This girl is on fire

This girl is on fire: Alicia Keys spreads message of love, empowerment in emotional Rodeo return

The power of Alicia Keys could be felt the moment she stepped onto the stage at NRG Stadium. Keys hasn’t performed at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo since 2005 and judging by the attendance of 73,660 at this year’s show, she was sorely missed.

Clad in black leather from head to toe, she owned every song as the headliner on Black Heritage Day, starting with the opening number “Karma.”

Keys had the audience moving to a medley of hits including “28 Thousand Days” and “Unbreakable” to the more recent “Pawn It All” and “Blended Family (What You Do For Love)” from her sixth studio album, Here.

I already knew Keys was talented but hearing her live for the first time reminded me of what I like about her as an artist. She brings raw emotion to every word, and I never realized that more than listening to her live on the piano. Each note flowed beautifully into the other as she made an atmosphere that could potentially feel isolated because of the rotating stage seem like she was playing a show for a small circle of friends.

“We’re having a really intimate basement party tonight. And I feel like, if we were in my basement right now, I would want to play a song that sounded like this,” Keys said as she led into “You Don’t Know My Name.”

Keys weaved upbeat songs into the mix, but let’s face it, fans who are familiar with her know, she’s good at getting into your soul on those ballads. “If you’re with me tonight, and you’re here for love, I was wondering if you could help me illuminate the sky with your phones,” Keys said. “Put a light in the air because life is precious.”

The stadium instantly glowed and that’s when she started playing “Like You’ll Never See Me Again.” She took her time with it and from the cheering, it sounded like the crowd appreciated the chance to hit those high notes with her. You know those times when you’re really into a song and you have to hold your ear and raise your hand in the air just to reach the note? It was kind of like that.

She followed up with “If I Ain’t Got You” and later, the song that first put her on the map, “Fallin.’”

Keys turned up the energy – and the heat – with one specific observation about the Bayou City. “That’s what I like about Houston. It’s all warm and toasty, kind of sweaty and sticky,” Keys said playfully, using that as a springboard to dive into the tropical and Latin-beat influenced “In Common."

“Let’s dance. I want everybody to just dance with me. Be free. Let it go,” Keys added with a smile.

Indeed, every move she made reflected the joy that comes from someone who loves what they do. That passion was fed right back to her from the audience as Keys launched into “Girl on Fire” and “No One,” two songs that I even heard people in the packed Press Box belting out.

Keys also worked in “The Gospel,” “Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart,” and “Work on It” before ending on “Empire State of Mind,” giving a nod to Houston where she would normally pay homage to her own hometown, New York City.

Right before Keys left the stage, she had one final thing to say. “I want to thank you for your love. I want to thank you for welcoming me here to your beautiful town.”

And if a full stadium is any indication, fans were happy to have her back.

Set List:
Karma
The Gospel
28 Thousand Days
You Don't Know My Name
Unbreakable
Pawn It All
Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart
Like You'll Never See Me Again
If I Ain't Got You
Work on It
Fallin'
Blended Family (What You Do For Love)
In Common
Girl on Fire
No One
Empire State of Mind

The power of Alicia Keys could be felt the moment she stepped on the stage at NRG Stadium.

Photo by Michelle Watson/CatchLight Group

The power of Alicia Keys could be felt the moment she stepped on the stage at NRG Stadium.

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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