Movie Review The Damned United

The Damned United (2009) 

Directed by Tom Hooper

Written by Peter Morgan

Starring Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall, Colm Meaney, Jim Broadbent

Release Date March 27th, 2009 

Published November 14th, 2009

Michael Sheen has a knack for playing modern historic Englishmen. He rose to stardom playing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair three times. He gained massive acclaim playing flashy TV presenter David Frost in the Oscar nominee Frost/Nixon. For his latest English icon Sheen tackles an English football legend.

Brian Clough's career as the manager of a soccer club almost went down in infamy. He was the manager of England's number 1 soccer club Leeds United for only 44 days. The story of how he got there and what he did to blow the gig is one of the most bizarre and humiliating stories in the history of soccer.

In 1968 Brian Clough was the manager of a small, 3rd Division soccer club in Derby. His team has just gotten a huge break, they will host a game against the number one club in all of England, Leeds United and Brian plans to host their legendary manager Don Revie. Things do not go as planned. Leeds humiliates Derby, with a little cheating and a lot of talent, and Don Revie blows off Clough completely.

Find my full length review at Cleats.Media

Movie Review Hereafter

Hereafter (2010) 

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Written by Peter Morgan

Starring Matt Damon, Cecile de France

Release Date October 22nd, 2010

Published October 21st, 2010

At 80 years old it appears that Clint Eastwood is ready to start a conversation about death. He's touched on the subject before, in both “Million Dollar Baby” and “Gran Torino,” but that conversation has mostly expressed his futile desire to control his destiny and decide how he goes out. In his new drama “Hereafter” Eastwood begins a conversation about the afterlife that some will find fascinating and others will find unsatisfying.

Matt Damon is ostensibly the star of “Hereafter” as George, a former psychic turned factory worker. George had a very successful business talking to the dead with books and his own website but the inherent sadness of what he did finally forced him to give it up. Now, George keeps to himself out of fear that if he even brushes someone's hand he may pick up some psychic connection to the dead. Needless to say, this has put a crimp in his love life.

Across the globe a French journalist named Marie Lelay (Cécile De France) is on vacation in some unnamed Asian country when it is devastated by a massive tidal wave. Marie is nearly killed and experiences a near death experience. When she returns to Paris to resume her life she finds herself plagued by visions of the hereafter and wanting to know for sure if she had indeed experienced death and proof of an afterlife.

Similar thoughts consume a British youngster named Marcus (Frankie/George McLaren) who has just lost his twin Brother Jason (George/Frankie McLaren). Jason was 12 minutes older and the leader to George's follower personality. Without Jason calling the shots George is unmoored and desperate to find a way to contact Jason in the hereafter. After he is removed from his junkie mom and placed with a nice foster family, George continuously runs away to seek psychics, mediums and any other crackpot promising a glimpse of the afterlife.

These three stories will eventually coalesce into one story in one location and it's a rather jarring use of deus ex machina on the part of director Clint Eastwood and Oscar nominated screenwriter (Peter Morgan). You can forgive the forced and mechanical way the plot trips into one space but it's not easy and requires some serious heavy lifting on the part of star Matt Damon.

Damon is the key to much of what works in “Hereafter.” He plays his psychic wound with a deep, soulful longing that is highly compelling and yet another example of Damon's exceptional talent as a character actor and a movie star. Damon carries off George's ability as a medium with a believable solemnity and sadness. He doesn't want this gift but wields it with care and sensitivity and you believe in it because he does.

French actress Cecile De France is an astonishing beauty in her elegant French-ness. She is both aloof and alluring. Less interesting are the young twin actors Frankie and George McLaren. It's not their fault really. Rather, it's the feeling that placing a young boy in this role feels a little emotionally suggestive. It feels like a dramatic shortcut to cast someone so young in such an emotional role.

None of the actors gets much help from the story which is basically nonexistent. “Hereafter” is not really a story so much as a cocktail party conversation starter for existentialists and true believers alike. Do you believe in the hereafter? What do you think it's like? Is there life after death? Can you talk to the dead? Are dead relatives waiting for you on the other side?

