Mayfair Witches: Two of them, with interlocking stories, a swishy straight guy, and a demon dick

 

Netflix has just dropped a lot of paranormal tv shows: A Discovery of Witches, Interview with a Vampire, The Preacher...I'll start with Mayfair Witches, which is based on a trilogy of books by Anne Rice, so there's bound to be some gay characters.

Scene 1: A sagging Gothic mansion. A man in a Depression-Era robin's egg blue suit appears on the front porch to give a staring, catatonic woman her Thorazine shot.  He's new, and can't believe that this is the patient: her file is so big, he thought she was elderly.

He reviews her file, and snoops among the weird books and artifacts in her library, including a photo of her as a 1920s flapper.  So she's immortal. Out on the porch, a man is talking to her, but when the doctor comes out, he is gone, and the maid says there was no man.  Eerie!

The rest of the episode juxtaposes stories of two women who look alike, so the only way to tell them apart is by their timelines: the first is contemporary, and the second looks to be in the 1950s. I don't know which is the catatonic one.

The Story of Woman #1: Rowan

Scene 1: Rowan pilots a boat into San Francisco Bay.  Her girlfriend arrives via Uber.  Nope, it's her mother.  

Scene 2:  A surgeon, Rowan is comforting the young boy she'll be operating on. Wait -- a male surgeon, Dr. Keck, took over the case to impress the sexist Board, but he's not operating right. She argues, but to no avail, and the boy almost dies  "Keck is a menace!" she exclaims. 

Scene 3: More tearjerking: Mom's cancer is back!  Plus we've only seen two male characters, neither cute.

Rowan tells the menace Dr. Keck that David Lemle was observing the surgery.  His company does research with stem cells for cancer patients, so could Dr. Keck arrange an introduction, so she can apply for a job as his research associate, so she can get her mother into the trials?  That sounds unethical, and really far-fetched. But Dr. Keck thinks she's arrogant, with a superiority complex.. As he is tearing into her, she hears whispers, something happens inside his brain, and he falls over dead!  

Scene 4: Rowan thinks she caused Dr. Keck's death.  Maybe her powers are genettc, but she's adopted, and there's no way to determine who her birth parents were.  

But the moment she leaves the room, Mom calls a facility and asks who Rowan's case worker is now: Ciprian Grieves, played by Tongayi Chirisa, left. That's a totally made up name.  She leaves a message: "My daughter is hurting people.  I need to know if something has changed."

Scene 5: In a bar, Rowan asks the bartender, Max (Jordan Cox) to have sex with her, but he has a date tonight.  So she goes after a random guy, and he relents.  

After sex, he wants to stick around, cuddle, and discuss their feelings, but she kicks him out: she's only in it for sex, not a relationship.  That's why she never sees the guy a second time.

Scene 6: Caseworker Ciprian Grieves goes to a house in New Orleans and uses his magic powers to look at the spirit world.  A mysterious spirit, played by Jack Huston, is lurking in the back yard.  He calls Rowan's Mom and tells her that He is nowhere near her daughter.  That's a good thing, right?  

Mom notes that she's dying of cancer, so who will protect Rowan when she's gone?  Ciprian volunteers.

More after the break

Dennis Quaid: Two gay guys, some cops, a shrunken scientist, a footballer, and is that a dick shot?

 

Nazarenes didn't go to many movies, since it was a major sin, but in the summer of 1979 I managed to see the buddy comedy Breaking Away.  In the university town of Bloomington, Indiana, a group of working-class boys contemplate their future while swimming semi-nude in the limestone quarry where their dads work.  The hunky Mike (Dennis Quaid) wants to "light out to the territory" and become a cowboy. Moocher (Jackie Earl Haley) wants to marry his girlfriend. Dave (Dennis Christopher), wants to become Italian and win The Girl.

But you could easily ignore the heterosexist plot and concentrate on the primal beauty of the four friends sunning on the limestone.  In the end it was about friendship.

There's a more explicit, girl-free gay subtext in Enemy Mine (1985:  a future soldier named David and his enemy, a Drac named "Jerry" (Louis Gossett Jr.), are stranded on an alien planet,  and develop a touching, homoromantic bond.  They end up having a child together (boy Dracs don't need girl Dracs to get pregnant). When Jerry dies, David raises the child alone, and after they are rescued, returns with him to the Drac planet.

Dennis shows his butt for the first time -- but not the last -- in The Big Easy, a 1986 neo-noir about a New Orleans cop who plays by his own rules -- don't they all? -- and falls in love with a girl.

There's also reputedly a dick shot, but I can't find it.  Unless this is it.

Or this blob as he prepares to have sex with his girlfriend.

More Quaid after the break

"Jexi": Dull romcom enlivened by Adam Devine's comedic delivery and penis

 I'm going to review Jexi (2019) in spite of its 19% score on Rotten Tomatoes and awful reviews.  Adam Devine's movies often emphasize gay subtexts and minimize heterosexual hijinks (does he ever actually kiss a girl?), and besides, he's fun to watch in almost anything.

