S15.E09: Judge Cuts

[helenamonster]

Quote

Ten acts are chosen to perform remotely and five of those acts advance to the live shows.

Original airdate: 7/28/20

[ams1001]

• Yay! GiantZoom performances!
• And I don't even have any alcohol. Guess ice cream will have to get me through.
• I initially read the description as "perform randomly" and thought...eh, probably not too far off.
• "What were you guys thinking while I wasn't there?"
• Lots of cute doggies in the backgrounds, at least.
• Didn't really need to see the sword swallower with no pants...
• They made a baby cry!
• I forgot about the pigs...
• Terry is very colorful tonight...
• Where is the hula hooper performing? A Vegas sign graveyard?
• I wish he had talked more. I like his accent. He has a nice smile.
• "I have a shawl." "Then you should have it on." "No, I prefer to be beautiful."
• Um...some people performed. I wandered off to get ice cream.
• Ninja Twins: "...and we're getting one of those spots!" Me: "No, you're not."
• I appreciated their "Wash Your Hands" shirts but I have no clue what the hell they were singing.
• Did Heidi just say "infectuous"?
• Um...blindfolded crossbows. Nope.
• Commence faking out every person who's actually moving on. Cuz it's still so funny even after the millionth time. 🙄

Until next time, my fellow AGT sufferers.

[BuckeyeLou]

51 minutes ago, ams1001 said:

• Yay! GiantZoom performances!
• And I don't even have any alcohol. Guess ice cream will have to get me through.
• I initially read the description as "perform randomly" and thought...eh, probably not too far off.
• "What were you guys thinking while I wasn't there?"
• Lots of cute doggies in the backgrounds, at least.
• Didn't really need to see the sword swallower with no pants...
• They made a baby cry!
• I forgot about the pigs...
• Terry is very colorful tonight...
• Where is the hula hooper performing? A Vegas sign graveyard?
• I wish he had talked more. I like his accent. He has a nice smile.
• "I have a shawl." "Then you should have it on." "No, I prefer to be beautiful."
• Um...some people performed. I wandered off to get ice cream.
• Ninja Twins: "...and we're getting one of those spots!" Me: "No, you're not."
• I appreciated their "Wash Your Hands" shirts but I have no clue what the hell they were singing.
• Did Heidi just say "infectuous"?
• Um...blindfolded crossbows. Nope.
• Commence faking out every person who's actually moving on. Cuz it's still so funny even after the millionth time. 🙄

Until next time, my fellow AGT sufferers.

Yea, I wondered where the Hula Hoop guy was!  Looked like some movie lot.  And the recovering singer guy looked like he was in a movie set out in the desert strumming by a campfire...who set up these "fancy" remotes?  And they all seemed to have the electric AGT sign in the background.   The Latin dancing kids were cute but I dont know how they made the Judges cut: they arent as good as some of the kids on World of Dance.  I would rather the Comedian had made it.  Sofia was making me Cold just looking at her, everybody else had jackets on, but she wanted to "be Beautiful" 🙂    Seeing Acts on the Big Screen turned out better than I was expecting.

[ams1001]

1 minute ago, BuckeyeLou said:

Yea, I wondered where the Hula Hoop guy was!  Looked like some movie lot.  And the recovering singer guy looked like he was in a movie set out in the desert strumming by a campfire...who set up these "fancy" remotes?  And they all seemed to have the electric AGT sign in the background.   The Latin dancing kids were cute but I dont know how they made the Judges cut: they arent as good as some of the kids on World of Dance.  I would rather the Comedian had made it.  Sofia was making me Cold just looking at her, everybody else had jackets on, but she wanted to "be Beautiful" 🙂    Seeing Acts on the Big Screen turned out better than I was expecting.

They mentioned in the beginning that the show would provide them with production assistance; I'm sure that included the show's logo sign and help with sets. It was better than I expected; still appreciating the lack of audience.

[Vermicious Knid]

Yes, that actually is a Vegas sign graveyard! The Boneyard of the Neon Museum. The night tour is supposed to be very cool. If you were wondering who the dude with the mustache is, that's Terrible Herbst.

Liked that they were on the lot together and not on Zoom. It allowed them to interact much better. It's a nice balance. They could have been further apart though. I paid about the same amount of attention, so there's that. Ninja Twins, what the hell? Don't hate the singers they put through and they actually jettisoned a bunch of kids, for once. Wonder if they will use this same format for the 'live' shows.