The conversation starts and each of the characters in “Hereafter” seems to have a perspective but what you really want is a definitive idea of what Clint Eastwood believes and that is just not there in “Hereafter”. Mr. Eastwood is comfortable touching off the conversation but when it comes to offering a definitive point of view on the hereafter Eastwood backs away and leaves the audience to attend to the major questions on their own.

There is nothing wrong with this approach; it's certainly a fascinating conversation. However, when it comes to raising these questions in a film it raises an expectation in the audience that the filmmaker will offer some kind of declaration of belief. We want answers and Clint Eastwood is not interested in giving an answer, just posing the questions and fobbing the conversation off on us as we walk out of the theater.

In the end it's not unfair to feel that Clint Eastwood cops out on the big question: What do you think the afterlife will be like Clint? With him being unwilling to answer the question “Hereafter” the movie feels aimless and adrift. Damon's ability to speak to the dead certainly hints at what the director believes the hereafter is like but the film hedges on just what heaven is like or even if there is a heaven. Where exactly are these souls in the hereafter? Earth? Heaven? Some strange abyss? What religion does this version of the hereafter adhere to?

Since we are talking about Clint Eastwood, an artist of the highest order, I will not assume a commercial motive behind the vagary of “Hereafter” and this version of the hereafter but if it were any other director who offered such a vague notion and failed to address any kind of religious order when talking about the hereafter one would certainly have to consider a commercial motivation. 

So, do I recommend “Hereafter?” It's a good question and one I've been wrestling with since I watched it. The answer is; kind of. Clint Eastwood is a masterful director and even his vague notions about the afterlife are populated by fascinating characters and elegant images. There is an overwhelming feel to “Hereafter;” the film casts a compelling shadow over the audience. At the end however, it's hard to escape the feeling that Eastwood chickened out. He wanted this conversation but is unwilling to commit his own true feelings about life after death to the big screen.

There is a fascinating divide in opinions developing over “Hereafter”. Older film critics are embracing the film while younger critics have been rejecting it. I am 34 years old and fall somewhere in the middle. I'm not so close to the grave that I spend much time thinking about death but I am not the young whippersnapper who believes in his unending invincibility. I am open to the conversation begun in “Hereafter” but I am not interested in vague notions, I want someone to be direct about their feelings on this issue and Eastwood is not being direct in “Hereafter” and that leaves me wanting more from this otherwise highly compelling film.

Movie Review The Last King of Scotland

The Last King of Scotland (2006) 

Directed by Kevin MacDonald 

Written by Jeremy Brock, Peter Morgan 

Starring Forrest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, Gillian Anderson 

Release Date September 27th, 2006 

Published September 26th, 2006 

Forest Whitaker has long been one of our most respected actors. And yet, the big prize, that signature role, has always eluded him. That gives a little extra juice to his role in Last King Of Scotland. Hollywood has wanted to find a way to honor Whitaker and now they have a good reason for it. As the evil Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, Whitaker is a powerful presence who dominates the screen even when offscreen. The Last King of Scotland overall is a flawed, somewhat messy movie that without Whitaker's mesmerizing performance would have never made it to the screen.

In 1970 Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) graduated medical school and seemed destined to join his father's family practice in Glasgow Scotland. Seeing his life laid out before him, Nicholas decided to shake things up. Taking on a missionary role in Uganda Africa, Nicholas thought he would spend a year treating the locals, building his karma and then head home. He wound up staying for nine eventful years.

Nicholas's arrival in Uganda coincided with a coup that brought the country a new leader. His name was Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) and his man of the people schtick worked because of his huge personality and the tacit backing of the British government who had trained him for leadership for years. Nicholas and Amin met by chance when the dictator was injured in a minor car accident. The two bonded over Scotland where Nicholas was born and where Amin was trained as a younger man.

Amin, liking Nicholas's heritage and brash spirit invites him to come to the capital where he is to become the dictator's personal physician. At first he resists, but after being promised the opportunity to shape Uganda's health care industry and advise his friend on all matters, health as well as political and social issues, the offer of power is too much for Nicholas to turn down. His decision is a fateful deal with the devil as Amin's wild mood swings have Nicholas watching people killed and worrying for his own life.

