Saturday, December 16, 2023

Christmas on the Square: Be thankful that you haven't seen this movie. With some nude guys to make up for reading about it.



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 escape. 

They, my other relatives, my teachers, my preacher, and my friends, everyone, without exception, eagerly awaited the moment when I would "discover girls," understand that the sole purpose of life was to gaze into Her eyes forever.  The interrogation began in junior high, and became louder and more demanding in high school: "What girl do you like?  What girl do you like?  What girl?  What girl?  What girl?"  

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 (left and below), 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 boy 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! 

 







In his Christmas shop, Josh Serrano and his wife talk about new fertility procedures, then sing about how much they want a baby. Good lord, it never ends..  

I'll just go through it on fast fast-forward, to check for any same-sex bonds.

Nope.  I couldn't keep track of all the boy-girl couples finding love, but the only reason guys interacted was to console each other over not having the Girl of Their Dreams, or to congratulate each other for finding Her. Where's the darn trigger warning?  I'm literally nauseous.  

Braxton Alexander's got a lot of explaining to do.  Come to think of it, he has never stated that he is gay-friendly.  I just assumed.

He's definitely going on the Naughty List.

Not enough nude guys to make up for this disaster, so I put a few more after the break:

"This F*king Town": This f*king gay-free Hollywood. But I included some celebs that I hooked up with...I mean met.

  


Whilc looking at Tony Cavalero's work on the IMDB,  I found This Fucking Town, a TV short about "actors looking for love and work in L.A."   When I lived in West Hollywood, about half my friends were "actors looking for love and work" so I tried to check it out.  But it didn't seem to exist.  Tubi and Roku advertised it, but "content isn't available."  A rave revew made it sound like an entire web series, not just a short, but the links provided led to "content unavailable."

Finally I found it as a movie on Amazon Prime, and rented it out of sheer frustration. It starts out ok, with Mark (Michael Mark Friedman) flexing and Jeremy (Gregory Holt, left) dancing in his underwear, displaying a sizeable bulge. They meet up.  Heading to a party, Jeremy is worried meeting someone new: they always dump him the moment they discover that he has a huge penis.  Really?  


At the party, Jeremy runs into his ex, Caitlin, who thinks all actors are pathetic losers.  She took a witchcraft class and put a spell on him, to ensure that he will never find work (conicidentally, Tony's wife Annie is a magic practitioner).  

Jeremy sneers that her new guy, Brett (Tony Cavalero), is an actor, too, but Caitlin counters that he's a personal trainer.  "So you hold people's feet while they do sit-ups!".  Brett calls him a "dick." and stomps off.

That's all for Tony Cavalero: one word.  

Then the movie turns into a soap opera about heterosexual relationships, with six lengthy kissing scenes amid discussions of auditions and roles.  No more beefcake, and no LGBT people exist. Ugh!

But there are some celebrity bulges and butts after the break.

Friday, December 15, 2023

Drunk History Episode 3.13: Adam and Blake, sweet kisses, and Nathan Fillion's butt

 


Drunk History (2013-2019is a comedy series in which drunken comedians describe historical events to a narrator, who responds approvingly with smiles and laughter. Meanwhile they are acted out by guest stars (with the comedian providing the voices).  

In Episode 3.15, "Space," there are three stories: Carl Sagan falls  in love with Ann Druyan, Werner von Braun invents rockets, and two Russian cosmonauts become the first humans in space.  Let's start with the cosmonauts. Kyle Kenane tells this story to Derek Waters.


In 1965, cosmonauts Pavel Belyayev (Adam Devine) and Alexey Leonov (Blake Anderson, his co-star on Workaholics) have nothing going on in their lives, so they volunteer for the space mission.  Alexey, in addition, will take a space walk.

Pictured: Adam and Anders Holm, another Workaholics star.  I just wanted to post some Adam Devine beefcake photos.




They do the standard comedic hand-holding and hugging during the  various crises on the flight, but the gay subtext intensifies when they crash-land in Siberia.  




They are 2,000 kilometers from home, in the middle of mating season.  Wolves and bears approach "with raging hard-ons."  The guys look at each other, and Pavel says:  "I guess we can start with some sweet kisses."



Wait -- do they intend to mate with the animals or with each other?  Their expression seems to suggest each other.

Then they are rescued, hug, and receive accolades back home in Moscow.  Good luck as a gay couple in 1960s Russia, guys. End of segment.





That's quite a lot of queer codes for six minutes. (Left: Blake Anderson's dick, or something like it).  We cut to Derek Waters and Steve Berg holding hands as they prepare to frolick in zero gravity. 









Next segment after the break.