Christmas on the Square: Be thankful that you haven't seen this movie. With some nude guys to make up for reading about it.

Brax Alexander is promoting his 2020 movie, Christmas on the Square.  Usually I stay away from Christmas romcoms that preach how wonderfully fulfilling small towns are, as opposed to those soulless, heartless monstrosities, big cities, because I grew up in a small town.  My parents rhapsodized, almost daily, about my destiny: find The Girl of My Dreams,  get married, go to work in the factory, buy a house, have kids, die.  There were no other options.  There was no escape. 

They, my other relatives, my teachers, my preacher, and my friends, everyone, without exception, eagerly awaited the moment when I would "discover girls," understand that the sole purpose of life was to gaze into Her eyes forever.  The interrogation began in junior high, and became louder and more demanding in high school: "What girl do you like?  What girl do you like?  What girl?  What girl?  What girl?"  

There was no such thing as same-sex desire or romance.  You spent time with boys in order to talk about girls or strategize on how to get girls.  When you found Her, you would abandon male loves, instantly and without hesitation.  They were trivial, steps on the road to the Girl of Your Dreams destiny.

I kept looking for a place where I could escape, where I could go through an entire day without the "What girl?  What girl? What girl?" interrogation.  Where people cared about beauty, wisdom, and love, not just reproduction.  Maybe even recognized the existence of men loving men. 

After college, I lived in West Hollywood, New York, Fort Lauderdale, and Minneapolis: Bookstores, art museums, cathedrals, Ethiopian restaurants, Thai restaurants, stores with rainbow flags in the windows, guys holding hands as they walked down the street: heaven.    

Oh, sorry, you wanted me to review the movie.  

Christmas on the Square was written by gay icon Dolly Parton, and stars gay icon Christine Baranski, plus Josh Segarra (left and below), who has played gay characters several time (he even played RuPaul's boyfriend). Furthermore, Dolly promotes the movie in an interview in Pink News, the gay magazine.  Surely this is a gay-positive Christmas romcom.  So here goes:

Scene 1:  A sound-stage town square in the town of Prairie View, with folks making merry.  Some very hot guys rush past, doing a high-step dance number -- but they ruin it by double-taking, en masse, at the hot girl who walks by.  At the end of their dance, they pair off, each boy with a girl.  Yuck!  This is the same brainwashing  I grew up with: "Every boy will fall in love with a girl!  There's no way out, no escape!  You are doomed!" 

A car drives past, with the evil, sunglasses-wearing Christine Baranski.  She sings: "Forget the past, be free at last, gotta get out of this town."  I like her -- she's the voice of thousands of LGBT people growing up in homophobic small towns, longing for a place where they can be free.  Of course, she's the villain. 

Amid the dancing, frolicking characters, the white-haired guy who runs the general store, no doubt Christine's Love Interest (played by Treat Williams, left) sings that "lovers walk in pairs." We only see male-female lovers.

 Focus character Felicity drives up and greets the stereotyped 1950s mailman.  She's the assistant of evil Christine Baranski, who continues to sing: "I know in time I'll lose my mind, if I don't get out of this town."  I had the same thought many times, back in Rock Island amid the "what girl do you like? what girl? what girl? what girl?" interrogation!

I'm getting angry.  They should have a trigger warning for all LGBT people who get trapped into viewing this thing.  I won't last much longer.

Left: Treat Williams' butt.

Christine passes out eviction notices.  She's going to tear down the whole town.  Good! 

 

In his Christmas shop, Josh Serrano and his wife talk about new fertility procedures, then sing about how much they want a baby. Good lord, it never ends..  

I'll just go through it on fast fast-forward, to check for any same-sex bonds.

Nope.  I couldn't keep track of all the boy-girl couples finding love, but the only reason guys interacted was to console each other over not having the Girl of Their Dreams, or to congratulate each other for finding Her. Where's the darn trigger warning?  I'm literally nauseous.  

Braxton Alexander's got a lot of explaining to do.  Come to think of it, he has never stated that he is gay-friendly.  I just assumed.

He's definitely going on the Naughty List.

Not enough nude guys to make up for this disaster, so I put a few more after the break:

"This F*king Town": This f*king gay-free Hollywood. But I included some celebs that I hooked up with...I mean met.

