Unfair Advantage

The fix is in on Dancing with the Stars: The Hines Ward win proves the ballroomfloor is unlevel

Kym Johnson_Hines Ward
ABC
Mark Ballas and Kristi Yamaguchi in 2008
ABC
Emmitt Smith and Cheryl Burke in 2006
ABC

Professional football player Hines Ward took home the much-desired mirror ball (Why don't they just call it a disco ball?) in the latest Dancing with the Stars finale.

Not to take away from the happy winner, but it looks like something sketchy is going on with mirror ball champs in general. All but three of the 12 winners are either athletes or have musical performance experience. Doesn't this put them at an unfair advantage going into each season to begin with?

Let's take a look:

Drew Lachey, Season Two, Former 98 Degrees Member

Lachey got his start in a boy band. While he didn't have the sweet dance moves of Justin Timberlake, his obvious knowledge of music and rhythm puts him ahead of of the rest of the pack.

Let's be honest, was ESPN anchor Kenny Mayne really going to have a chance against someone who had made a career of bouncing around to the beat of pop songs in music videos? Probably not.

Emmitt Smith, Season Three, Former Professional Football Player

Being the all-time NFL rushing leader probably takes a little bit of agility. Ballroom dancing? Takes a lot of agility. The same agility that put Smith into the records brought him the mirror ball in 2006.

The perceived novelty of having a former NFL player win a dancing competition probably didn't hurt his vote accumulation either.

Apolo Anton Ohno, Season Four, Olympic Speedskater

He had won a gold medal in Turin at the 2006 Winter Olympics, and based on the fact that he competed (and did very well) in the 2008 World Championships, I'd say he hadn't exactly been sitting on the couch eating potato chips while watching reruns of Sex and the City.

His intense level of fitness probably contributed to him getting out of the gate well ahead of voice actor John Ratzenberger.

Kristi Yamaguchi, Season Six, Olympic Figure Skater

Figure skating is basically dancing in ice skates. Yes, I realize there is a very distinct difference between figure skating and ice dancing, but the premise is basically the same thing.

Choreography on ice. Not too much different from choreography on wood floors.

Shawn Johnson, Season Eight, Olympic Gymnast

DWTS loves those Olympians, don't they? Part of being a well-rounded gymnast is the floor routine, which is suspiciously similar to dancing. Gymnasts are also accustomed to flips and other acrobatic maneuvers, making them more easily adaptable to partnering lifts.

Much like Ohno, it is reasonable to assume that Johnson was very much already in shape before her championship season on DWTS began.

Donny Osmond, Season Nine, No Introduction Necessary

He starred in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Beauty and the Beast (as Gaston) on Broadway. Did I mention he was a teen idol? He's been performing his entire life and is no stranger to being in front of people.

It's unlikely that Osmond suffered any type of dance-killing stage fright while on DWTS.

Nicole Scherzinger, Season 10, Former Pussycat Doll

Before she was a reality TV judge and a Pussycat Doll, Scherzinger was a member of Eden's Crush. Remember them?

Didn't think so. They were put together on the WB reality series Popstars in 2001. Based on the video for their song Get Over Yourself (Goodbye), it looks like the gig required some dancing.

Nothing too strenuous, but still enough to give her an edge on the competition. And she had experience dancing in heels, which definitely gave her an advantage.

Jennifer Grey, Season 11, Dirty Dancing Star

I'm pretty sure that lift she did with Patrick Swayze in the Kellerman's talent show wasn't just luck. A lot of training went into that — in the studio, not just the lake.

Even though Grey was quite a bit older when she began Dancing with the Stars and had suffered a neck injury in the late 1980s, dancing is like riding a bike. And her obvious base of talent put her ahead of the likes of Bristol Palin.

Hines Ward, Season 12, Professional Football Player

He was a Super Bowl MVP. He's currently a wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Like with Emmitt Smith, it probably takes a fair bit of agility to be a good wide receiver. The difference between Ward and Smith?

Ward is still an active player. He's clearly in impeccable physical shape since he played in Super Bowl XLV six weeks before the start of the show.

Is it fair that people who are accustomed to the physical and mental intensity of preparing for a competition like DWTS are included on the show? Shouldn't the ballroom floor be a little more level?

unspecified

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.

---

Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

movies film

Unfair Advantage

The fix is in on Dancing with the Stars: The Hines Ward win proves the ballroomfloor is unlevel

Houston's richest residents, best suburbs, and more top city news in 2025

Eagerly-anticipated Houston barbecue joint hosts weekend preview pop-ups

Trader Joe's sets Cypress opening date, confirms Bellaire plans

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess