Wednesday were good, but not great.
David Garibaldi and His CMYK’s
David Garibaldi and His CMYK’s have a unique combination of music and art, but the novelty wears off fast. This time, the group danced to The Who’s “We Won’t Let Go Again.” The attraction of this act seems to be waiting for the reveal of the painting. As with the previous performance, it took a bit too long to show the audience the art. In the end, the massive canvas revealed Albert Einstein The art was well-done, but the performance was not exciting enough. It was reasonable to be confused about the content of the painting during most of the performance, which took away from the dancing. If the only especially strong moment in a performance is the last second reveal, the act does not have a shot at winning.
Sullivan & Son Teaches an Unfortunate Lesson
Sullivan & Son can showcase enjoyable and respectable humor, but it is inconsistent. It can be high quality television one week and a disappointment the week after. Thursday’s episode was a disappointment. The episode attempted to make light out of a depressing situation. It is a common approach for the show, but it just didn’t work this time. Like most episodes, the story moved very slowly, which was especially noticeable in an episode devoid of humor.
The show opened with Steve’s Aunt Jo showing up at the bar after not having seen the family for a long time. From the beginning, Jack makes it clear that he does not trust her. Jo has had a tendency to scam the family due to a gambling addiction. Being his usual idealistic self, Steve wants to give her a chance to rejoin the family to see if she has turned her life around. Of course, Steve’s family warns him not to accept her.
AGT Results Recap: September 6th
Dee Snider Performing With Haunted By Heroes
Thursday’s AGT was the last result show of the season before the winner is revealed next week and, even though it was everyone’s last shot at the finals, there wasn’t much drama. The results were pretty obvious. As with last week, the Top 4 acts were revealed before three of them advanced.
The first result was between Shanice and Maurice Hayes, Lightwire Theater, and All That! None of these three acts are worthy of winning the competition, but Lightwire Theater was the best choice in terms of originality. They got the first of the Top 4 spots.
The next group was Sebastien “El Charro De Oro,” David Garibaldi And His CMYK’s, and Jacob Williams. Both Williams and Sebastien have a future in performing, but they are not currently ready for a national audience. Garribaldi is ready and deserved a spot as one of the Top 4 acts. Performance painting is a talent that the show has never seen before. AGT was lucky to find this mesmerizing act.
America’s Got Talent Semifinals: Round 2
The remaining semifinal acts on America’s Got Talent could not afford to simply have an average performance night on Tuesday. However, most of them did not stand out. It’s been a disappointing season for AGT, but one that paradoxically has led viewers to the most exciting final round in the show’s history. The best talent came from the first semifinal round, some of whom did not deserve to be eliminated. Even so, there are a few acts from Tuesday’s show that deserve a spot in the finals.
All That!
All That! has narrowly escaped elimination twice, but they are out of luck this time. Strangely enough, Tuesday’s performance might have been their best. That being said, the performance was still enjoyable. It was nice to see the clogging group take a risk by including solos and incorporating fire into their act. However, All That! just isn’t good enough for Vegas.
Sebastien “El Charro de Oro”
Sebastien “El Charro de Oro” has been in the competition for far too long. He is a decent singer, but not great. His main draw is that he is charming and mature. His talent is not exactly common, but it’s still average. Sebastien’s mariachi performances have never been something that is worthy of national attention. His time in the competition is over.
“Sullivan & Son”: Son Gets Taboo
Carol
While Sullivan & Son is at times slow-moving and may not hold viewers’ interests, Thursday’s episode certainly did not have that problem. There were some parts of the episode that were not overly relevant, but the rest of the show made up for it in a big way.
The opening minutes detailed Steve helping Hank organize his will. It wasn’t necessarily boring or horrible to watch, but it was the least funny story line of the episode. A running joke throughout the episode had Hank continue to tell Steve to take his daughter out of the will, only to ask him to put her back in after he did some rethinking. Hank had little else to offer for the rest of the episode. The real action began when Owen’s mom, Carol walked into the bar and said she was feeling hot. The other patrons assure her it is freezing. Mel then suggests Carole probably had a hot flash and that it could be the beginning of menopause. Carol tries to dismiss this and say that menopause is for old people. It is a very awkward moment for her when she realizes that she might be considered old.
“The Mindy Project” Has Potential
It’s difficult to tell the direction that The Mindy Project is headed in after just one episode, but the show definitely has promise.
The Mindy Project revolves around competent OB-GYN, Dr. Mindy Lahiri, who despite being a very accomplished doctor, has very little else figured out in her life. The episode begins with a voice-over detailing Mindy’s upbringing. She was basically raised on romantic comedies and describes Tom Hanks as her first boyfriend. The highlight of her college life was being able to watch as many romantic comedies as she wanted without supervision. It’s clear that she has a very distorted and unrealistic view of love.
At first, it seems like this show is going to be nothing more than a deconstruction of clichéd romantic comedy plots which seems boring. Then, it is revealed that Mindy is in the middle of a interrogation for public intoxication. Apparently, she did not find this as relevant as detailing her relationship with a handsome oral surgeon that ended badly when he left her to marry someone else. The opening minutes of the show demonstrate well where Mindy’s priorities are, especially since her relationship with the oral surgeon was completely irrelevant and had no bearing on the plot.
