TV Review - RHONY Season 5

For me, admitting to watching any of the `Real Housewives` franchises is like suffering thorough a bout of colitis: painful, tiresome and embarrassing to talk about. But here we are, another season, another gaggle of horrible shrews behaving badly.

This season of the `Real Housewives of New York` has been going on for a couple of months now and so far, YAWN. The folks at Bravo jettisoned some of the dead weight from the cast (Cindy Barshop, we hardly knew ye) and added some new, equally shameless broads:


Aviva: mother of four, native New Yorker, cousin (by marriage) to Fran "Bobbi Flekman" Dresher and actual real housewife! She's also missing a leg, which they mention in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. What she lacks in limbs, she makes up for in phobias. Girlfriend is afraid of everything: elevators, flying, heights, farm equipment (understandable, since that's what ripped off her leg). Or maybe she just uses them as an excuse to avoid doing humiliating things (e.g. hang out with the other Housewives).


Heather: zaftig owner/driving force behind something called "Yummie Tummie", which is not a fat free frozen yogurt stand, nor an upper body strengthening device for infants, but is instead a Spanx knockoff. Prone to randomly using "urban" words like, "holla." Winner of "Phoniest Smile" award in high school.


The Kennedy Chick - I think her name is Carole. She is like, Jackie O's grandniece, or something. Friends with lots of bigwigs and at one time had an actual real job as a news producer for ABC. Also, is a princess of some sort, thanks to her dead husband. Why is she on this show? Her pedigree seems legit. Apparently, she's got a book and an upcoming TV pilot to hawk. Despite messed up plastic surgery and horseteeth, seemingly too normal and self-aware to be at all entertaining. Snooze.


Rounding out the cast are the standbys from seasons past: crazy Ramona, stuck-up Luann and slutty Sonja.


Like a microcosm of America, things seem to be shaping up along class lines, with the old money going to battle against the downtrodden nouveau riche. Aviva and Carole, with their "credentials" and "connections" seem to have been recruited in an effort to make the already crass and classless Ramona look even trashier and Sonja even skankier.


So far, there has been nothing going on. Ramona hates Heather for some reason and vice versa, and there is some low-level annoyance brewing between the Countess (Luann) and the Princess (Carole). Most of them went to London together where Sonja stuck her face in the hotel bidet (seems about right). Ramona continued to cash in on her drinking problem by cutting a deal with Target to have her pinot grigio sold there. Did I mention that it comes in a box? Of course it does. Aviva fell down the steps, because SHE HAS ONE LEG. Luann, at 47, is "pulling a Ramona" and trying to get pregnant. HAHAHAHA. The show is still embarrassing, but it's boring, too. Like going to your old college roommate's one-woman show about Sojourner Truth.


If the previews for episodes to come are to be believed, however, it's all going to change next week! Finally, stuff starts happening. When they ran the ad, I was in a stupor after watching a particularly boring episode, but here's what I remember:


- Viva Aviva! Suddenly, she gets something to do and starts laying into people, namely Ramona. Something must go horribly wrong on their current jaunt to Miami where they are hanging out, being friends (?), because in the preview, Aviva busts out the "WHITE TRASH" sash and pins it on Ramona!


- She's also had it with Sonja, apparently. Evidently, the plan to hook Sonja up with Aviva's "sex addict" FATHER did not go according to plan. I don't know - it seemed foolproof. Anyway, in the preview, Aviva calls Sonja out on her sorority girl behavior (i.e. being a sad, drunken mess with her skirt over her head).


- At one point in some future episode, Aviva comes out with this notable quotable: "This isn't about you or me! This isn't about my charity! This is about the kids... WHO DON'T HAVE LEGS!" Awesome. I'll be watching for that exchange alone.

TV Review: Locked Up Abroad

When you see something affiliated with National Geographic, you know it's going to be both classy and educational. There might even be nudity involved, but it will be strictly legit and cultural-like.

Well, there's no nudity in National Geographic Channel's "Locked Up Abroad", but it's plenty educational. And the message is, "Don't be an idiot and smuggle drugs across international borders unless you want your ass thrown in a Thai prison for 30 years."

The show's webpage claims that those "Locked Up Abroad" were just looking for a good time in a foreign land when BAM! they land in a Mexican jail. But every episode I've ever seen goes like this:

1. Some dope goes to Columbia (or other nation renown for drug production). Initially, times are good with partying, ethnic food and cultural music shown in a montage of wacky camera angles as an actor in a bad wig reenacts what went down.

2. Some guys offer the dumbass a ton of money to smuggle massive amounts of cocaine (or heroin) to another country. "Just cover up these 10 lb. bricks of heroin in your suitcase with a towel - no one will ever know it's there."

