"Top Gun: Maverick": Is beefcake enough?

 

Remember the shirtless volleyball scene in Top Gun (1986)?  Who doesn't?  In an era when you rarely saw men's bodies on screen, except maybe a glimpse of chest while they were schtumping ladies, we got closeups of perfectly chiseled men, with no women anywhere around.  The Daily Beast says: "If you were a certain kind of teenage boy in 1986, the beach volleyball scene spoke directly to you.  And what it said was 'You're gay now.  Good luck.'" 

Of course, the guys themselves are written as straight; the main plot is a hetero-romance; Tom Cruise is aggressively homophobic.  The queer code was all in the beefcake.  Decider says that it "encompasses the sexual repression of the decade."

In 2022, a sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, featured some of the original cast and actors playing their children.  The guys are still written as straight, with a hetero-romance as the main plot, and Tom Cruise is still aggressively homophobic.  Nevertheless, The Daily Beast calls it the "gayest movie of the year," due to a shirtless football scene.  40 years have passed, and we still get nothing but beefcake?

Ok, then, let's look at the beefcake.

1. Tom Cruise as "Maverick," the focus character in the original, now a flight instructor teaching other Top Guns.

2. Miles Teller, left , as "Rooster," son of his best friend in the original.

Miles sock dick

3, Jon Hamm as "Cyclone," the commander.

4. Glen Powell, left, as "Hangman," a pilot

5. Ed Harris as "Hammer," Maverick's superior officer. 

6. Val Kilmer, left, as "Iceman," Maverick's former rival

More butts and bulges after the break

Gemstones Episode 2.7: Holding hands among the yurts and eating pizza for desserts. With a nude Jonathan Bennett bonus

Previous: Episode 2.6, Continued: Torsten gets it up, Keefe holds Kelvin's dick, and Sky is skyclad

In the last episode, Kelvin and Keefe were ejected from the God Squad and kicked out of their house, and Eli was shot several tis and crashed his car. Gulp, he's dead!

Title: "And Infants Shall Rule Over Them."  Isaiah 3.4: "I will make boys their princes, and infants shall rule over them."   Isaiah is describing the upcoming collapse of Jerusalem after social roles are overturned.  We're going to see Jesse and Kelvin as princes here, with their Daddy gone.

When you get tired of discussing erections: Whew, Eli's not dead after all, but he's in a coma. Jesse/Amber and Judy/BJ hug and cry at his bedside.  Kelvin is noticeably absent.  Then the siblings go out into the parking lot and throw up multiple times. followed by the partners.   Is this a common response to grief, or did they all have bad sushi for dinner?

Ok, we're not tired of discussing erections yet:  We cut to Keefe trapped in the God Squad's tiger cage.  There are several openings to look through, but he prefers the glory hole, as if awaiting his next cock.  This time, Sky (Joel Rush, top photo) pushes through, hitting him in the eye!  

Sky didn't really want a blow job, or he would have waited for Keefe to move his mouth into position.  He wanted to tease Keefe, demonstrating what he couldn't have.  The God Squad guys laugh and high-five each other.  In gay communities, and actually among heterosexuals also, the person who performs fellatio is often denigrated, considered physically and socially inferior. Keefe's activity with Kelvin apparently brands him as "a bottom." 

Keefe collapses, screaming in pain, and starts to cry.  He has died and gone to hell, being punished for Kelvin's sins -- a veritable Christ figure.  Note that Keefe undergoes a symbolic death and resurrection in every season.

When the God Squad guys leave, Kelvin appears with food and toiletries.  Interestingly, Keefe calls him by the formal "Brother Kelvin."  He isn't sure that he wants a romantic relationship with this guy who lets him suffer in a tiger cage instead of saying "Game's over! Let Keefe out!" and calling security if the God Squad resists.  But Christ-Keefe doesn't even suggest release; instead, he advises Kelvin that he's as powerful as Eli, just as Jesus was as powerful as his Father.  

