Pitbull's Dirty Rodeo Night

Pitbull's dirty night at the Rodeo: Stripping dancers, plenty of tongue and the world's largest VIP party

Here’s a true life lesson from the 2015 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo: It’s a Pitbull world party and we’re just guests at it.

This year’s rodeo has already given us some spectacular performances, but only Armando Christian Pérez (aka Mr. Worldwide, Mr. 305, Pitbull) could so easily turn his concert into a stadium-wide party with 75,013 — the highest rodeo attendance this year — of his favorite Houston friends on his guest list. There was standing room only, until they sold out all the room we could stand in, and still the party went on.

Pitbull is such an expert at throwing a “Don’t Stop the Party” party, I feel like his example can serve as a party-planning tutorial for us all. So if you too want your next get-together to get your audience, I mean guests, on their feet and never let them rest, try these tried and true Pitbull partying tips.

Make a Dramatic Entrance After Your Guests Arrive

All the best divas and divos know this one and Pitbull certainly did too only appearing after a burst of NRG fireworks and then a scrolling bio on the giant Rodeo video screens above the stage. Now normally announcing your presence with an entry from your Wikipedia page might seem a bit gauche, but the scroll effect and narrative of his humble beginnings and how he battled life’s adversities to get there that night, made it seem like Pitbull was going to fight the Imperial Fleet for us right there on stage.

Always Let Them See You Sweat

A wet all over body sheen is hot, sexy and shows you’re working hard for your guests’ enjoyment, be it a special guest of one or tens of thousands. Pitbull began the night in a crisp black jacket, shirt, and pants and ended sans jacket, with his black shirt so soaked in his own sweat, he looked like he had just risen from the Atlantic waves ready to join us for a walk along his beloved Miami beach.

An Interest in Genealogy Can Be a Great Icebreaker

If Pitbull ever gets bored hosting these party extravaganzas across the globe, he might want to try his hand as a census taker. Certainly citizens would be much more likely to give their personal stats if Pitbull came knocking at their door.

I lost track after about the seventh costume change made by the lovely Pit dancers, but couldn’t figure out where the hell they were stripping and changing.

Armando took a breather after letting it “Rain Over Me” to poll the dancing crowd on our heritage and our rainbow of ancestral homelands. (For the record, the screams for Mexicano almost brought the roof down, even though we had been continuously raising that roof since Pitbull first took the stage.)

Have a Discreet Place for Your Guests to Freshen Up

I lost track after about the seventh costume change made by the lovely Pit dancers, but couldn’t figure out where the hell they were stripping and changing, because they would just suddenly pop up out of nowhere, hips thrusting alongside Pitbull in an entirely new and song-appropriate attire. It wasn’t until late into the show that I realized there were some black curtains towards the back of the revolving stage.

Always the gentleman, and a bit like a magician, Mr. Worldwide kept our attention on himself until his ladies were ready to materialize again.

If Your Best Friends Can’t Be There, Get Your New Friends Involved in Helping Entertain.

Not even Pitbull could call upon J.Lo, Usher, Marc Anthony, Kesha and Christina Aguilera to all attend his Rodeo party and sing their parts in his hits, so while their recorded presence was there Friday night, he also asked the rest of us to sing the best lyrics with him. Not only did our singalong bring us closer, now we all can say we understudied brilliantly for Usher.

It Never Hurts to Give Them a Taste of Your Best Attributes

Forget Miley Cyrus, Pitbull is the true master of the tongue flash and wag.

Don’t Be Afraid to Have a Hokey Theme

Sometimes a party with a message can fall flat, but if it’s truly sincere, take a chance. Pitbull did, using stories from his life and rise to fame as an inspiration for his guests to turn negativities and adversities into fuel to make positive changes in our lives and in the world. He let us muse on that final lesson as we headed home, our hips still gyrating away as we went.

Pitbull's Rodeo Set List:

Don’t Stop the Party

International Love

Hey Baby

Danza Kuduro

Sube Las Manos Pa' Arriba

Fireball

After the Rain

I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)

On the Floor

I Like It

DJ Got Us Falling in Love

Hotel Room

Timber

Feel this Moment

Give Me Everything

Pitbull brought out the largest Houston Rodeo crowd of the year.

Photo by Chinh Phan

Pitbull brought out the largest Houston Rodeo crowd of the year.

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Movie Review

Live action Lilo & Stitch remake offers up frenzied fun and nostalgia

Courtesy of Disney

Lilo & Stitch returns to theaters this weekend.

The project to turn every single Disney animated movie into a “live action” film has rarely seemed like anything but a money grab by the movie studio. Most of the films have failed to update the original in any meaningful way, and in many of the cases, they’re almost shot-for-shot remakes, making the reason for the new film’s existence even more confusing.

Having almost exhausted the supply of their 20th century movies, Disney has now remade 2002’s Lilo & Stitch. The film follows an alien experiment, originally known as 626 (voiced by Chris Sanders), created by Jumba ( Zach Galifianakis) for the benefit of an alien race led by the Grand Councilwoman (Hannah Waddingham). Unfortunately, 626 is too uncontrollable for them, and is banished to the faraway planet known as Earth.

Landing in Hawaii, the creature soon to be known as Stitch gloms on to a young girl named Lilo (Maia Kealoha), who mistakes it for a dog while looking for companionship following the death of her parents. Tracked by Jumba and fellow alien Pleakley (Billy Magnussen), now in human form, Stitch leaves a trail of destruction wherever he goes, much to the chagrin of Lilo’s older sister, Nani (Sydney Agudong).

Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp and written by Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes, the film will surely be a blast of nostalgia for anyone who was a kid when the original came out. The now-3D Stitch is just as chaotic as ever, and they even included cast members from the first film like Tia Carrere (now playing a social worker for the orphaned sisters) and Amy Hill as a kindly neighbor.

But for all of the frenzied fun that Stitch offers, there’s very little else that holds the story together. For one, the Lilo character as a real person doesn’t work as well as she does in animated form, as there’s something fluid that happens in animation that feels stilted when it’s an actual little girl. Perhaps sensing this fault, the film is loaded to the hilt with bite-sized moments that try to make the audience laugh, but do little to give the story any meaning.

The difference between animation and live action is never more evident than with Jumba, Pleakley, and CIA agent Cobra Bubbles (Courtney B. Vance). Characters that are goofy and enjoyable in animated form come off as weird and off-putting in human form. They’re supposed to bring a sense of fun and even suspense to the film, but instead they feel like characters who are getting in the way of a better story.

Kealoha, making her professional debut, is definitely cute and offers up some interesting moments opposite Stitch and Nani, but her lack of experience shows. Agudong turns in the best performance, giving a bit of emotional weight to a film that needed more. Galifianakis and Magnussen would have been better served as voice-only roles; neither comes off well when their characters turn into humans. Hill is like a warm hug every time she comes on screen, and the story could have used more of her.

The new Lilo & Stitch is not an abomination, but like most of the Disney live action remakes before it, it fails to stand on its own merits. Never given a chance to be its own thing and featuring storytelling too disjointed to be effective, the film is another so-so effort from a studio that knows how to make much better movies.

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Lilo & Stitch is now playing in theaters.

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