Posted on July 31st, 2008 by Princess Kitty in Talk Shows
I think many of us have seen this announcement coming. Today, NBC News announced that Tim Russert’s son, Luke, will be joining the network as a correspondent. He will be covering the youth vote during the conventions and the general election, and will be appearing on “NBC Nightly News”, “The Today Show” and on MSNBC. Luke has been hosting a satellite radio sports show with James Carville.
There have been previous comments from NBC and from Luke that have suggested this and I’m really glad it happened. It’s easy to get caught up in the sentimentality of the son following the father, but it’s also easy to see the negative spin of nepotism. In this case, I’ll admit to the sentimentality because I want a Russert involved in this election. It just feels right. Plus, given how articulate and composed this young man was in the wake of his father’s death, I feel confident that reporting on an election isn’t going to rattle him.
You can read the article about the announcement at the link below:
Posted on July 31st, 2008 by Princess Kitty in Talk Shows
Yesterday on “The Today Show”, Meredith Vieira interviewed John Rendall and Ace Bourke. They are the two men who were reunited with their lion in the popular YouTube video. I love that this story keeps getting better and better as we learn more about it. Check it out below:
Note to AGT: Please don’t do this MySpace thing again. If you have to, then please hire someone else to go through the submissions and pick the acts auditioning. I know there are a lot of talented people with pages on MySpace but you couldn’t prove it by this episode. Jerry Springer informed us that thousands of people submitted auditions. I understand that AGT always wants to showcase a few bad acts, but there had to be more entertaining ones than what we (and judges Piers Morgan, Sharon Osbourne and David Hasselhoff) saw last night.
We had to wade through Michael Trixx (the “Slash” inspired magician), Diva Boy & the Sexplosion Dancers (yep, the name was the best part) and Eloy Rendon, the rhyming motivational speaker. A motivational speaker? I could understand if the guy just showed up at an open audition but someone culled this act from thousands of submissions!
Finally we got to Randy Hanson – the Ozzy Osbourne impersonator. This guy was fun. He was totally committed and never wavered from the Ozzy character – including the calling out to Sharon. Her face was priceless through the whole thing. I don’t know that he (or any of the other impersonators) will get very far but, on a night like this one, Ozzy was a welcome treat.
Holly Stone – Singer. Holly is a 44 year old nurse who always dreamed of being a singer. She had a great back story for this particular episode, because she used MySpace to help find the daughter she’d given up for adoption. Her daughter was with her at the audition and they both seemed lovely. I got a bit nervous when Holly started because her lower register was weak. When she got into the higher notes, it improved significantly. Holly is going to have to be very careful about the song choices she makes or else she isn’t going to last long.
The Cadence – For me, these guys fall into the same category as the cheerleader/drill team acts. They are not that unique. You can find fantastic drumlines at a lot of colleges and some would probably blow these guys away. All three judges agreed that The Cadence needed to add more to their act, like backing music and choreography. Sharon voted no, but Piers and David put the group through to Vegas. Hopefully they do have more to their act than what they could show in 90 seconds.
Next up was a montage of acts that were put through including one, The LaSalle Brothers, which I wish they had featured more. They were acrobatic jugglers and, from what little was shown, they looked quite good and rather hot.
The montage ended with a group called The Tapping Dads. This was basically the act I’ve seen year after year at my nieces’ dance recitals. It’s always the hit of the recital – but that’s because it’s funny and endearing to watch a bunch of dads trying to dance. It isn’t an act that’s going to win AGT.
Sweetones – the whistling mother and daughter. Oh dear. This was a tough one. Whistling over a long period of time, and in front of an audience, is hard enough. These two tried to do it in harmony. It was quite off-key and rather painful.
Daniel Jens – Singer. Daniel is an Army Specialist back home after serving 15 months in Iraq and I wanted to love his act. I really did. His reworking of Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” was interesting but, in the end, I just didn’t think his voice had much range to it. There were several notes he struggled to hit. Piers noticed this as well. Vocally, Daniel is going to have a hard time holding his own against the other singers.
NBC keeps teasing on their AGT homepage that they have the clip of Randy Hanson, but I couldn’t find it. Thankfully, we have YouTube. On this night, Randy, you were a star:
Posted on July 30th, 2008 by Princess Kitty in Movies
We’ve got less than 4 months to go! “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is scheduled to open on November 21st and the first trailer has been released:
Interesting bit of trivia – The actor playing Tom Riddle as a young boy is named Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and he is the nephew of Ralph Fiennes (Voldemort).
