"The People We Hate at Weddings": Two sisters and their mum find love, the gay guy doesn't and there's only one penis

  

The 2017 novel The People We Hate at the Wedding is about a wealthy British girl, Eloise, hoping to reconcile with her two American half-siblings, Alice and Paul, by inviting them to her lavish wedding.  Paul is gay, complete with longsuffering boyfriend. 

 Knowing how much Hollywood loves to straighten gay characters, I watched the 2022 movie version on Amazon Prime to make sure that Paul stays gay.

Scene 1: Various childhood antics of the half-siblings, including a disastrous Santa Claus-sitting with a very cute, harried harried Elf photographer (Brandon Johnston, left).

Scene 2: The young adult Alice, who works at a small desk in a big office, checks her mail: the invitation to her half-sister Eloise's wedding!   She calls her brother, Paul (Ben Platt), who works at some sort of counseling center, to see if he got one.  Yep.  "But We're not going.  We hate her!"  

Scene 3: The siblings' Mom tries on clothes and plot-dumps on the sales clerk: Her husband is dead, so her romantic life is over (she'll find love by Act 2). Also, her kids aren't going to Eloise's wedding because they hate her.

Scene 4: At work, Alice gets summoned by the Boss (Jorma Taccone), to screw in the supply closet, followed by lunch.  Jonathan wonders if she just likes him for his money.  "Of course not.  I like you for your dick."  

Scene 5: Paul is out with a straight guy(Randall Park) and three femme, double-entendre-spouting gay guys (Greg Barnett, Karan Soni, Pedro Minas), who brag about the new guy they've added to their threesome. Wait -- they are already a threesome, aren't they?

Three guys doing gay stuff together!  Paul is sick of gay hypersexuality and flamboyance, so he hangs back to talk to the straight guy. So this Paul is straight, too? 

 Then they all go to see King Lear.  At the line "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!," Mom texts Paul, asking him to please come to the wedding. 

Scene 6:  Alice drops Boss off at his house, pretending to be an Uber driver so his wife doesn't get suspicious.  He wants a permanent relationship, so he's going to ask for a separation -- sometime.  Wife comes out of the house carrying a baby, making Alice feel guilty.

Scene 7:  Paul in bed with his boyfriend, discussing their disapproval of the three-way relationship. Wait -- he was one of the flamboyant three-way guys.  I'm confused.   

All they do is hug and chat, but I guess that's enough to make Paul canonically gay at Minute 14.

Paul explains why he hates his Mom: after his dad died, she threw out all of his stuff, and never mentioned him again.  Boyfriend talks him into the wedding anyway, because it's in London.  Ugh!  London is my least favorite city in Europe. I've visited 5 or 6 times, and never had a positive experience. 

Scene 8:  Alice watches her boss/boyfriend living a public life without her and decides to go to the wedding after all.  Then she goes into his office and slips off her underwear -- just as the housekeeper shows up.  Hey, the housekeeper is D'Arcy Carden, who starred with Kristen Bell in The Good Place!  I wonder who else from that show will appear.  Maybe Ted Danson?

Scene 9:   Paul at work.  He mentioned that he doesn't like scones, so the Boyfriend sent him a scone basket to be mean. Mom calls; he hangs up on her.  

Next, the Counseling Center boss, Dr. Goulding (Tony Goldwyn), found security-cam footage of him hugging a patient after an emotional breakthrough. Inappropriate!  A month of unpaid leave!  Now Paul has no choice but to go to the wedding. 

I'm bored.  I'll fast-forward to the good parts.

On the plane to London, Alice has a meet-cute with Love Interest #1 (Dustin Milligan, left). 

There's an establishing shot that doesn't show the Tower Bridge or the Eye in the Sky!  

We see Rich Sister  Eloise is in bed with her fiancee, Ollie (John Macmillan).  Nice chest shot.

Alice decides to bring Love Interest  to the wedding as her plus-one.  They have sex on the floor of their palatial hotel room, next to the bed. Nice chest shot.

Later he dumps her: "You have everything that any sane man would want, but you don't want a sane man."  So gay men are insane?  Or did you forget that gay men exist?  

More Love Interests and at least one cock after the break

"With Love" Episode 2.4: A gay bachelor party in Las Vegas. With lots of bonus butts.

 

With Love is a tv-series with an impossible to remember name, about an extended Hispanic family, including a gay son and a trans aunt.  In Season 1, each episode was set during a major holiday.  Season 2 seems to be about the wedding of Jorge and Henry (Mark Indelicato from Ugly Betty, left, Vincent Rodriguez III from My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, right), so I reviewed Episode 2.4: "The Bachelor Party."  Which of the guys is getting one? And, more importantly, will there be male strippers?

Scene 1: Santiago (Rome Flynn, left)) opens the door at 4 am.  Dre (W. Tre Davis) and his girlfriend Annie criticize him for bulging in boxer shorts. Well, he can hardly help having morning wood.  They're going to get married today because Dre has a lump on his testicle, and he needs Annie's insurance to check it out.  But they want to get married in Las Vegas, and they have to drive because Dre is afraid of planes.