Beauty and the Beast:  In church, Jesse announces that Eli was gunned down while driving on Long Point Road. 

Geography note: This is a real road in a suburb of Charleston.  It leads past the Seacoast Church, a megachurch that closely resembles the Salvation Center. 

Afterwards, the family is at their post-church dinner at Jason's Steakhouse, when Kelvin arrives, wearing a dark purple robe, carefully holding his glass of orange drink. 

They yell at him for not being around late;y, but he isn't ready to show himself in public yet. "I am a beast!"  Jesse quips that the robe makes him look like the beauty from Beauty and the Beast.

Next they argue over who will fill the power vacuum left by Eli's absence, until Martin has had enough: "Can't you just be kind to each other? Self-absorbed, loud, arrogant fucking assholes."  That's about the size of it.

Kelvin agrees:"Y'all are a bunch of a-holes."  Jesse points out that he was talking about "you, too, dick-lips."  The term refers to lips that would be especially nice to receive fellatio from: a call-back to the glory hole scene earlier, and yet another reference to Kelvin being gay.  

The Return of Baby Billy: After scenes where Judy promises to become a better person and Gideon announces that he's leaving to take a stunt job, BJ and Tiffany track Baby Billy's movements from his credit card statement.  He's in Winston-Salem, spending money at Sbarro, Bojangles, Tommy Hilfinger, Aeropostale, and the Fossil Watch Store.  

Timeline alert: the dates were all in mid October, 2022. This episode aired on February 13, 2022.  

Tiffany can sound out most of the words; apparently BJ has been teaching her to read.  He has become a father figure. 

In Winston-Salem, Baby Billy is recording a commercial for his new scam, a coconut-flavored health elixir that will cure every disease, even COVID.  Dude, that's false advertising, a criminal offense. On his way out of the studio, BJ, Judy, and Tiffany accost him.  First he tries to hide; then he claims that he was trying to make money to support Tiffany and their son; then he assaults BJ and runs away. 

Jesse's Plan:  After discussing the possibility of blowing up Junior's house and having a heart-to-heart with Martin, Jesse reveals to the siblings his new plan: he'll tell the congregation and the news media that Eli is recovering, and give them his hospital and room number, so the listening Cycle Ninjas will know to where to strike again.  Except Eli won't be there: Jesse will clear the hospital and lay in wait, ready to gun them down. Can you really clear an entire hospital? The siblings think that it's a crazy idea, but he talks them into it: "Let's lie to the church like a fucking family." 

Cut to the ambulances and army jeeps moving Eli to the safe house. Which happens to be his own mansion; is that wise?  Judy, Amber, and the kids join him.

On the third day he rose from the dead:  Meanwhile, Keefe sneaks back to the God Squad compound and tells Keefe: "I'm busting you out of here."  

Wait. When Eli visited, Keefe was already in the tiger cage.  Then he was shot, and they announced that he was in a coma in the Sunday service.  IT'S SUNDAY AGAIN!  Has Keefe been in that cage for over a week?  That would be inconceivably brutal.  Besides it wouldn't fit with the Christ motif: Keefe has to descend "into hell" on Friday, and get resurrected on Sunday.   I think there is a problem with the show's continuity. 

"Are we taking back the house?" Keefe  asks.  I'd be asking a lot more than that, just before I called the police and my lawyer.

"We are ejecting," Kelvin answers. "We'll move in with the rest of the family in the safe house." They run from the Tiger Cage hand in hand, then through the yard to freedom. 

Notice that Kelvin does not have an instrumental reason for offering his hand: Keefe is already standing.  It is purely a gesture of affection..

 This is a significant scene: Kelvin admits that Keefe is a member of the family, and invites a public display of affection that establishes them as a romantic couple.  A scene ago he yelled at Keefe for trying to hold his hand.  Now he initiates it.  

Question: Keefe is wearing only a jockstrap.  Where do they intend to find clothes? Kelvin had to move their stuff out of the master bedroom suite,  but it would still be in the house, right?  