Entertainment Tonight has more pictures from the film available at their website at the link below.
Episode 4 finds us at Disneyland with the 30 contestants from the West Coast auditions. In the semi-finals, they participated in dancing and singing auditions which lead to the cut to just 10 finalists. Again, the show didn’t present enough of the semi-finals for us to be able to tell who should or should not have moved on. Many of the 30 came and went without the show ever telling us their names. Only a few stood out for me:
Madison Greer: When Madison auditioned last episode, she was in a full-blown production number. I was curious about how she would come across when all the bells and whistles were gone. As it turned out, she still sounded great.
Shayna Goldstein: Shayna’s initial audition was held in her at-home recording studio so I had a question of how she would come across in a larger setting. It looked like she had no problem at all.
Blair Perkins: I really wanted to hear Blair again to see if he acted on any of the advice that judge Jen Malenke had given him. Unfortunately we only got about 5 seconds of Blair singing in the semi-finals, but it did sound to me like his voice was stronger.
T. J. Wilkins: T. J. was fretting about having messed up some words at the beginning of the song, but he kept going so he hoped the judges wouldn’t hold it against him. Considering that he did, in fact, make it on as a finalist, I would have preferred that the show let us see how he handled the mistake. Everyone messes up at some point; the key is what happens next. I’m enjoying this show, but I’m having trouble understanding the thought process behind some of the editing.
Jen got the job of conveying the results to the semi-finalists and, much like Rob Adler in episode 2, she toyed with them a bit before giving the good news. The finalists were Stan Carrizosa, Shayna Goldstein, Ether Saure, Christina Brown, Madison Greer, Britney Christian, Christie Brooke, T. J. Wilkins, Sean Maddox and Lauren Diaz. That means that the “BFFs” we met last episode, Sean and Kelli Schultz, have now been separated. Kelli was brave about it, but I still felt bad for her.
Jen also got the job of informing the kids who didn’t make it and she seemed to have a tough time with it. She made a point of telling them not to give up because they wouldn’t have made it as far as they did if they didn’t have something special. I was particularly disappointed that Blair didn’t make it any further. It would have been fun to watch him develop.
As with the East Coast Finalists, this group was split into pairs and given one day to prepare a duet. The partners were Stan & Christine, T. J. & Shayna, Sean & Britney, Ether & Lauren and Madison & Christie. In the rehearsal footage we saw that: The Stan & Christine and Sean & Britney partnerships had some tension. T. J. was just adorable as he talked about this being the first time he’s done a duet with a girl. Ether bemoaned being an introvert and how it was hard for him not to be the quiet kid. Madison & Christie seemed to effortlessly get straight to work.
The pairs got to perform in front of the judges, and an audience, at Disney’s California Adventure:
T. J. & Shayna: They performed Keith Urban’s “You’ll Think of Me” and it didn’t really pull together. Their voices didn’t mesh and I thought T. J. looked uncomfortable through the whole thing.
Ether & Lauren (pictured above): They did “Hold My Hand” by Hootie and the Blowfish. They have compatible vocal styles and blended together very well.
Madison & Christie: They were assigned the Go-Go’s “Vacation” which meant I was going to be a tough judge of the performance. I am a huge fan of Belinda Carlisle and the girls so I noticed every change these two made. Trying to be objective, I thought they struggled a bit when they were singing solo but they did much better when they hit the harmonies at the chorus.
Sean & Britney: These two couldn’t be more different. They were given Eve 6’s “Inside Out”. Britney is comfortable with having a rocker-chick persona, but Sean is much more Broadway. They should have tried to find a way to compromise, but they went with the rock style and poor Sean just looked awkward through the whole thing.
Stan & Christine: They performed Michael Buble’s “Everything” and did a great acting job with the number. They made an adorable couple. I thought Stan’s vocals started out weak (it sounded like nerves) but it improved as he went along.
My choice for the cuts would have been T. J., Sean, Stan and Britney. Knowing that they started off with more girls than boys, though, I figured it would be mainly girls cut – and it was. The judges also thought Britney and Sean should go, but instead of T. J. and Stan, they opted to cut Lauren and Madison. While I agreed with the judges that Madison’s performance in the duet was her weakest, I think she showed the most potential of any of the girls in this round. I’m sorry she’s gone.
All in all, I think Tierney Chamberlain and James Wolpert from the East Coast auditions are still the two to beat, but I’ve become a big Ether fan too!
