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    Aftershocks

    It's official: Only Houston could save Real Housewives from itsfranchise-killing Miami mess

    Joseph Campana
    Theodore Bale
    Mar 30, 2011 | 11:17 am
    • Adrianna's strip tease wasn't exactly a high note for the "Real Housewives"franchise.
    • When you miss Danielle Staub's drama, you know it's been a rough season.
    • Andy Cohen might want to rethink his stance on Houston. Especially if he wantsto keep this cash-cow franchise alive.

    Don’t look for flipped tables or yanked extensions in Miami.

    You know you’re in Real Housewives trouble if your franchise is replaced by a show called Pregnant in Heels. That’s right. After a surprisingly short season, the five saucy spitfires of Florida find themselves displaced by a nanny concierge.

    We can’t really tell you what a nanny concierge is, but here are six reasons why it’s twilight of The Real Housewives, at least in Miami.

    Your most exciting character is a woman who describes herself as “nearly 99 ½ .” Marysol’s mystifying mom did it again for us. As she looks over Marysol’s gorgeous wedding photos, she can’t get enough of her daughter, who looks like “royalty” while her new son-in-law looks like “a bodyguard protecting your mink.” We suspect she’ll warm to Philippe and she certainly held court at Marysol’s misguided cooking lesson party. This brings us to our next reason.

    Your brand new French husband, the one with a sexy Rugby player’s build, is hawking frozen fish at your “elegant” dinner party. When it’s her turn to impress the gals at yet another cooking ‘n’ cocktails soirée, the best Marysol can do is invite Philippe to introduce his new line of healthy pre-packaged foods. At least Marysol has gone to the trouble of providing each guest with a monogrammed chef jacket.

    “You can dress like a chef and it will taste like a chef [sic]” chimes Philippe as he cuts through a plastic bag he’s just pulled from a pot of boiling water.

    The other women watch as if it were some kind of failed joke. “I feel like I’m on an infomercial,” Alexia exclaims, and we know just what she means.

    When Philippe finishes his presentation of flaked, pre-cooked salmon with a few diced tomatoes, we wondered if he would place the plate on the floor for his over-privileged and hungry house cat.

    Your show keeps staging the same failed dinner party (with psychic) as if it’s Groundhog Day and even Bill Murray couldn’t save you. We knew from the first terrible party at Lea Black’s house that no good could come from these “cooking lessons.”

    No one learned to cook, but the girls were great with knives. Elsa shows up in stylish sunglasses and what looks a like a Roberto Cavalli frock, and there wasn’t enough wine in Philippe’s well-stocked refrigerator to dull the shrill voice of Larsa Pippen.

    When Adriana asks for one of Elsa’s famous readings, Elsa plays coy, saying, “I’m very expensive, darling!” Larsa shrieks that she doesn’t believe in psychics, but then goads Elsa into reading her vibes.

    “I like you very much,” Elsa says, “but you’re emotionally immature.” Worse still, “you’re worried about a man, your man.” She doles out kinder words for Lea, Adrianna, and Alexia before telling Cristy that her split from NBA star Glenn Rice was her own fault.

    In a video diary Larsa shrieks, “I’m the most stable person here” before attacking the other wives for their many divorces and children. Elsa must be the problem, she concludes: “My mom always gave me a pat on the back and told me I was fabulous, so I grew up thinking everything I did was great.”

    Well, a girl can dream. Elsa says it best later. “Stupid and redundant,” she calls them, and, “a bunch of people who probably didn’t even go to high school. I don’t remember anything intelligent or even funny they said. They are Miss Nobodies.”

    We couldn’t have said it any better. Come on, Bravo, give Elsa her own show. We’re sure she can reverse the Miami ratings slide.

    You need a Canyon Ranch vacation and newly-learned stripper moves to get a man to marry you. Adrianna and Frederic spirit themselves away for an erotic mud bath to discuss future plans. Within seconds Frederic agrees to marry her, adopt her son and tell-off her ex-husband. All of this happens before she performs the strip tease she’s been practicing with a coach.

    We’d hoped to be spared an unseemly display. But when she whips off a gold lame dress to reveal a chintzy red negligee and stutters “I work in a strip club” in some pale imitation of longing, we found ourselves missing Danielle “Garbage” Staub of New Jersey Housewives fame.

    Your son aspires to a modeling career, which excites you more than it excites him. Alexia is full of girlish anticipation when she brings her 17-year-old son Peter to meet Ron, a high-powered Miami modeling agent.

    “He came out in Ocean Drive Magazine!” she says of his one and only gig. Surely, it’s just a small step up to the cover of GQ!

    Alexia is practically drooling when Peter has to take off his shirt for the photographer, and her voice-over reminds us that he’s beautiful and he has a beautiful body. Perhaps, but he doesn’t look like high-fashion material to us, and once the photographer leaves, he’s quick to yell at Mom for not preventing him from stuffing himself before the shoot.

