"Pitch Perfect": Nerd Ben Pratt, hunk Skylar Astin, and jerk Adam Devine. What could go wrong? With nude dudes

 Pitch Perfect (2012) is comedy about dueling a capella choirs.  I didn't even know that a capella groups were a thing, but wikipedia lists dozens of them, and Music Grotto ranks the best groups (#1 is Pentatonix).  Regardless, if it's about music, there's bound to be some gay characters.  

Scene 1: An all-male a capella choir, the Barden University Treblemakers led by Bumper (Adam Devine), performs "Don't Stop the Music" at Lincoln Center, to rousing applause!  

In the booth, the judges discuss how perfect they are for the International Championship of Collegiate A Capella Groups (I want this to spell something dirty, but it doesn't), and how all the ladies in the room are hot for them.  Ugh, heterosexism in the first second: the only reason a man does anything is to get ladies.  

They perform some cool moves. Bumper does a "sexy man-split", struts for the fangirls, and insults the next group: an all-female choir.  They're the first girl group to get this far in the competition because, according to the judges, girls just don't have the range.  I think we're supposed to condemn the judges for being sexist.

Dressed like 1960s stewardesses, the Bellas sing a snoozefest song. Then one throws up.  Projectile vomiting in the first five minutes!  Yuck! The judges actually like this: it add excitement to their act.

Scene 2:  This must be a flashback.  Beca takes a taxi to move-in day at the stately, ivy-halled university.  She meets her new roommate, who hates her from the start, even more when she brings out her DJ equipment.  

Her dad drops by: Dr. Mitchell, a Professor of Comparative Literature.  I majored in that in grad school, for about ten minutes. It was stiflingly elitist. He insists that she give college a chance; she can move to California and become a dj later.

Meanwhile, the hunky Jesse  (Skylar Astin, left) meets his new roommate, Benji (Ben Platt, below), a Star Wars nerd and amateur magician.  To his credit, Jesse doesn't insult him.  (Ben Platt is gay in real life, so maybe his character is gay).

Scene 3: The Activities Fair.  Hunky Jesse tells Magician Benji that the hottest club on campus is Bumper's A Capella Group. It's what being a man is all about.  He points to where Bumper is asking passing girls if they want him to whip it out. But they're sexist jerks!

Meanwhile the head Barden Bella rejects a girl because her boobs are inadequate.  More sexist jerks!  She only wants "super-hot girls with bikini bodies who can harmonize and have perfect pitch." Her assistant suggests maybe recruiting girls who can sing, like Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson).  Yes, she calls herself that.  

Scene 4: An incredible hunk in a swimsuit is passing out fliers, but Beca ignores him.  Maybe we're supposed to conclude that she's gay?   

She stops at a booth called the Barden DJs, since she wants to be a DJ, but it's actually a group for Deaf Jews, har har.

Head Barden Bella tries to recruit her for the Bellas, but she refuses: it sounds tremendously lame. 

Meanwhile, Nerd Benji is desperate to join the Treblemakers, but Bumper says no.  But Bumper's singing changed his life!  Maybe they could hang out sometime?  Nope: "The smell of your weird is affecting my vocal chords."  Dude, pick someone who doesn't sneer all the time.  Your new roommate seems nice.  

Scene 5:  Beca finds a campus radio station that plays funky alternative music. Wait, she has a job there.  On move-in day?  Turns out that Hunk Jesse works there too.    Time for a meet-cute?  Nope, she hates him. Station manager Luke (Freddie Stroma, left) tells them that, as freshmen, they can't go into the DJ booth; their job is to sort CDs.  Ugh!  

Scene 6: Dad wakes Beca up.  "You've been here a month, and still no friends?  Geez, I thought it was the next day.  "Get with the program."   "I work at the radio station?" "With those weirdos?"  He forces her to join a student club. 

She heads to the shower room (fortunately, we don't see anything.)  Surprise -- she's being stalked by the Bella Aubrey, who gets way too close as she importunes Beca to join.  Ok, ok, just get your hands off my junk!

Scene 6:  The auditions for all four a capella groups at once.  I guess you sing for all of them, and we can watch Bumper insulting more people. 

The host, Kolio (David Del Rio), specifies that this is not a high school club, where you "can sing and dance your way through any social issue or confused sexuality."  Ok, that's homophobic, claiming that gay people are "confused."   "This isn't high school, it's real life."  I get it: gay people do not exist in real life.  

The auditions are mostly awful.  I expected Beca to nail it, but she does a weird thing with clapping and a cup.  Everyone is shocked by how awful she is, but she's in anyway.  Almost everyone who auditioned gets in. 

More a capella after the break

"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

Gemstones Episode 3.4: Wieners, betrayals, a burning a-hole, and Kelvin at his jerkiest. With nude Steve Zahn bonus.

