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Pop CultureJune 30, 2015

Dancing With the Stars: Power Rankings, Week Five – Stepping Up to the Eye of the Tiger at Twilight

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I love the films, me. In fact, the only thing I love more than a lovely film is a lovely, lovely episode of Dancing With the Stars NZ. You should have seen my face when I found out my two favourite things were colliding! Oh the possibilities! Oh the opportunities for beautiful homages to the most iconic onscreen dances of all time! There would be Singing in the Rain, there would be Dirty Dancing, there would be a over the top yet disarmingly sexual Saturday Night Fever by Simon Barnett. How could it possibly go wrong?

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Oh. X Men. Never mind.

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Teuila and Scott were sent packing this week after their free Armageddon expo sideshow act went massively awry. When I saw awry, I just mean that it happened. What a treacherous world. Not even this overwhelmed audience member’s massively misguided support could save them:

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Farewell Teuila, may you leave knowing that mankind has always feared what it doesn’t understand. And nobody out here understood the thinking behind X Men: The Musical. Your fate was sealed when it was revealed that you were literally dancing with the devil, anywho.

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Onto the rest.

1) Pam Corkery

They said it couldn’t be done. They said no way can you possibly find a way to keep involving Pam in your rankings, now that she has been eliminated. Well, naysayers, these are my power rankings. Pam jived onto the Jono and Ben couch on Friday night, and served up even more reasons as to why she deserves to still be on our TV screens.

Reason one: compelling magic chucks with no laces

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Reason two: hilarious jokes

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2) Simon Barnett 

Simon and Vanessa’s Rocky-inspired paso doble to ‘Eye of the Tiger’ was, truly, with every inch of my sincerity, sensational. Simon did some incredible things with that versatile cape, which makes me think that if the dancing thing doesn’t work out, nor the broadcasting thing, he can launch a career in multi-scarf-use modelling.

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As if his cape shenanigans weren’t enough to get the punters texting in, he locked down his position as winner of this show (I’m calling it) with a casual rest home visit that melted my face and heart into approximately this.

What should they have done with the theme?

To really pay tribute to Rocky, Simon should have jogged his Dad bod right up those stairs triumphantly only to get massively pummelled by Shane Cameron. Bruised and bleeding, he would fight his way through the audience dramatically yelling “GAAAAAAARRRRYYYYYYY, GAAAAARRRRRY”. Gary would burst through the SPP doors at the last minute wearing a beret.

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Or, they could have just scrapped the whole Rocky thing and gone straight for an interpretive dance inspired entirely by the Jeepers Creepers franchise.

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And let’s not even TALK about Candy’s Dad thing. We simply don’t have time.

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3) Shane Cameron 

First up, how good was it seeing Shane in his house? He lives in an actual house! They don’t chain him up in the SPP carpark at night like King Kong! We met his partner and his child who, after devouring a healthy© delicious© and nutritious© bowl of Special K© , clearly became the cinematic superhero this town deserves:

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Shane and Nerida paid tribute to both Scent of a Woman, and their own couple-at-a-restaurant narrative of yesterweek. To help them in their heartwrenching story? The most wonderful and into-it audience extras that money definitely didn’t buy:

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What should they have done with the theme?

Blindfolded Shane and led him through a military obstacle course. His only sensory guide? Nerida’s perfume. I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen Scent of a Woman.

4) Chrystal Chenery 

Chrystal did a saucy Burlesque-inspired number, that as Candy pointed out, also paid homage to Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Which, for a show that kids watch, is a totally fine thing to reference. Never mind bloody Burlesque, or Basic Instinct: check out this lady who is clearly Single White Female-ing Hayley Holt!!!

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What should they have done with the theme?

Scrapped Burlesque completely and gone for an inspired Good Will Hunting theme, featuring Chrystal’s signature “bum dance” and iconic movie misquote:

5) Siobhan Marshall

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It was all about Les Miserablés, with a romantic slow jig to ‘On My Own’ allowing Siobhan and Charlie to squeeze in about 400 lifts. That’s all good and well, but what frightened me the most was not this timeless tale of unrequited love in 19th Century France – but the fact that neither of them had any conceivable feet to speak of. Horrifying.

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What should they have done with the theme?

Recreated the only part I remember about Les Mis: the world’s worst foley bone-break as acted out by Russell Crowe during his suicide in the 2012 remake. Siobhan would leap dramatically into the water (the water is Charlie draped in a blue tarp) and pretend to break her back with the foley assistance of a thousand snapping baguettes (the audience are handed the baguettes before the performance by catering.

6) Ben Barrington

I just think Ben Barrington thinks Twilight is real.

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He said he wanted their slow jig to look like a deleted scene from New Moon, which is a lot less dancing and a lot more Bella lying on some moss biting her lip. You can play the moss, Ben. It would really show your range.

What should they have done with the theme?

Obviously re-enacted Twilight’s thunderstorm baseball scene set to ‘Supermassive Black Hole’. Dom Bowden can be the baseball bat and they can use one of the 11 studio disco balls as the baseball. It would have been an arena spectacular and only about three people would have had to sacrifice their lives.

7) Jay Jay Harvey

When I saw the pom poms, I was absolutely amping for some Bring it On spirit fingers. Alas, Jay Jay opted for the iconic prance as seen in Step Up 2. I was deeply distracted by the pom poms, to the point where I couldn’t even tell you if Jay Jay was even in the dance.

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What should they have done with the theme?

Jay Jay should have opted for the route of another iconic Step Up alumni and gone full Magic Mike with it. With Mike Puru as her stand-in dance partner, obviously. It’s probably in his contract somewhere.

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