    “Of course I’m gonna show a little belly after that,” he retorts. “You’re ready to model for Calvin Klein!” she insists. Haven’t we seen this unfortunate dialogue played out before, in New Jersey and Orange County?

    Even a celebrity chef and fresh organic produce can’t save your disastrous luncheon.The crass Lea Black, in a white ruffled collar that reminds us of a paint-by-number clown portrait, decides to surprise the other housewives with a two-hour SUV limousine drive out of Miami. When they arrive at Paradise Farms to enjoy a meal cooked by none other than Michelle Bernstein, all the women can do is complain about the heat and the bugs.

    And on top of it, they have to harvest their own vegetables! Even a sampling of some fresh clitoria flowers (“it tastes just like honeysuckle!” farm owner Gabriele Marewski exults) doesn’t lift the mood.

    Marysol looks like a goth chicken in her black-feathered hat. When Larsa pipes up with, “My mom is even a bigger bitch than your Mom,” Marysol just goes silent. That remark would have flipped a table in New Jersey. Here it just dampens the already humid crowd. Cristy pines for a cheeseburger, and Larsa wonders if the multiple stray dogs have been pissing on the produce.

    The wise Chef Bernstein busies herself softening some rhubarb and mostly ignores them. “To make Michelle Bernstein and us drive all the way there to pick some weeds and put them in a bowl was a waste of time,” complains Alexia, and we couldn’t agree more.

    It seems there’s no better place to jump the shark than in Miami. The beaches are great, but we hate to see this flop of a franchise stealing all the best bits from the other Housewives only to ruin them.

    Bravo, get your act together. Find us more terrifyingly frivolous hausfraus with rude psychic sidekicks, slick stripper poles, indifferent children, weekly charity events and drunken cat fights.

    Are you sure you won’t try Houston?

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    Movie Review

    Over-the-top acting and incoherent plot drag down Her Private Hell

    Alex Bentley
    Jul 23, 2026 | 3:00 pm
    Sophie Thatcher in Her Private Hell
    Photo courtesy of Neon
    Sophie Thatcher in Her Private Hell.

    Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn is not someone who plays nice with the general film world. His 2011 film Drive introduced him to American audiences in a big way, but that pulsating thriller was followed up with artier films like Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon that eschewed coherent plots in favor of moody, atmospheric pieces.

    Winding Refn, who hasn’t made a feature film in 10 years, has gone fully down the rabbit hole with Her Private Hell. Taking place in a liminal space that kind of resembles Earth but also feels like someone’s dreams/nightmares, the film focuses on Elle (Sophie Thatcher), an actor currently starring in a sci-fi film. Staying at a hotel with newcomer Hunter (Kristine Froseth), the two bond over their shared passion and the legend of Elle’s father, Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott), who’s now married to Elle’s friend Dominique (Havana Rose Liu).

    After spending a good amount of (mostly incomprehensible) time with that group, Refn introduces Private K (Charles Melton), who seems to be living in post-World War II Japan. He is looking for his daughter, who might have been taken by a mysterious figure known as “Leatherman,” and he will stop at nothing to find her, fighting whoever stands in his way.

    It becomes clear almost right away that Winding Refn has no desire to engage in traditional storytelling in this film. The main characters wander through neon-drenched streets and buildings, which are often surrounded by a mist that is referred to on multiple occasions but never explained. Everyone speaks as if in a constant state of wonderment, and there are many moments where it’s unclear if events are actually happening, part of a movie-within-a-movie, or something else entirely.

    Unlike his previous films, Winding Refn has taken the characters in this film completely out of the real world, with every scene taking place in a sparsely decorated room or street that is obviously a movie set. While there are moments where this decision really works, especially the striking first shot of a human-like figure mixed in with a cityscape and clouds, most of the time it only adds to the stilted nature of the film as a whole.

    In fact, the entire movie has the feel of an avant-garde theater exercise. Every actor seems to be trying to outdo the others with awkward performances and out-sized reactions. Two very specific characters make appearances in both sides of the story for seemingly no reason other than to inject their weirdness into both spaces. The shocking violence that crops up on occasion would have more of an impact if it was related to anything intelligible.

    Thatcher (Companion) and Liu (Tuner) are among the young stars who have had breakout moments in recent years, but neither of them is served well by this hot mess of a movie. They, along with Melton, still demonstrate the talent they possess, but the oddity of the film weighs them down. Scott makes an impression for all the wrong reasons, while Froseth is called upon to play a character who might as well not be there at all.

    If there’s any kind of message that Winding Refn was trying to convey with Her Private Hell, it’s lost among the flashing lights, overload of pink, and jewel-like structures. Filmmakers who try to make art for art’s sake have a place in the world, but this film too often feels like people are making things up as they go, with no real goal in mind.

    ---

    Her Private Hell opens in theaters on July 24.

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