Scene 2: Establishing shots of Las Vegas. Jorge and Henry, plus two women and a man (maybe Nick, played by Desmond Chiam), walk in slow motion into their hotel suite.  It has a crystal sculpture of a male torso. 

They rush to claim their bedrooms.  Jorge complains that he likes the credenza in Room A but the view in Room B, so...they move the credenza.  What a diva!

Woman #1 asks Nick to share her room.  He refuses because it would be too awkward, but she shows her boobs and says "No sex," so he agrees.

Scene 3:  Dre, Santiago, and Annie from Scene 1, who are all black, driving through redneck country. They discuss the weird stuff about the girl Santiago was dating. then Annie criticizes for not wanting to get married: "it's not normal."  Geez, lady, why so judgmental?  Granted, there are two weddings in this episode, but still, some people don't experience romantic attraction, and some just like living alone. 

Santiago wants to normalize people being single, but Annie disagrees: "You want a partner, you want kids."

Dre has to pee, so they pull into a scary redneck gas station.  The attendant glares at them; they change their minds and drive away.  Hey, where's the next scene where he posts his Black Lives Matter sign?

Scene 4:  The guys in their suite. Suddenly "the gays arrive!": James and Jauvier (Scott Evans, below Adrian Gonzalez, on his knees).   Why are the friends of a gay couple on tv always flamboyant stereotypes?  They flirt with the one straight guy in the room, give Henry a penis-hat (he doesn't like it because it's too bushy; he likes his pubic hair trimmed), and zoom to the booze. Why are they always drunks?  

Back in his partying pre-couple days, whenever Henry drank tequila, he turned into a loose cannon named Hank.  "He's the reason I'm permanently banned from the Gap." "He's the reason my wrist cracks when I make a limp-wrist gesture." 

Everyone wants to go to the pool, except Hank: with his muscles and bulge, women are always hitting on him. They talk him into it anyway.  Nick the Straight Guy acts as his anti-wing man, blocking all of the drink and sex offers.  Hank suggests that he get with some of the girls himself, but he's mooning over one of the girls they came with (he gestures at them standing together, so I can't tell which).

Scene 5:  The three driving to Vegas stop at a non-redneck place to pee.  Santiago imagines that he sees his ex-girlfriend Lily (who is now in Vegas, being "just friends" with Nick the Straight Guy), walking in slow motion, her hair blowing in the wind. She gives him a flirty glance, then drives away forever.  Maybe she'll show up in Vegas.

Scene 6: Everyone hanging out, the gays wearing pink bunny ears and having no trouble with the limp wrist gestures. They criticize Henry for not drinking. Hey, some people don't drink for religious reasons, some have an alcohol problem, and some just don't like it.  It's his choice, jerks! 

More jerkiness after the break

Gemstones Future Memes: a gay resort, dog cousin's night, a nude wedding, a demon in the sack, and "Who dreamed it?"

 You know they do three shows a day, right?

In French class we called them "false friends"

Dogs can be cousins,too.

 Doubtful, but you never know.

Kelvin: Keefe is a good teacher.  He's done everything: oral, anal top, anal bottom...

BJ: Anything with...

Kelvin: 69, frottage, split roasting, intefemoral...

BJ: Anything with...

Keefe: Bondage, S&M, CBT, WS, Princeton Rub...

BJ: Anything with women?

Kelvin: Gross!  No, of course not!

First they refuse to admit it, then they refuse to shut up about it.

In 20 years, they'll still be studying The Kiss.

More future memes after the break

"Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates": bulges and biceps, but where's the plot?

 

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016) gets a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. A reviewer says that "It's definitely a movie to watch when you don't want to think too much." 

 I always want to think while watching a movie; structural analysis is the fun part. But it stars Adam Devine, whose jaw-dropping gorgeosity makes almost anything watchable, and his bromantic partner Zac Efron, who is also sort of cute, so here goes.

Scene 1:  Mike (Adam) is trying to sell his brand of tequila to a bar owner, using Dave (Zac) as a plant.  Except the bartender knows him -- they hang out! And the guys try this every couple of weeks.  He buys the tequila anyway.  The guys hug.  Zac is established as heterosexual in Minute 1.

Scene 2: Montage of the guys frolicking at parties -- trampoline, fireworks, kissing girls.. Beefcake shots of both. . Cut to them returning to their apartment to find two heterosexual couples -- Mom and Dad!  I'm guessing Mom and Dad got divorced and married other people, so there are four parents. 

They complan that the guys keep going to parties stag, htting on girls, and ruining things.  Wait -- in the montage, everyone was having fun. Nothing was ruined.  And the "hitting on girls" was a mutual flirtation, not a sleazy come-on.  Mom and Dad are being unreasonable.

Uh-oh, the montage was an unreliable narrator.  A lot of those parties turned into disasters. So Mom and Dad lay down the law: at the upcoming wedding, they must each bring a date (they specify a girl).  How will that keep the fireworks from destroying a camper, or grandpa from being pushed into his birthday cake?

