Texas Ranch House
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Movie Reviews of Texas Ranch House
Movie Review: Actually sort of embarrassing
Summary: 2 Stars
I really loved Manor house and the other TV shows in this series. But this one was pretty awful. While it starts promisingly enough, it soon becomes evident to me that the Cooke family were a bad fit. The Cooke 'girls' (and to me they are adults not 'girls') just weren't into it. They didn't want to be there, weren't interested in the period or re-creating it...Why go? I really did not want to see them cavorting around in their undergarments towards the end. I was embarrassed for them. Ms. Cooke wanted to clearly run the ranch and did not apparently trust her husband enough to allow him to make decisions without her weighing in all the time. Mr. Cooke lacked a spine and let the hands, his wife, and the servants tell him what to do in a way I think no 19th century man would. (I must've missed the historical accuracy in allowing a maid to 1. dress like a man. 2. go on a cattle drive with a bunch of unmarried men. 3. still be accepted in polite society by the neighbors and said employer. Please.
The hands acted up a lot of time and lacked strong leadership. Nacho was just disgusting. I empathized the most with Jared (the cowboy who lost his horse and was kidnapped by Indians), as I felt Mr. Cooke was a jerk to him. It seemed unfair for Cooke to claim ownership of the horse when it was Jared's. Jared did not agree to sell it afterall. Mr. Cooke threatening to beat up Jared was just stooping to his level. Cooke should struck a deal or docked his pay, but not claimed ownership.
On the flipside I disliked the disrespect shown to the Cooke girls by the men. They acted like unruly teenagers rather than adults. Robbie as chief hand did not do anything to bridge the gap between the Cooke's and his men, but instead seemed to revel in the chaos. Bad leadership on both sides. The girls, however were not much better. I didn't see them do anything except complain and neglect their chores. Moria was an anachronism I could've done without. I don't watch the show to see a heroine for modern feminists (and the idea that she acted anachronistic to be a hero for *ME* is ridiculous, she did it for herself, plain and simple!) I watch the film to see what life was like in the 19th century.
My favorite participants were Shaun and Jared. Shaun because he volunteered to cook, and did a good job, and Jared, because I think he was funny and did well as a cowboy. My least favorite participants were Mr. & Ms. Cooke and Nacho.
I think the show would be better off if there were more social guidelines observed. Such as the manners men should display towards women, attending church, and women dressing properly. Likewise women should act more period and not try to be Xena warrior princess. Overall, this film embarrassed me. It was like being over at a friend's place when a squabble breaks out between your friend and her spouse. You'd rather be anywhere but there witnessing the tacky bickering and backbiting. 2 stars.
Movie Review: Truly a letdown after the British-based projects such as Manor House
Summary: 2 Stars
I became interested in the PBS "House" series after watching The Manor House during an undergrad course in Victorian Era History. The series is intended to take 21st century people and place them in an environment equivalent to a historical time period (i.e. Manor House, Colonial House, etc.) The participants are supposed to see how they would fare living as people of that time period- ideally dressing, eating, working and, perhaps most importantly, living according to the same values as people of that time period.
This series began on a very promising note, with 15 people moving into a 1867 ranch. Their basic objective was to see if they could live 2.5 months catching wild cattle and ultimately turning the run-down ranch into a profitable, working ranch. At the begining of the series one is able to observe the various hardships people had to contend with (particularly 21st people), using outhouses, not having the luxury of bathing every day, cooking by open fire, etc. (Not to mention the back-breaking work necessary to set-up a ranch) However, it soon becomes apparent that, while most of the participants seem game enough deal with the technological differences, they had no intention of attempting to live according to the same value system as true frontiersmen and women. The series rapidly turned into a battle between the sexes- the women believing the men are all chauvanist pigs, the men thinking the women are butting into ranch business and the ranch owner lacking in the guts to take a hard stand. What results is a series based more in fiction/ drama than historical fact. I couldn't help but feel as if I were watching a reality show that fell more in line with the often staged reality tv such as Survivor rather than an educational reality show which is designed to give viewers a mostly historically accurate view into the life of a 19th century Texas ranch.
It is a shame that most of participants couldn't truly get into the spirit of the project and try to act as people from that time would have. Instead the women chose to run around the ranch half-clothed, the women insisted on having thier say concerning the run of the ranch- openly defying the ranch owner, the ranch hands disrespecting the women in an act of defiance etc- all of which would never have been tolerated on a real 19th century ranch. It became extremely annoying listening to the women constantly complain about how they were 21st century women with 21st century values. If that was thier viewpoint, why VOLUNTEER for a project like Texas Ranch House where you are supposed to attempt to maintain historical accuracy? Ultimately, I think the participants did a disservice to the entire project and more importantly, to the men and women who lived that life.
Movie Review: Good enough to watch for free only!
Summary: 2 Stars
If you can catch this series on PBS for free it is interesting enough to watch. Otherwise, you'll regret having paid to view it. Why? Because other than the ranch house itself, which you see very little of beyond the front porch, there is nothing historical about this series.
You will not see a glimpse of life in the 1800's. You will see an ungrateful, lazy, whining, group of people who not only ruined a wonderful opportunity to experience a life lost to us a long time ago, but they also spoiled it for the rest of us who looked forward to watching them live it.
