Real Housewives Recap

Awkwardly real reality creeps into Real Housewives of Dallas

Brandi is outwardly bubbly but inwardly sad about her hubs always being away.

Photo courtesy of Bravo

In real life you probably wouldn’t stand alone in a room, stare at your phone, and sigh like a tragic heroine. You most likely wouldn’t plan a sit-down with your best friend in a restaurant to berate her for supposed slights. Or loudly confront another sorta-friend with printed out texts that impugn your character.

In real life, you’d just cross people you’re mad at off the Christmas list, unfriend them on Facebook, and be done with it.

Real Housewives of Dallas — like other “housewives” in the ever-expanding Bravo series franchise — routinely do the unreal versions of de-friending, however. And they do it in heavy makeup. With a camera crew focused on every word and sigh.

Episode six of the 10-episode run of RHOD was chockablock with such amusing nonsense and a moment or two of awkwardly real reality. It’s not news that these shows are hell on marriages. Each incarnation of the popular series has seen couples call it quits. Among the Dallas housewives, it’s Brandi Redmond whose home life is in turmoil at this juncture.

This week Brandi took a break from chugging “Jesus juice” (wine) with giggly best bud Stephanie Hollman to try to reconnect with husband Bryan. He’s out of town on business a lot, leaving Brandi at home in their echo-y mansion with their two little nanny-free daughters.

Brandi, you’re a fine girl. What a good wife you would be if only you could make Bryan understand how lonely you are in your gilded cage. (They’ve been together since high school, so that’s about 20 years a deux.)

Quick with crude jokes and a bit too open with pal Steph about Bryan’s nasty personal habits (chewing his toenails and picking his nose), Brandi is outwardly bubbly but secretly sad. This week she put on a bright orange mini-dress for “date night” with Bryan at Texas de Brazil.

In a tight close-up shot, she nervously orders a martini and tries to tell him she feels neglected and wants more together-time. He sits stone-faced. “I feel like I give you all the attention,” he says.

“I don’t understand you,” Brandi says, so quietly there are subtitles on the screen.

“Okay, dude,” Bryan huffs, “I’ve had enough. I’m done.” Exit Bryan as “sad electronic music plays.” (That’s what the subtitles say.)

This is genuinely awful. We feel you, Brandi. Stay strong. (According to Bravo’s show blogs, the couple is still together.)

Meanwhile, back at other people’s mansions, charity stalwart LeeAnne Locken holds hands and prays aloud with her bestie Tiffany Hendra (rocking a side ponytail that would make Andy Cohen squeal) in the driveway of minor housewife Marie Reyes. They ask for divine guidance for the shouting match about to ensue. Something about nasty text messages Marie has sent to Tiffany about LeeAnne.

None of that is as interesting as Marie’s head ornament in this scene. It seems to be made of entwined twigs. Perhaps she bought it at a sample sale in Middle Earth.

Later in the hour Cary Deuber and plastic surgeon husband Mark shop for glittery dresses at Stanley Korshak, then he works the camera for a photo shoot wherein she doffs her top, revealing some top-grade bazooms, and flips into a handstand while wearing leather pants.

Cary says Mark’s hobbies are “cooking, photography, and sex.” In every shot, he’s on her tighter than Spanx on cellulite.

A teensy crack of discontent is revealed in the seemingly hunky-dory marriage of mega-mansion dwellers Stephanie and Travis Hollman. He wants to control her every move, including her decorating efforts. She says (not to him) that “I want him to trust me.”

Travis objects to the window treatments she’s picked out for their sons’ bedrooms. He says he doesn’t like curtains. So she throws him some shade: “He has the worst taste in the world.”

Exhibit B in her case is then introduced to the jury: huge statues of Samurai warriors guarding the front yard of their suburban palace. Travis bought them and planted them there. “I named them Gayle and Oprah,” Stephanie says.

Brandi and Stephanie are then seen dressing the scowling warriors up with shiny scarves, beads, and other frou-frou. It’s the happiest Brandi has looked in weeks.

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Real Housewives of Dallas airs at 9 pm Mondays on Bravo. You can also watch episodes online.

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Movie Review

Podcaster lets creepy noises get under her skin in Undertone

Photo courtsy of A24

Nina Kiri in Undertone.

While the horror genre is still capable of producing some innovative filmmaking, most of the output tends to fall back on jump scares and other tropes to deliver their terror. So when a film like the new Undertone tries something different, it should be applauded for the effort, even if it’s not as successful in its execution.

Evy (Nina Kiri) is a podcaster who co-hosts a show called Undertone, which focuses on paranormal videos and sounds they find on the internet. Her co-host, Justin (Adam DiMarco), lives in London, so - for kind of contrived reasons - in order to make the time difference between them work, Evy records at around 3 am her time. Evy - who lives at home with her bedridden, dying mother - is the skeptic of the two, consistently debunking clips that Justin presents to her.

Her doubts are tested when Justin brings in a series of 10 audio clips that purport to be about a boyfriend recording his girlfriend as she talks in her sleep. The audio begins in a lighthearted manner and quickly turns creepy and then sinister as unexplained things start happening. Evy senses that what she’s hearing is bleeding into her own world, especially when inexplicable actions take place in her mother’s bedroom.

Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Ian Tuason, the film is effective early on when it introduces the story concept. Making great use of sound design, Tuason essentially puts the audience inside Evy’s head, where every little sound is heightened. Setting the podcast sessions in the middle of the night ups the anxiety level for both her and the audience.

However, as the film goes along it gets a little tedious watching Evy listen to the audio, even as Tuason attempts to keep the film dynamic by moving the camera around her. The premise of the story - progressively going through 10 clips - and Tuason’s framing of shots that focus as much on the background as they do on Evy seem to promise more interesting results than actually transpire.

What ultimately holds the film down more than anything is its lack of different viewpoints. The only other person who’s actually seen is Evy’s mother, who is unable to speak. Evy speaks to Justin, another friend, and a doctor over the course of the story, and while each broadens our understanding of Evy somewhat, none of them make her a truly three-dimensional person. Getting a little more information about her history might have helped the story work better.

Kiri does her level best to vary her acting in the various podcast scenes, and even when they start to get repetitive, she remains compelling and watchable. It’s difficult to judge the other actors based on audio alone, but knowing that DiMarco also starred in season 2 of The White Lotus helps to visualize him and his acting style.

Undertone does well in creating a spine-chilling mood, but it needed something beyond that to become a truly great horror movie. Tuason shows some promise as a filmmaker, especially in the way he uses the camera to create tension, but a more complete story will serve him better the next time around.

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Undertone is now playing in theaters,

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