3. The idiot thinks this is a foolproof plan. Didn't he ever see that "Brokedown Palace" mess? Should have asked himself WWCDD (what would Claire Danes do?) and done the opposite.

4. On the way to the airport, or in the airport itself, the drug mule has the opportunity to abort the mission and chooses not to.

5. Just when he thinks he's gotten away with it after making it through airport security, some guy in a uniform confronts him and DAMN! you get that sinking feeling he must have had when he realized it was all over.

They're spending some coin on this show, because they actually shoot it in the country where the guy is now locked up (abroad). The reenactments are interspersed with video of the perp/victim against a black backdrop, telling his story. Then, towards the end, the camera pans back and you see the backdrop is some old sheet draped across a couple of bunk beds over a latrine and they're shooting it in the guy's jail cell while 14 of his cellmates hang around. Holy moly.

It's all pretty formulaic, so why is it so compelling? Because we've all had that "Oh, crap" moment when we've done something stupid. Except it usually doesn't result in us languishing in a Thai prison for the rest of our lives.

TV Review: Runaway Squad

A&E is offering up some new reality programs to compliment their holy trinity of "Obsessed", "Intervention" and "Hoarders". "Runaway Squad", however, is a departure since rather than dealing with people and their compulsive disorders, it involves a Gene Simmons lookalike and wayward teens.

By virtue of the fact that the word "squad" is in the title, it's automatically awesome. The show follows the exploits of a goon squad of ex-NYPD cops hired to locate kids who are themselves exploited and/or missing. This includes the aforementioned Gene Simmons clone, complete with a Just For Men saturated coif, muscle t-shirt and concealed weapon, his spiral-permed wife, a bald guy, a guy with a big nose, and a dude who stalks the teens on the internet to find out when was the last time they tweeted. They get hired by parents whose teens have taken off for points unknown. Hopefully, they find the kids. In Episode 1, the job was done for them, since the kid returned home on her own.

The entire profession exists in some sort of netherworld of legality: they're not cops, but they go and shake people down (mostly off camera, but probably with said weapons) and presumably can take the kids off the streets against their will. I guess since they're minors and the parents are presumably shelling out the big bucks for the service, it's all good. Plus, the people they're shaking down aren't exactly pillars of society: we're talking about pimps and drug dealers - your general, garden-variety scum.

Watching the process of them narrowing down where the kids might be is fascinating (and probably something that happens on any number of police procedural shows, but I'm not trying to know anything about those). It's also beyond disturbing to follow the paths of these kids and to see how a girl from Long Island can end up in a gang and being held as a prostitute against her will, all at the age of 15.

Evidently, A&E aired this pilot back in December to determine if Gene and co. had the chops to run with a whole series and apparently, they do. So welcome to the home of Candy Finnegan and Dr. Shana, Gene.

TV Review: Dwarf Shows

Have we had enough of these shows about midgets, or what? I swear, every time I turn on the TV there's some new show on basic cable about ice road truckers - who are also little people!

As far as I'm concerned, what kicked it all off was the TLC special, "The Smallest People in the World" featuring poor Sharon, a primordial dwarf with regular-sized teeth. Oh, my word. That'll make you cry. In case you don't know, primordial dwarfism produces people who are teeny tiny, like this dude (no, that's not Photoshopped). It's pretty rare, but like, aren't their lives tough enough without calling them "primordial"? I mean, it doesn't sound nice, because what do you think of when you hear the word "primordial"? Ooze, right? Not nice.

Then that spawned "Little People, Big World" about the tractor-riding drunken Roloff family of dwarves somewhere in the midwest. BORING. They run a pumpkin patch or something and it's all well and good, but who cares?

Then they started with this "Littlest Couple" which I've never seen but I think is about a couple of dwarves trying to have a kid. Whatever.

Then, things started getting really nutty. "The Little Chocolatiers" is yet another show about a confectionery-type company (like "Cake Boss" or "Ace of Cakes"), but is different because it's RUN BY MIDGETS. Are you kidding me? Sigh.

Over on Animal Planet, they've got "Pit Boss", which as far as I can ascertain is about a group that runs an illegal pit bull breeding and dog fighting business but, you guessed it, is comprised of dwarfs (the people, not the pit bulls).

ENOUGH ALREADY WITH THE MIDGETS. If the point of these shows is to show that they are just like "regular people" then LEAVE THEM THE HELL ALONE. Stop trotting them out and making them hop on a step stool in front of the cameras so they can pay for gum at the store. This whole "they're just like us, see?" idea is a crock, because if they were, they wouldn't be on TV. Just let them do their thing!