  

Whilc looking at Tony Cavalero's work on the IMDB,  I found This Fucking Town, a TV short about "actors looking for love and work in L.A."   When I lived in West Hollywood, about half my friends were "actors looking for love and work" so I tried to check it out.  But it didn't seem to exist.  Tubi and Roku advertised it, but "content isn't available."  A rave revew made it sound like an entire web series, not just a short, but the links provided led to "content unavailable."

Finally I found it as a movie on Amazon Prime, and rented it out of sheer frustration. It starts out ok, with Mark (Michael Mark Friedman) flexing and Jeremy (Gregory Holt, left) dancing in his underwear, displaying a sizeable bulge. They meet up.  Heading to a party, Jeremy is worried meeting someone new: they always dump him the moment they discover that he has a huge penis.  Really?  

At the party, Jeremy runs into his ex, Caitlin, who thinks all actors are pathetic losers.  She took a witchcraft class and put a spell on him, to ensure that he will never find work (conicidentally, Tony's wife Annie is a magic practitioner).  

Jeremy sneers that her new guy, Brett (Tony Cavalero), is an actor, too, but Caitlin counters that he's a personal trainer.  "So you hold people's feet while they do sit-ups!".  Brett calls him a "dick." and stomps off.

That's all for Tony Cavalero: one word.  

Then the movie turns into a soap opera about heterosexual relationships, with six lengthy kissing scenes amid discussions of auditions and roles.  No more beefcake, and no LGBT people exist. Ugh!

But there are some celebrity bulges and butts after the break.

Drunk History Episode 3.13: Adam and Blake, sweet kisses, and Nathan Fillion's butt

 

Drunk History (2013-2019) is a comedy series in which drunken comedians describe historical events to a narrator, who responds approvingly with smiles and laughter. Meanwhile they are acted out by guest stars (with the comedian providing the voices).  

In Episode 3.15, "Space," there are three stories: Carl Sagan falls  in love with Ann Druyan, Werner von Braun invents rockets, and two Russian cosmonauts become the first humans in space.  Let's start with the cosmonauts. Kyle Kenane tells this story to Derek Waters.

In 1965, cosmonauts Pavel Belyayev (Adam Devine) and Alexey Leonov (Blake Anderson, his co-star on Workaholics) have nothing going on in their lives, so they volunteer for the space mission.  Alexey, in addition, will take a space walk.

Pictured: Adam and Anders Holm, another Workaholics star.  I just wanted to post some Adam Devine beefcake photos.

They do the standard comedic hand-holding and hugging during the  various crises on the flight, but the gay subtext intensifies when they crash-land in Siberia.  

They are 2,000 kilometers from home, in the middle of mating season.  Wolves and bears approach "with raging hard-ons."  The guys look at each other, and Pavel says:  "I guess we can start with some sweet kisses."

Wait -- do they intend to mate with the animals or with each other?  Their expression seems to suggest each other.

Then they are rescued, hug, and receive accolades back home in Moscow.  Good luck as a gay couple in 1960s Russia, guys. End of segment.

That's quite a lot of queer codes for six minutes. (Left: Blake Anderson's dick, or something like it).  We cut to Derek Waters and Steve Berg holding hands as they prepare to frolick in zero gravity. 

Next segment after the break.

Gideon moves out of the friend zone: A Gideon x Keefe romance

I revised the sex scene to make it parallel Kelvin's date with Percy.

"This is it," Gideon Gemstone told himself as he stood at the entrance of Woodpecker's Carpentry, watching the workers inside, and trying not to be noticed.  "Enough stalling.  You make your move now, or forget about it."

Suddenly a burly middle-aged man in a blue worker's suit appeared. "Hello.  I'm Bishop, the owner.  Can I help you with something?"

"I was just admiring the wood carvings.  I like that Grinch in a Santa Claus suit, and the bobble-head Trump...."  Thinking fast, he added. "But I was really looking for a birthday present for my Granddad.  Eli Gemstone -- you probably heard of him."

"The pastor at the Salvation Center? Sure, half my crew goes there, or watches the Praise Be to He hour on Sunday mornings. He's retired, isn't he? Who's the preacher now?"

"Jesse Gemstone.  I'm his son, Gideon."

He chuckled.  "How about that!   We're having a run on Gemstones today.  Your Uncle Kelvin was in earlier, probably shopping for the same thing.  He was talkin' up a storm with our new guy, Keefe."

