Real Housewives for the PBS crowd: Queen of Versailles

As M pointed out, "The Queen of Versailles," a documentary about the Siegel family, David and Jackie and their 8 children, is like Real Housewives for the PBS crowd. David S is/was the CEO and founder of the largest timeshare resort company in the world; Jackie is his trophy (3rd) wife, about 30 years younger than he, and mother to 7 of his brood of children. Documentary begins in about 2007, and obviously the filmmaker started out to document their lavish and ridiculous lifestyle - they are in the process of building a new house called Versailles and modeled after same that will be the largest single-family house in America. In 2008, the project took an unexpected turn, as the market crash basically wiped out all of Siegel's capital and spun his company toward bankruptcy. The Siegels have no ready cash, and it changes their style of living in some ways, but not in all ways, as Jackie in particular is completely unable or unwilling to relinquish many of her luxuries. So is the film any good? Yes, in its lurid way: the Siegels are not entirely evil people: David is a rather dull business guy who took huge gambles on a new industry, made a fortune, but was too stupid to diversify or protect his assets and lost it all. Jackie S. is a little smarter than you might expect, but basically she's a child - she acts like one of her kids, and she is totally incapable of running any element of her life, or theirs, without a legion of helpers. Their taste is horrendous in every way you can imagine - starting with their bizarre desire to model their house on Versailles without any awareness of the irony. Their chairs look like thrones, they have hideous statuary everywhere, way more of everything than anyone would need - but as their fortunes fall they don't even have the sense to pick up the dog shit on their carpets. Most significant, David S. - a huge backer of GW Bush (he claims to have been instrumental in getting Bush "elected" though he won't discuss how because it may have been illegal) - has no interests outside of work and his charitable donations seem to consist of checks to the Miss America fund, mainly so that they can host an annual gala at their house with all the contestants, who must painfully put up with David's flirting (Jackie was a beauty "queen" once upon a time - and he keeps "joking" about trading her in for 2 20-year-olds). When the Siegels lose their fortune, David (and to a lesser extent Jackie) blame the "banks" and the "bankers" - who are behaving in exactly the same ruthless, unconscionable way the Siegels did and do: the bankers are trying to squeeze every dollar out of him, good old capitalism, without interference of the government or regulators, just as he and his republican pals want it to be: we do see some great scenes of the sales for at one of the timeshares (led by his oldest son) at work bilking poor people out of their meager funds. What goes around comes around, dude! Some other great scenes in the movie: Jackie shopping for xmas (glad that David appears to be a nonobservant Jew, who wants him) at walmart, filling multiple carts with stuff they can't afford and not a single thoughtful present, just junk, box after box; Jackie renting a Hertz car for the first time. Watch it and weep.