Real Housewives Recap

Real Housewives of Dallas has its cake but barely dishes out crumbs

Stephanie Hollman of the Real Housewives of Dallas.

Photo courtesy of Bravo

With only two episodes left, we are in the final laps of Real Housewives of Dallas. By now it’s clear that this will not be one of the gems in Bravo producer-creator Andy Cohen’s dazzling collection of women-with-money reality shows.

This week’s episode was its most lackluster yet, and one thing a Housewives hour must never be is lacking luster. These shows should come off as Jackie Collins novels come to life, with impossibly pretty women, cavernous mansions, lavish vacations, and, if they do it right, steamy hints of illicit sex in exotic locales. It’s what first spiked ratings for Real Housewives of Orange County, the original in the multi-spin-off cable TV franchise. (It returns afresh June 20.)

No such luck with RHOD. They’re rich, all right, but not mega and certainly not sophisticated. The Dallas cast members have potty mouths and lousy taste in clothes. Their husbands are dull-eyed and seem to regard their spouses as possessions, particularly Travis Hollman, whose birthday is a centerpiece of this week’s show.

He treats wife Stephanie like a child, leaving her lists of tasks that must be checked off each day (something he says his mother always did). When Stephanie begs him to let her make a decision on her own, he acts like she’s asked him for a kidney.

Travis’ party, held downtown at The Mitchell bar, has a Great Gatsby theme. Travis’ birthday parties always have a theme, Stephanie says, because “it’s such a huge dill.” That’s how she says “deal.” Rilly. (He wasn’t happy with his previous year’s gift from his wife: a certificate for laser back-hair removal.)

Stephanie decides on the Gatsby motif with no indication of having ever read the great American novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Maybe she saw the latest movie version starring Leo DiCaprio, who’s about as Gatsby-esque as Travis Hollman, meaning not even remotely.

To find period costumes, Steph and best friend Brandi Redmond (the designated speed-weeper and troublemaker of RHOD) head to Whatchamacallit, a prom dress resale boutique. They buy long, low-cut, sequined-and-feathered things. Their vision of the Great Gatsby is less 1920s chic flapper and more pageant evening-gown competition from the early 2000s.

Minor drama ensues when Stephanie frets about inviting both Brandi and her on-show nemesis, LeeAnne “carny kid turned charity angel” Locken, to the party. She does, of course, and we are treated to the arrival at the event of LeeAnne and her pal Tiffany Hendra, who’ve ignored the Gatsby theme and dressed as bewigged hookers from old reruns of Adam-12.

Stephanie, always seeking Travis’ approval, asks again and again if he likes the party. In his novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald described Gatsby’s love interest Daisy Buchanan as having a “voice full of money.” Stephanie’s voice is full of helium.

In the after-party just for the two of them, Steph jumps out of a fake cake and squeak-sings “Happy Birthday” for Travis, who then asks her to do a lap dance. She refuses “because my name isn’t Cinnamon.” It’s the only sign of wit Stephanie’s exhibited in eight weeks of shows.

Other things that happened this week are almost too low-key to recap. LeeAnne and her man Rich, who’s had about 11 seconds of airtime, have a quick lunch at True Food Kitchen for no real reason plot-wise. She then is seen giving a motivational speech to a women’s group, which plays like an audition for the speaking circuit.

Cary and Mark Deuber throw a little birthday do for their 3-year-old daughter. Mark complains that the cake isn’t chocolate. It isn’t your party, Dr. Deuber.

As this series winds to a close, with no indication from Bravo of a second season, it’s sinking in how differently RHOD portrays Dallas women — all over-blushed cheeks, lacquered hair, and consignment couture — from Dallas itself. There are aerial shots of the distinctive skyline, swoops over a glistening Trinity, that this week seemed to be teeming with houseboats (?), and glimpses of unclogged freeways where cars appear to be moving at designated speed limits.

Unlike the scenes on this show, that’s some beautiful fantasy right there.

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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

Comedy all-stars Jack Black and Paul Rudd can't save Anaconda sequel

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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