MGM notified their entertainment talent of possible layoffs today. This effects Shin Lim and all the Cirque shows.

[Maverick]

Next week, to celebrate 15 years they're bringing back the 15 best acts.   I'm, shouldn't that be the winner from each season ( which we know isn't happening)?   Phrasing it that way makes it sound like either the winner of some seasons wouldn't have won in others or the wrong act won in the non-winners season. 

[kirklandia]

The star of the show was the Neon Boneyard! Too bad some crazy hula hoop dude kept blocking the view.

[InternetToughGuy]

I wish the Judge Cuts would include one to my jugular, as I do not want to watch this crap whatsoever. You know social conditioning runs deep when the judges are distancing 30+ feet from a screen. At least the show looks like it has a real production budget compared to last week's.

//

Shaquira McGrath - Wake Me Up is an appropriate song name for such a boring show, despite it being a phrase I would never utter. Singing acts pretending that there is ever a step up between rounds is annoying, since 99% of singers are boring as all hell.

Jonathan Goodwin - I'm guessing his audition wasn't shown due to footage of a fat woman on a horse taking precedence, unless I was just extremely zoned out. Is that the same crossbow model as when I pretended to be Cupid on Valentine's Day? It's a shame I got so carried away, as now I will never know if my crush was going to say yes (I was 600 pounds and covered in biblical plague-like boils, so I assume the outcome would've been positive). The act wasn't bad, though knowing that any gruesome footage won't be aired on any TV channel except for CNN to make me and my neighbor punch each other over our political beliefs takes away from the enjoyment. It's very rare where an act is decent, so he gets my approval (which means nothing).

Simon and Maria - The dancing looks like my excited reaction to having an old successful high school friend buy me a taco out of extreme pity. It was boring.

Craig Reid - No doubt it was the support of his long term girlfriend that helped bring him to this point. Most of these acts are so short and pointless there's nothing of substance to say.....I know he'd kick my ass? That also applies to the kids who just performed.

Max Major - Is this his real name or is this another dumb attempt to turn a double consonant name into a "thing"? Is there a man on this show that doesn't cry on command? The lack of testosterone is disturbing, which means something coming from me, since I puff my chest out in masculine domineer when the doctor mistakenly measures me as 4'9. Judging by Simon's son being named "Air-Ick", I guess he was named after the LA smog? Yep, everything written down, just like they rehearsed over the afternoon Skype call. When the acts aren't even there, it just makes that possibility all the more likely.

Ty Barnett - Hopefully this routine will be Ty-Die, as in he'll kill it. Stop the crying already. He worked in fast food? I'm planning on getting into that, just as soon as automation takes over and I can shrug my (at this point) extremely atrophied arms and say "I tried". I wouldn't call his routine good or bad, which I guess is a decent compliment when most comedians outright suck. His routine lasted about a minute which is my life's total accumulated time spent talking to women, so it seemed to drag on pretty long.

Brothers Gage - If their act name were indicative of energy levels in a car, it would no doubt read empty. Yawn. When this inevitably doesn't work out, they can at least be hired to play the intro music to the video packages introducing some 90 year old act sitting on his porch in a tiny town, though with the techno beat in the background, it sounds more relevant for acts on Mars, which we will soon start colonizing when the next baseless conspiracy theory forces me and my paranoid friends onto a rocketship to flee. Boring act.

Nolan Neal - What does his Dad killing himself have to do with anything? I do admit exposing my mental instability to strangers online yields a tremendous endorphin rush, though my attention seeking stunts need to continually escalate for me to be taken seriously. Seeing him out in nature without internet is a true testament to his name (NoLAN). Boring.

Ryan Tricks - A trick with Alesha's government tracker? The gist of every one of these tricks is "I wrote what you said - wow". When I say "I need ale", I'm not making a cute nickname for Alesha; I need to sedate myself from boring crap.

The Ninja Twins - When they don't even appear to be 5% Japanese and can't even put the trademark black face mask on (in these times, no less *sighhhhhhh 😪), they must've just thought the name Ninja sounded cool. Their dream is to sing other people's songs way worse than them? It's not like Justin Bieber has a duplicate to sing for him when he needs to catch his breath, although the unfounded conspiracy blogs I read about cloned celebrities make me doubt his singularity, even if the given evidence comes down to a different haircut in photos 6 months apart.

***

Episode was godawful, but I will watch it next week too.

