Season 10 of “American Idol” is in the books. But before we get to the result, let’s talk about how bad the performances on the show were overall, in rapid-fire fashion….

The Top 13 performed Lady GaGa’s “Born This Way,” and we all expected GaGa to come out and join them, but she didn’t. Oh, but the performance was awful, and why do they make them wear all white like the Good Humor Man for these group numbers?

Then James Durbin sang with Judas Priest, and that was one of the night’s highlights. Next was Jacob Lusk singing with Kirk Franklin and Gladys Knight. That wasn’t bad, and who doesn’t love Gladys? Then Casey Abrams sang “Fat Bottom Girls” with Jack Black. Funny, but not all that great a performance. Next, the Top 6 ladies (Lauren sat this one out) performed a medley of craptastic Top 40 songs and were joined by Beyonce. Yawn. Then Haley Reinhart sang a duet with Tony Bennett, and at 85 Tony is starting to forget lyrics on stage, which is painful to watch. But he can still sing, and Haley sounded really good on this one.

Then TLC was paired with Lil Jon and the Top 6 ladies again. Where were the guys??? Next, Tim McGraw was paired with Scotty McCreery on “Live Like You Were Dying,” and that was pretty cool. Scotty really held his own too. Next, Marc Anthony performed (dude has some pipes) and his wife J-Lo came out to dance and shake her booty on stage, literally. Oh, and Sheila E. played percussion.

Finally the guys performed a number, a medley of Tom Jones songs, and yep, Sir Tom Jones made an appearance. Dude looks pretty good and sounds really good too. Good for him. But Tom Jones and Tony Bennett on “American Idol?” Okay.

Next came a very cool moment. Scotty and Lauren talked about their respective teachers who influenced them, and both teachers were asked last week at the homecomings to attend the finale, so they were there last night. Then, Scotty and Lauren presented them with brand new Fords, and they too were awarded Ford vehicles (their own choice of any model!). Mrs. Mike asked the obvious question….are they old enough to drive?

Next, Lady GaGa did perform. Mrs. Mike pointed out that that GaGa really can sing, and she is right. But I’m just not a huge fan of all the flashy show stuff. Then Lauren was paired on a duet with Carrie Underwood, and I have to say, I’ve never heard Carrie sound better. Then as part of a “Spider-man” promotion for the Broadway play, they had some dude literally swinging from the rafters while Reeve Carney, who stars in the show, sang with Bono and The Edge from U2. That was pretty cool too but I’m over U2. Then came another judge treat, as Steven Tyler performed “Dream On,” even playing the piano for the first verse. Dude can still belt it for sure.

Finally, the moment of truth. The winner of “American Idol: Season 10” is…….Scotty McCreery! I had him pegged as a dark horse weeks ago, but I thought Lauren was going to win. Still, this could have gone either way, and both Scotty and Lauren are going to have nice country careers. Congrats Scotty, on a great season and on bring the title back to Garner, North Carolina.

Thanks to you all for reading this season, and we’ll see you back here in 2012!

As per Box Office Mojo, “Season of the Witch” will be opening in over 2,800 theaters this weekend. It’s a blend of action and dark fantasy starring a downcast Nicolas Cage and the very cool Ron Perlman, who I had the pleasure of interviewing this week. If anyone reading my review thinks I’m being a bit hard on it, they should be aware that this film is probably one the worst reviewed films in some time, getting a terrible 3% “Fresh” from Rotten Tomatoes. However, a closer look shows that it’s not so much a film that everyone hates as a film that no one cares to recommend.

The creepy actioner is the maiden voyage as a distributor for Ryan Kavenaugh’s very busy mini-studio, Relativity Media, and it is expected to make as much $12 million or so according to THR’s Pamela McClintock (where are you jolly Carl DiOrio?) and Ben Fritz of the L.A. Times, though somewhat less seems entirely possible. What the film has going for it is a very low budget for an action flick these days, just $40 million.

Another entry, “Country Strong” is expanding to about 1,400 theaters this weekend, but hopes for this musical drama are modest indeed, though fans of country singer Tim McGraw and actress Gwenyth Paltrow should account for something. It’s going to be that kind of a weekend.

“New Moon” enjoyed a spectacular Friday performance of $72.7 million, an all-time record one-day take, but dropped by what DiOrio describes as a “manageable” 41% to earn a still terrific $43.2 million on Saturday. (Finke, plays the baseball statistician and mentions that the two-day total $115.9 million makes for the biggest two-day gross of all time, and also gets into other November openings, if you think that stuff is important.) Still, by the end of this weekend, most of the really hardcore “Twilight” fans will have seen “New Moon.” The question remaining is how many casual viewers, plus repeat hardcore fans, will return for the big Thanksgiving day weekend.

There was another surprise this weekend: I was right about one of my casual box office prognostications! Based on the true story of the NFL’s Michael Oher, “The Blind Side” starring Sandra Bullock and newcomer Quinton Aaron supported by country singer Tim McGraw and Kathy Bates,  proved the sturdiness of the inspirational sports film genre. The sub-genre goes back at least as far back as 1940’s “Knute Rockne All American” and in this case won an estimated $34.5 million for the gipper and Warner Brothers, pretty much in line with what I wrote on Thursday. Astonishing.

According to Finke, the prognosticaters had only pegged this one for a maximum of $20 million, but they didn’t reckon, I suppose, with the cross gender and generational appeal of the story as well as its cross-cultural/ethnic impact which spans the inner-city and red state America, and both conservative and liberal perspectives common in Obama’s America. Lou Loumenick quotes this line uttered by country star Tim McGraw in the role of Bullock’s husband: “Who ever thought we would have a black son before we knew a Democrat?”

In the #3 spot this week was the big holdover from last weekend, Roland Emmerich’s “2012” which dropped a not-so-great 59% in its second week — spurred on, perhaps, by bad word of mouth from people  like the 20-something male checker at the Walgreen’s next door to me who volunteered his views to me a couple of nights back. The mega-disaster flick earned a relatively modest estimated $25 million for Sony on it’s second weekend for a total so far of $108 million. That’s still well short of it’s $200 million budget, which I find a bit obscene, but it’s current foreign total is $341.1 milion. Ah, the international language of blowing-shit-up.

Bringing up the rear of the new releases is the poorly reviewed “Planet 51,” which apparently shows that even CGI animated family comedies can be hurt by poor buzz if that buzz is bad enough.  Also, while our own Jason Zingale was unimpressed, “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire” continued its unusually strong performance as it expanded this week. As explicated via table at Box Office Mojo, the downbeat tale of inner city dysfunction earned an impressive $11 million in only 629 theaters (as compared to 3,035 for “Planet 51”).

Of the two films debuting from undisputed world class directors and huge international stars, German man-of-the-world/universe Werner Herzog’s critically embraced “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” starring Nicolas Cage had a disappointing debut of only $257,000 in 27 theaters despite great reviews and considerable buzz. On the other hand, Spain’s brilliant twosome of Pedro Aldomovar and Penelope Cruz earned back some of that lost “Planet 51” cred for their nation by taking in the week’s highest per screen average ($54,000) with their latest, “Broken Embraces.” That’s on only two screens, but it’s a start.