You can catch all the episodes at ABC’s website here:
Posted on July 29th, 2008 by Princess Kitty in Television
On September 15th, when entertainment news show Extra returns for its 15th season, Mario Lopez will take over as the solo host. He will be replacing Dayna Devon and Mark McGrath.
I’m not feeling comfortable with this news. I am an admitted entertainment show addict. I watch them all and I have developed strong opinions about the hosts and correspondents. I remember being quite surprised several years ago when the “Sugar Ray” guy suddenly popped up as a host. I thought Dayna was doing fine on her own, but over time I found myself getting attached to Mark. He came across on camera as a good-natured guy with a surprising lack of ego, and he and Dayna developed a comfortable brother/sister rapport. The official line being given is that McGrath asked to be released from his contract so that he could focus on Sugar Ray’s new album. Devon will be “returning to her roots” as a special correspondent for the show and as the substitute host for Lopez. I’d like to believe that all is happy-happy-joy-joy in the Extra world, but I’m having some trouble with that. Maybe I’ve become too cynical but, then again, maybe I’ve just become realistic.
I don’t have a problem with Mario Lopez specifically; I think he’s been doing fine as a co-host of the Extra weekend show. But that’s it. He’s just been doing fine. It’s not like he’s been jumping off the screen at me. From my perspective, the other co-host, Tanika Ray, is much better.
I’ll still watch when September 15th rolls around because I can’t help myself……..but I’ll look forward to when Dayna is substituting. She’s a class act and I hope it all works out best for her. There’s a part of me that won’t be surprised if, in the not too distant future, Mario heads off to do something else and Dayna ends up right back where she belongs.
We’ve returned to the initial auditions and this time it’s for the West Coast contestants. The three “faculty” members handling this round are Dance and Vocal coach Chris Prinzo, Vocal Coach Jen Malenke (pictured above) and Dance Instructor Regina Williams. Just like with the East Coast judges, these three were gentle with the contestants and gave solid constructive criticism. This was particularly true of Jen Malenke. Her coaching was right on the money and she had advice for all the kids, the ones she took a pass on and the ones she sent to the semi-finals. I really hope they all listen to her. I read in her bio at the ABC website that Jen is a high school musical director and you could see the experience she has with teenagers.
The set up for these auditions was exactly the same as in episode one, with a mix of cattle call style and field auditions. Some of the standouts from this round were:
Sean Maddox & Kelli Schultz – 18. This pair of best friends auditioned together and, luckily, both were moved on to the semi-finals. This kind of situation always makes me nervous because there’s a good chance that one will go further than the other and that always ends in tears. They have very compatible voices so they do work well as a duo.
Stan Carrizosa – 17. Stan did a nice job on “Tracks of My Tears” and you could see the makings of a solid performer. Jen gave him my favorite piece of advice of the entire episode when she told him that he needed to watch the riffing. Every time Stan came to a sustained note, he jazzed it up. As Jen said, “It’s like Christmas. If you had Christmas every day, it wouldn’t be special.”
Madison Greer – 16. I was surprised by what a mature stage presence this 16 year old had. She was a field audition, so she had the advantage of giving a real performance, but even so, she had a lot of polish.
Ether Saure – 18. This kid was just plain fun because his voice and style were so unexpected. He looked in the interview portion like he might be rather quiet and shy, but he was anything but shy when he sang with his band. Ether, you did all of us former band geeks proud!
Blair Perkins – 16. Blair was another kid that Jen sent to the semi-finals who I hope really listened to what she said. Blair has a thousand watt smile and personality to spare. He also has a voice that is very raw. Jen told him that she thought he was relying a bit too much on his charm. His delivery is there, he just needs to put more focus on the vocals. In his favor, Blair’s response to Jen’s comment was to ask what advice she could give him for the next time he auditioned. That desire to improve bodes well for this young man.
Shayna Goldstein - 17. Shayna sang Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Put Your Records On” and sounded fantastic. She has a wonderful light, effortless quality to her vocals. It will be interesting to see how she matches up with some of the more high-powered voices in the competition.
The western semi-finals and finals air tonight. In the meantime, this episode can be viewed at ABC’s website here:
Posted on July 27th, 2008 by Princess Kitty in Reality TV
The 2008 Emmy Awards will be big for Reality TV hosts. Not only do they get their own category, but the 5 nominated will be hosting the show! Tom Bergeron (Dancing with the Stars), Heidi Klum (Project Runway), Howie Mandel (Deal or No Deal), Jeff Probst (Survivor) and Ryan Seacrest (American Idol) will be sharing hosting duties for the September 21st broadcast on ABC. Executive Producer Ken Ehrlich explained the decision by saying that it was a good way to stay current with today’s television and, “At the end of the day, this is what they do for a living.”
