Quentin Tarantino, you are the geekiest film director--all right? But when you get into your geek mode--all right?--there's no one quite like you. So here's QT, talking to Jon Peter Lewis:

JPL, you are the geekiest rock singer since Freddie and the Dreamers--all right?--but when you get into your geek mode--all right?--there's no one quite like you. And today, was beginning to end: bravo!"

And really JPL, singing Jailhouse Rock, was the best thing about the show. And the geek dimension of popdom deserves it's place in people's hearts. Personally, I remember when everyone fell in love with Freddie and the Dreamers. I don't still have the album with the picture of them in striped nightshirts and night caps (in case the word "Dreamers" might have been beyond our grasp without some literal illustration), but I warmly remember when it seemed perfectly wonderful to "Do the Freddie."

And I just loved how QT went on AI not only unashamed, but totally into the show, owning up to watching it, and totally getting how to be a judge. He had great one liners: "Hudson takes on Houston ... and wins!" And he was really just wonderful, with the heart of a real American pop culture fan--which of course he brings to his movies--movies that have a finer art dimension than the popless product more seriously serious artists offer us.

A Tarantino-less side note: was there some kind of dispute with Disney? Why did two of the performers go on about a Disney film and then do a song that had nothing to do with the film they talked about? John Stevens prepped us for "Prince Ali" and then he sang "As Time Goes By," and LaToya London made out as if Finding Nemo was her favorite flim and she just loved animation, and then she came out and sang "Somewhere" from West Side Story. Since they delayed a day to show this, why couldn't they redo the clip and make it go with the song? But I didn't believe any of the assertions about what their favorite movie was. How could a grown man (George Huff) have The Wiz as a favorite movie? And how could anyone have Sister Act 2 as their favorite movie (Jennifer Hudson)?? They had a song they wanted to sing ... but how embarrassing to have to pretend, especially when two other singers didn't even sing the song that went with the movie they claimed as a favorite. What a ridiculously fly-by-night operation the biggest show on TV is!