Uncle Kelvin!  Gulp -- maybe it was too late.

For two years, Uncle Kelvin had been bringing Keefe to family dinners, barbecues, Christmas parties, everything: the hottest guy Gideon had ever seen. with shoulder-length blond hair, a short beard, an incredibly muscular chest inscribed faintly with a 666.  That remnant of his former Satanism made him even hotter.  

Were Kelvin and Keefe boyfriends?  The evangelical "don't ask, don't tell" policy meant that they would pretend to be just good buddies, regardless.  Even their social media pages were ambiguous.  But what if they were?  Being screwed by a guy who had screwed his uncle!  Forbidden romance, with a hint of incest -- could he get much hotter?  Gideon began fantasizing about Keefe -- a lot.

Then Keefe announced on his Instagram that he was moving out of the Gemstone compound. Two days later, that he was no longer working as assistant youth pastor: he had returned to his old job as a carpenter.  Obviously they had broken up -- if they were ever boyfriends in the first place. A perfect time for Gideon to move in!

Suddenly Gideon realized that Bishop was staring at him, expecting him to say something.  "Sure, I know Keefe.  He used to be the assistant youth pastor at the Salvation Center.  I'll bet Uncle Kelvin wanted to commission a gift for Granddad.  Hey, maybe we could go in on a gift together.  Could I talk to him?"

"I'll go get him." Burly retreated to the work floor.  A moment later, Keefe appeared -- incredibly hot in a work shirt that left his arms and shoulders bare.  He smiled...a good sign, right?  "Hi, Gideon.  How's the family doing?"

No, don't bring up the family! Especially don't bring up Kelvin!  You want to get him alone.  "Fine, I think.  I haven't talked to anyone but my Mom and Dad for awhile."  

They stared at each other.  Was Keefe attracted to him?  Gideon couldn't tell.  "So...the boss says you want a commission?"

"Maybe.  I was thinking of something for...no...I mean, I'd like you to do a commission, sure, but I really came here to ask..."

"Ask what?"  

Why was this so hard?  He had asked guys for dates before.  And girls.  "Um...water-skiing....have you ever been?"

"No.  Kelvin wasn't really into the beach much."

Wasn't? So they were boyfriends?   "Well, I am.  Would you like to give it a try?  On Saturday."

"We always held Gemstone Teen Time on Saturday afternoon," Keefe said with a frown.

Ulp.  "Isn't it great that you're free now, and have time to have fun on the weekends?"

He thought for a moment.  "Sure, I guess.  I mean, why not?  Let me give you my new number."

More after the break

"Broad City": This ain't your Daddy's "Seinfeld."

I highly recommend Broad City (2014-19), about the adventures of two women in contemporary New York: the effervescent "let's get high and climb the Empire State Building" Ilana and the stick-in-the-mud "I can't -- I have to decide on a color scheme for the bathroom tile" Abbi.  

Episodes are built around the trivial annoyances of everyday life: 

Accidentally leaving your cell phone in a hookup's apartment, when you don't want to see him again.

Offering to wait to sign for a package for your neighbor, but it never arrives, and you're stuck.

Spending all day in the ice cream shop because you can't decide which flavor to get.

Telling your sex partner that you want to "switch" positions, but he thinks it means something else.

Washing your boyfriend's favorite dildo in the dishwasher, only to have it melted, then scouring the sex shops to find a replacement.

Wait...um...

This ain't your daddy's Seinfeld.

Instead of a street on the back lot in Studio City, Broad City features beautiful exteriors in Manhattan.  The gang visits everywhere from Grand Central Station to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Instead of sex off camera, the girls and their friends are doing the deed in front of you. Lots of bare chests and butts.

Seinfeld was informed by homophobic anxiety about LGBT people, or attempts to get them to "switch teams (Kramer successfully converted a lesbian, but Elaine couldn't convert a gay man because she wasn't good enough in bed).  But in Broad City, LGBT characters are fully integrated into story without comment. Ilana herself is bisexual, with a crush on Abbi, but they don't let it get in the way of their friendship.  

Instead of guys taking their shirts off three times in ten years, Broad City is overloaded with hunks.

Ilana's gang includes:

1. Lincoln (Hannibal Buress), Ilana's regular sex partner.  In the first episode, she face-times Abbi while having sex with him.

