"What You Wish For": Nick Stahl plays a chef who discovers what's on the menu. With two n*de Ecuadorian guys

 

Link to the n*de dudes

What You Wish For (2023) just dropped on Hulu.  It stars Nick Stahl, who played a lot of conflicted queer teenagers back in the day, so I'm in.

Scene 1: A very craggy Nick Stahl arrives in an unspecified South American country (very near the equator, so maybe Ecuador).  He tries to get a cab, but he doesn't speak Spanish, and the taxi drivers don't speak English...then he sees that his host sent a driver!

Through the jungle to a beautiful ultra-modern house.  The host left a note: he won't be back until late, but make yourself at home.  So Nick cooks himself an omelette.

Uh-oh, a text from Rabbit: he wants the $50,000 right away.  Leaving the country won't help: "I'll track you down."  Gambling debts?

Scene 2: Jack (Brian Groh) arrives.  Back story: they were roommates in culinary school 12 years ago, and haven't seen each other since. So, whose idea was this reunion?   Nick is a failure, reduced to cooking in a hotel kitchen ("a lot of roast chicken"), while Jack travels to exotic locations all over the world: he spends a week in the ritzy house, vetting ingredients, prepping, and cooking a meal for rich people.  He's paid extraordinarily well for this.  "But it's not as exciting as it sounds.  My bosses are assholes, and...well..."

Scene 3: They drive into town.  Jack complains about cooking for the super-rich among the most impoverished people you've ever met.  When they stop for lunch, Jack asks "So, do you have a wife or girlfriend back home?"  No.  You forgot to ask about a boyfriend or husband, buddy.

Not to worry, a tourist named Alice, having a "spontaneous adventure," joins them, and asks if they're together.  "No, we haven't seen each other in twelve years."  That doesn't tell her if you are gay.

They invite her back to the house to see which is the best chef (she prefers Nick's risotto).  Then they go swimming, and Alice and Jack head off to bed. Heterosexual identity established at Minute 15. Interesting that there's no question about who Alice will hook up with. Is Nick not into ladies?

Scene 4: In the morning, Jack drives Alice back to her hotel, and returns to hang out with Nick again.  

"Why do you need a whole week to source the ingredients for just one meal?"

"It's complicated.  My bosses are...well, people are just the worst, selfish assholes.  And they're destroying the planet.  We'll all be dead in ten years, so what's the point."

Scene 5: The next morning, Nick wakes up to discover that Jack has hanged himself!  This came as a shock.

He doesn't grieve much, because he didn't really know the guy.  Suddenly Rabbit texts: "I need that $50,000 or your mum gets it!"  

Nick gets the bright idea of stealing Jack's identity, raiding his bank account to pay his gambling debts, and taking his place in the cushy chef job.  He talks his way into changing the password on Jack's bank account, then rushes out and buys a fake id.

Later that day, director Imogine and her assistant Maurice (Juan Carlos Messier) arrive, and are horrified that he's been there for a week, but hasn't vetted out the meat yet.  "No problem: it's just one meal.  I'll buy it tomorrow." 

"Buy it?  Are you daft?"  Uh-oh.

Director Imogene rushes him to a convenience store in town; maybe someone there is healthy.  Nope, they'll have to try again tomorrow.   Healthy?  Finally Nick realizes that he's supposed to cook people! 

Scene 6: Nick tries to leave during the night and change back to his Nick identity, but they are both up.  They sense that he's trying to leave, and explain: they serve 50 meals a year, but often choose two people for each, in case one is "rotten."  That's about 75 deaths per year, far fewer than workers in the oil industry, or cab drivers.  Plus they channel 10% off their profits back into the community they harvest from, so it's a win-win.

But they're counting on Nick.  If he refuses to cook, or prepares a bad meal, he's dead.

Scene 7: In the morning, Maurice takes him into the village, where Sunday Mass is just letting out.  They set their sights on a teenage girl, but she's with an old lady, who would be no good.  An  auto mechanic named Jose (Felipe Solano) looks ok.  Maurice flirts with him, asks about his interest in sports and healthy eating habits, and shoots him. 

Uh-oh, the two ladies have contacted the police, who interrogate Maurice.  He claims that they're scoping out sites for a possible hotel.  Nick is the architect.

Scene 8: Back at the house, Nick has the job of butchering the body.

