Steve Zahn: From 1990s golden boy to 2020s depressed dad, with nudity all the way down.

 

Steve Zahn started his career in theater Biloxi Blues, Bye, Bye, Birdie, and the off-Broadway Sopistry: "a beloved philosophy professor is charged with sexually assaulting a male student. Gay themes are starting early.  

Both Steve and his costar Ethan Hawke were cast in Reality Bites (1994), about depressed Gen X-ers in Houston. Steve plays one of those endlessly depressed gay guys you see in movies of the era, who doesn't actually do anything gay except come out to his mother.

 More weird, experimental, and depressing bits followed, such as SubUrbia (1996): Steve plays Buff, one of a group of disillusioned teens in the bleak urban wastelands of the 1990s.  I didn't live in a bleak urban wasteland, and there were no gay characters, so I couldn't relate. 

In a 1995 episode of Friends, we learn that Phoebe married a gay Canadian ice hockey player (Steve), so he can get his green card.  Except he decides that he's not gay after all.  Seems like a pattern developing. 

Next came The Object of My Affection (1998), which I didn't see because it seemed homophobic: a gay guy turns straight because women are so hot, but then goes back to gay again.  Steve plays the gay-straight-gay guy's brother.

I avoided Saving Silverman (2001), thinking that it was about a lesbian who changes to straight. That appears to be another movie: this Silverman is a guy about to make a disastrous marriage, so his friends try to reunite him with the Girl of His Dreams.  One of the friends, J.D. (Jack Black), comes out and marries his high school Coach (R. Lee Ermy), but I think it's played for homophobic laughs.  Steve plays one of the friends, who here is trying to become flexible enough to perform oral sex on himself.  Just ask JD to do it for you.

In the thriller Joy Ride (2001),  Lewis (Paul Walker), traveling cross-country to pursue the Girl of His Dreams, of course, stops to pick up his estranged brother (Steve).  

They run afoul of a road-rage driven trucker, but meet a girl for Steve to fade-out with.  Plus they have to walk into a gas station nude.

More Steve after the break

"The Other Two," Episode 1.6: Cary goes shirtless, Chase twerks, and there's enough bulges and butts for everyone

The Other Two are the struggling, closeted actor Cary  (Drew Tarver, left) and his sister, failed dancer Brooke.  When their little brother Chase (Case Walker) suddenly becomes the pop sensation ChaseDreams, the Other Two are torn between jealousy, pride, and over-protectiveness: "You can't perform at the White House unless your math grades improve."

I prefer the first season, when the family dynamics take precedence, and we can see some genuine affection between the siblings and their teen idol brother.  In later seasons, delayed due to COVID, Chase is grown up and wacky, and eventually doesn't appear at all, as episodes concentrate on the stardom of the siblings and their Mom, Pat. 

I'm reviewing Episode 1.6, because of guest star Patrick Wilson, Prince Orm in the Aquaman series. There are two plotlines, featuring Cary/Mom and Brooke/Chase, so I'll review each separately.

Cary/Mom's Plot: Chase recently outed Cary with the music video "My Brother's Gay, and That's OK."  This led to an offer to play the Shirtless Bartender on the real-life talk show Watch What Happens Live, hosted by Andy Cohen (playing himself)  

He complains that he doesn't have any lines; they just hired him for his looks.  "Big deal, you'll be seen, and you can meet the guest stars."  Who are they, anyway?  He looks it up: Patrick Wilson...and Mom Pat!  She'll be talking about her children's book based on Chase's rise to fame.  Uh-oh, being shirtless in front of his Mom!  

Plus he was cast without anyone asking him to take his shirt off.  What if he doesn't have the pecs for the job? 

The only gay guy on Earth who never works out, Cary drops into a gym and asks to "get jacked fast" for his Shirtless Bartender gig.   Um..it's going to take at least a year, buddy.  Turns out that the Receptionist (David Arquilla) has been the Shirtless Bartender, too; he's not an actor, but he has pecs.  Uh-oh.

