"Christmas at the Golden Dragon: Eight straight people find love, , a tiny gay subtext, and Markian's dick

Christmas at the Golden Dragon, on Hulu, drew my attention because we always used to get Chinese food on Christmas Eve.  Also the poster shows the focus character deciding between two suitors. One is Osric Chau, who is gay in real life.  Plus Jason Fernandes, left, isn't gazing at a woman, so he might be gay.   Let's give it a try.

Holy cow, a dozen named characters and their long, boring backstories occupy the first ten minutes! 

Focus charcter Romy: Montage of parents and kids decorating trees, opening presents, and hugging.  Lots and lots of hugging.  It's focus character Romy, at her High Power Job selling Harlow Furnishings: "We spend so much time running around buying things that we forget that Christmas is about hugging."  So you criticize buying things in a pitch for buying things, and there are no furnishings in the video?  Way to illustrate cognitive dissonance, girlfriend!

On their way out of the meeting, Romy and her assistant discuss how wonderful New York is at Christmas time. Her family back in Wichita owned a Chinese restaurant that was open on Christmas, so they didn't have time to celebrate. That's a switch; usually you abandon the big, heartless city for small-town hugging. 

Cut to the restaurant in small-town Wichita, population 396,000, where Romy's Dad is teaching Delivery Boy Miguel how to make a potsticker with peanut butter and shrimp -- their speciality.

Her Love Interest, Blake  (Markian Tarasiuk): Hey, Romy is already dating someone in the Big City, but he's actually from small-town Vermont, so he counts as an appropriate small-town Love Interest.  

Miguel, the unattached guy (Jason Fernandes):  He's getting ready to make some deliveries.  Romy's Mom notices that he got into  Princeton and three other "amazing colleges," and he's interviewing for the scholarship that Jane got him.  

But Miguel notes that he can't go to college, because his dad is absolutely against it; he had to apply secretly so Dad wouldn't "freak."  Why would Dad  object to a full scholarship to Princeton? My parents didn't want me to go to college, either, until I showed them my full scholarship.

Jane the Widow: Meanwhile, Romy's Mom chats with regular customer Jane: a retired architect still mourning her late husband, a Wichita State University basketball coach.  Why include this irrelevant detail, unless it will be important later?  

She also has a daughter who didn't mourn adequately, and spends all of her time at work, at a "fancy CFO job." Will this be important later?

Her Love Interest, Mr. Barber (Bobby Stewart): Miguel delivers pork fried rice to him, even though he had a stroke and can't have fried food.  Also he's not supposed to leave the house, but he told his therapist he was going to the bathroom, and sneaked out.  Must be a physical therapist; psychiatrists don't make house calls.  But later Mr. Barber comes and goes whenever he wants.

More Love Interests after the break. Warning: Explicit.

Christmas on the Square: Be thankful that you haven't seen this movie. With Josh Serrano, Treat Williams, and random nude dudes

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 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 (top photo and left), 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 guy 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! 

 

More nude dudes after the break, if you dare to continue. Caution: Explicit.

"Happiest Season": Christmas romcom with lesbian couple, pansexual Patrick, Jake's junk, and Candy Cane Lane

Happiest Season, on Hulu, is advertised as "A Holiday romcom about being true to yourself and trying not to ruin Christmas."  The icon shows three heterosexual couples, an unattached woman, and what looks like a lesbian couple, but ten to one they're bickering sisters.  

But the husband on the left is Dan Levy, Patrick on Schitt's Creek, and the hunky Jake McDorman, top photo, is at the top of the cast list, so I'll give it a try.

Opening:  They're a lesbian couple!  The opening consists of watercolor-type pictures of two women, a blond and a brunette, meeting, falling in love, going to a family Christmas, celebrating Halloween and Thanksgiving, exchanging gifts, and moving in together.  They kiss twice, so it's unlikely that viewers will identify them as "just close friends."

Scene 1: A residential neighborhood decked out for Christmas, called Candy Cane Lane.  A tour guide gives its history: it was started by Herb Flack, with his nephew Otis playing Santa Claus "until he was arrested for child endangerment."  A pedophilia joke?   The ladies are taking the tour. 