 

 

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by InternetToughGuy

[Neet]

In preparation for this episode of the show looking like a drive-in theatre, I crashed my car into the living room to get the real experience. Very nostalgic. My parents also donned rollerskates to serve me burgers and fries, but they already do that, so no biggie.
This is a better setup for the show than low quality Zoom calls (unless that's what it was, the video resolution looked improved), but the overall feeling of pointlessness is still palpable.

Simon and Maria - What kind of ultra specific quota calls for a multiracial duo of kid dancers on this show every year? They're fodder in general, but when that term applies to 3/4 of the contestants on this season, we may get stuck in a time loop where none of them can be eliminated.

Craig Reed - A shining example of how shallow the talent pool is this year, and it feels like a law that all of these goofy acts have to be done by people who are out of shape dorks, which is probably the whole """appeal""" to begin with.

Max Major - Was that backdrop of empty Las Vegas from the pre-pandemic Daniel Emmet tour? Anyway, if the point of this magic trick was that the judges are cloned, it wasn't news to me. In that room were likely the judges and a few stage hands, so this "how did he do that?!" incredulousness is even more underwhelming when nobody would be around to catch Max writing all of these factoids down before the real filming begins.

Shaquira McGrath - It's a needless thing to get pissy about, but every talent show and such always credits this entire song to Avicii when Aloe Blacc did the vocals. "Wake me up when it's all over" struck a chord with me, as I sleep through every career fair that comes to town in hopes of avoiding any labor. Still, this was the typical unneeded rearrangement of a song that did no favors to the original. I don't get the fanfare the judges were giving this.

Ty Barnett - Seeing the lack of female features on him gave me hope of an impending good performance, but this was terrible. His first set had some alright jokes, and this was nothing but obvious punchlines and "my kid said ____", which isn't a joke by itself. There seems to be an increase in comedians talking about the 'process' of coming up with new material and then proceeding to tell stories that already exist. Oh well. On the plus side (size), I got an omen that Vicki Barbolak is on Ty's writing team and is job secure during the pandemic.

Brothers Gage - Although 'Party Rock Anthem' was a huge song, it was a meme from almost a decade ago and this sounded fairly unintelligible for about half of the duration, even with the necessary backing track of percussion. This seems like a cool party trick in real life, but lame as a stage act, so they were probably lucky to not be forced to do this live. At least with a prerecorded performance, they can't be buzzed away, much like a phone call from one's grandmother where one dons a Barry White impression to feign hospitality. On a side note, seeing Heidi and Sofia sway around looking lobotomized reminded me to hate pretty much any act they like, as a rule of thumb.

Nolan Neal - Simon's botox-laden face not producing a reaction made me think the other side of the feed was experiencing delay, but IMO this was a really solid performance, and when he's not a woman I can fawn over, that's really saying something. (surely, he has sisters?) The bar for singing on this show is all over the place, I can never quantify what makes the occasional one interesting versus all the others that are an instant annoyance.

Ryan Tricks - With no tinfoil hat being worn by Alesha to prevent the usual cellular data leakage and mind reading, I was left rather unmoved by this performance. Heidi and Sofia are so easily amused, it's not unfathomable to believe they'd be genuinely shocked at something they just saw a 30 minute rehearsal for prior to filming. If agreeing that Ryan's correctly guessing what she's thinking moves the show along faster, then so be it. 

Ninja Twins - If they were really committed to the ninja thing, they'd have most of their faces covered by a bandana, especially in these trying times (❤️), but their real talent is how they're 40 years old and still fully supported by their mother. "Now that's an act I'd pay to see" can only be said tentatively, as it depends on me begging my folks for money in just the right amount of pathetic falsetto. Anyway, they come across as an intended comedy act, but nothing they do is really amusing. The vocals are just subpar enough to get no kind of enjoyment from any of the act.

Jonathan Goodwin - Wouldn't you think this guy would avoid getting so muscular so he's a smaller target for the arrows getting fired near him? Then again, the camera adds ten pounds, so he'd be safer if he stopped recording, then came back and said he did the stunt with no proof. His long-winded explanation about the sports bottles (or whatever the American translation is) was like Bill Nye methodically narrating his own suicide. Right before the trick, Sofia said "oh, I don't want to watch this!", which was no doubt a soundbite from a previous performance of tonight's miserable show. This was the clear highlight of the night, and danger acts are one of the few cogs that continue my Stockholm syndrome to this franchise. (as long as the acts don't involve a guy merely jumping/falling onto a giant crash pad, as it reminds me too much of the bouncy castle I play around in during everyone else's work week)

Edited August 1, 2020 by Neet
called Max 'Jonathan'

[nickp1991]

 I really thought the two guys with the harmonicas were very talented and unique

[ams1001]

5 hours ago, InternetToughGuy said:

they must've just thought the name Ninja sounded cool.