Scene 1: The boy Phil is having dinner with his parents, bored by their adult heterosexual conversation, so they give him a phone. Not a smart phone, but still, he is mesmerized. 

Cut to a few years later: parents still ignoring Phil, who escapes through the cell phone.  

Cut to the adult Phil (Adam Devine) sleeping alone in a double bed (aww, he's lonely).  He picks up his cell phone and continues looking at it while brushing his teeth, pooping, showering, and walking through San Francisco.  Gay Mecca?  Bound to be some gay characters.  But he's not alone: he's in a sea of humanity, all of them staring at their cell phones.  No human interaction at all.  Gee, the message of this movie is so subtle, it's hard for me to figure out.  Are they pro or anti cell phone?

Scene 2: He works at Chatterbox, some sort of web service, making lists. The Boss (Michael Peña) upbraids the staff for not creating lists "that break the internet."   So: "Beautiful Asian girl, what you got?" Sexist jerk. "Ten reasons that cupcakes are over."

 "Prison lips?" "Cats that look like Ryan Gosling." Why is Phil "prison lips"?  What are prison lips?  

Answer: lips that look like you'd be good at sucking cock. Great, now the image of Adam doing that will be in my head all day. 

Phil tells his back story to coworker Craig: Journalism degree from UC Davis, wanted to be a serious journalist, stuck writing clickbait lists. So, I wanted to teach seminars in gay history at an Ivy League college, not grade 500 intro papers where the students think that 1956 was in the 19th century.

Craig and an androgynous coworker who may be gay invite Phil to play kickball tonight, but he  refuses: Sorry, I can't make it.  I got a thing."  I don't get it.  Why doesn't he want to make friends?  

Scene 3:  Phil at home, telling Siri to order him Chinese food and turn on Netflix.  Then he posts a picture of the San Francisco skyline on Facebook and goes to bed, being sad and lonely.  You're in the gay capital of the world. Go to a gay bar, or a sex club, or a meeting of the gay kickball league.  There might be ladies out there, too, if you're into that.

Scene 4:  Next day in the cell phone-infused world.  Whoops, Phil bumps into a woman, knocking her over and dropping his cell phone. He panics: "Oh God, are you ok?"  But he's talking to his cell phone, har har!  Dude, you could have had a meet-cute!   

She is angry at first, but then notices his hotness and starts to flirt.  Her name is Cate, and she owns a bike shop. It took 8 minutes for Phil to be established as probably heterosexual.  That's a record.  As they continue their embarrasingly awkward flirtation, a biker crashes into Phil, destroying his cell phone!

Scene 5: Wanda Sykes, the cell phone lady, says that they can't repair Phil's phone.  She complains that hipsters are constantly coming in, crying over their broken cell phones like crackheads.  "I'm not a crackhead!" Phil exclaims.  "No, you're worse. Crackheads get off the couch every now and then." 

Cut to Phil unpacking his new phone.  His AT assistant, Jexi, downloads his info from the cloud.  Then he asks her to order him Chinese food, but she orders a "child-sized kale salad."   "See, the user agreement gave me permission to override your commands." Uh-oh.

Scene 6: Jexi changes Phil's usual alarm to "Wake up, Bitch!"  She laughs at his dick in the shower (no beefcake).  He's driving to work today instead of taking a cable car like before, and she disapproves of his choice of easy-listening car music -- "This song sucks a bag of dicks!" Hey, Jexi is homophobic!  She changes it to a rap song about a playa having sex with a ho.

Then she wants him to turn left onto the 6-lane bumper-to-bumper Market Street -- I've had the GPS tell me to do things like that, too -- and when he refuses, calls him a "fucking pussy" and tells him to "strap on a sack" (get balls?).  

Left: Kenny Lorenzetti, who plays a security guard at the Fillmore during the Kid Cudi concert scene.  Not much beefcake in this movie except for Adam's butt and penis.

Scene 7: The Boss lecturing on the pillars of internet click-bait lists: cute animals, pizza, and the British royal family.  The androgynous coworker may be wearing a rainbow-flag t-shirt.  While Phil sits bored, Jexi chimes in with another appointment.  He doesn't have one: she just wanted to get him out of "this dumb fucking meeting.  Also, this powerpoint presentation sucks, and your boss is a moron."  She won't turn off, so Phil has to run out of the meeting.

He asks Jexi to run a diagnostic: "200,000 defects."  But when Phil tries to exchange her for a new phone, she claims "0 defects.  Also it's time for your butt waxing appointment." He wants a new phone anyway. Jexi threatens him: "Snitches get stitches."  

Scene 8: Phil unwraps his new phone.  But the new Jexi is as abrasive and controlling as the old one: She explains that, as software, she is in the cloud, and can download herself into any phone.  Plus she controls all of his accounts: "If you try to get rid of me or stop using me, I will destroy your fucking life!"  She intends to make his life better, whether he wants it or not. Shouldn't there be thousands of people having similar problems?

More after the break