TV Review: Undercover Boss

So I watched that show Undercover Boss a couple of times. It's the one where some CEO of a billion dollar company puts on a smock and a name tag and pretends to be a normal person for like a week. Then at the end, s/he usually learns Valuable Life Lessons about Blue Collar People and gives them some sort of token gift while everyone claps and faith is restored in Corporate America.

This had the potential to be good ("Let's see what a jerk this guy really is! He can't even operate a cash register!"), but just plays like an extended PR piece. It might as well be called CEOs Are People, Too. Maybe they are, but in the wake of all of this banking bailout/economic crisis nonsense, I'm not in the mood. I'd rather watch a show called Underworld Boss that portrays heads of companies as Satanic minions while minimum wage employees poke them with sharpened hockey sticks.

The Blue Collar types they get to be on the show all go in every day with a smile and scrub toilets like its going out os style. At least one Average Joe per episode seems to be on dialysis. Let's see some real employees, grousing about their paltry salaries (a topic which I've not seen raised yet) talking on cell phones and demanding more smoke breaks.

At the end, the CEO meets with the Magical People he's learned from all week and reveals his true identity. Sometimes he's just like, "Thanks, you're super." Then there's usually some sort of company meeting in a warehouse where the CEO reveals that s/he has been an Undercover Boss for the past week and has done all manner of the mundane, dead-end jobs that everyone in the room does every day (gasp!). They usually show outtakes where the Blue Collar Types are telling the Undercover Boss that he's not cut out to be a tow truck driver. This is to of course, give the illusion that the CEO has a sense of humor about himself and that the regular folks actually somehow have the upper hand.

Another annoying thing is that usually the Blue Collar people on the show are like, "I never dreamed this would happen to me." What? Shaking the hand of a guy who makes 9,000 times your income and probably works half as hard? Let's give everyone a raise instead of just giving Hector every Tuesday afternoon off for his medical treatment.

I'm not buying that marginally bettering the lives of a handful of employees makes the companies or the CEOs profiled any more altruistic. Am I just a jerk?

Movie Review: Orphan.

So I watched this movie "Orphan" last night because it looked dumb and I like movies that are unintentionally funny.

Basically, the theme was, "don't ever adopt a kid in Victorian clothing with a Russian accent". There's even a PSA before the movie starts about adoption and how it doesn't necessarily lead to death and destruction for all involved. How nice.

The movie is about a family with an adorable deaf 4 year-old and a bratty tween son who plays Guitar Hero and looks at contraband Penthouse magazines in his professionally engineered treehouse. The mom - the (only) woman from "The Departed", lost a baby in childbirth and now she and her husband, Peter Saarssssgaaaard are in the market for a new kid to bring home to their totally un-childproof home. Peter is like his generation's Andrew McCarthy or Campbell Scott; he squints his way through scenes and seems to be in danger of bursting into tears at any moment. He's one of those guys who also seems prone to discussing his feelings at great length, and no one wants that mess, so just back away.

Pete and that Maggie Gylleenhaaaaaaal have a baby together in real life. Ramona Saaaarsssgaaaard-Gyllenhaaaal is quite a handle for an infant and let's hope the kid split the difference with the genes and came out looking OK, is all I have to say. I'm sure Mags is a nice gal, but let's get her a supportive bra and some under-eye cream, right?

Anyway, the parents go to this swanky orphanage run by kindly nuns and pick out a kid pretty much based on the fact that she refuses to socialize with anyone else and displays savant-like tendancies. Good move! They bring her home the next day, because apparently picking out an orphan is like ordering something from Amazon and next-day service is available.

If you saw the trailers for this movie, you know where this is all going and I'm not really giving anything away. Soon after the Orphan moves into the Departed-Saarsgard house, things start going awry. The Orphan insists on wearing these ruffled pinafore numbers with velvet ribbons around her neck and wrists, complete with Shirley Temple/Snoop Dogg curls on the head. Hey, parents: RED FLAG.

Next, people start getting maimed and/or killed. It's basically like "The Bad Seed" but set in a house with an open floor plan where no one can have a private conversation without the Orphan lurking around and listening, then glaring in a menacing manner before tiptoeing off behind some architectural element.

Things continue to escalate. The mom considers going back to drinking. The dad cries (naturally).

Then the amazing twist is revealed about the Orphan's true past! I won't give it away, but suffice it to say it was something I jokingly posited as an explanation for this girl's behavior within the first 15 minutes of the movie and I can't believe I was right because it's pretty hilarious. After we find out the truth, the movie really picks up, but unfortunately, it's almost over by then.

Have you seen this film? What did you think?