The Last King of Scotland was the inventive idea of fiction writer Giles Foden who got the idea to chronicle the life and crimes of Idi Amin through a fictional character, Nicholas Garrigan. Nicholas is a composite of several different men who held favor with the real life dictator throughout his 9 year reign. It works as a shorthand way of trying to tell the story of Idi Amin. However, as a dramatic device in this movie it's distracting.

Too often the fictional character of Nicholas Garrigan pushes the real life Idi Amin off stage. So much time is spent establishing the stakes for this fictional composite character that we lose focus on the story hof Idi Amin that is the supposed driving force of this movie. The scenes with Garrigan are strong enough but because Forrest Whitaker's Idi Amin is so powerful that when he's not on screen we want to know where he is and what he's doing. 

Director Kevin MacDonald directed the exceptional documentary Touching The Void, one of the ten best films of 2003. That film combined documentary style interviews with dramatic recreations of the events that took place. Macdonald's documentary style approach is often well used in Last King of Scotland, however there are a few too many instances when McDonald's documentary look is at odds with his melodramatic storytelling.

Forest Whitaker nails the role of bloodthirsty paranoid dictator. Unfortunately, the film too often lurches away from his performance for more time with Nicolas Garrigan and we are left wondering what Idi Amin is doing. Granted, a movie that focused more directly on the evil dictator would likely be oppressive and dark given Amin's well chronicled crimes, however it would be more interesting than much of what made up the final cut of The Last King Of Scotland.

The problems with The Last King Of Scotland stem from the Nicolas Garrigan character and not from anything done by Forest Whitaker in the film. The Garrigan character is weak and far less interesting than Idi Amin. Moreover, Garrigan never develops much beyond being a plot device. He is a manufactured character in place so this story could be told. That might be okay if the character were more interesting but as written Garrigan is lightweight and forgettable where Amin is at once horrifying and fascinating.

Forest Whitaker nails every aspect of this role. His Idi Amin is monstrous yet charismatic. He is a horror film character made real. This is a remarkable, transformative performance and yet not surprising. People have been waiting for Forrest Whitaker to find this kind of role and make it his signature and he finally has. That his performance is far better than the film in which it exists is all that holds it back from being the best performance of any actor in the last year.

See The Last King of Scotland for Forest Whitaker

Movie Review Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon (2008) 

Directed by Ron Howard 

Written by Peter Morgan 

Starring Michael Sheen, Frank Langella, Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Hall 

Release Date December 5th, 2008 

Published December 4th, 2008 

Need and desperation defines Frost/Nixon, a battle of wits between two men of completely different wit. David Frost (Michael Sheen) was a television host whose stardom was on the wane. Having lost his American talk show, Frost was working in Australia with the occasional English special. Frost longed to get back the spotlight and especially get back the celebrity he'd enjoyed in the United States. His longshot bet to get it back was an interview no one thought he could get. 3 years after having been impeached and pardoned, Richard Nixon was living in exile in California and longing for a comeback of his own.

Though his memoirs meant alot to him, he was getting nearly a million dollars for his story, a near record at the time, the writing process was lonely and he longed for a national spotlight. Nixon had standing offers from all of the network big wigs but people like Mike Wallace had too much power and would not accept limitations on the kinds of pointed questions they could ask. David Frost on the other hand had no power. He had no stature to make demands and his reputation for softball celebrity interviews gave no indication that he would make a difficult interview for the cagey former President. Frost also offered something else the networks refused, he was willing to pay for the interview.

Feeling he could interest a network or syndicator later, Frost willingly put every penny he had into paying for the interview from several hundred thousand for the President to the very production and recording of the interview. Even without the assurance that he would have a venue to air the interview. Frost may not have been in much of a position to intimidate the former President but he was crafty. With the help of his longtime producer John Birt (Matthew Macfaydyen), Frost found a pair of top flight investigators to help write the questions and prep the interviews.

Bob Zelnick (Oliver Platt) was a former ABC News producer and James Reston Jr (Sam Rockwell) was a Watergate scholar having already written several books in just the three years since the President's downfall. It was Reston, the zealot, who saw the interview as the opportunity to give Nixon the trial he never had. Frost/Nixon began life as a two man stage play written by playwright Peter Morgan. He dramatized the conversations between Frost and Nixon on camera and off and in so doing gave audiences unique insight into these two extraordinarily different personalities.