The rich brunette is named Abby, and the poor blonde is Harper.  Somebody goofed --  Harper absolutely has to be the rich one.  It's impossible to keep their names straight, so I'll call them Rich Brunette and Blondie. 

Uh-oh, Blondie doesn't like Christmas, a major crime in these movies, and in real life during the month of December. Rush her to a re-education center, stat!  Brunette argues that it's impossible to not love Christmas -- I've heard that argument a lot -- but Blondie stands firm.

Next Brunette drags Blondie to a house that's not on the tour and up to the roof, so they can look down on the lights.  "Now you love it, right?"  Sure, trespassing makes any holiday more festive.

They complain about being separated for the holidays, kiss and...uh-oh, the homeowner hears them.  They slide off the roof, destroying an inflatable snowman, and run away.  The homeowner is a Santa Claus dominatrix and her reindeer-costume sub, har har.

Brunette has an idea: why not come to her parents' house for the holidays?  Wait -- the water-color intro already showed them with the parents at Christmas.  Blondie agrees.  They kiss for like five minutes. 

What happened to Herb Flack and Otis?  You can't name characters and then have them not appear.  We don't even see Candy Cane Lane again.

Scene 2:  The ladies' elegant brick house in downtown Pittsburgh.  Blondie works as a pet sitter?  Girlfriend must be an heiress. An old-fashioned phonograph playing a new song, "Jingle Bells" by Bayli, as Blondie says "We need to talk."  Uh-oh.  

It's nothing bad.  She just wanted to say that she got a substitute pet-sitter, John, so she can go.  Um...the first rule of fiction, even in frothy gay-positive fiction: there has to be conflict.

Cut to a coffee shop, where Blondie is giving John (Dan Levy) pet-sitting instructions.  Wait -- in the intro, he's celebrating Christmas  with the ladies and the parents.  I thought he was the Brunette's brother-in-law, married to the scary-looking sister.   

John is distracted because he left last night's hookup alone in the apartment, so he has to keep tracking him to make sure he leaves.  

Takeaway: he tracks all of his friends.  This will become important later.

In other news, Blondie is planning to ask Brunette to marry her.  John is against it: they're a perfect couple right now, so why spoil things with an archaic assimilationist ritual, trapping her girlfriend in "the iron box of heteronormativity"?

Also: she wants to ask Brunette's dad for his blessing first. You've been reading too many Jane Austen novels, girlfriend.

Scene 3:  Establishing shots of their trek out of the city into the deep, dark wilderness.  You know Pittsburgh is just an hour's drive from West Virginia, right?

Big reveal: When Brunette said that she was out to her parents, she was lying.  They think she is straight, and Blondie is her "roommate."  So, you're about 30, you haven't mentioned a guy in 15 years, and you're  living with a woman. Girl, they know.

And they can't come out now, because Dad is running for mayor, and he's trying to impress this important, homophobic doner.  Sounds like the plot of La Cage aux Folles.

Besides, he has made it very clear over the years that he will only love his children if they are perfect, and being gay is by definition imperfect, so she has a fake boyfriend played by Jake McDorman (butt left).

When they arrive, it turns out that there are three sisters and a scheming ex-girlfriend, all with long black hair, so I can't tell them apart.  But apparently they all have imperfections that they're keeping secret so Dad won't stop loving them:

Eldest sister and her husband are separated and divorcing, but pretending to be together.  The husband is played by Burl Mosely, seen here on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, where he sings "Don't Be a Lawyer."

Brunette is an imperfect lesbian.

Youngest daughter is writing a Harry Potter-like young adult fantasy novel in secret. 

 Pop Quiz: What happens next?

1. T/F: Brunette dumps Blondie for her ex-boyfriend.

2. T/F: John agrees with Brunette's decision to stay in the closet.

3. T/F: John gets a romantic partner

4. T/F: There are several other LGBT characters.

5.T/F: When Brunette comes out, her parents are fine with it.

Answers and Jake's dick after the break.  Caution: explicit.

Sweethearts: Thanksgiving romcom proving that there's gay life and cocks in rural Ohio, so don't move to New York

 

Sweethearts, on MAX, is a rare Thanksgiving romcom about two best friends who are going to the same college but distance-dating their life partners: Ben is with Claire, still in high school.