This was suppose to be a PBS educational show not something I would expect to see on FOX, like watching Paris Hilton working on a farm--insipidly entertaining, but certainly not educational. However, unlike the Paris Hilton, the Cooke family weren't entertaining, just annoying. They whined and complained about everything!
If the Cooke's didn't want to give up the comforts of modern living or live according to the societal/cultural standards of the 1800's, they shouldn't have signed up for the show. In fact, they would have done all of us a favor if they had just stayed home. That way PBS could have possibly gotten a different family who would have embraced the 1800's ranch lifestyle instead of the Cooke who constantly reminded the viewing audience how life back then sucked. How the Cooke family got selected for the show is beyond me.
Standards of PBS must be slipping if they put their stamp of approval on mess like this. Ken Burns must be in shock.
"Cast of Characters":
Cooke family as a whole: Lazy whiners!!!!! They added nothing to the show.
Mr Cooke: Completely worthless as a ranch owner or a boss; incapable of making good decisions; untrustworthy; dishonorable; unreliable; useless for physical labor; couldn't even do the non-taxing work of keeping the books; the reason why the word "henpecked" was created.
Mrs Cooke: Irritating; instigator; busybody; holier than thou attitude; paranoid; selfish; truly unlikable; would rather live revoltingly among flies than clean a dish; reason why the word "shrew" was created.
Cooke Children: Useless; droll; boring.
Mora: She seemed to be a plant by PBS purposely put there to cause controversy.
Cowboys: Immature; hard-working when they wanted to be.
Nacho: Disgusting; revolting; another likely plant to cause controversy.
Movie Review: I' God, This Here Show's Weaker'n A Pot Uh Ol' Coffee!
Summary: 2 Stars
"Howdee, Pardner!" I always wanted to say that.
Texas Ranch House isn't trash TV by a longshot with a Colt .45 (yes, I know, not invented in 1867) but there was a noticeable shift here from the other entries in the field of PBS living history shows (1900 House, etc.) and it took me a moment to put my finger on the fact that this one seemed far more like some commercial network game show than the experiment in makeshift time travel I'd grown more accustomed to expecting. In my unsolicited and inexpert, opinion, Texas Ranch House suffered as a result of its hybrid nature, and is easily the weakest among the PBS reality projects I've seen. (Which is just about all of them.)
All that aside, if you invest a quarter of one day of your life in watching Texas Ranch House, here's what you'll see...
You'll see the expected gathering of men and women--- mostly men this time---drawn from a variety of walks of life here in the first decade of the twenty-first century (and this decade is called the "tens" folks) cast backward into a recreation of the Texas frontier circa 1867. There is the Cooke family, the ranchers of the series, a singularly irritating bunch dominated by a dauntingly control-freakish woman, and you'll see the cowboys who ostensibly work for the Cooke's. There are also the standard visitors, who shake things up and add color to the monochrome of frontier life. And then there was the one and only bright speck on this washed-out, miscast, mostly mishandled project: the neighboring Comanche band. Sure it was fun to see Comanches make an appearance, but I kept thinking how anachronistic it was that the Comanches were so placid in their dealings with Mr. Cooke and the others. ("You have many cows.") Sure, I know, a stack of examples could probably be found of Comanches not scalping, flaying, and ant-hilling (ya don't wanna know) whites, but would it have been too much for the producers to have let, well, SOMETHING happen in this show? Like an Indian attack?
Ugh. Actually the more I think about it the bigger disappointment this show seems in retrospect. They could at least have let a snide Brokeback Mountain reference sneak in for humor's sake, right? If you have these DVD's, don't watch them near bedtime or you'll never stay awake.
Movie Review: A Stubborn, Unruly, Self-Righteous Cast Ruins It
Summary: 2 Stars
The PBS House series is notorious for quality programming, a historical spin on modern reality shows. This is not a good example of the series.
The idea is not a bad one. A family is transported back to the mid-1800s to experience life on a Texas Ranch House after the Civil War. Strangers are put in place as cowboys, the foreman, the maid, and the cook. The goal is to capture enough cattle to pay the debtors at the end of the season and still be productive enough to carry on for another.
Unfortunately, the cast is awful; they cannot seem to get along long enough to experience what life would have been like during this time period, and when they do get along, they refuse to adhere to the rules. Mr. Cooke changes his mind at the drop of a hat because Mrs. Cooke wants to have her foot into every conversation and decision. She feels the need to wave the flag for women's rights when she is supposed to be living in a time when women did not even have the right to vote. Her insistence that Maura, the maid, be given a chance to become a cowboy is preposterous and a thinly veiled attempt at exerting her power over the ranch. PBS misfired when they gave Nacho, an ex-homeless man, the duties of cook. He allows the food to rot and several of the cowboys get sick. Many of the cast members are dismissed from the show, and the constant fighting makes it hard to like anyone for very long.
The biggest redeeming factor of this show is the grand finale where a fight erupts and threatens to take the entire show with it. The big evaluation is a riot to watch and almost makes this season worth watching, but only if you don't have to pay an arm and a leg to see it.
In spite of the quality of this installment of PBS House, I hope another one is made. The other entries are lightyears better in comparison.