I really didn't intend to lead with a lame swine flu joke tonight, but I think I have it. What else could explain the two things that happened tonight: that I didn't hate Rat Pack Night, and that I disagreed so much with Simon? It must be the swine flu.
The top five knew it’d be singing old standards tonight, but who would their mystery tutor be? The Pink Panther theme cornily played as they guessed and I love that Kris couldn't think of who from the Rat Pack would join them, since "All those people are dead." God I wish that phrase would get worked into Idol more.
It would have been much cooler to have a dead person as the mentor tonight than who it actually was: Jamie Foxx. The attempt to tie Jamie to the Rat Pack was pitiful. Apparently they both "transcend boundaries of entertainment industry." Uh, OK, not really, but I figured, even though Jamie Foxx annoys me in general, who knows, maybe he could be oddly entertaining, like Quentin Tarantino.
Jamie lost me right away though, explaining that the standards were about "singing a lifestyle. Can we say ‘gangstas’ on American Idol?" No Jamie, we're not ready for that yet! Too urban, too urban!
I kind of hated Kris' outfit—a basic suit but it's lame when people think loosened tie=Rat Pack. A loosened tie isn't cool unless you've loosened it after too much liquor and gambling and high class whores, not because your stylist told you to loosen it. Kris was going to sing "The Way You Look Tonight"," and Jamie immediately told Kris he'd do an album with him. I kind of hoped Jamie would say that to each contestant. I was pleasantly surprised by Kris' song. We've heard some pretty lame, boring stuff out of this era on Idol and Kris started off a little cheesy with his eye-sex and smile-singing. He was romantic, but in a first-dance-at-a-wedding way—safe and boring. But then the song picked up and Kris' vocals seemed stronger, and especially as he hit some falsetto notes he seemed especially marketable, like an Adam Levine who wouldn't try to have sex with you. The first three judges loved it, but Simon didn't think it was incredible, calling it "a little bit wet" and for once I didn't really get what he meant. If he meant sappy, well, yeah, that's the song. Would I download it on ITunes? No, but it was a strong performance from Kris, who does seem to improve week too week and is, as Kara said, a dark horse.
Allison is the only girl left, lest you forget (Ryan didn't let us). I love Allison. She sings like baby Marianne Faithfull but says things like "I'm too young to have a boyfriend….ah, I shouldn't say that!" Jamie encouraged her not to think of a boy but to think about her family, as she sang "Someone to Watch Over Me," which maybe was kind of good advice but even though Allison is young, it's impossible to buy her as a little girl. It's hard to completely buy this particular song from a 17 year old but it seemed like Allison got her biggest round of applause to date. Randy said that she was "Looking like Brittany Murphy, looking dope," (she was wearing a cute dress, looking dope-ish but not like Brittany Murphy). Paula, who was dressed like Madonna in the "Material Girl" video, liked it and Kara said that she wasn't worried for Allison's prospects for elimination after this performance. Simon however thought it was a little mechanical, which I thought was b.s., but he did say Allison didn't give off the confidence she needed to, which I can agree with. When he asked her if she thought she could win, she really didn't look like she did—I mean beyond a bit of diplomatic "Oh garsh I dunno" false modesty.