It is also Peter Morgan who turned his two man play into a multi-character screenplay and his care and craftsmanship is why so little of the drama and tension has been lost by the addition of characters and scenes away from the actual interviews. Ron Howard proves to be the perfect director for this material. A mainstream auteur, Howard knows how to please an audience and do so without making things insultingly easy to follow. His knack for real life drama shown in two Best Picture nominees, Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind, is very much on display in Frost/Nixon.

When Nixon says to Frost "When the President does it, it isn't a crime" even the most ardent Republican could not miss the obvious allusion to things that Dick Cheney has come oh so close to saying himself in numerous interviews about the Iraq war and other scandalous events of the Bush administration. President Bush also, to a lesser extent, when it comes to issues of rendition and torture, has walked the line of nearly saying the same thing about Presidential power.

The key to Howard's direction of that scene, that approach to Nixon’s abuse of power and its historic context, and of the subtext as a whole, is not to overplay or underline the point. The moment in the movie is breathtaking both for the subtext provided in recent American history and for how it plays between Nixon and Frost. As Frost pauses not knowing how to react to such an extraordinary answer, the moment hangs in the air like a sword over both of their heads. Can Frost follow up? Does he need to? Can Nixon recover? This is one of three breathtaking moments in this movie, the other two I will leave you to discover.

Frank Langella's Nixon is a wounded soul who you almost come to sympathize with. Almost. I am among those who could never forgive such horrendous corruption. But, seeing Frost/Nixon, you get an impression of a man with great conviction. A man who, if he were not so paranoid and power mad, could have been a great President. Michael Sheen meanwhile, is very effective as David Frost, capturing both the blow dried pretty boy and the feisty, crafty scoundrel who may have been just the right man for the job. In the end it was Frost who cemented Nixon's image in our minds. Some revisionists may claim that Nixon came away better for the interview but those Watergate moments are the ones that people will always take away.

Frost/Nixon is one of the best films of 2008.

Movie Review: The Queen

The Queen (2006)

Directed by Stephen Frears 

Written by Peter Morgan 

Starring Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Helen McCrory, Roger Allam 

Release Date September 15th, 2006 

Published November 1st, 2006 

My memory of the death of Princess Diana begins with me being at work. It was after midnight and I was on the radio on Mix 96 a popular adult contemporary radio station. An employee watching the news wires at a news radio station in the same building brought me the breaking news about the car accident and the eventual pronouncement of death. I was in my second year as a broadcaster and had never broken into programming before.

I made the call to forgo waking my boss to ask permission and went ahead and went on the air with the tragic news. Then I made another editorial decision, I removed Billy Joel's "Only The Good Die Young" from my playlist. I wasn't supposed to, it was and remains against protocol for anyone to remove songs from the playlist. I made the decision I felt was appropriate and stuck by it.

My decision was extraordinarily minor in the grand scheme of things but appropriate responses to this tragedy are very much apart of the discussion that takes place in the movie The Queen, starring Helen Mirren, which details the seemingly inappropriate response of the monarchy to the death of the former Princess. The Royal Family was already clinging to relevance when Princess Di was tragically killed in a Paris car accident, in the wake of Di's death, the question of relevance gave way to questions of necessity and desire. 

In the five days between when Diana the Princess of Whales was killed in a car accident in Paris and the time she was laid to rest in a funeral at Westminster Abbey, England held vigil outside Buckingham Palace awaiting a response from their Queen, Queen Elizabeth the 2nd (Helen Mirren). There was none. The Queen along with husband Prince Philip (James Cromwell), the Queen Mum (Sylvia Sims), Prince Charles (Alex Jennings) and his and Diana's sons remained sequestered at the royal palace at Balmorel.

The non-response was roundly roasted throughout the British press and lead to articles and polls touting the fact that many Britons were coming around to the idea of ending the monarchy altogether. Watching this spectacle, with more than a little vested interest, was the newly installed British Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen). It was Blair who took the pulse of the people and lead the public mourning of Diana; he dubbed her the People's Princess.

