Obliterated: Do you want a review of "the worst movie of the year," or should I skip directly to the penises?

Netflix has been pushing Obliterated as must-watch tv.  The premise: an elite team of CIA operatives, spies, and ladies in bikinis, must deactivate a nuclear bomb set to destroy Las Vegas.  When they succeed, they have a wild party with naked girls, blow jobs, and drugs (but no one bothered to research the effects of various drugs, so ketamine and Ecstasy are hallucinogens).  Then they discover that it was a fake bomb; the real one is set to go off in a few hours, so they have to find and deactivate it while hallucinating and naked (well, the ladies, anyway).

 I have rarely seen such split reviews:

"A triumphant blend of exhilerating action, sharp writing, and humor"

"The worst movie of the year"

"A nearly unwatchable hodgepodge of nonsense littered with penises and explosives."  Well, the penises sound ok

"A lot of fun to watch.  The girls are gorgeous."  So maybe it's only fun to watch if you're a horny hetero guy?

"Female characters are leered at in incongruous shower scenes; they undertake missions in string bikinis."  Double yuck.

There are two gay characters: Marine Sniper Angela Gomez is a butch lesbian stereotype; and Trunk, a "big black guy" stereotype who beats people up with lines like "Smell my dick, motherfucker!"  Apparently he is outed in one scene, as a joke: "The big black guy is a pansy, har har." 

I know you don't want me to do a scene by scene review.  Let's just skip to the penises.

1. Army explosives technician Haggerty, played by C. Thomas Howell, looks like a sleazy, effete gay stereotype, but he's actually straight.

2. Jeremy, played by Johann Fitch,   His job is not specified.  

More dicks after the break

"Country Comfort" Episode 1.1: Is seeing Ricardo Hurtado, Eddie Cibrian, and Eric Balfour nude worth the pain?

  

Ricardo Hurtado, best known for starring in Nickelodeon's School of Rock with Tony Cavalero, has a perfect combination of face and physique.  I would definitely be asking him out -- if we were both single and he didn't include Bible verses on his Instagram.  Quoting the Bible doesn't necessarily mean that he hates gay people, but I'm not risking it.    

He hasn't had many tv or movie roles recently, so if I want to see him perform as an adult, it will have to be GlichTechs, Malibu Rescue: The Next Wave, or Country Comfort.

We'll start off with Country Comfort, which must mean something like "cold comfort." (something that is supposed to encourage you, but actually makes you feel worse).

Scene 1:  A rainy night in a small town.  We pan past a church (see, we're religious) to a middle class house.  

There's a knock on the door.  Tuck (Ricardo!) answers: it's Bailey (Katherine McPhee), a young woman with black hair wearing a black cowboy hat.  He gawks at her gorgeousness and says "Looks like they sent the right woman to do the job."  Did he call for a prostitute?

Bailey thinks she has been mistaken for a prostitute, and starts to bolt, but Tuck explains that he thought she was from the nanny agency. (He makes gross sexual come-ons to all of his nannies?  And why does he need a nanny at age 21?)

No, she's not a nanny.  Her truck broke down, her phone died, and she wants to use theirs.  But Tuck is so horny for her that he trots out his siblings for introductions: two little girls, 12-year old Dylan, and Brody (Jamie Martin Mann, left).  Wait -- he's 17 (20 now), and way too old for a nanny.  

While all three of the boys gaze at Bailey with unbrindled lust, Tuck explain that their mom died two years ago, and they've gone through 10 nannies since (do  they get tired of the sleazy come-ons and quit?)   

But Baily likes their sleazy come-ons: "You think I'm hot?  You have no idea how much that means to me!"  Two of those boys are jail bait, lady. 

Finally Dad, a middle-aged cowboy, arrives, accompanied by his blond bimbette child-hating girlfriend Summer.   (wait -- if they didn't need a babysitter while Dad was out, why do they need a nanny?  To, like, restore their joie de vivre, like Fran Fine and Charles in Charge?).  He's Beau (Eddie Cibrian, who played lots of lifeguards and teen hunks back in the day).

Beau asks: "Why are you so early for your nanny interview?" (Wait -- he's just getting back from a date, so it must be after 10 pm.  Why did they schedule an interview in the middle of the night?  Oh, right, the sex...)

Then: "If you're not the new nanny, what are you doing here?" Baily explains:

Scene 2:  Flashback to earlier that evening.  Bailey and her boyfriend Boone (Eric Balfour) are singing at a honky tonk, with a record producer listening.  We hear her entire song: "Dream baby got me dreaming sweet dreams the whole day long."  Ugh!  That's terrible!. And are they supposed to stare at each other instead of the audience through the whole song?

The record producer hates it, naturally. So Boone replaces Bailey with a boobalicious bimbette (yeah, that will fix those atrocious lyrics), and Bailey angrily breaks up with him.  Since they live together, she has no place to stay (um...a friend's house?  A hotel?  Let her stay there until she finds a place?).  She starts driving aimlessly.  Then her truck conks out right outside the home of a family that needs a nanny.  Well, it worked for Fran Fine.

Boone is played by Eric Balfour (below), who played many hunkoids back in the day.

Scene 3: Dad offers to call Bailey an Uber (to take her where?  She's driving aimlessly, remember?).  At that moment there's a tornado alarm, so everyone rushes to the basement.   Beau jokes about the last nine nannies being buried there (whoa, creepy! If I was Baily, I'd take my chances with the tornado.)  But Bailey is too overwhelmed by the love and togetherness of this family to be scared.  