Ben is played by Nico Hiraga, left, a former semi-pro skateboarder from San Francisco. He has appeared in Booksmart, Love in Taipei, Goodrich, and The Power.

His best friend Jamie, a girl (Kiernan Shipka), is with Simon (Charlie Hall, left), who is dumb as a fence post but got into Harvard on a football scholarship.  Say what? 

 The long distance relationships  aren't working out, so the two make a plan to break up with their partners when they all go home for Thanksgiving.  

Left: Simon butt

Obviously they're going to get together or it wouldn't be a romcom.  I'm fast forwarding through their scenes to get to Palmer (Caleb Hearon), the flamboyantly feminine "third friend" pictured in the animated opening. He's probably the standard romcom gay best friend who facilitates the romance, but maybe he'll get a boyfriend of his own.

Correction: I'm also interested in Ben's college roommate Tyler, played by Zach Zucker , a "Bad Bi Boy Clown" -- literally. He trained for two years at the Ecole Philippe Gaulier.  

On his Facebook page, Zach notes that "Bi Visibility Day is cool because it forces all of the people who have caused you pain by denying your existence to look at your butt and mask-covered dick pics."   Where's the mask covered dick pic, Zach?

His character is introduced smooching a girl in bed, but maybe he's bi:

He looks at Ben's fake id and comments: "I'll go out with you.  Just kidding."

Ben has his hands full, so he asks Tyler to take his cell phone from his pocket.  "Whoops, wrong phone.  Just kidding."  

He seems to be dancing with Ben in the closing party scene.

And that's just when  I paused the fast-forwarding.

Paris: "Third Friend" Parker is introduced at Minute 15, calling the duo, wearing a striped shirt and beret, sitting in front of an image of the Eiffel Tower.  He took a gap year after high school to move to Paris, and he is working at a fast-food place near Euro Disney.  Why would visitors to Euro Disney want to see fast-food workers in clichéd French costumes?  

He announces that he is no longer "vaguely pretending to be straight." Really?  Who would think you were straight after talking to you for 30 seconds? 

He'll be coming out to a select group of former classmates at a party at his house on the night before Thanksgiving.

More after the break, including a rural Ohio gay community and some dicks,  Caution: explicit.

"Dashing in December": Campy Christmas romcom with gay guys and a ranch that needs saving. Plus Neil Patrick Harris's butt

I was recommended Dashing in December, a Christmas romcom advertised on Amazon Prime as a tv series, for some reason.  The blurb gives the standard plotline: Big City careers are stupid, go home for Christmas and find love.  The twist: Big City is a guy!  It will take about 10 minutes of screen time for the big reveal: he's gay!

Scene 1: Establishing shot of NYC.  Big, Important Financial Planner Wyatt (Peter Porte) is at an office Christmas party, miserable amid the talk of husbands and wives.  He and Lindsey broke up in October, so he'll be alone!  At Christmas! Hey, I thought Wyatt was gay.  Has he not figured it out yet, or is Lindsey a made-up girlfriend? 

"What went wrong?" the Big Boss wants to know. "I thought you and Lindsey were perfect for each other."  So they've met?  Maybe Lindsey is a beard? Or maybe he's bi?

 "The nonstop trips to the Cape, the five-star restaurants every night. I want someone with simple, down-home tases."  Should have thought of that before you moved to the Big City, Dude. 

More plot: this is the first Christmas since Dad passed away, so Mom is depressed, so he's going back to the ranch in Colorado.  10,000 to one he finds love there.

Hey, the hot bartender (Eric Meroño, left) grins at Wyatt!  If you came in cold, this would be your first clue that Wyatt might not be straight, but I'll bet not one viewer in 100 catches it

Scene 2: Establishing shot of a beautiful ranch in Colorado. Wyatt's Mom brings tea to her workers: a girl and Heath (Juan Pablo de Pace, below).  She announces that Wyatt is coming home for Christmas, for the first time in five years.  Heath has only been working there for three years, so they've never met, but the girl is his High School Girlfriend. Whoa, Wyatt really racks up the babes.  

"Won't your husband, who is out of the country working for Doctors Without Borders, be jealous of your ex-boyfriend visiting?" Heath asks. 