Jose, N*de Guy #1, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Afterwards Nick tries to run away again, but accidentally hits a member of the grounds crew (and crashes the car).  

Maurice tells him that only one chef has ever been allowed to quit: she cooked so well that the Agency was impressed, but instead of payment she asked to be released, and they agreed.  So maybe Nick could cook an exceptional meal, and get ou that way?

Scene 9: He announces four courses: Carpaccio with pozole soup; turnip spaghetti carbonara with sage beurre noisette; thigh Bourdelaise and beets;  and tongue sashimi for dessert (requested by one of the guests).  You don't generally think of beets and turnips as South American, but they grow specialized tropical varieties in Ecuador.

More after the break. 

"The Naked Brothers Band," the most heterosexist teencom on Nickelodeon. Plus the grown-up brothers' d*cks, backsides, and gay-vague characters.

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Around 2008, I researched queer codes on children's tv for what turned out to be three scholarly articles.  I gave high scores to Drake and Josh,  Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide,  The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, The Wizards of Waverly Place, and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.  Phil of the Future, Ed Edd and Eddy, and Zoey 101 got low scores, and the lowest: The Naked Brothers Band.

It was a mockumentary about the misadventures of a fictional band led by preteen brothers, Alex and Nat Wolff.  They never explained the embarrassingly salacious name, but I assume that it meant that you would be seeing their real life, uncurated and unmediated. 

Of course, it was curated and mediated.  Alex and Nat did have a band, and some of their real-life bandmates (like Dan Levi, left) were in the cast, but most of the characters and situations were purely fictional.  They were not at all famous.  Yet.   

In 2004, actress Polly Draper had the idea of making a mockumentary about her sons' band, sort a preteen Spinal Tap or A Hard Day's Night.  She got her wealthy (or wealthier) brother to finance The Naked Brothers Band, filmed it in mid-town Manhattan, and entered it the 2005 Hamptons International Film Festival.  Nickelodeon bought it, and suggested a teencom spin-off, competition to the upstart Myley Cyrus in Hannah Montana. 

Nat Wolff was only twelve years old, and Alex was nine,  a little young to handle a teencom by themselves, so Polly added adults to the cast to pull some of the weight.  Mostly her relatives: husband Michael Wolff as the boys' widowed dad; niece Jesse as their babysitter; brother Tim as the school principal. Plus a steady stream of celebrity friends, including Ryan Seacrest, Tony Hawk, and Whoopi Goldberg, popped by to play themselves.

The result was three seasons of intense nepotism and aggressive "girls! girls! girls!' hetero-horniness (2007-09).

I only watched one episode for my research project (there were over 30 programs in my dataset), so to be fair, I just watched another:  "Three is Enough" (February 8, 2008)

In the teaser, Alex wants to practice putting his arm around his "true love" in the movies.  Nat is skeptical -- he has a new "true love" every week.  But he agrees to play the girl.  Then Alex plays the girl so Nat can practice.  The gender-play is a queer code, but it's drowned out by the endless discussion of how many girls they like.

Next: they have writen a new song, "Three is Enough."  Babysitter Jesse agrees: three is the perfect amount of everything, from donuts to boys. For instance, she can't choose between the three "adorable Timmerman Brothers" (played by Polly's excessively rich nephews).  She implies that she is dating all of them, and perhaps not one at a time. Maybe they are involved in a queer four-way romance.

Then the Handsome Foreigner next door (Michael W. Barry)  asks her to the big horror movie.  The Timmermans get jealous and decide to spy on them.

At the studio, famous cartoonist Jules Feiffer, playing himself, is drawing cartoons to project over the band's new song.  Alex asks to be portrayed as cooler and more teenager-ish, and for the girl he is in love with to look more like his real-life true love.  

The main plot: their manager, 12-year old Cooper (Cooper Pillot) accidentally asks a girl for a date.  The band suggests various ways to get out of it, but he doesn't want to get out of it. He just wants Nat to come along for moral support.  But Nat needs a date, and he can't ask his on-off girlfriend Rosalie (not pictured) while they're "on a break."  Can he?  This section can't be easily queered; it's boys and girls all the way down.

Verdict: A few gender-bending moments , but no gay subtexts.