It's worse. Their names are Nick and James. NI 'n' JA. NINJA.

 

[saber5055]

I was doing a lot of other things during this episode so missed much of it, the stories and who got put through and other whatnot. I'll watch closer on the rerun if I see that. I didn't see if the pigs made it through although I thought Simon said they didn't have many animal acts and needed more, right before they cut the "magic" dogs and made the red-haired lady cry.

I only know the names of a couple of these acts (so don't have a clue who ITG is posting about). But I did catch the magician guy's name is Max, and he was all verklempt about moving to Vegas and now he's not allowed to perform. He didn't say whether it was because of COVID or he can't get hired for any gigs. But my thought was, if Vegas is too tough for you, move to Chicago. They could use some magic acts there, you'd get plenty of work.

Then his act was SO BAD even I knew how it was done. Talk about the fakiest fake tricks in the world. Yet he made it through. WTH show.

The harmonica guys got to star in their own music video. The filming and editing was the star of that performance because I HATED them. So did Simon who ranked on them for only singing a couple of words when Simon is all about finding singers. You dudes shot yourselves in the foot. Don't you watch this show?

I have to say, the Ninja Twins made me LOL. I could have done w/o having to see Simon's slack-jawed dead-eyed face staring at them, which we were shown more than the act itself. WTH show. Oh yeah, right, Simon owns it.

Nolan the guitar player ... man, his tuneless guitar strumming totally drowned out his voice. Why can't these people either ditch the guitar prop or learn to actually play a real tune. That would have rocked if he did a few guitar riffs in the middle of the song, but I'm guessing Nolan no can do.

I thought Shakira's (?) song choice was all wrong, judges hate slow serious songs. Except last night they loved it. WTH show.

The sword swallower made it through? WTH show. How's he going to "step it up." Maybe not wear tighty blackies next time?

I was all about the comedians making it through but I guess none did. WTH show.

Once again, unless there are more judge cuts, Bello Nock and his daughter disappear into infinity, never to be seen again. Until next year. At least when Bello performed solo he was told a big fat no. His daughter is his albatross, she and he just get ignored. That's two seasons in a row now.

Meanwhile, we learn more about the egos of these judges: Simon loves to watch himself (stunner, I know), and Sofia thinks her shoulders are beautiful so they must remain uncovered. Eh.

[ams1001]

40 minutes ago, saber5055 said:

I thought Shakira's (?) song choice was all wrong, judges hate slow serious songs. Except last night they loved it. WTH show.

Kinda like how they hated original songs, until they loved them.

[InternetToughGuy]

4 hours ago, ams1001 said:

It's worse. Their names are Nick and James. NI 'n' JA. NINJA.

 

Did they say that's what it was or were you actually paying attention to the show? gasp! unforgivable!

Edited July 29, 2020 by InternetToughGuy

[ams1001]

10 minutes ago, InternetToughGuy said:

Did they say that's what it was or were you actually paying attention to the show? gasp! unforgivable!

They said it in their original audition package. I remembered it; I'm sorry.

[lynxfx]

The first 30 minutes were completely pointless. It was like I turned into a random zoom meeting filled with people I have never seen. Seriously, unless they were "physically" unique or had animals with them, could you really tell me what any of those people's acts were?

As for the acts....uh.

For some the remote filming was their saving grace. Shooting in the neon museum is the only way hoolahoop guy would ever advance. The desert video nearly worked for the harmonica boys but their talent didn't live up to the video. They got off rhythm so many times. Also saying they were sexy to a 14 year old boy...what the hell Sophia. 

I love magic and always root for magicians on this show. I think the number of magicians vs number of singers on AGT should be switched. That said, we had the two worst on last night. First Max, who got by with a $20 gimmicked deck with the remote audition. Then he did a very lame prediction with no provers. No explanation of what he was trying to accomplish. With camera setup he should have just made vegas disappear in the background. The low res camera and dark set looked right out of the 90s. The other magic guy had the same issue, but much higher quality camera and set. But again the prediction had no provers. AGT doesn't have the same integrity of Fool Us so it is easy to assume that she is a stooge. With technology now, these mentalist type acts are bottom barrel in the industry. 