Lincoln's butt.

2. Jaime (Arturo Castro), her roommate, who is gay and unapologetically slutty, until he gets a boyfriend/

Gemstone connection: Tony Cavalero and Arturo Castro are friends, and will be starring together in the upcoming Operation Taco Gary's

 Jaime's butt

More dicks and butts after the break

Lucifer Episode 5.15: Hetero-horny Miles Burris, gay and bi erasure, three butts, and a random dick

  

Miles Burris' 2023 demo reel shows him in The Righteous Gemstones (as God Squad member Titus), Lucifer, Young Rock, and Teachers, so let's start with Lucifer.  He appears three times in 2021, first in Episode 5.15: "Is This How It's Really Going to End?"  Uh-oh, sounds Apocalyptic.

Scene 1: God is retiring, and the angels have to vote for either Lucifer (Tom Ellis, below) or the Archangel Michael (also Tom Ellis) to take His place. Luce's chances are limited by that war-in-heaven thing, but he argues that his years of penance on Earth have changed him, given him the skills necessary to be successful in the job. He needs his siblings, including Jophiel (Miles Burris, top photo), to campaign for him.  

They meet in a night club of some sort -- all we see is the bottom halves of girls' bodies.  Jophiel gazes goofily at the boobs of the invisible girl bringing them drinks.  He is wearing a suit coat with no shirt, so he can flex his pecs to impress girls.

 Lucifer claims that Michael has been doing a Wormtongue-thing on the Big Guy for milennia, making him think he's losing power in order to grab the Throne for himself.  What is this, Succession?  But Jophiel can't decide -- Luce is a lot of fun, but is he a good administrator?  "Michael's  kind of a dick, but he keeps the trains running,"  

Scene 2: Luce offers a female friend or girlfriend a job as consultant, but she doesn't want to move to heaven in the middle of a school year. "Well, hold off until I can convince my siblings to vote for me."  He calls her the future "Mrs. God," so they're romantic partners.

Scene 3: At a bloody crime scene, Dan (Kevin Alejandro, left) wants to fix up the forensic photographer (a lady) with his old cop partner Carol.  Lesbians?  No: 

"A guy with a girl's name?  I'm out!" she says in disgust.  Hey, just because he has a traditionally feminine name doesn't mean he's a fruit, you homophobe!  

"He's a guy, and a good one," Dan continues.  Do you mean "a good guy," as in "nice," or "good at being a guy," as in "not a fruit"?  

I'm a little impatient today, and we've already seen a ton of heterosexism in the first five minutes.  One more homophobic comment, and I'm out.

Why doesn't Dan want her for himself?  Maybe he's gay, and has a boyfriend waiting at ho,e.

Photographer thanks Dan for the thought, but with all the horrible tragedies she has lived through recently, she's not ready to start dating yet. This must be a regular character. 

Lucifer and Girlfriend enter, and hear about the corpse: Jonathan Donnelly, 53, a medical techician, tied up, forced to drink wine for several hours, and then shot.  His phone reveals a nasty argument with a guy named Mo.  So Lucifer's day job is police detective?  I thought he liked crime.

Scene 4: Girlfriend addresses the cops: she's put in her two-week notice, because she's retiring.  Dan congratulates her, but wonders why she didn't tell him. "You'd be too jealous, since you're secretly in love with me."  The Photographer is irate: "I can't solve crimes without you! Is this really how it's gonna end."  Hey, that's the episode title!  

Girlfriend notes that Lucifer is retiring, too.  "We're going to move to Heaven...um.. I mean Florida...so Luce can run the univers...I mean his Dad's business."   Now Photographer starts screaming in Spanish and threatening to kill them both.  "I'll kill you if you leave me" ?  That's classic toxic relationship. Did this episode come with a trigger warning?   

On to the case: the threatening text was sent by a woman named Odetta.  Hey, she texts using a boy's name, Mo.  Shouldn't Photographer get all disgusted? No, she's still busy being obsessive and creepy.  

Scene 5:  Lucifer and Girlfriend interrogate Odetta, a psychic -- presented as a fraud, of course.  The Dead Guy was her con partner: he would steal valuables from corpses, and Odetta would advertise a psychic ability to find them -- for a substantial fee.  They were very successful, so why murder him?

