Dallas celebrity chef Stephan Pyles welcomed the cast of Ballroom With a Twist, aka a traveling Dancing With the Stars, to San Salvaje for the official cast party.
After a successful show at the Music Hall at Fair Park, a posse comprising Cheryl Burke, Karina Smirnoff, Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Tony Dovolani headed to the modern Latin restaurant, where the staff was ready and waiting. Other BWAT cast members — including Legacy Perez, Jenna Johnson and Randi Lynn Strong — as well as former Bachelor and DWTS castmember Sean Lowe and wife Catherine, also hit up the Arts District hot spot, bringing the tally to more than 30 singers and dancers.
Tony Dovolani was the life of the party, showing that trademark charm and charisma his fans adore.
Dovolani was the life of the party, showing that trademark charm and charisma his fans adore. He and Smirnoff created quite a stir on the patio with their smoking hot moves, causing passersby to snap photos and drivers to roll down their windows to get a better look.
Salsa band Fifo Y Su Combo impressed the group so much that they opted to hire the band for another hour. Sources also tell us that Burke and Smirnoff were dolls throughout the evening, never letting their celebrity status get in the way of a little Texas fun.
If you were inspired by this dance party, you can create your own: San Salvaje has live Latin music and dancing every Friday and Saturday, from 9 pm to midnight.
Among the complicated figures in pop culture history, Michael Jackson has to be at or near the top. On one hand, he’s responsible for some of the most enduring music of all time, thrilling generations with his voice and dance moves. But his later years were marred by accusations of child sexual abuse and erratic behavior, including his premature death at the age of 50.
So the new biopic Michael is a tough one to judge from a critical standpoint, not least because director Antoine Fuqua and writer John Logan have elided - perhaps temporarily - the thornier parts of Michael’s history. Instead, this film focuses on the 20-year period in which Michael (played as an adult by Michael’s nephew Jaafar Jackson) goes from the prepubescent lead singer of the Jackson 5 to one of the biggest music superstars of all time.
That choice puts an overly sympathetic tint to Michael’s story, as he spends most of that time under the thumb of his domineering father, Joseph (Colman Domingo). Joseph has a vision for Michael and his brothers, and he pushes them hard in a quest to become rich and famous. Even when they achieve that goal, though, Joseph refuses to let up, holding onto Michael even when it’s clear he should go out on his own.
As a reminder of the enormous impact Michael Jackson had on the music industry and world at large, the film is successful. Fuqua and Logan include plenty of music, naturally, but they seem to be most interested in depicting Michael as a human being. They lay it on thick, whether it’s showing him spending time among his family members away from the stage, hanging out with bodyguard Bill Bray (KeiLyn Durrel Jones), or visiting sick kids in hospitals. The message that Michael is a harmless, good person couldn’t be clearer.
The film hints at but doesn’t really explore Michael’s oddities. His obsession with kids literature and movies, especially Peter Pan, are seen as inoffensive quirks, as is his menagerie of animals, including a creepy CGI version of Bubbles the chimp. His arrested development seems to be partially blamed on his parents treating him like a child well into his adulthood, and the resulting fallout is not (yet) addressed.
Many viewers will be most interested in the music sequences, and - save for some repetitive shots of fans fainting at the mere presence of Michael - they are handled well. Whether it’s at home, in the studio, on the set of the “Thriller” video, or at live performances, the film manages to fully get across just what a phenomenon Michael was at his peak. The staging and editing of each scene is dynamic, complementing Michael’s other-worldly abilities well.
If there is one reason to see the film, it is the performance of Jaafar Jackson. Whether he’s capable of doing any other kind of role is undetermined, but his portrayal of his uncle is compelling, as he demonstrates singing, dancing, and acting skills in equal measure. He’s aided by an equally great performance by Domingo, who - with the help of facial prosthetics - overcomes the trope of the bad father. Nia Long and Larenz Tate are also good in smaller roles, but Miles Teller is an odd presence as Michael’s manager.
There are reports that legal complications prevented the filmmakers from using previously-shot scenes delving into accusations against Michael, and there are rumors that a second film will be made about the last 20 years of his life. But that speculation can’t absolve Michael of showing all the positive aspects of Michael Jackson’s life and not even touching any of the negative ones.