Hey, there are musical instruments in the basement.  Could the family be...coincidence of coincidence -- country-western singers?   

Yep -- they join her for an impromptu song: "When Will I Be Loved."  The kids know all the words to a song that last charted in 1975?

One of the girls -- Cassidy -- gets upset because her mom was a singer, and this is bringing up old memories.  Beau tells her to get over herself.  Great parenting, Beau -- why not let the girl be sad?

Now Tuck is upset -- since their Mom died they haven't been allowed to touch their instruments.  Why not?  This family gets more and more screwed up.  Fortunately, Bailey has come to the rescue. 

Scene 4: Cassidy runs out into the storm.  Bailey follows her into the barn and apologizes for the "singin'" (of course it's singin', not singing).  I fast-forward through their heart-to heart, which no doubt solves the psychological trauma that no therapist has been able to handle.  And no doubt Mom will never be mentioned again.

Scene 5: Morning.  I fast-forward through this scene, too.  Obviously Bailey will agree to become the nanny, get the Partridge Family band back together, and start dating Beau.  And the ex-boyfriend will be around in some capacity.

Beefcake: Probably.

Gay Characters: Are you kidding?

Teens Out of a 1980s Sex Comedy: 2

Creepy Lines: 7

Absurd Coincidences: Too many to count.

Bible Verse Ricardo Quotes; Hebrews 11:12: "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."  This is like the motto in Kelvin's gym: "Harder, faster, stronger: saved!"  

Is seeing Ricardo Hurtado worth the pain of Country Comfort?: Heck, no. But maybe Eric Balfour is.  

Nude photos of Eric after the break.

Showering with Portuguese boys at a church conference in Switzerland

 

When I was sixteen years old, I was selected to join 500 Nazarene teenagers from around the world in Fiesch, Switzerland for our World Youth Conference

It was like Nazarene summer camp, with daily sermons, Bible studies, jump quizzes, and seminars on soul-winning, except we had afternoons and one full day off for field trips and sightseeing  We could go out on our own, but:
1. Don't talk to the locals.
2. Don't set foot in any Catholic church.
3. Be back by 7:00.

But every good Nazarene knows how to bend the rules.

"I'm sure the rules don't apply if we're going to save souls," my friend Annette, a delegate from Idaho, exclaimed.  "We're in a country full of Catholic and Reformed Church sinners.  Wouldn't it be great if we could plant the seeds of a mighty revival and win Switzerland for the Lord?"

Overbrimming with the "Faith in God can move a mighty mountain" and "If you ask anything in My Name, that will I do" mantras,  we decided to go soulwinning in the Belly of the Beast, the most evil, depraved site imaginable, a Catholic church!

But not in Fiesch -- we figured that would be well-traveled territory.  On our free day, we packed several copies of the Gute Nachricht Bibel, a English-German phrase book, some snacks, and a change of clothes, and took the train 2 hours south to Zermatt a famous tourist town at the base of the Matterhorn. Our guidebook led us to the St. Mauritius Church, which dates from 1285.  We marched inside to bring the Gospel to the idolators.

It was a Thursday morning at 10:00 am.  It was empty.

Disappointed, we stood around outside, waiting for a Catholic to come by so we could start a soul-winning conversation.

Soon two cute black-haired teenagers came by, wearing backpacks.  One was tall and slim, the other more compact and muscular, but they looked so alike that they must have been brothers.

Well, cute boys are as good as Catholics.  Annette, who had taken first year German, started the ball rolling: "Entschuldigen, aber sie hören,die gut Nachricht dein Jesus Christ?"  (A bad attempt to say "Have you heard the Good News of Jesus Christ?".)

They stopped, grinning, and consulted in a language I didn't understand.  "Keine Deutsch," the taller one said.

"English?" I asked.  "Francais?"

"Oh, Americanos!" the short, compact one exclaimed.  "Michael Jackson. Beat it...beat it...beat it..."  He gyrated his hips

They were 17-year old Joao (the tall one) and 15-year old Lucio (the compact, muscular one).  But we didn't get much more from their effusive conversation in their unknown language. Later I discovered that it was Portuguese -- I was taking advanced Spanish, but I didn't understand more than a word here and there.

We ended up strolling down Schluhmattstrasse with them, Annette and Joao in the front, me and a grinning Lucio  in the rear.

Lucio kept grinning at me and talking nonstop in incomprehensible Portuguese, interspliced with fragmentary English: ("You Chicago?  Al Capone big gun, yes?").

It was great fun getting so much attention from a cute guy with a compact, muscular frame.  I wouldn't figure "it" out for another year, but still, I kept wondering what he looked like naked.  Was he cut or uncut?  Was he hung?

Somehow we ended up waiting 20 minutes to get on a gondola weaving its way up the mountainside.

A gondola is a small car suspended by a cable as it sways 1000 feet above the ground.

I was terrified!  I clung to Lucio, who wrapped a muscular arm around me and grinned.  I felt his hard chest beneath my hand, smelled his cologne, and couldn't help fondling a bit.  He hugged me tighter.  "No afraid, yes?  I....I...uh...save."

But we had only reached Furi, the first cable car station.  There were three more to reach the top!  No way!  Instead we stopped at a restaurant for fried eggs, sausage, a kind of hard cheese, and hot chocolate, and conversation about "Rambo!  He very muscle, yes?  You like?"

Annette tried to explain that as Christians, we didn't go to movies, but they didn't understand.

Then there was nothing to do but ski down, walk down, or take the gondola.  In the flat Midwest, we don't learn to ski, and there was no way I was getting on that gondola again!

More Nazarene Youth Conference after the break