I hate to say it, but I think there’s a enough homophobia lingering to account for the Kristef Brothers not making it.
Yes, it’s a persona they are making fun of, but I think there are a lot of stupid people out there who Just Don’t Get It and instead have a knee jerk gay = icky.
I was going to post something similar. When the KriStef Brothers and Taylor Williamson stepped out I was sure the Brothers had it. And again when Catapult and Key stepped out I thought for sure Catapult had it. In fact, even though I was confident of Catapult making it, I went ahead and gave them all 10 of my votes to help make sure.
Well, I’m still sticking to Forte and Kenichi being first and second in the finals.
Just chiming in to say that I went to college with Collins Key’s mother. She was hot then, and still is.
I’ve only recorded a couple of the episodes, and only to watch his performances. I thought the one this week with the watch was pretty clumsy. He needs to improve the performance of his act- getting the timing down, getting it slicker, and controlling the stage. It was a little too unraveled.
FYI, the KriStef Brothers were on Jimmy Fallon’s show last night. Did their act again, had some difficulties. They also announced they will be touring with the AGT tour next year. So that’s good news.
Hey, I don’t want to hijack the thread, but I wanted to share something related that I came across a couple days ago, from the show, “Norway’s Got Talent”. I’ve watched quite a few clips from America’s Got Talent, and while I’ve seen some good acts, I’ve never quite seen anything as good as this.
The 2011 season of Norway’s Got Talent had a contestant named Bogdan Alin Ota, whose story is really interesting. He’s a pianist/composer from Romania, who apparently was having no luck/success in his home country, so he moved to Norway. In Norway, he found a job … delivering copy machines. His Norwegian boss heard his music, recognized his talent and desire, and helped him to get onto Norway’s Got Talent.
And the guy is amazing. Here’s his audition:
His semifinal performance:
And his final, winning performance:
And the guy seems to be amazingly humble.
Also, is it just me, or does the female judge look like a Norwegian Sharon Osbourne?
My guess: now that a lot of fan favorites are out, the displaced fans are trying to select a new act, and they’re probably going just by what they saw on the night…and both KrisTef Brothers and Chicago Boyz had problems, while Catapult probably came across as “meh”.
Based on the crowd reactions I’ve heard, I think it’s Kenichi’s to lose - if he pulls out all the stops and doesn’t have a major stumble, he should win. Then again, I’m still trying to figure out how Terry Fator and Neal Boyd won, but Jackie Evancho lost to Michael Grimm.
I really don’t like Collins Key. His last trick was lame and obvious. It didn’t even require much sleight of hand. I can tell you exactly how it was done, and I’m not a magician.
First , notice that he spent a lot of time with the watch before he put it in the bag. He said he was setting a random time, but my guess is that he was setting it to a ‘start’ position, from where he could adjust it by touch to a specific time.
Second, he didn’t follow the instructions he asked for. When he asked Mel B to pick a bag, she picked the second one. Then for no apparent reason, he switched it with the first one. Had she picked the first, he would not have switched. Either way, he got what he wanted. The he did the same thing when he asked the judge to choose the second bag. So he always knew which bag held the expensive watch.
After smashing the cheap watches, he asked Howie what time he set his watch to, which was 4:58. THEN he retrieved the other watch. At that point he spun the stem by feel to match - except he didn’t manage it. The watch was clearly set to about 5:50 or so, which he simply declared was 4:58. In other words, he lied. He tried to set the time by feel and screwed it up and just blustered his way through. Note that Nick did a triple take when he looked at the watch, with a kind of confused look on his face. But he didn’t bust him.
So not only was it a lame trick that anyone could do, it wasn’t executed very well. I can’t believe Catapult Entertainment got sent home instead of him. They’re brilliant and original and they executed perfectly. Collins Key is just retreading old mentalist acts, and not particularly well.
It’s probably not fair, but I think of Terry Fator as a second rate Jeff Dunham. And although I like Dunham well enough, his comedy isn’t exactly the greatest. Edit: The main difference seems to be that Fator has his puppets sing, which I thought did work pretty well for this performance.
I’m not familiar with Neal Boyd, but I completely agree that Evancho should have won over Grimm.
[ol]
[li]Kenichi Ebina - Up until tonight I felt he was neck in neck with Forte. But tonight he really distanced himself. When I saw his second act, I couldn’t help but think just how much work had to go into it. He had to record himself, then react to that and record that, then react to that and record that…[/li]He is the ultimate one man show.
[li]Forte - They didn’t wow me as much as past performances, but I still think they did better than everybody else (except Kenichi) and deserve second place.[/li][li]Jimmy Rose - I only know two or three Garth Brooks songs, and that wasn’t one of them, so not knowing how he compared to the original, I think he did a good job. Like I said before, he didn’t wow me, but I can see him having a great future in country music.[/li][li]Cami Bradley - Loved her original performance a couple of months ago of “Believe”, and while I’ve liked her other performances, I haven’t liked them as much. Even tonight’s rendition I didn’t feel was as good. But I still think she’s a good performer. And as for Howie calling her original, I guess he never listened to singers like Sarah McLachlan, or any singers on The Voice.[/li][li]Collins Key, Mind Freak - I don’t know if it’s because I’m over magic, or if it’s him, but I didn’t feel anything. Frankly, I haven’t really felt anything for any of his acts.[/li][li]Taylor Williamson - If I remember right, I think I liked his very first performance, but I know I haven’t liked any other since. He might say one funny thing, at most, but over all I think he’s a bad comedian. I know, it’s a matter of taste; a personal preference. And mine is that he sucks. Although I will give him props for joking about Heidi being married to Seal. To take her real life failed marriage and use it in a joke was pretty brave. I’ll give that to him.[/li][/ol]
First off, Nick said that Collins held the watch upside down when he showed the time, and that it was set for 4:58.