AGT Results Recap: August 29th
From Left to Right: Comedian Tom Cottor, Host Nick Cannon, Sand Artist Joe Castillo, and Earth Harpist William Close
Only three acts were eligible to advance to the finals of America’s Got Talent this week. Surprisingly, the competition actually got serious. There were 12 acts performing for a spot in the finals. Certainly more than three of the acts deserved to advance, but the AGT is finally realizing its potential. The tough eliminations made the hour exciting.
The hour opened with an unnecessary commentary on the semifinalists from guest comedian Steve Harvey. Harvey seemed to do a terrible job at crudely connecting the acts to his own personal life. He wasn’t funny at all. On the bright side, he was simply honest when it came time to talk about Tom Cotter, saying that he is pulling for him to win the competition. It’s a nice sentiment, but Harvey’s appearance was still a waste of time.
To make the show last an hour, Nick Cannon told the viewers that the results would be announced differently this week. First, the four acts with the highest vote totals would be announced in no particular order. Then, the three finalists would be revealed. The first grouping was Joe Castillo, Turf, and The Scott Brothers. It was a great performance night Tuesday with all these acts performing reasonably well. However, none of these acts seemed like standouts on Tuesday. That being said, of the three acts, it makes sense that Castillo got one of the Top 4 spots.
America’s Got Talent: Semifinals Round 1
The Scott Brothers
Overall, this season of America’s Got Talent has been subpar. The live shows started with 48 acts, more than half of whom did not deserve to be seen again. Including the YouTube show, roughly two-thirds of the acts seen on live television have been eliminated. That seems about right, although there are still some acts that shouldn’t have another shot. Only three acts out of the 12 performing are advancing this week.That being said, Tuesday’s show was full of talent. It makes the decision for who advances genuinely difficult for one of the only times in the entire season. However, as with the last quarterfinal performances, it seems too much of the best talent was put on one show.
Andrew De Leon
Andrew De Leon is a talented opera singer. His performance of “Ave Maria” was technically good, but it wasn’t special. There’s no doubt he would be a better singer with training, but, unfortunately, he went from singing in his bedroom straight to the national stage. The crowd seemed a lot less engaged in this performance than last week’s performance. There’s no question De Leon has a lot of natural talent, but he does not have star quality. If he was grouped with other acts or was in another stage of the competition, his performance might have been sufficient. However, it isn’t sufficient this time. De Leon’s time on AGT is most likely over. Read the rest of this entry
Episodes’ Season Finale
Jaimie Lapidus
It’s been an intense season of Episodes full of issues that manifested themselves in painful yet hilarious ways. On Sunday’s season finale, all those issues came to a head. The issues are starting to repair themselves in a way that’s very ungraceful, yet very funny. It worked quite well. The episode opened with another one of Beverly and Carole’s exercise running sessions. This time, it wasn’t quite as repetitive, but the dynamic still isn’t very interesting. Nonetheless, it did move the story forward. As Carole is venting about her job offer from Elliot Salad, she starts to realize she could never betray Merc, which doesn’t seem to make much sense considering he does very little to contribute to their relationship and has been a terrible boss.
Over the course of the entire season, Merc wanted to get away with immoral behavior. Carole watched it happen because she loved him. Carole especially laments the fact that he is still married to Jamie, who Carole considers to be a “saint.” Beverly seems hesitant to concur that Jamie is a saint, but then admits that she knows about Jamie’s affair with Matt. The exercise session is a little more interesting than usual at this point. Instead of going over the same issues with Sean and Beverly as they do on every run, the focus shifts to gossip about Jamie and Matt. Now, the viewers have a reason to pay attention. Carole insists that she has to tell Merc about the affair, but Beverly begs her not to for fear of losing her job and Sean. Carole finally agrees to keep quiet after Beverly threatens to tell Merc about Carole’s meeting with Elliot. There was probably a better way to reveal the details of Matt’s affair to Carole. The scene was sloppily written with too much dialogue.
Sullivan & Son: Online Dating
Sullivan & Son has been guilty of cringe comedy and an inability to move the story forward. Jokes that make the audience cringe aren’t always funny as much as they are offensive. Cringe comedy is very hard to execute, which it has for Sullivan & Son. Viewers may be too distracted by the subject matter to laugh. With a lack of movement or action in most of the episodes of Sullivan & Son, there is very little room for distraction. Luckily, on Thursday’s episode, the subject manner and themes were rather pleasant and still funny. The story is still slow, but that is the nature of the show, but yesterday’s episode seemed to take advantage of its limited setting.
The episode opened with Steve’s mother, Ok Cha showing Steve a picture of a Korean woman named Grace Kim online. She then says that she set up an online dating profile for Steve and that the woman wants to meet him. Of course, Steve is upset that his mom took control of his personal life. The dynamic between Steve and his mother can get a little old. Ok Cha likes to think Steve can’t take control of his life when he clearly can. That being said, the measures that Ok Cha took could be construed as so annoying that they are funny. She asserts that she didn’t pretend to be Steve, but she pretended to better than Steve. Steve protests that he does not want to meet Grace, but Grace was coming to the bar anyway.
Wait! What's A Dial? 