 

Previous: Episode 3.3 Continued: a fire dance, a limp wrist, a phallic sword, and Balkan sex gods 

Episode 3.3 ended on a positive note, with Kelvin/Keefe, and BJ/Judy reconciled and Jesse/Amber admitting the Montgomery Boys to the family.  In Episode 3.4, the midpoint of the season,  things fall apart, with betrayal after betrayal and two destroyed relationships.

Title: "I Am Come Not to Bring Peace But a Sword." A famous quote from Jesus in Matthew 10:34.  Things are going to get dark. 

Some premium fuck dolls:  Keefe and Taryn are leading a Teen and Parents Together "ice cream and wieners" party.  Keefe has apparently never done any ministry without Kelvin, so he is very nervous.  He is not wearing his "wedding ring," maybe worried that it would out him.

The background song is about your lover finding someone new, but:

I say it's misinterpretation, a case of your infatuation

I know it's me who's on your mind,  I know you're only killing time

You'll be back eventually, you'll be back permanently.  You're still in love with me.

Wait -- has Keefe broken up with Kelvin to date Taryn?  Or is this a precursor of another break-up, coming later?

The parents point out that they know very little about Keefe, even though he is a youth minister, in charge of nurturing their children.   Before Keefe has a chance to answer any questions, Biker Clarence, the owner of the store that he bought out, drops by to praise him for buying "every last butt buzzer I had in stock!"   He invites Keefe to check out the new merchandise coming in: "We got some premium fuck dolls!"  Inappropriate, dude! You're in an ice cream shop. Don't you notice the kids around? 

Top photo: Biker Clarence is played by George Paez, who doesn't have any nude photos online, so I substituted Steve Zahn in Saving Silverman

Taryn and Keefe assure the parents that "it's not what you think."  That is, Keefe isn't actually gay, he bought the toys for a project "we did with your kids."  Even worse!  But didn't the parents know about Smut Busters?  You have to get permission slips every time you take the kids off church property.

The boys at the Citadel: Next, Jesse and Amber complain to their teenage son Pontius that he has too many tattoos,  he shouldn't be having sex with his girlfriend, and he's been rejected by every college he applied to.Come on, he's a world-famous Gemstone.  Christian colleges will fight to get him in.  

Jesse wants to send him to the Citadel, the South Carolina military college: the boys there "would split your ass like a pair of damn Chinese chopsticks." He means that the boys would harass Pontius, but the threat of anal sex hangs in the air.

Sunday morning: after  "getting ready for church" scenes, the Gemstones and Montgomerys walk down a hallway the Salvation Center. The shots in the trailer caused considerable fan speculation: why do Kelvin and Keefe look so angry?  I still don't know.

Loud and Proud:  We see the beginning of the service, a Christian rock number, with May-May disapproving and Cousin Karl loving it.  Then it's time for the family dinner at Jason's Steakhouse, and a practically endless series of queer codes.  Interesting that the guys start being obviously a couple immediately after the Cousin's Night romantic interlude.

May-May disapproves of her sons' silk suits: too shiny, "like a lady's neglige.  A little loud and proud for me."  In other words, they make the boys look gay.  Jesse yells at her for "talking trash." Implying that someone is gay constitutes "talking trash"? That's homophobic, dude.

Judy defends the boys from the "accusation," saying that they are attractive to women. So you turn gay because you can't find a woman?  Laying on the homophobia, aren't we?

As he listens to his family's homophobic banter, Kelvin looks like he's about to cry.   And Keefe -- that's the look your boyfriend gets at Thanksgiving Dinner, when your parents told you to not "cause a scene" by coming out, and then Uncle Bob starts complaining about "fags taking over." Cavalero got it exactly right.

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Holding Hands under the Table:  Peter Montgomery -- Steve Zahn -- enters, announces that he has a new militia compound "on a farm," and invites his sons to join him.  They refuse, so he circles the table, threatening that retribution is coming.  

As he circles, Keefe moves his right hand under the table.  Then Kelvin moves his left hand under the table. These are not random acts:  Boyfriends who are scared (and closeted) would look for reassurance by holding hands.

Their hands stay under the table until Peter threatens Judy, and Eli steps in, telling him to leave or he'll be shot.  Everyone in the family except Gideon, Kelvin, and Keefe pulls out a gun.  A gun expert on the fan board pointed out that only Amber and BJ are holding them properly.  

Then Kelvin,  frightened (of his family's guns?), says something indecipherable to Keefe, who moves his hand back to the table top and makes a finger-gun.  Kelvin looks around for a weapon, and brandishes a fork.  His left hand is still under the table, and stays there, holding Keefe, until Peter circles the table again.  

Now the "wedding rings" are fully visible, matching men's silver wedding bands with black diamond inlay (the real thing sells for over $4000),  on the ring finger of Kelvin's left and Keefe's right hand.  

They will be emphasized several times during the season, especially when Kelvin is thinking about or talking about Keefe.  They are symbols of the relationship, which means that the guys exchanged them deliberately.  They have a permanent commitment.  Kelvin can't say that they are lovers, but he can show it.

For a little while, anyway.

Things get worse after the break.