High School Girlfriend, grinning: "I...don't...think so."  Her certainty is another clue.

Heath leaves, and High School Girlfriend interrogates Mom: "Heath doesn't know about Wyatt?" 

 "Well, I couldn't just tell him, could I?"  Tell him what, Mom?  What about your son is such a problem that you're afraid to tell your employee about it?

"Well, does Wyatt know about Heath?"  

"What could I say: you guys are both gay?"  The big reveal!   Why all the circumlocution and misdirection?  Probably the same rationale as not revealing that a tv character is gay until Season 2: you want the viewers to become invested in the story first, so they won't run away in homophobic horror. 

Wait -- Ranch Hand Heath is gay, too?  So what's the problem? This will be a very short romcom. Wyatt's plane lands, sparks fly, mistletoe, the end.

Scene 3:  Heath giving two moms and two kids (a lesbian couple?) a tour of Santa's Workshop. By horse-drawn carriage, not sleigh: there's no snow on the ground. 

Meanwhile, Wyatt arrives. pulls out his luggage, and grimaces. Yuck, back at the place I found so oppressive as growing up!   Mom hugs him and immediately envisions him having kids. Geez, Lady, wait until he's in the house before pressuring him to get married and have kids. 

Wait -- if Wyatt is gay, what's up with the ex-girlfriend Lindsey?  Mom references them with he/him pronouns -- yep, he was a guy with a girl's name, a misdirection to fool us before the big reveal.  Or Wyatt has a thing for gender-bending names: his High School Girlfriend is named Blake.   

Mom points out Heath: "He keeps the place going."  Wyat notices the lack of customers for Santa's Village, and criticizes him for not doing his job.  Yeah, Heath, get busy and make with the snowfall!

Scene 4: Heath and High School Girlfriend are heading to dinner, and to meet Wyatt.  Heath worries that he will be homophobic, but she reassures him: that won't be a problem.  So the guy who escaped Colorado, with its long history of homophobic legislation, for the freedom of a gay mecca, is homophobic?  

At dinner, Wyatt snipes at Heath (left), misnames him Hank, criticizes the terrible wine he brought, and ignores him to chat up High School Girlfriend. This isn't going well, but then neither of the guys knows that the other is gay.  

More misdirection after the break

Meet Me Next Christmas: A drag show, a queer cousin, Pentatonix, and a dancer's dick

  

I fast-forwarded through the first 20 of the Christmas movies streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, and found only one with probable gay characters: Meet Me Next Christmas.  Plus there are two hot guys on the icon, so there's bound to be some beefcake.  

Scene 1: It's snowing in a Chicago with no recognizable landmarks.  Pentatonix is singing on holograms and store cams everywhere: "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."  The Girl, Layla, is in the airport with her luggage on Christmas Eve.  Who flies on Christmas Eve?  You won't get there in time for anything.  But all flights out are cancelled.  She is shocked; who knew that flights are cancelled in snow?  

While she is waiting in the VIP lounge, James (Kofi Siriboe, top photo), a hot guy with a cancelled flight, sits next to her.  Her flirting bio: she runs a charity that gives scholarships to deserving youth to attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities.  She shows him a photo of Derek, who graduated from Langston College in Oklahoma last year. 

Named after Langston Hughes, the Westernmost HBCU is advertised as an "excellent value," with a lot of white students on its website. and no mention of LGBT people.

"Right now Tanner and I would be going to the Pentatonix Christmas Eve Show."  You're flying on the same day as the show?  Idjit!

James doesn't know what Pentatonix is, even though they've been singing all through the airport, so Layla tells him. 

They decide that, if they're both single next year, they'll meet at next year's big Pentatonix Christmas Eve concert. 

Scene 2: The next year, three days before Christmas, Layla is at work, busily placing students at HBCUs, when her bff calls -- not a gay guy, darn it, but she talks like a drag queen.  Layla is going to pick up boyfriend Tanner's favorite dinner -- takeout Italian with a Christmas twist.

She arrives at her stunning Victorian -- in Poughkeepsie?  Why not near a HBCU college? -- screams -- and a half-naked lady runs out, followed by a shirtless Tanner (Brendan Morgan, left).  What idjit has a hookup when he knows his girlfriend will be home any minute?