Pizza and Cycle Ninjas:  At the safe house, Keefe goes to work on embedding himself into the family.  First he advises Kelvin to visit his father (and calls him Brother instead of the formal Brother Kelvin).  Then he tries to distract Jesse's kids from the crisis with what he thinks are funny stories.  While they are eating pizza, he notes that as a young boy, he often had pizza for every meal, even for dessert. That's not funny, it's sad.  Where were your parents? 

Personal note: My aunt is only ten years older than me, so I remember her in high school, bringing boyfriends around.  They would invariably try to score points by telling inane "funny" stories.  

We cut to Kelvin visiting the comatose Eli.  He admits that the God Squad was kind of dumb, but he just started it to make Eli proud. And invite a lot of musclemen to the steam showers.  He prays, promising to "never succumb to hubris again" if  God heals Eli.  And Eli speaks!  A miracle! The end.

Oh, right, we still have 15 minutes to go.  Jesse, the men in the family, and the mercenaries waiting in the cleared hospital.   Four Cycle Ninjas appear, armed with rifles. One is shot, and the others flee.  Jesse follows, knocks a second off his motorcycle, and shoves a taser up his butt, enacting an anal rape. Gideon chases and subdues the others.  The end.

Shaun Lynch and Jonathan Bennett after the break

"Scream Queens" Episode 2.2: Glen Powell and John Stamos compare dicks at a sinister hospital. Also, there's a serial killer. And some butts.

 I was recommended Glen Powell's shower scene in Episode 2.2 of the horror-comedy Scream Queens.  I watched ten minutes of the first episode when it premiered in 2015, and turned it off, but for a shower-scnee, why not give it another chance?

The premise: this is a genre-bending horror-comedy about a serial killer stalking co-eds, all named Chanel, with the headmistress played by Jaime Lee Curtis, the Last Girl from Halloween.  

Scene 1: In the last episode, a swamp monster played by Jeremy Batiste killed a patient at the C.U.R.E. Institute, where "the incurable are curable." Wait, I thought we were at a college. The cop is not impressed, and thinks that Outcast Chanel did it. Evil Dean Munsch, played by Jaime Lee Curtis, thinks that the cop  is an idiot.

The other two Chanels also think that Outcast Chanel did it, out of frustration because she's so ugly no one will screw her: "The closest shes gotten to sex is when a bookshelf fell on her."  Why, did it have a book about sex? I don't get the joke.   And jealous because they scored hot dates with the Sleazoid Doctors, Brock and Cascade(Taylor Lautner, John Stamos, left).

Scene 2: The Sleazoid Doctors and Chanels are interviewing Tyler, played by Colton Haynes, who is covered with large orange tumors. Actually not disgusting.  So the Chanels have graduated with nursing degrees, and all gone to work at the Institute, and the headmistress became their boss?  That's not at all unlikely.   

His  regular doctors say that it is incurable, but the Sleazoid Doctors think that they can remove the tumors with a CO2 Laser.  Except they're are too expensive; there aren't any at the center. So just transfer him to a facility that has one.

Scene 3: A non-Chanel nurse and Chamberlain, played by James Earl, wonder why, if Evil Dr. Munsch was upstairs during the murders, she didn't hear the screams and growling?  She must be in on it.

Last season, she was in charge of a college, and plotted some crazy stuff, but the Chanels foiled her plan.  Dr. Munsch must have brought them here for revenge, sending the swamp monster  to pick them off one by one. So, what are her qualifications?  All she has is the honorary Ph.D. that the University of Pittxburgh took from Bill Cosby.

Scene 4:  Sleazoid Doctor #1 on his movie date with the Head Chanel. She reveals her favorite hobby: dropping popcorn on the floor, so the fatties feel bad about themselves.  He loves the idea!  

Meanwhile, Orange Boy and Outcast Chanel bond over stories of being the outcast in their cliques. He shows her a picture from before the orange tumors: he was hot!  She vows to get him the money for the CO2 Laser. 

More screaming after the break