American Idol Top 8 Go To The Movies

So the Pia Toscano-less good ship "American Idol" season 10 sailed on last night into the land of Hollywood - with the top 8 performing songs of the movies.

SEE: Pia Toscano interviewed post-Idol

Sadly the ship is rudderless since the "judging panel" of dinosaur rocker Steven Tyler, the world's most beautiful woman (not really) Jennifer Lopez and ego-inflated dawg Randy Jackson, has been reduced to nothing more than a trio of cheerleaders.

Jennifer Lopez is more beautiful than Natalie Portman? Really?

They offered not even one teeny weeny little smidgen of helpful advice, constructive criticism, or honesty. EVERYONE was simply wonderful. In every way. As a result it's being left to the hyper-texting teeny-boppers alone to make the call on who will stay and who will go. So let's have a real look at the proceedings shall we? Yes, we shall...



Paul McDonald was first on the stage delivering the moldy oldie "classic" Bob Seger track "Old Time Rock and Roll" - you know, that song your vastly overweight aunts and uncles jump up and boogie to at weddings? Anyways, Paul rumbled in his awkward, quirky way all over the stage in an "Electric Cowboy" suit trying really hard to sing a song that was too much for his raspy voice. Not bad, but certainly not great.

What the cheerleaders had to say:
YOU ARE THE BEST SINGER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!!!!

READ: American Idol winner to be managed by Simon Fuller

Lauren Aliana was next up after a package in which the one guy we actually respect from this season - Jimmy Iovine - said something really stupid. After hearing Lauren intended to sing "The Climb" he told her she was a better singer than Miley Cyrus. Okay, say what you will about Miley's vocal chops, but the girl is a total pro already and can deliver the emotion of a song with aplomb. Lauren? Not so much. But even her notes were less than spectacular last night. And she still lacks confidence out there. Overall a rather bland performance.

What the cheerleaders had to say:
YOU ARE INCREDIBLE!!!! TOTALLY AMAZING!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Miley Cyrus... and NOT Miley Cyrus

Stefano Langone then took the stage to deliver the Boyz II Men hit "End Of The Road". This guy is nothing more than a lounge singer. Plain and simple. Lounge. Singer. Think Bill Murray in the old SNL skit - "Star Wars... that kooky place..."

What the cheerleaders had to say:
CAN WE PLEASE BEAR YOUR CHILDREN???? PLEASE???

Scotty McCreery then chose to ignore the wisdom of Jimmy and Will.I.Am who had told him his first choice of song - the Harry Nilsson emotional show-stopper "Everybody's Talkin'" - was amazing, and instead opted for an utterly forgettable George Strait country clunker... which we're not even going to pretend to care what the title of it is. Even Scotty's amazing vocals couldn't save this performance from the discount yawn bin.

What the cheerleaders had to say:
OMG!!!! SHEER PERFECTION!!! YOU ARE THE MOST WONDERFUL EVER!!!

Casey Abrams was the next to utterly ignore Jimmy's sage advice and instead of doing Phil Collins' seminal hit "In The Air" did a song no one on earth knows, Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy", and did it as a smoky midnight jazz club number with that stand up bass... again. That schtick is getting old fast. Apparently some people liked it, some not so much - we believe its a total "Idol bubble" thing - if this was on anything BUT Idol, everyone would hate it. And remember, this is the guy who now has Pia's spot. So let's just ask one quick question: would you rather have heard Pia deliver Celine's "Titanic" song or perhaps Whitney's "Bodyguard" song or Casey doing what he did? Hmmm?

CHECK OUT: Casey Abrams saved on American Idol

What the cheerleaders had to say:
YOU ARE THE BEST PERFORMER IN THE UNIVERSE!!!!!

Haley Reinhart has been struggling with song choice all season long. She's been on a mini-roll lately though with two great performances in row... but last night, that roll ended. She took on the very stylistic Debbie Harry song "Call Me" and while she totally delivered on the "call me" shout out, the rest of the song is really not a singer's song and so she battled mightily to keep things moving, but failed.

What the cheerleaders had to say:
NOT YOUR BEST - BUT YOU ARE SOOOOO AWESOME!!!

Jacob Lusk tried hard to play the role of "humble Jacob" after last week's fiasco of telling the world that were he to end up in the bottom three (he did) it's only because we're all idiots. You just have to love Jimmy Iovine for totally calling him out on that. That was hilarious. Anyways, Jacob, who is neither humble nor actually a nice guy at all, though he is desperately trying to play one on TV, as usual oversang the heck out of "Bridge Over Troubled Water". Seriously, Jacob doesn't believe he's actually performed unless he's on the verge of tears at the end... you know, because he's so emotionally distraught  and such. Yeah. Whatever.

What the cheerleaders had to say:
YOU ARE WITHOUT A DOUBT THE BEST SINGER WHO HAS EVER LIVED!!!!

James Durbin ended the night's proceedings in a performance that was pre-destined to be an utter disaster... but which ended up being far and away the best of the night. James was another who completely ignored Jimmy, who hated his song choice "Heavy Metal", but it turned out James was right. He electrified the place with a stunning full on heavy metal performance complete with Ozzy's guitarist delivering the killer riffs.

What the cheerleaders had to say:
 YOU ARE OUR GOD!!!!!!

So who will go home? Who knows. If Pia's departure told us anything, it's that unless you are a hyper-texting teeny-bopper, your opinion doesn't count for spit. So who do they like? That changes second by second surely... but you can rest assured it's some version of the "cute-guy". Might that mean that James, the second most talented vocalist on the show this season might have some measure of safety from their whims? Let's hope so.