I think it sounds like a clever idea although my preference would have been for Tom Bergeron to have handled it solo. Hopefully, he’ll get his moment by winning the award itself.
We pick up where episode 2 left off, and Beth Joy is still steaming about the judges’ rebuke of her choice to put a dress on her dog, Bella Starlet. Laurie isn’t having any of it and calls Beth Joy out for trying to drag the other owners into her argument – specifically bringing up the double top knots on her dog Andrew. Laurie made the point that top knots are standard for showing a maltese and you can’t compare that with dressing a dog up. Beth Joy walked away in frustration and Laurie bonded a bit with David over the situation. She bemoaned how Beth Joy humanizes Bella and delivered the line of the episode, ”I’m gonna stop pretending that people aren’t psychotic.” David shares, in an interview segment, that he believes Laurie is the sharp one in the house and that she has everyone’s number.
In episode 2, we had a conflict between Ron and David when David’s dog Elvis bit Ron’s dog Tillman. This has resulted in many of the other owners being wary of Elvis. In this episode, when David took Elvis out into the yard and let him off his leash, the other owners (including Ron) responded by taking their dogs back into the house. The only one who stayed in the yard was Laurie. She allowed Andrew to play with Elvis and it was adorable. Laurie shared that she thought Elvis was relatively calm – for a terrier. She’s comfortable having Andrew around him because Andrew has a calming influence.
We also saw the beginnings of a potential “showmance” in this episode. In a not-so-surprising twist, the really hot guy (Travis) and the really hot girl (Laura) have started flirting by gushing over each other’s dogs. They both actually seem pretty sane so this might be fun.
Dog Bone Suite Challenge
Host Jarod Miller returned to give the details about this week’s theme and challenges. I am still confused as to why the show bothered to hire Jarod when they are making him into a non-entity. Frankly, his role could be filled by an anonymous voice-over guy.
Anyway, this week’s theme is teamwork and the Dog Bone Suite Challenge is called ”tangled leash.” This challenge is set up as a series of obstacles with leashes tangled around them. The owners had to get their dogs to untangle the leashes without touching them. The house was randomly divided into pairs and the owners had to work together to complete the task. It looked really complicated. Laurie and Bill were partnered up and made a very good team. They were both calm and deliberate and steadily progressed through the exercise. J.D. was paired up with David and that was interesting as J.D. has been very outspoken about Elvis’ lack of discipline. They actually did better than I would have guessed, even though David complained that J.D. basically took the whole task over. Teresa and her dog Leroy were partnered with Beth Joy and Bella Starlet. At one point, Beth Joy made one of the tangles worse. The show cut away to an interview clip of Teresa saying that Bella takes after Beth Joy and, laughingly, added, “They aren’t the smartest team.” Travis was matched up with Brandy which was great for Brandy because Travis’ calm nature probably kept her from having a complete meltdown. She doesn’t handle stress well. Ron and Tillman were teamed with Laura and Preston. Once again, Tillman didn’t seem particularly interested, but they cleverly used his beloved Frisbee to coax him around.
In the end, Travis and Brandy finished first narrowly beating Laurie and Bill. As the winners of the suite, they got to chose who to send to the doghouse for the week. They picked Laurie. Laurie challenged them on why they picked her and Travis, at first, tried to plead the fifth. After Laurie asked him to “man up”, Travis finally said that they wanted to relieve some of the conflict in the house.
It seemed to only take a few minutes of Brandy’s high pitched squeals of delight upon entering the suite for Travis to decide that he would just let her have it. He bunked with Ron & Tillman. I can’t say as I blame him. Sometimes Brandy needs a sedative.
David helped Laurie to get set up in the doghouse and told her that she’ll probably end up preferring it to the house because it’s so peaceful. Later in the evening, David and Elvis encountered Ron and Tillman in the backyard and Ron decided he’d let Elvis have another chance at playing with Tillman. The dogs did very well and it looked like this house conflict had finally come to an end.
Best in Show Challenge
Jarod informed the group that this week’s challenge would be a relay race called the “Fast and the Furriest.” Ok, that pun was actually a little painful. The house was divided into two groups, with suite challenge winners Travis and Brandy as the captains. They took turns picking their teams and the last-kid-picked role was played by Laurie. I’m not getting why Laurie has suddenly become persona non grata in the house. The only person she’s had a conflict with is Beth Joy and it’s not like Beth Joy is beloved by everyone. Plus, Andrew seems like a very good and obedient dog.