I don't remember much else. Overall you can see some acts getting special treatment with full camera crews and location setups and professional editing. Others are sent an AGT sign and a webcam. The Live shows will be interesting from a tech standpoint. 

[Vermicious Knid]

They said there were 100 acts that got through the initial auditions. And how many go to the lives? The sock dancing guy got cut too I think.

[Lava VaVoom]

My favorite act, not yet mentioned here, was the guy on the silks.  Loved the act, loved him, loved hid darling family.  As far as I'm concerned, he should take the whole thing. 

[yankeefan]

Does anyone want to make a prediction about who is going to win?  Unlike last season, no one clearly stands out to me yet.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I'm thinking one of the golden buzzer singers. Hopefully, it's not that choir. But it's true that there doesn't appear to be a "chosen one" yet. 

[Lonesome Rhodes]

That's the worst lighting and look I have ever seen for Simon.  Goodness, he looked every bit of 60.  

The pigs got through?!  Not even required to prove themselves capable of winning?  Well, TPTB knew full well that they have, at best, one more performance in them.  No sense wasting it on this ep.

The really young singers are worse than ever.  

I will admit this was a tough year to pare things down to the 35-40 level of folks moving on.  The mediocrity leaves almost no differentiating factors.  It's a SYCO dream - no clear cut favorite and they will get to credibly advance acts based on the backstory, not ability.

I loved the entrance.  Those cars were great.  The edit of the jidges' discussions was actually more underwhelming than previous years.  This, despite promises we would see how it reeeeeeeally happens.  Another OPUD deal.  Welcome to AGT.

[CrystalBlue]

On 7/29/2020 at 12:02 PM, ams1001 said:

They said it in their original audition package. I remembered it; I'm sorry.

I actually remember it too.  Double sorry!

[CrystalBlue]

I still have yet to view the first ever Coronavirus Judge Cuts, but I have the feeling reading all your comments will be the highlight of this episode if I ever make time to do so.  I'll have to tune in just to see the pigs again though!

[ams1001]

24 minutes ago, CrystalBlue said:

I still have yet to view the first ever Coronavirus Judge Cuts, but I have the feeling reading all your comments will be the highlight of this episode if I ever make time to do so.  I'll have to tune in just to see the pigs again though!

They only showed the guy and the big pig. For maybe half a minute.

[marketdoctor]

On 7/29/2020 at 1:56 AM, Maverick said:

 I'm, shouldn't that be the winner from each season ( which we know isn't happening)?   Phrasing it that way makes it sound like either the winner of some seasons wouldn't have won in others or the wrong act won in the non-winners season. 

You're absolutely right, and that's not just the phrasing.  (If they were headlining somewhere, I'd put in an appearance-on-this-show exemption, provided they can plug their acts.)

[saber5055]

On 7/30/2020 at 4:05 PM, yankeefan said:

Does anyone want to make a prediction about who is going to win?  Unlike last season, no one clearly stands out to me yet.

My winner money is on the singer who was found innocent and released from prison after 36-37 years behind bars.

I watched the rerun a bit closer last night and most of it was familiar, I guess I had blocked most of those acts from my mind. I don't know what all those acts were though, when they just showed people/kids in the Zoom screen and told them they were going through/not going through. They needed ID signs, like "12-year-old singer." I'm thinking all the singers went through, but I could be wrong. Not that it matters. Simon do like singers ($$).

I did catch Shaquira saying, "This dream is so close I can LITERALLY taste it." Which made me wonder, did the dream need more salt or did it taste like everything else, chicken? Inquiring minds want to know.

[ams1001]

On 8/3/2020 at 1:47 PM, saber5055 said:

I did catch Shaquira saying, "This dream is so close I can LITERALLY taste it." Which made me wonder, did the dream need more salt or did it taste like everything else, chicken? Inquiring minds want to know.

I googled just to see what came up...

Who knew..?

[saber5055]

3 hours ago, ams1001 said:

Who knew..?

Now I know why I've been gaining weight. That explains it, I love my dreams!

[CrystalBlue]

Oh, the boredom.  I had to jazz up my viewing experience by breaking for ice cream and homemade hot fudge, lighting incense and watching The Real Janis Joplin perform "Half Moon" on The Dick Cavett Show and tuning back in (watching on Hulu two weeks late) only to find they put those two child dancers through.  I would've put Hula Hoop Guy through instead of them.