I couldn't even find any gay actors in the cast, except for Andre Keenan-Bolger, who played the snippy director Christophe in four episodes.

After the break: Have the Naked Brothers continued their heteronormative erasure as adults?  Have they gotten naked?

Austin Lindsay: The casually n*de roommate on "Overcompensating" has a BFA and a lot of depressing shorts. With bonus n*de fratboys

  

Link to the n*de dudes

In Overcompensating Episode 1.1, the gay-but-in-denial Benny is trying to heterosexualize with his buddy Carmen, when his lacrosse-player roommate Trey bursts into the dorm room, knocking them over.  He glances at their n*de bodies and casually walks around them to grab his stuff so he can spend the night elsewhere. 

He returns in Episode 1.2 to be nonchalant about Carmen's pink-eye, and inEpisode 1.3, to casually walk around the dorm room in his birthday suit, disconcerting Benny (who still annoyingly thinks that he's straight). 

Wait -- Trey shows his d*ck

Twice?

He also shows his backside, but  Overcompensating is a backside fest.  We also see the rear ends of Benny, his sister's boyfriend, and the entire fraternity (below).  I'm more interested in the d*ck guy, Austin Lindsay.

Research is a bit difficult. Austin Lindsay is also the name of a University of Missouri wrestler, an actor in Boise, Idaho, a photographer in Salt Lake City, and a baseball player at TCNJ (I clicked on several home pages, and still couldn't find any indication of what it is.  A college in New Jersey?).

But I found our Austin's Facebook, Linkedin, and Backstage resume.  He was born 2001 in North Bay, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Nipissing, about four hours north of Toronto.  

He studied dance and performed with the Performers Dance Company in North Bay.

In high school he appeared in Catch Me if You Can (2015), West Side Story (2016), and Mama Mia (2019), and wrote/directed the short Querencia (2019).  In spite of the title, it has no queer content: an elderly musician reunites with his dead wife.

 More after the break

Raising Arizona: Nicolas Cage bulges, John Goodman is nearly gay, and there's screaming, screeching, and heterosexism

 

Last night for movie night we saw Raising Arizona (1987).  I never saw it before, assuming that it was some smarm about a guy helping his girlfriend raise her daughter (named Arizona).  No, the title is a misdirection: no one is raised, and Arizona is, for some reason, the last name of the family and the state they live in (although they speak with Deep South accents).

The plot: Small-time robber H.I. McDonnough (Nicolas Cage) keeps getting arrested and sent to prison, but there are no bullets in his gun, so his sentences are only a few months long.  He falls in love with Ed, the cop who keeps taking his mug shots (don't get excited, it's a lady, played by Holly Hunter).  After his latest release, he finds a regular job, she quits the police force,  and they get married and move into his horrible house trailer in the desert outside Tempe, Arizona.  

He's achieved the heterosexist trajectory of job, house, wife, and...uh-oh, he still needs kids, and Ed is "barren."

Idea: Wealthy furniture store owner Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson) and his wife have just had five babies, the Arizona Quints.  No one can handle that many, so why couldn't Hi and Ed take one off their hands?  It would be doing them a favor.

They kidnap "the best" of the group, Nathan Jr. (played by TJ Kuhn, who didn't want to be an actor.  He's now a real estate agent.)

Meanwhile, brothers Gale and Evelle (John Goodman, William Forsythe) break out of prison and impose upon HI and Ed.  They kidnap the baby for a reason I don't remember (either to return him to his parents for the reward,  or to force HI to join them in a bank robbery).  But they grow attached, and decide to raise Nathan Jr. on their own.

Hi has a vision of a a scary, motorcycle-riding bounty hunter (Randall Cobb), who throws hand grenades at squirrels.  He turns out to be real, and offers to find the boy for the reward money. Nathan Senior rejects him, but he tracks Hi/Ed and Gale/Evelle down anyway.

After many chases, robberies, gun fights, and "leaving the baby behind", everything works out: the bounty hunter is exploded, Gale and Evelle return to prison, and Hi/Ed return the baby.  Nathan Senior doesn't press charges, because "there was no harm done."  Except putting him and his wife through several days of worry?

Beefcake:  Nicolas Cage is shirtless a lot, with a hairy chest that I haven't seen in his other movies, and there's a lot of attention paid to his bulge.

There are some cute cops and FBI agents in the background.

More after the break