Layla wants to know that too.  He explains that this is the day the maid comes, so he couldn't hook up at his place. So she dumps the Italian food on his bare chest,  slams the door, and looks out the window, miserable. 

Scene 3: In New York, staying with her bff, Layla drinks wine and stares out onto the city.  Girlfriend says that she always picks the wrong guys -- successful, muscular, well-hung -- but forgets to find out if he's into her.  "Is he your ride or die?"  

"Hey, maybe I can fall in love with my airport hookup from last year, James." They said they would meet at the big Pentatonix concert, but Tanner the idjit ordered Macklemore tickets this year! 

No problem; they'll just go to the Rockefeller Center website and buy a ticket for Pentatonix. Sold out!  "But you can go through a concierge service to get them." I thought a concierge worked in a hotel, but it's a general service that rich people use for help of all sorts, like getting sold-out tickets.

Scene 4: In New York,  two days before Christmas, concierge Teddy (Devale Ellis) passes out Christmas fudge to his coworkers, and cioppino to the boss lady.  I'll bet that Layla gets with him instead of James. 

Layla has hired him, after sending a lot of emails and showing up at the office. His job is to get her Petatonix tickets by tomorrow night.  "Your client reviews suck," Boss lady snarls,"So get this one done or you're fired."

In Teddy's office, Layla explains that she's freaking out because she's tried everything to get that ticket: Ticketmaster, Tickpick, Stubhub...none available.  Girl, just text the guy and offer to meet him somewhere else. 

Nothing in the company databases, but Teddy knows a guy who might have one. "He has a kiosk.  I'll go get it.  No, Layla wants to go with him, to make sure there are no screw-ups. And fall in love, of course.

Scene 5: Out onto the streets of Toronto masquerading as New York.  The kiosk is closed, but Layla found a guy on Dave's Tickets who has a couple, and wants to meet in the Village.  Tony resists -- he's the professional with the contacts, so this guy must be a scam -- but she drags him on.  Squabbling- they'll be smooching in the last scene, 100 to 1

Gay characters after ther break

Jake Satow: Saving Christmas, a Christian horse, a nonbinary internet celebrity, and the Baywatch guy

 

I was looking for actors who played nonbinary characters, and the name "Jake Satow" popped up.  Never heard of him, but he's attractive, so I checked the listing on IMDB.

He has 18 acting credits.  The most recent is Saving Christmas Spirit, 2022.  

How many times does that holiday need saving?

Spoiler alert: Christmas Spirit is a store that needs saving.  Jake plays a teenager who gets a girlfriend.

Adeline, 2022, is about a horse that heals people in a small town.  I swear, I'm not making this up.  Presumably a Christian movie, since one of the IMDB reviews says something like "Stop the insanity. The Bible isn't real." 

It stars 1980s hunks John Schneider from The Dukes of Hazzard, bottom photo, and David Chokachi from Baywatch, butt left.

Jake had a busy 2022.  Other roles include Howard Hunt's son in Gaslit,  which has a maddenly misleading title.  You expect the gaslit Victorian era, with hanson cabs clattering down cobblestone streets.  It's about Watergate.

Hockey Trophy Jake in Breathing Happy, about a recovering drug addict celebrating his first year of sobriety on Christmas Day, naturally. Other characters are named the Mysterious Door, the Golden Door, and Salvation Elf.  Another Christian movie, I imagine. 

Christian Holmes at age 14 in The Dropout, about a woman dropping out of college to start a tech company that revolutionalizes the health care industry.  Christian Holmes at age adult is her husband.

This is all terribly heteronormative. 

Before 2022, Jake was starring in a lot of shorts: a clown with marital problems, the morning announcements at a middle school, an alarm clock going off an hour early, dad dying, and Christmas.  They all have about the same cast, so I'm guessing local productions.

His website lists a theatrical production, The Honorary Counsel, performed with the actors in Zoom rooms, plus modeling on runways for Columbus Fashion Week and for Macy's and Homage.  

No indication of nonbinary, trans, or otherwise LGBTQ roles.  Maybe in real life?

Jake has 17,000 followers on Instagram.  His profile says says "Christian"...uh-oh, probably homophobic... SAG/AFTRA....The Dropout, and Saving Christmas Spirit.