Blair's response to the tragedy was lauded by the people and the press because it felt un-calculated and yet it managed to heighten pressure on the Queen who remained in a cocoon of royal propriety, unwilling to issue even a statement and, at a critical moment, refusing fly a flag over Buckingham Palace at half staff as so many had called on her to do. Even seemingly minor gestures of public grieving over Diana appeared impossible for the cold-hearted Queen. 

The achievement of Stephen Frears' The Queen is to give context and reason to Queen Elizabeth's non-response. At no point are those of us who liked Princess Diana going to agree with the cold and detached way Queen Elizabeth reacted to Diana's death but we can be understanding and even, possibly, cut the Queen a little slack based on the complicated and strained standards upheld by the Royal Family. Tradition may seem rather silly to outsiders, but inside the palace, protocol is a religion. 

The film doesn't intend to criticize the Queen, deify Diana, or make excuses for either. The Queen presents the facts and allows us to make up our own minds about these people. Thus when the Queen says Diana isn't even royalty anymore we are rightly taken aback. However, as we learn a little more of the Queen's background and we cut deeper into this factory sealed world of royalty, we can come to understand how such detachment and such an unbending attachment to protocol and propriety might lead to exactly the response the Queen has.

Essentially, chilly, dispassionate, detachment is part of the breeding of a Queen and to expect anything else is simply dishonest. Does this excuse such inhumanity as the Queen being unwilling to make any compromise or even acknowledge the obvious, growing need of her people for an emotional response to the tragedy? No, but it does explain it.

The movie The Queen turns on the brilliant, Oscar worthy work of Helen Mirren. This is by far the best performance by any actress this year. Mirren captures the icy demeanor we all know of Queen Elizabeth and then infuses her with a withering intelligence, self awareness, and, by the end, a certain poignancy as she must come to terms with how the times and her subjects have passed her by.

Michael Sheen as Tony Blair borders at times on making the Prime Minister a toadying stooge to the monarchy but, for the most part, the movie captures the popular Blair, the one who was the chief mourner of Diana. Michael Sheen's conception of Blair is a man of the people who knew just how to react to tragedy. Keep in mind, Blair was squarely in the middle of a battle of wills that few realized was happening. On one side was the monarchy whose detachment was reaching a critical point and on the other side were the people who, without a royal response to the tragedy, were coming  around to the idea of no monarchy at all.

Sheen deftly plays Blair's conflict as he must manage the entirely unmanageable Queen while members of his own staff, and even his wife, Cherie Blair, well played by Helen McRory, talked openly about whether the time of the monarchy had passed. This is award level work by Sheen who slowly works Blair's golden boy charm into the smart, savvy persona that Blair held until recently when his decision to join the American adventure in Iraq began eroding his standing with the British people.

Before seeing The Queen I watched Emilio Estevez's supremely flawed movie Bobby another movie that is at least sort of about the tragic death of a beloved public figure. Watching Bobby made me look a little deeper at the death of Princess Diana and the overwhelming response people had to it. The death of Bobby Kennedy effected history, literally. He could have gone on to become the most powerful man in the world and made decisions that would have rippled through history even today.

Princess Diana, on the other hand, her death, though tragic did not effect history. I'm not meaning in anyway to demean the Princess whose good works and charity effected millions of lives, but there is a difference between the effect of her life and that of Bobby Kennedy that makes the response to her death a little puzzling.

For five days the crowds of mourners swelled into the millions and the public outcry over the non-response of the monarchy nearly called for a storming of castles. The out sized response was a testament to how much the people loved Princess Diana but to an outsider like myself it seemed a little much. The Queen portrays Queen Elizabeth as something of an outsider herself, in relation to her people and this allowed me, at the very least, to identify with her and respect her decision not to engage in the public wringing of emotion.

Queen Elizabeth was wrong to be so cold to someone who had borne her two grandchildren, one of whom is the future King, and there is no question that she could have made a couple of compromises to placate the public. Many were right to criticize her detachment and inability to change with the times. What the movie The Queen effectively offers however is an opportunity, if you are so inclined, to identify with Queen Elizabeth and her more than fair unwillingness to engage in the public's outpouring of emotion.

The Queen is a sensational film with academy notable performances from Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen. The Queen is also smart, entertaining and endlessly watchable for what might on the surface seem like another British chamber piece; impenetrable to the average American moviegoer. The Queen has the gravitas of masterpiece theater but a story that engages all audiences. The Queen is a true must see picture.

