Selfless Critic Suffers Through Jamie Foxx's Show So You Don't Have To
A huge debt of gratitude is owed to the Reporter critic who subjected himself to the harrowing theatrical ordeal that was Oscar-winning triple threat (acting/singing/cootenanny-channeling) Jamie Foxx's "Unpredictable" show at Madison Square Garden, an act of self-sacrifice that allows us all to feel a sense of aesthetic violation without having to go through the trouble and expense of flying to New York. An excerpt from the writer's dark night of the concert-reviewing soul:
It's too bad that Foxx the comedian can't watch Foxx the singer because he would be able to garner some amusing material. His stand-up segment is almost entirely focused on celebrity foibles, skewering such figures as Michael Richards, O.J., Oprah, Prince and Britney — the latter in a truly hilarious bit in which he does a physical imitation of her private parts or, as he calls it, her "cootenanny."
But his comic irony seemed to desert him in the concert segment, when he dons a white suit and shades and becomes the prototypical R&B wooer. "Fellas, you could stick around if you want to, but this is for the ladies," he accurately informed us. A photo montage detailed his accomplishments, including his many magazine covers.
Sporting a voice with a fair amount of range and a more than decent falsetto, he proceeded to deliver such hits as "Three Letter Word" (you can probably guess what it is), "Storm (Forcass)," Love Changes" and "DJ Play a Love Song." These were accompanied by gimmicky bits of staging, including one of the dancers writhing suggestively on a couch, another doing a pole dance and, for "Get This Money," fake bills showering on the crowd. [...]
The schizophrenic nature of the show, while it admittedly succeeded in spotlighting his considerable range of talents, ultimately proved too disconcerting to be successful.
We're sure that Foxx will quickly internalize the note on the "schizophrenic nature of the show" and make immediate improvements for future performances, perhaps by condensing its comedy and musical portions into a single act in which he offers his hilarious impression of Britney Spear's vagina entirely in song, showering his fans in that fake money just to remind them that even though he's altering things slightly in the name of coherence, he's still committed to keeping things classy.