More after the break

"The Holiday Exchange": Immensely wealthy A-gays look for love at Christmas. Watch with your grandmother

  

It's not even Halloween yet, but the romcoms are started.  

Darn, they all have such interchangeable titles that I forgot which one I'm reviewing. Oh, right, The Holiday Exchange, on Amazon Prime.  

The icon shows a woman torn between two men, and the blurb is about a guy going on a "holiday exchange" that he found on a gay app, so I suspect some "mistaken for gay" jokes as the guy finds the Girl of His Dreams.

Scene 1: A guy wearing an eye mask and a frilly shirt wakes up -- gay. Close-up of a photo of him and his boyfriend -- gay.  He knocks it over, drinks some booze, and shaves and applies femme moisterizer products -- gay. 

A guy texts: "Wilde, call me back," but he ignores it.  Moisturizer guy is named Wilde, like Oscar?  Gay. He's played by Taylor Frey, top photo, who also wrote the screenplay.

Knock on the door: It's femme fashion designer Chase, Colton Tran, and a woman, with ideas for his wedding outfit: "Your Mom told us that your Big Day was coming."

"Nope, you misunderstood, I'm not getting married, I'm selling my company."

"Oh, well, we have ideas for that, too."

Wilde goes annoyingly over the top complementing Fashion Designer Chase; he is an angel, a shining light, goodness personified; he has created everlasting happiness for literally thousands of people by...um...designing their clothes. 

Back story: Wilde just dumped his boyfriend, Sean.

Scene 2:  An idyllic village, over the top idyllic, Currier & Ives idyllic. 

George tells his business partner Oliver, Rick Cosnett, how they met, confesses to drinking too much, and then lays on the over-effusive praise.  

Oliver is also an angel, goodness personified, spearheading drives that raise billions for charity. He's single-handedly wiped out world hunger.  Don't introduce Oliver to Chase the Fashion Designer, or they'll cancel each other out.  

His problems: he is too busy with his day job as a divorce lawyer, his numerous charities, and taking over Dad's business when he retires to get a boyfriend. Coworker George is in favor of being single. This must be the "mistaken for gay" guy.

Wait -- they specifically state that they live in Los Angeles.  The establishing shot was a New England Currier & Ives village. What the fudge?

Out in the elegant party, Saintly Oliver talks to James, who works in his company.  They hedge around the discussion of why their last date was so awful. So Saintly Oliver and Moisturizer Wilde are both gay?  Who's going to hook up with the lady in the middle of the icon?  

No,  James "can't" get together during the holidays: he'll be seeing family, driving up the coast. Dude's not into you. 

I'm watching with subtitles, so I can't hear the accents, but these people are saying "Happy Christmas" to each other.  Could they live in Britain, but be having an elegant party in L.A.?

More after the break.

"Nobody Wants This": Rabbi and "bad date" podcaster fall in love, with a gay dad and a lesbian best friend

 

I certainly didn't want to see a tv show called Nobody Wants This, a romcom about a rabbi and an agnostic girl who fall in love.  But I needed a half hour series, and it stars Adam Brody, who has played gay characters, and Kristen Bell, whose character was bisexual-vague in The Good Place.  So maybe there will be some gay representation.

Scene 1: Joanne, Kristen Bell, runs away from a guy during their first date because he starts crying about how he lost his grandmother -- when he was 12!   Switch to her podcast, where she asks "Am I the asshole?"  30 minutes of the date, and she learned that Grandma was a Rockette, and spent 42 years with her soulmate, William.  A little much.

Sister Morgan: You always do this.  You meet a nice guy, and find something wrong with him.  It's like you don't want to be in a relationship. Who wants to watch a podcast about Joanne's relationship trouble?  Oh, wait, this is a whole tv show about it.

Scene 2: Switch to Noah (Adan Brody) talking to his brother, Sasha, Timothy Simmons, who is heterosexual -- "Is Esther cheating on me?"

 "No, you have to stop letting Mom cut your hair. It's dumb."  Inside, they prepare to watch the game with a lady named Beck, whom Noah kisses.  

