Working the Stage

Dancing with the Stars hunk crashes Fifth Harmony's RodeoHouston homecoming debut

More than 64,000 fans showed up to see Fifth Harmony make their RodeoHouston debut Friday night at NRG Stadium, and the group told their “Harmonizers” early and often just how much it meant to see them there.

“I want to thank you guys so much for your continuous love and support from the beginning,” member Normani Kordei said. “I mean, there were five girls with a dream.”

Kordei was referencing the number of people in the group before former member Camila Cabello exited last December, making Fifth Harmony a quartet. But Kordei’s current bandmates, Ally Brooke Hernandez, Dinah Jane Hansen, and Lauren Jauregui, didn’t let her linger on that long as they surrounded her on stage to make an announcement that their fans probably already knew: Kordei is competing on the 24^th season of Dancing with the Stars.

What “Harmonizers” likely didn’t expect to see was Kordei’s DWTS partner, Valentin Chmerkovskiy, join them on the stage. He won the Mirrorball trophy with gymnast Laurie Hernandez last season, so we’ll see if he can make it two in a row with Kordei when the new season premieres Monday night (March 20) on ABC 13.

Chmerkovskiy posted a video on Twitter twerking with Kordei's grandmother backstage at the Rodeo and it appears the Fifth Harmony member learned some of her dance skills from granny.

she got from her grams for sure 😍😂 @NormaniKordei #DWTS pic.twitter.com/q7VeA18ooI

— Valentin (@iamValC) March 18, 2017

But before going to the ballroom, Kordei had some unfinished business at the Rodeo, even as her bandmates wished her well on the competition.

“We knew from the day that we met you how phenomenal a talent you are, especially an incredible dancer,” Alley Brooke Hernandez gushed. “We can’t wait to see you on that stage doing outstanding and killing it just like you do out here with us.”

Memories of Selena

To kick things off, Fifth Harmony seemed to throw it back to the legends. Queen’s “We Will Rock You” blared through the stadium as soon as the lights went down and after close to a minute of hearing Freddie Mercury, Fifth Harmony rolled in on a horse-drawn carriage. It reminded me of Selena’s entrance to her RodeoHouston concert at the Astrodome in 1995.

But after that, Fifth Harmony kept the hour-long show focused on their music, performing songs including “That’s My Girl,” “Miss Movin’ On,” “Sledgehammer,” “Boss,” and “All In My Head (Flex).”

Backed up by an all-female band, Fifth Harmony took a timeout from dancing to get personal on “Brave, Honest, Beautiful," written by Meghan Trainor, who is also featured on the song. “I want you to always feel loved, to always feel important because you are, and right now I want you to repeat after me: I am brave, I am honest, I am so beautiful,” member Dinah Jane Hansen said.

Fifth Harmony saved their biggest hits for last, cueing “Worth It” and then dropping an obvious hint about what was coming next. “Our Harmonizers have been ‘working with us.’ We actually have 9 awards because of them,” Hansen said with a smile.

“Work From Home” was the closing song, and no pun intended, but it has worked for the group well. It’s been certified quadruple platinum. It also got the crowd on their feet.

Homecoming for two members

Fifth Harmony’s first performance at the Rodeo was a homecoming of sorts for two members of the group. Hernandez is a Texas native, hailing from San Antonio, and Kordei lives in Houston.

Fifth Harmony wrapped up on the same message they began on: gratitude to be in front of fans, especially in the Lone Star State.

“I’m so blessed to be here. It’s because of you guys we get to go up here on this stage and do exactly what we love to do,” Kordei said. “I’m so grateful and I wouldn’t choose any other place to represent.”

And “Harmonizers” will likely be watching to see how far Kordei makes it on DWTS.

How soon Fifth Harmony will be back in H-town remains to be seen. Their 7/27 tour starts March 25 in Asia.

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Set List:
That’s My Girl
Miss Movin’ On
Sledgehammer
Reflection
This Is How We Roll
Scared of Happy
Write On Me
No Way
Big Bad Wolf
Boss
Not That Kinda Girl
All In My Head (Flex)
Brave Honest Beautiful
Gonna Get Better
Worth It
Work from Home

Fifth Harmony made their RodeoHouston debut Friday night at NRG Stadium, and the group told their “Harmonizers” early and often just how much it meant to see them there.

Photo by Michelle Watson/CatchLight Group

Fifth Harmony made their RodeoHouston debut Friday night at NRG Stadium, and the group told their “Harmonizers” early and often just how much it meant to see them there.

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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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