Adjusting the watch by feel, I don’t think that’s how the trick was done. I think the trick involved the extra-thick table and placement of the bags. You know how magicians have lovely assistants that are used to squeezing into tight spaces? But I could be wrong.
Last night, there were some good performances.
Kenichi Ebina, I liked what he did to redo his original tryout. He upped that performance. When he came out for his new original act, I was more like Mel, a bit confused and not stunned. Yes, I get that he was every one of those people, and had to script and act and time it all. To me, it was a bit cluttered and busy, I couldn’t follow everything. Like the part when the woman in the blue dress kisses the other guy, did you notice Kenichi to a big gravity defying lean? I didn’t on first watch. The dance moves weren’t spectacular, and looked out of synch.
However, I still think I want him to win.
Actually, I was impressed with Collins Key’s acts this time. He had a similar problem to Taylor Williamson about not being able to redo a previous act, so doing the same kind of trick, the up close trick. I liked this one. Of course he used Heidi and Mel for the card trick - that’s called catering to the audience’s desires. It adds a bit of titillation, and everybody likes tit. -ilation. Titillation. Even though I knew the trick, he did a good flow and sped up like Howard suggested, and for me it worked. For his second performance, he did the “I previously predicted this outcome”. I didn’t check if he really uploaded that video ahead of time. If so, I can’t think of a way to do it without either plants in the audience, or selectively screening audience and giving them specific hashtag signs to hold. Having the judges pick the right pictures just requires using a force on the selection. I liked his flow, he was easier to follow and it had the right energy.
Taylor Williamson was funny this time. He managed to make the repeat jokes funny, with the camel and with the choir. And the Seal joke. His original stuff was also funny. The only part that annoyed me was the continued flirting with Heidi.
Cami Bradley had good performances. Her repeat of the Cher song was still good, her new song was also a very different take and it worked.
Forte did two great performances. I just don’t care for opera.
And finally, Jimmy Rose. I’m sure the country fans like him, but he’s the one whom for me is a cringe factor. Howard said it best when he called it a fast-forward moment. I didn’t fast forward because I want to hear all the acts to be able to judge, but his were tempting. I agree his rendition of that Garth song wasn’t great, independent of being country.
If I have to call it, I think Forte will win. Kenichi is a tight competitor, but this act didn’t have the Wow of his past acts, like flying or being in perfect synch for the mirror or bending over backwards, then standing back up.
But it’s going to be a tight night on results. I can’t call how American is going to order Jimmy, Cami, Taylor, and Collins.
Did I miss something about Key’s first trick with the cards? Didn’t he just take two cards and somehow glue them together? The bit with the ladies holding the cards in their teeth seemed to be only for titillation and maybe to give the glue time to dry.
When he took the cards back and showed they were stuck together, I said “what? That’s it?” But of course the judges were amazed.
He didn’t even have to find the signed cards or anything. The trick was basically “I’m going to glue these cards together without you seeing.” Okay, a little slight of hand with lots of window dressing.
I assumed there was someone in the table who changed the watch to whatever howie (or I guess Mel) said.
He could have recorded multiple outcomes and then when it was time to play the results, have someone play the correct outcome. Or, I noticed that when Howie said stop he still put down one or two more cards first, meaning he probably had a stopping point independent of what Howie said.
You try gluing two playing cards together, and then tell me that you can’t tell the difference between that and a single playing card. One way that’s possible is, the cards were half of their normal thickness to begin with, but still, it shouldn’t be that hard to see the “seam” between the two cards.
I would think if he did that, it would have been traceable on youtube.
That’s part of the force for which set, but doesn’t address how he got the descriptions in the video to match people picked later. Audience plants would work, but I’m trying to find a way to do it without plants, because it’s more interesting that way.
Take two cards, glue them together, you get two cards glued together. He got one card with two faces and no backs, the faces signed.
The trick was how he got them to sign the same card on opposite sides, and then think they had two separate cards signed. Notice when he showed the two cards before doing the alignment, we were watching from a distance rather than close up. He had a particular part that was a quick motion to help the audience (i.e. judges) see the part he wanted them to see and not realize what they actually saw. Camera placement helped keep the audience at home from doing the rewind/pause trick to uncover it. Part of the trick is also in the force to get each one to pick the correct card. He uses two different forces. I missed Heidi’s on the first go around. I thought it was well done.
Well of course I couldn’t do it. That’s not the point. I’m saying it didn’t impress me and the ending seemed anticlimactic. Just because you can do something I can’t do doesn’t mean I’m going to awestruck by it.
And as for Irishman’s “‘We call that "magic’” – umm sure, but that’s also what we call my uncle Ned pretending to steal my nose when I was 3 years old. Doesn’t mean it’s good magic.
I actually like Collins Key. Great look for a young magician, good stage presence, very likable in every way. I always want him to do well. But that card trick, maybe it’s better in person.
Wow did that suck. We’re happy about the winner, just wish we didn’t have to channel surf around the lip-sync and pop/country and etc., acts brought on to fill the show for most of the whole time.
I seriously underestimated America’s love of Taylor. I guess he’ll have a huge career in front of him. He’s not for me, but I understand it’s a matter of taste, so I wish him well.
I am so glad that Kenichi won. His is an act I would buy tickets for. And maybe when I have the time and money, I will.