She was snooping around and found an engagement ring in a locked drawer, so she started planning the wedding.  Noah wanted to ask, so it would be romantic. Besides, invasion of privacy.  They argue; he dumps her.

Scene 3: Jeanne, Morgan, and an old guy, Michael Hitchcock, having dinner.  Wait, there's an old lady on the other side of the booth; it's the anniversary of the day Mom and Dad got divorced!  

Mom explains to the cute waiter, Keith Walker, that they were ecstatically happy for 32 years, but then he became "a bit confused about his sexuality."  Oh, no, not another "you're just confused."  That's ancient!

She continues: "It's very trendy to be gay these days, so he switched." 

Jeanne and her sister cut her off before she says anything else stupid.

Later, Jeanne gets a phone call from a Bigwig, who wants to "talk acquisition, a spin-off, and a book deal.  Just keep having wacky relationship problems."  Uh-oh, Girlfriend is finding true love later this episode.

Scene 4: Jeanne in bed, thinking of podcast ideas, when her best friend Ashley calls to invite her to a dinner party tonight.

"Who's going to be there?" Jeanne asks with a frown. "Bunch of lesbians?"  Why don't you like LGBT people, Jeanne?  Angry because your dad turned gay?

Best friend Ashley assures her that some heterosexuals are invited, including some men that she can date and find something wrong with for the podcast: a divorced dude with a kid, so you can make fun of him for being a bad dad; a finance guy who can't talk about anything else; and a rabbi, so you can make circumcision jokes. 

Jeanne is excited.  "They sound awful!  I'll be there!"

Scene 5: The party, in a huge mansion...um, middle class house.  Mostly women, a heterosexual male-female couple, a fruity guy flirting with a woman.  

Jeanne kisses best friend Ashley on the mouth, and gets rejected. "Ewww...not gay for you." Wait, you dislike gay people, remember? Or maybe you hate everybody, so it's not homophobia, it's misanthropy/misogyny? 

Next she sidles up to Noah, who thinks she's going through a crisis.  "No, I'm just in constant need of attention."  He has the same problem, constantly needing people to tell him he's cute. 

That reminds her -- "There's a rabbi here!  Let's find him so we can make fun of him!"  She points out a bearded guy on the other side of the room.

As everyone goes in to dinner, Joanne seeks out Best Friend Ashley.  "I think I'm really into the Divorced Guy!"  

"Good.  He's a horrible person, a condescending asshole, perfect for your podcast."  Funny, that doesn't sound like Noah....

Big Reveal after the break. Caution: Explicit.

Noah Centineo: The Boyfriend of Your Dreams, with five butts, three bulges, one penis, and no gay characters

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Brock Yurich: Romcom hunks, hustlers, gay villains, nude modeling, and a big reveal

First Brock O'Hurn, and now Brock Yurich: I seem to be collecting Brocks.  After seeing Yurich as ChaseDream's Trainer in two episodes of The Other Two, I looked him up on the IMDB.  

Not much: Born May 1, 1989 in New Philadelphia, Ohio, about two hours west of Pittsburgh.  Nothing else until he moves into acting in 2011 with small roles like Fraternity Brother, Bar Patron, and Attractive Man, plus guest spots on The Two of Us, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Succession.

The IMDB says that he "known for" playing Winston in Rambler (2013), not to be confused with The Rambler (2013), starring Daniel Keith as a hit-man with a price on his head. I don't know who Winston is, but in the trailer there's close-up of a woman's foot followed by a guy, maybe Brock, dressed in a South-of-Market leather outfit offering drinks and screaming.  I'm guessing a standard gay/trans villain.

Brock is also "known for" two short films that he wrote, produced, and appeared in: T-Country (2016), about a down-on-his-luck prizefighter, and 49: A Tribute to the Pulse (2017) -- the gay Latinx nightclub that was the site of a mass shooting in 2016.   That one is gay-related.

Another possible gay role: in Law and Order: Special Victim's Unit Episode 17.18, 2016, the detectives uncover a "massive cover-up in the Catholic Church." Brock plays Lance Woodstone. I don't have a lot of details, but this photo suggests that he's a hustler who specializes in BDSM scenes for priests. I can't tell if it's a homophobic portrayal or not.