So who else would want to kill him?  When the families didn't take the bait, Dead Guy fenced the items with someone named TJ.  Check him out. (Left: Jeremiah Birkitt, who plays Lee in some other episodes).

This is a police procedural.  I expected Lucifer -- the actual Devil -- to show off some powers -- at least levitate now and then.  Have an office in Hell with a fiery desk or something.  This guy might as well a regular human "black sheep" of a rich family.  

Scene 6: Dan playing cards with his preteen daughter.  Not gay.  And Jophiel does not appear again. I'm out.

Beefcake: None here.  Acording to the Lucifer Wiki, Luce takes off his shirt a lot, but not here.

Gay Characters: None here. The Photographer may come out as lesbian later.

 According to some very critical articles  in Medium and Bi.org, Luce is outed as bisexual during Season 2, when someone starts killing off a lot of women; Lucifer notices that they are all former sex partners.  When the next victim turns out to be a man, Girlfriend triumphantly exclaims that his theory is wrong.  Men don't have sex with men!  She lives in Los Angeles, but has no idea that gay or bi men exist. 

 Fortunately, when Lucifer explains it to her, she does not seem particularly disgusted; she just didn't know that such things happen. 

In the rest of the series, Lucifer is absurdly hetero-horny.  Depending on the writers' whim, he makes an occasional quip about being bisexual or asserts that he finds men's bodies repulsive. 

My Grade: With heteronormativity, homophobia, no beefcake, and no supernatural powers?  Granted, I only watched half the episode, but D-.

Bonus butts and a dick after the break

"Malibu Rescue": Ricardo Hurtado hits the beach for a retro 1980s nerd-jock battle, with bonus lifeguard photos

After Country Comfort, my next  foray into the works of Ricardo Hurtado led me to Malibu Rescue (2019), a pilot for a tv series on Nickelodeon.  I went in with some trepidation: most teen movies are heteronormative, with all adolescent passions and intrigues omitted in favor of "Girls are the meaning of life!  If we win this race (or whatever the Maguffin is), we'll get Girls!"  

But Savage Steve Holland's movies tend to go easy on the girl-craziness, so I gave it a try.


In the middle-class San Fernando Vally, teen operator Tyler (Ricardo Hurtado) plays one too many pranks, and as punishment, is assigned Junior Lifeguard Training.  I'd rather be saved by someone with an interest in lifeguarding, not a high school kid on detention.

 The training will take place in Malibu, home of ultra-rich, bullying snobs.This will become important later.

 

Tyler's fellow Valley Kid trainees, The Flounders, are woefully unprepared.  Have they ever actually seen a beach before?  They include two girls and the nerd Eric (Alkoya Brunson, who has beefed up since 2017).  Their trainer is a blond lady.  Not much beefcake potential so far.

Meanwhile, the rich townie snobs look down on Valley kids, and resent their intrusion into "our beach."  They include Tower Captains Brody (J.T. Neal, left) and Spencer (Cameron Engels).

Plus Garvin (Ian Ziering), the program director, hates Valley kids, and invited the Flounders just so they would fail the training and get ridiculed.

So it's on, nerds vs. jocks in a battle royale to see who gets to become real Junior Lifeguards. Wait -- do they really choose lifeguards via team competitions?

There is, indeed, a pleasant lack of heterosexual interest.  No one gawks at any girl, even for an instant.  There is no Girl of His Dreams for Tyler to pursue, nor a Girl Next Door Who Supported Him All Along for him to end up with. (There's heterosexual romance in the tv series.

However, there are no gay subtexts, either.  Tyler appears to have no friends.  There is no buddy-bonding, anywhere.

And a surprising lack of beefcake. This is a beach.  These are lifeguards.  Where are the muscular physiques?

Every guy on the beach, child, teenager, or adult, lifeguard, junior lifeguard, or civilian -- every guy -- wears a t-shirt and shorts.  Even in crowd scenes.

Have you ever heard of a beach where no male chests on display?  It's like the 1930s, when taking off your shirt in public would get you a citation for public indecency.

Ricardo Hurtado takes off his shirt exactly once, in a rescue scene where you can't see anything.

The lack of girl craziness is nice, but sometimes you need a little more than that.

My grade: D.

Bonus: Real life guards, or at least guys from California, after the break.