Movie Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) 

Directed by Justin Chadwick 

Written by Peter Morgan 

Starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, Kristen Scott Thomas, Mark Rylance, David Morrissey 

Release date February 29th, 2008 

Published February 27th, 2008 

Where most period pieces rely on class and pomp and circumstance The Other Boleyn Girl, from director Justin Chadwick, and based on the bestseller by Phillippa Gregory, indulges modern soap opera crossed with crackling dialogue, dark humor and an all star cast. It works to create a devilishly entertaining period piece that may just reach beyond the typical fans of the period. In The Other Boleyn Girl Scarlett Johanssen, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana spice up period piece stuffiness with a sexy vibe that even overwhelms the constraints of the PG-13 rating.

King Henry the 8th (Eric Bana) needed a son to continue to project his power. Unfortunately, his wife Catherine of Eragon (Ana Torrent) has once again miscarried and will likely never bear children. This news leaks to the Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey) who senses an opportunity for advancement. Visiting the family of his sister Lady Elizabeth Boleyn and her husband Thomas, Norfolk has a dangerous proposition. He will entice King Henry to visit the Boleyn home. While he is there the eldest Boleyn sister Anne (Natalie Portman) will find her way to his bed and become his mistress. If she is able to bear him a son, the Boleyn family will be set for life.

The plan goes awry however when the king fails to fall for Ann and instead falls for the slightly younger and recently married Mary Boleyn (Scarlett Johannson). Bringing the Boleyn's to the royal court, Henry makes Mary his mistress while banishing her husband (Benedict Cumberbatch) to the outer reaches of the kingdom. Unfortunately for Mary, the king's affections are fickle. Her crowning achievement, becoming pregnant, becomes a problem when the king's eye begins to wander. Now the family turns to Ann. Recently banished to France after a rash, unarranged wedding that the Duke has narrowly been able to cover up, Ann returns changed, more mature and ready to take the king for herself even as her task is to keep his attentions on Mary.

Ann's ambition and cunning beguiles the king and he is ready to tear the country to shreds just to satisfy her. As the king and Ann battle over her wish to be queen, there is still the matter of the current queen as well as Mary and her newborn son, now treated as a bastard and an outcast. And what of Ann's relationship with her brother George (Jim Sturgess) and his marriage to the busybody Jane Parker (Juno Temple).

A great deal of palace intrigue unfolds with all of the sexy twists and melodramatic turns of a great television soap opera writ large for the big screen. Director Justin Chadwick, working from a screenplay penned by the books author Phillipa Gregory, gives this material life by populating it with great actors, biting dialogue, and high stakes chicanery. The Boleyn men, exceptionally played by Mark Rylance and David Morrissey play a high stakes game with these two supposedly teenage girls. The risk is their heads on spikes, dealing with an oafish impetuous king who has already spiked his closest friend for reasons only he understood and called treason.

The future of the Boleyn family rides on these teenage girls ability to manipulate an impulsive, unpredictable and desperate king well played by Eric Bana. With subtle genius, Eric Bana brings about a King Henry the 8th who is both commanding in the presence of men and yet just naive enough to be taken in by the scheming Ann. We learn early on that his true turn on is subservience as he falls for the respectful and bowing Mary. However, he is drawn to Ann by the reflection of his own power. As she becomes the first to deny him anything, he cannot help but wish to conquer her. The plan backfires on all involved and precipitates great melodrama all around.

The Other Boleyn Girl is an exceptional example of the way great melodrama can win over an audience by at once indulging in bad behavior and then standing in judgement of it. The prudishness of Mary is exposed in her falling for the king and then punished when she is forced to watch her sister steal him away. Ann's abhorrent behavior in double-crossing her sister is devilishly fun to witness but just as fun is watching her get what she has coming to her. Portman is better than you might expect as a temptress while Johansson plays the virginal Mary with an edge of sultry sexuality that few actresses could wring from this role.

The Other Boleyn Girl is not a great movie but for pulpy modern soap opera Ala the best of Desperate Housewives, only much smarter, it is top notch entertainment.