After that, we move on to purely heterosexist roles. The Hating Game (2021): A romcom about two business rivals (Lucy Hale, Austin Stowall) who fall in love.  It's a "boring trifle," "sweet and sugary," or "an abomination," depending on whose review you believe. Brock plays someone named Mack, far down the cast list -- not the gay best friend.

The Love Hunt (2023) is a romcom about an heiress who has to find some hidden treasure in order to inherit her dad's estate. Brock plays the small-town working-class bloke whom she chooses over her prissy button-down boyfriend.

The Boxer and the Butterfly (2023) is a romcom about an aspiring dancer who must teach a down-and-out boxer the moves.  Brock plays her love interest.  Ok, maybe the gay projects were just a fluke.

His instagram is not very exciting.  Sure, he flexes a lot, but 3,000 photos of a bodybuilder flexing at the gym or in a nondescript room?  There are no photos of travel, restaurants, or anything of non-hunk interest, no humor, not even a lot of interesting exterior shots. And he hugs a lot of women.  Definitely straight.

This is the only humorous post, Brock in a Mandalorian mask, with the Yoda baby.

Searching for "Brock Yurich" and "nude" revealed some shots from Tyler Perry's soap opera, The Haves and the Have-Nots (2018-21),  about the relations between the rich Harringtons and the poor Youngs -- basically the plot of every soap opera ever, except that most of the cast is black.   

In Seasons 5-8, Brock plays Madison, an "openly gay" nurse at the local hospital, who develops a relationship with Jeffery, the Harrington's closeted, then out-but-beleaguered son. Actually no nudity, but the guys hug.

Real nudity after the break. Caution: explicit

Players: Romcom with a sports writer who ends up with who you expect, plus a bi guy who hooks up off-camera and some butts

 

Brock O'Hurn is starring in a new movie on Netflix, Players: a female sports writer named Mack has a foolproof plan for hooking up with guys, but then she falls in love with a hookup.  Do straight women really have trouble finding guys to have sex with?  Aren't they, like, hit on constantly?

Her best buddy is played by Damon Wayons, who I thought was homophobic due to the shockingly hateful In Living Color (Remember "Men on Film"?).  In 2019 he apologized for some homophobic tweets from 2011 to 2016: "I was unaware of the emotional impact they would have."  He is currently the executive producer of Glamorous, which stars a nonbinary or femme gay guy, so we'll check....

No wikipedia plot synopsis, no LGBTQ representation in the trailer. Grr -- I hate these Netflix one-word titles!  They make it impossible to research.  No way to tell if there are any minor "sassy work friend" gay characters, except by watching.

Scene 1: At a bar, Bran (Augustus Prew) and his crew discuss strategies for getting him into the pants of his target: pretend to be drunk and spill a drink on her?  Steal her scarf and pretend that you found it?   They decide on Fiji Fantasy: Bran and his "girlfriend," Mack, argue and break up in front of the target.  The girlfriend is careful to emphasize that it's not about the sex: he is incredibly fantastic at that; she just feels inferior because he's so rich and has been with so many attractive women. 

Their buds Adam and Little (Damon, Joel Courtney) watch in adoration: "This is a master class."  I think it's a little heavy-handed.  Unless she's a complete nitwit, the target will catch on that it's a hookup scam.

Scene 2:  She's a nitwit.  While Bran is off sexing her, the others walk home.  Adam wonders what will happen when the target finds out he's not rich.  "Are you new here?  After the sexing, he'll never see her again."  

Uh-oh, Bran calls: he "bucknerded" it by forgetting the name of his "girlfriend."  Why not use the same name every time? 

 But it doesn't matter, because hes's moving on to a new target; the guy by the white owl back at the bar.

A guy?  The buds approve  "Been awhile -- I like your style."  Mack suggests "Run Time Step."  Little, who happens to be Bran's baby brother, offers to help.

We don't see the play.Why do we see the girl target but not the guy target?  Afraid the audience will be offended by a gay hookup?  

Instead, we continue to focus on Adam and Mack.  They discuss their problems working for a newspaper, a "dying medium," Mack's new feature on memorable local sports, and "we're perfect for each other but don't want to admit it"."  The background song: "What cha waiting for?  Your prayers have already been answered!"  

Left: Joel Courtney's butt.

More romance after the break