I mostly agree with Nobody.
[quote=“Nobody, post:151, topic:660182”]
Aerosphere - 5/10. The problem here was they spent too much time maneuvering the balloon into position without any acrobatics occurring. I realize 90 seconds is not a long time, but I think this could have been improved by “staging”. They brought out the balloon with the guy, flew him over the woman, then picked her up, then after one big spin, set her down, then moved her over the judges to the stage. Too much unnecessary floating around without accomplishing anything, and if she is supposed to be the centerpiece of the act, there was way too long when she wasn’t under the balloon. Instead, have her already hanging below the guy when they appear, perhaps not by her neck at first, but as they float overhead, put out more acrobatics, and then move to the neck spin, before the final set down on stage. More “doing” time, putting her more centerpiece for longer.
**Chicago Boyz **- 5/10. I applaud the coach for what he’s doing, for the values of the team and the goal of taking inner-city boys, many who probably don’t have fathers at home, and giving them something to strive for and be a part of besides gang life. The human jumprope is certainly freaky, and doing dives over the top upped the danger, for sure. But ultimately, most of the act was tame gymnastics, and I just don’t see this as that riveting. I’m not sure how to transform it.
Mitsi School of Dance - 8/10. It was very elegant and artistic. They were really precise with their moves and it was fantastic. May come off a little too low energy against exciting acts.
**Kelsey & Bailey **- 4/10. They’re a cute act, but ultimately it’s pretty lame. As Mel said, too repetitious, not enough tricks. Also, notice how the dog doesn’t actually jump fully through her arm ring. The dog springs up and starts through, then she opens her arms. The dog’s legs pass through where her arms were. She’s busy dancing, rather than making a full trick out of it. They’re having fun, but they’re not going anywhere.
Brandon & Savannah - 7/10. I wasn’t thrilled with the song choice, thought something might be off with the sound. Savannah’s voice at the begining was a little off, but overall they had a very strong show, worked the stage well, and it was fun.
Magicians - 5/10. The only intriguing thing about the act was Nick ending up under the table. The gimmick of showing the “back” and thus revealing the trick might have been an amusing concept for the trick, but they had too much nothing going on for the final trick to save the overall performance. It was blatantly obvious they were going to move the guy from the box, only it wasn’t the actual guy, and he stayed in the box. There was room in that box for at least 2 people, maybe three. I don’t quite know how the third guy got out from under the table, but I know there are tricks to deceive the eye, that’s what magicians do. Though if they want to do real magic, they should lengthen Nick’s pants and correspondingly shorten the girl’s. That would be entertaining. Oh wait, it’s a family show.
Deanna -7/10. Liked the song, she did pretty well, and as Howard pointed out, unlike before she was much more understated.
David “The cobra kid” - 6/10. The premise of the act was to handle the cobra as much as possible, but not get bit and die. However, it suffered because it didn’t have enough structure. Not knowing what to expect is one way of saying you couldn’t anticipate what was going to happen, there wasn’t any idea of what was coming next. Yes, the guy is freaky crazy and I would have a heart attack just being on the stage as a judge. There was some drama when he picked the cobra up and held it above his face, when it looked like the snake might drop and bite him, but it just felt disorganized. Sure, he was constrained by letting the snake do what it wanted and reacting to that.
I’ve read that snake charmers in India and whatnot condition their cobras by raising them from hatching and handling them, so the snakes are used to being held and stroked. Couple that with some understanding of cobra behavior (which I could only [del]make up[/del] guess at), and he probably wasn’t in quite as much risk as if you or I wandered into Africa and grabbed the first cobra we found. Still risky. But somehow didn’t appeal.
And I would have had to punch Howie in the face.
Johnathan Allen - 10/10. I have to agree, Best performance of the night. I did notice the shift to show tunes as well, and have to agree with Howard. I don’t know why the audience was booing him, he wasn’t offering criticism at all. That was constructive advice, basically pointing out that with two similar and very good acts in direct competition, he needs to make himself stand out as the superior, and find some way to distinguish himself. I certainly think he could send these as auditions to Broadway and get hired.
Kenichi Ebina - 9/10. I spotted the woman was a man, and then on the robot figured out it was him doing all the roles. He was very creative with the video game story, very good doing the writing, acting, and choreography. His timing was very good, his interactions with the on screen characters the best we’ve seen in any of these interactives. My one complaint is the same as TriPolar, a little more back and forth on some of the exchanges. Also, I don’t think the swimming quite worked.
Jim Meskimen - 8/10. I agree some of his impressions were a little off, but what impresses me about his act is that he’s not just doing impressions, rather he’s doing Impression improv. That, to me, takes what he does up a notch from any other comic just doing impressions. Regular impressions, you write your own material, you have the time to practice, to massage the timing and pacing and evaluate if the jokes really work. But improv is responding on the spot. So he’s doing rapidfire transitions, and coming up with some line or comment for that character to make on the spot. Sure, some of his remarks were a little lame, and some of his impressions were not quite on, but the overall impression of the act was pretty good for me. His Sting singing was bad but the concept was amusing. His George Clooney was probably worst, not quite hitting Clooney and I didn’t get the association with weight loss and the Liberty Bell. But you try to think of something unique to say for each celeb playing Ben Franklin that is funny and matches that celeb. Possibly staying on each character a bit longer would help.
American Military Spouses Choir - 7/10. I’m not fond of choirs. I do think they had a great song and they sang it well, but they are riding so hard on their story it irks me. That USA chanting from the audience annoyed me.
My picks
- Jonathan Allen
- Kenichi Ebina
- Mitzi School of Dance.
4 for me it a tough call between Jim Meskimen and Brandon and Savannah. I like both and want both to go on. Unfortunately, I think the American Military Spouses Choir will get picked, and 4th place will pit the Mitzi School of Dance against one of those two, with an outside shot for Deanna as the alt spot.
I think the judges would pick the Mitzi school over any of those three, but Howard would probably pick Brandon and Savannah over the dance school. He’d probably take B and S over Deanna. Hard to guess about the rest. My guess is it will be the Choir in 3 and the Mitzi school in 4.