We cut to Cary using the equipment wrong and getting sneered at by muscle studs. The staff will be happy to demonstrate. He wants to give up after one minute, but he can't leave and have the Receptionist see him, so he hides out in the locker room and runs into Lance  (Josh Segarra), his sister's on-off boyfriend.

Lance encourages Cary to pose, and gives him a self-actualization talk: "You are a sexy and beautiful man, thin but tight." 

We cut to filming Watch What Happens. Andy Cohen introduces Patrick Wilson as the star of Candy Land, and Pat Dubek, as mother of ChaseDreams -- "I'm obsessed with your son," he admits.  In a non-erotic way: unlike most teen idols, Chase has fans in every age group.  Nearly everyone the siblings meet gushes over him.

Next Andy introduces Pat's other son, the Shirtless Bartender, and asks: "What do you have for us tonight?"

Uh-oh, Cary didn't know that he would have to perform.  He doesn't have anything ready except an angsty monologue from Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead: "We are born with an intuition of mortality..."  Ulp, Andy meant what cocktail is he preparing.

As the interviews continue, Cary knows that he's supposed to just look hot and laugh at the guests' jokes, but he can't help interrupting with bits of his own.  Patrick takes pity on him and asks if he has any projects he would like to promote -- but he doesn't.  

Later they bond while waiting for the elevator.  Well, Cary thinks that they bond; Patrick is just trying to get rid of him.

My grade: I didn't feel the stakes, and Patrick suddenly withdrawing support seemed a little forced, but I liked seeing Cary shirtless for the entire scene. B+

Brooke/Chase's Plot:  Preparing to film a new music video for his song "Stink," Chase is doing push-ups while his Trainer (Brock Yurich, left) encourages him: "Push it, baby!  You are a god!"  Spoiler alert: in the next episode, the Trainer and Brooke are dating, but he is just interested because she can get him close to Chase. In a non-erotic way.

They're ready on the set, so Brooke, working as Chase's assistant, comes to fetch him.  Nope, Sleazy Manager (Wanda Sykes) says that he needs to do more push-ups to "get his pecs to pop."

"Can a 13-year old's pecs pop?" Brooke wonders.

Sleazy Manager continues: "We already did gay, so now Chase has to be a fuckboy."

"Um...isn't he a little young to be a fuckboy?"

The fuckboy and some dicks and butts after the break

Agent Elvis: McConaughey as the King, Cavalero as a drug dealer with a bulge, and Gary Coleman as a dick with a dick

 Agent Elvis (2023) features Elvis Presley (Matthew McConaughey) interacting with some of the real people and events of the 1960s, like Timothy Leary, Howard Hughes, and the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont, but as a secret agent, working for the mysterious Commander (Don Cheadle).  Episode 1.3 has a Tony Cavalero sighting.

While filming A Change of Habit (1969), Elvis hears about the Moon Landing, and, upset that he's not going, decides to take out his frustration on some drug dealers.   His assistant Bobby Ray (Johnny Knoxville) tells him that Flyboy (Tony Cavalero), who hangs out in the studio parking lot, selling maps to movie stars' homes, actually sells cocaine.   His handler tells him that they still have scenes to shoot, but he rushes down to the parking lot.

Why is Flyboy dressed as a pimp to sell cocaine?  He explains that drug dealing and pimping have an intersecting clientele. 

Who is his cocaine supplier?  Flyboy doesn't want to say, because "snitches get stitches," so Elvis steals his clothes, ties him up in the back seat of his car, and sics his ape companion, Scatter, on him.  Faced with having his head bit off, Flyboy tells him.  

With Flyboy trapped in the trunk, Elvis enters a sleazy apartment building.  His handler appears again, ordering him to get back to the studio to film the remaining scenes. Besides, taking down drug dealers won't get him on the Moon Mission: "No matter what you do, it's not going to turn you into an astronaut." 

Elvis doesn't listen: he beats up the drug wholesaler and his henchmen, but Scatter kills them before they can tell him about the big cocaine shipment coming in.

More after the break