"The Feast of the Seven Fishes": All of the tropes I hate, but I still liked it. With Skyler Gisondo and bonus Italian dicks

 

The Feast of the Seven Fishes just dropped on Netflix.  All I know is that it's a Christmas movie starring Skyler Gisondo, so the likelihood of gay characters or even subtexts is minimal.  I'm going to watch anyway.

Scene 1: Beautiful establishing shots of a mining town in West Virginia, winter 1983.  I loved that year!  Madonna, Michael Jackson, "I'm Coming Out," Tom Cruise, Family Ties, Mama's Family.  Tony (Skyler Gisondo) is painting by the river and gazing at his acceptance letter from a prestigious art school.  Angelo (Andrew Schultz, below) and his penis, "Mr. Boner," stop by to tell him about a party with girls desperate to have sex with any guy who asks. 

 "Nope, I'm not going."  Not interested in girls, buddy?

Well, how about coming along on his date?  There will be extremely horny girls there, too. "Nope."  If I didn't know from the plot synopsis that he has two girlfriends, I'd have pegged Tony as gay.

"Please. My penis hates being alone with girls."

"Ok, I'm in. Just to please your penis." He doesn't really say that.

Scene 2: Back in his shabby working-class home, someone named Pap tries to get Tony drunk on homemade hooch.  There's no one named "Pap" in the cast list, but he could be Tony's dad, played by Paul Ben-Victor.

 We cut to a super-elegant mansion, where a super-elegant rich girl named Beth yells at her even-richer  boyfriend Prentice (Allen Williamson, left) for backing out of his promise to spend Christmas with the family.  He's going skiing with his friends instead. Prentice, baby, the first rule of relationships -- never leave them alone at Christmas. They'll be screwing someone else by Boxing Day. 

Mom is upset: "You'll never land a rich husband with that attitude!  Like all men, he prefers the company of other men."  So all men are gay?  

Beth wants a husband who will spend time with her.  That's what gay bffs are for, girlfriend.

Scene 3: Beth hanging out with her Italian-American friend, complaining about this whole "get a rich husband" thing.  They smoke pot.  

Meanwhile, Tony's Uncles Carmine and Frankie, brothers, not a gay couple(Ray Arbruzzo, left, Joe Pantoleone) are stocking up on booze, when they see Tony's Ex throwing herself at a truck driver.  They discuss her boobs for several minutes before getting around to complaining about her post-breakup downward spiral.

Cut to Tony's cousin Juke (Josh Helman, left and below), the family intellectual, telling his buds about the Feast of the Seven Fishes, although they obviously already know: it's a traditional Christmas Eve dinner consisting of seven types of seafood.  I thought it was a religious thing, Jesus with the loaves and fishes.

He stops to complain about not having a girlfriend, which is especially tough at Christmas. Foreshadowing -- ten to one he gets with Tony's Ex-Girlfriend, the one who throws herself at truck drivers. 

Scene 4: Rich-girl Beth and her friend,  incredibly high, stare at the menu at a hot dog restaurant, trying to decide what to order.  How about hot dogs?  They discuss going to a party tonight, but all of the parties are full of girls desperate to have sex with any boy who asks, so they'll get groped and prodded all the time. "Well, maybe I'll do a little groping," the friend jokes.  So she's a lesbian?

Nope.  "I've been dating this guy and his penis." Wait -- her boyfriend is "Come along on my date tonight" Angelo and his penis Mr. Boner.  And Angelo  has this cousin: "Cute, nice, smart..."  A gay guy would immediately ask "How big is his cock?"  

"Maybe you could come along on my date tonight, and dump your Christmas-hating boyfriend for Tony? Or at least seduce him and then dump him on New Year's Day?"

"Sure, I'll give it a shot."

Left: Juke butt.

More after the break

Pablo the Penguin's penis: Jake Goldberg from "Backyardigans" and "Grown Ups" grows up to corporate, cooking, and some cock shots

 

Remember Pablo?  He was one of the backyard buddies on Nick Junior's Backyardigans (2004-2013) a high-strung, frenetic blue penguin best-buddying with the laid-back orange moose Tyrone.  Their friends included Tasha, a yellow hippopotamus best-buddying with the tomboy Uniqua, who has no animal species; and Austin, a purple kangaroo. 

Contrary to what commentators believe, gayness doesn't suddenly appear when you see your first drag queen. You are gay as a preschooler.  You may not be interested in physical intimacy yet, but you find some people and not others attractive, and form romantic bonds, early on.  In Backyardigans, Pablo and Tyrone were queer coded, although Pablo is more often paired with Austin on Archive of Our Own. 

A decade later, Nicholas Barasch, who played Austin in 20 episodes (2009-13), showed his physique on Riverdale.

Leon Thomas III, who played Tyrone in 25 episodes (2006-09), gave us a butt shot on Insecure.

 But Jake Goldberg, a long running Pablo (60 episodes, 2006-13), has given us one better: shots of his penis. 

Born in 1996, Jake grew up in New York, except for five years spent in Israel.  As a child and teenager, he appeared in episodes of 3D Rock, Law and Order: SVU, and Bull, and he played Adam Sandler's son in Grown Ups (2010) and Grown Ups 2 (2013)

Jake is second from the left.  Notice David Henrie of Wizards of Waverly Place on the right.

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His character crushes on girls, but also buddy-bond (and gets naked) with Nadji Jeter as Chris Rock's son. He was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award, which may have turned him off acting as a career choice.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Corey B cooks with Leto, Harrelson, Cavalero, and his mystery boyfriend. With bonus Woody wood

Corey B (Bonalewicz) is a boxer, comedian, content creator, and social media influencer with 1.07 million followers on Youtube, 2.1 million on Instagram, and 8.3 on Facebook

His standup seems rather heteronormative: "It takes a woman an average of 15 minutes to have an orgasm, which means I've never made an orgasm.  You guys know what I'm talking about."  No, Corey, I don't.

"My wife thought I was cheating on her, because my Netflix account had a profile for Big Tidday Brenda.  So we looked through all the Brendas on my instagram followers, and they all had small tiddays."  I don't want to hear about tiddays, dude.

But he's most famous for Tik-Tok and Instagram videos where he prepares weird recipes with some buds:

Dorm room dinner with Benny Blanco

Oreo cake with Jared Leto

Brunch with Woody Harrelson

Holiday whiskey with Michael Bublé

Beetleljuice with Howie Mandel

Fruit by the foot penis with Tony Cavalero

Chicken skin dumplings with Chef André Rush

And a lot...a lot of stuff with his mystery boyfriend...