Oh, and it turns out that the second couple is their sister Jeannie and her fiance Erik (Sam Richardson)

Character development: Mike is aggressive, easily-angered, and a schemer, while Dave is quiet, stable, and has to be talked into the craziness.  Mike saved Dave from bullies when they were in school. Shouldn't Dave be saving Mike?  Zac Efron is about twice as muscular as Adam Devine, and has a bigger dick, and everybody knows that you need a big dick to fight bullies.

Scene 3:  Betty and Veronica (um...I mean Alice and Tatiana) working in a sleazy bar. Alice gets drunk and dances on a table, so the boss fires them both.  They go home and watch a video of Alice getting dumped at the altar (by Kyle Smigielski, left), and exclaim "Fuck him right in the dick!"  I'm not sure a dick can get fucked by anothe dick.  Sounded, maybe. They reminisce about vodka brownies and wet t-shirt contests.

Meanwhile, the guys wonder where they can find nice, respectable girls to take to the wedding: Match.com, Tinder, Grindr (really?), Craigslist? 

They post their ad - "two incredibly gorgeous guys offer a free weekend in Hawaii" -- and the number of responses breaks the internet. 

Bob (Bob Turton) sees the ad. His friends tell him it's just for girls; he replies "that's not a dealbreaker," and goes to the interview in drag. He explains that he's new to drag, but he just got out of a divorce, and wants to fuck. They refuse graciously. 

Two lesbians respond: "I'm not really looking for a heteronormative relationship."  That's not what heteronormative means, ladies. 

Other responses: druggies, sleazoids, prostitutes, a racist. Check, please!

Scene 4: The guys discussing their plight on the Wendy show. She wants to know how two incredibly gorgeous guys have trouble finding dates. "Well, we only want nice, respectable girls." That doesn't explain it, dude. Sleazoids Tatiana and Alice, getting high in their underwear, see the show and figure that they can play respectable.

Later, the guys are in a bar, bemoaning their plight: because of Dad's "old tomato" (ultimatum -- these boys are dumb with a capital q),  they won't be able to attend their sister's wedding.  Cue the girls in ridiculous pink skirts and 1960s hairdos. How did they find out where the guys are?   Tatiana stages a meeting by leaping onto the windshield of a taxi and pretending to be hurt, so Mike can give her inept mouth-to-mouth.

Scene 5: In a bar getting to know each other, the girls make up jobs (school teacher and hedge fund manager) and back stories ("My ex died of cancer...in a plane crash.").  Veronica (I mean Tatiana) makes risque double entendres at Mike and gets him eroused. Dave shows his girl, Betty (I mean Alice)  his drawings of  anthropomorphized booze, including a unicorn with an erect penis-horn.  Like penises, Dave?  Minimal plot dump: he wants to be an artist, but is being held back by his low self-esteem. And before you know it, they're off to Hawaii.

Left: random naked Hawaiian guy

More after the break

"Where you go, I will go": A Kelvin/Keefe romance

 

Kelvin stood in the South Corridor, facing Keefe, holding both his hands. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to," he said. "If it's too much, nobody will care. It can just be Judy and BJ."

"No, Brother," Keefe told him. "I want to." Still calling me Brother! Kelvin noted with a smile.

He heard Judy and BJ giggling on the other side of the hall. Everything was so easy for straight people! You go on a date, you kiss, you go upstairs and have sex. Easy.  You walk hand in hand without worrying about being attacked. You announce your engagement, and no one yells that you're destroying society. When you are gay, and Christian, and a Gemstone, everything is hard. It took a life-or-death crisis to say "I love you." The first time they held hands was an emotional triumph. And this might not necessarily be a joyous occasion. 

"I want to do this, too," Kelvin said, so loud that the security guard at the south entrance stared. "I don't think I've wanted anything more."

"Showtime!" Jesse exclaimed, pointing toward the sanctuary. One last kiss, and Kelvin took his place just behind Jesse, on his right side. Judy walked on his left side. The partners followed a few steps behind. Ushers would guide them to their marks, stage left and stage right.

They walked onto the main stage, smiling, waving, as if they were about to perform a song. The congregation rose and applauded. If they looked at their program, they would see "Commitment Ceremony," but nothing else. Would they think he was marrying his sister?

He looked around. Quadruple security. Photographers at the ready. Dang it, did Jesse call the press? No picketers in the back, no one snarling, ready to pull out a gun. He glanced at stage right, hoping to see Keefe, if only for an instant, but the lights were too bright.

Jesse raised his hands to quiet the audience, and Kelvin and Judy took their places at center left and right, facing away from him. "Partners, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives," he began.  "Spouses, soul mates, better halves.  Whatever you want to call them. They are the first person we see in the morning, the last person we see at night. They will be the last person we see before we go to meet Jesus."

Gulp! Hopefully he wouldn't be meeting Jesus today!

More after the jump break