Team Travis: Travis chose Laura & Preston (hmmmm, another showmance moment perhaps?), J.D. & Galaxy, Bill & Star and Beth Joy & Bella Starlet. Bill took over as the team coach because agility competitions are his thing. He seemed to work very well with the other owners and everyone was grateful for the help. Things started off a little rough for this group when Galaxy didn’t catch the first Frisbee thrown to her by J.D. I’m going to blame this one on J.D. because I think he over threw it. Next up was Bella Starlet and she struggled a bit getting through a series of hoops. She kept trying to go around them. Presley rocked the house with his job of standing on his hind legs and pushing a cart. Star also did extremely well going over a series of teeter-totters and through a maze……until owner Bill messed her up. By his own admission, Bill kept using the word “out” and Star responded by jumping out of the maze. Preston was a star running through a series of tunnels. The race ended with Presley sitting in a cart while the other four dogs pulled him across the finish line. Presley is the largest of the five dogs, so I’m confused as to why they choose to have him sit in the cart. Their final time for the course was 2:52.
Team Brandy: Brandy chose Teresa & Leroy, Ron & Tillman, David & Elvis and Laurie & Andrew. When the team was deciding which dog would do which obstacle, David volunteered Elvis for the teeter-totter. The team had trouble feeling confident about that and Laurie suggested that, if David used a leash on Elvis during the teeter-totter portion, it would still look great. In a twist, Ron said he was really pulling for Elvis to do well because he thought Elvis had been given a bum rap. His confidence in Tillman, however, was a little weak since they’ve never done obstacle work. In the event, Leroy caught the Frisbee tossed by Teresa on the first try. Andrew struggled a little with jumping through the hoops even though Laurie made the hole (in the one covered with tissue paper) a little bigger. Things slowed down when it came time for Tillman to push the cart. Bless his heart, Tillman has a mind of his own and he felt that chewing on the cart would be much more fun than pushing it. Elvis’ turn came and he struggled on the teeter-totters. He kept jumping off. Once he got to the maze portion, he did much better. Beacon ran strong through the tunnels, although Brandy did have to help him a bit at the very end. Their time was 3:02.
With the fastest time, Travis’ team won and all the members were safe from elimination. The judges praised Teresa for her partnership with Leroy and, while they did ding Brandy a bit for helping Beacon through that last part of the tunnels, both she and Teresa were safe for this week. The judges’ bottom three were David & Elvis, Ron & Tillman and Laurie & Andrew.
The judges criticized Ron for not acting like a trainer with Tillman. While that’s fair, particularly in this competition, I really like the buddy-style relationship between Ron & Tillman. It’s very sweet and natural. The judges didn’t care for the fact that Laurie tore the paper on one of the hoops to make it easier for Andrew. Judge Allan Reznik, in particular, felt she gave Andrew an unfair advantage. Judges Wendy Diamond and Victoria Stilwell didn’t care for the leash being used on Elvis. Wendy pointed out that Elvis did much better after the leash was removed and Victoria said that, at times, the collar was pulling too tightly on his neck. They absolutely felt that the leash was a bad idea.
At this point, Laurie decided to throw David under the bus. She pointed out that only one dog on the team used a leash. David started chuckling and said that Laurie was the one who helped him make that call. Laurie then decided to have the bus back over David, and said that the leash call was made because there had been incidents of Elvis biting other dogs. Just to clarify, Laurie made it sound like it happened multiple times, but we only saw one incident. Wendy really didn’t care for this tactic and told Laurie that she shouldn’t sell out one of her teammates. Victoria was also put off by this, but Allan seemed to think that it just showed that Laurie was “in it to win it.” I have to say, I was very disappointed in Laurie. I had been on her side through this whole episode and then she had to go and prove that the other owners had been right about her all along.
In the end, David and Elvis were the team eliminated and David was very gracious. He even departed with a laugh by saying that “Elvis has left the building.” It should be interesting to see how everyone reacts to Laurie back at the house. She wasn’t that popular before this and now the others really aren’t going to trust her.
If you’d like to catch episode 3, it is available at the CBS website at the link below:
As I noted in my recap of “High School Musical – Get In The Picture” episode 2, I would have posted Tierney Chamberlain and James Wolpert’s version of “Torn” if ABC had put it on their website. While ABC didn’t come through, some lovely person on YouTube did! I’m very impressed with these two kids. Check it out below:
