"No Good Deed": Four lesbians, a gay realtor, a gay son, Oedipus, some murderers, and Phoebe from "Friends"

   Link to n*de Luke and Denis

Braxton Alexander recommended No Good Deed, a Netflix tv series, so presumably he's in it. The trailer shows Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Lisa Kudrow (Friends) spying on the couples interested in buying their house, no doubt planning something nefarious.  Plus I thought I saw a lesbian couple, so here goes, Episode 1.1:

Scene 1: Establishing shots of Los Feliz, the gentrified L.A. neighborhood. near Dodger Stadium. A Spanish Colonial house for sale.  The swishy real estate agent (Matt Rogers)  tells various couples that the homeowner is very invested in selling, while Ray Romano and Lisa Kudrow watch on their cell phone.  Uh-oh, they're up to no good.  Are they trying to find the perfect buyer to kill?

There are four stories, not interconnected, so I'll go through each separately:

The Soap Star:A scary unshaven guy with dark glasses signs his name in the register as John Smithe, but he's not a villain, he just plays one on the soap opera Rising Tides.  A shady handyman who cheated on his stepdaughter and was killed off. The first incest reference.  There will be more.

He's played by Luke Wilson, left.

Later, high-heel shoes enter the house.  I hate that cinematographic cliche.  Then a woman's back, like it will be a big shock when we finally see her face.   Gasp!  It's someone I never saw before!  What a shock!

Swishy Real Estate Agent Greg criticizes her for being a Lookie Louise, looking at houses but never buying one, but her real name is Margo.  

Ray and Lisa, watching from their secret lair, criticize her purse: "She looks like an AI-generated bitch."   They definitely don't want to sell to her, unless she pays cash: "Then I will bend over and take the cash up my *ss," Ray says.  

Cut to the Soap Star talking to his manager on the phone. Back story: he's so deeply in love with his wife that he bought her an expensive house, some cars, and a boat, and now he's going bankrupt. But he can't help it: she wanted them, so what else can he do?  "Maybe buy a house you can afford?"  So that's why he was looking at the Spanish Colonial.

In bed, John's overbearing, painfully elitist, super-snob wife turns out to be high-heel Margo!  They discuss why Ray and Lisa are selling their house. 

Oedipus: A m-f couple, the man O.T. Fagbenle, the woman an architect and highly pregnant, tour the kitchen.  They discuss how much they love each other and smooch a few dozen times until Mom tells them to knock it off.  Way to go, Mom!  

She also complains that they didn't have a wedding, when her son has dreamed of it since he was a kid.  Really?  I thought just girls planned their weddings.  When I was a kid, I was imagining my future career as an astronaut or Indiana Jones-style archaeologist.

Cut to Oedipus and Mom staking out the house.  Mom complains that they used to spend every moment of the day together, but now she sees him barely twice a year.  He explains: she used to be his whole world, his reason for living, but then he fell in love with someone else.  Be thankful for twice a year, Mom.  Some guys don't want to see their ex-lovers at all.

What's going to happen when the baby comes, and they both need to work?  They'll need someone to stay home with the baby, hint hint.  Dude, don't hire your mother/ex lover as your nanny!  She'll try to murder your wife to get you back.

In their next scene, Oedipus tells his wife that they can't afford the house on his novel royalties and her architecture, so why not have Mom chip in?  She is loaded.  Of course, she'll want to live with them.   Wife hates the idea.  Her husband's ex-lover, right there in the house with them? 

The First Lesbian Couple: Leslie, forceful and practical, and Sarah, quiet and mystical, examine the upstairs.  Sarah thinks it's "more of a family house," and it has a "dark vibe." 

They find a locked door.  It leads to the room where Ray and Lisa are hiding out and spying on everyone.  So, they're going to murder whoever buys the house?

On the way out, Practical Leslie is ready to make an offer, but Mystical Sarah doesn't want to spend all their money.  Besides, the neighborhood has a dark vibe.

Back story: They've been trying to get pregnant with IVF, but it doesn't work.  

That night, Practical Leslie drives through the neighborhood to prove that it is safe.  She sneaks into the garden of the house, planning to climb to the secret room's window and look inside, but instead she sets off the security alarm and the sprinklers.  Hiding in the bushes, she sees Homeowner Ray hide a gun in the piano. 

Meanwhile, at home, Mystical Sarah injects herself with something in secret.  She's either dying or a drug addict.

 The Second Lesbian Couple:  In bed, they discuss the house:  They could fix it up, put in a pool, and make a fortune off it.  They hatch an evil scheme to get it for under market value, and smoochify. 

More secrets after the break

Nutcracker Beefcake

Heterosexist plotline aside, every year The Nutcracker gives us the opportunity to see traditional, family-friendly, school-sanctioned, Christmastime ballet written by a gay man.

And loaded to the brim with hot guys in tights.

Not only the Nutcracker-turned-Prince who woos Clara, but the Mouse King, the Cavalier, party guests, soldiers, sentinels, Arabian dancers, Russian dancers -- the list goes on.





















Not a lot of shirtless dancers -- it's set in a Russian winter, after all.  But wander backstage before or after the performance, and you can get a glimpse of Christmas perfection.















More after the break.

Matthew William Bishop: leatherman, muscleman, actor, LGBTQ advocate. With bodybulder bonus

 

If you saw this guy wandering through Central Park, would you

a) Run away screaming

b) ask for his phone number

c) skip the phone number and go downtown

Link to n*de bodybuilders

How about now?

He's Matthew William Bishop, who gave up a career in corporate public relations in 2021, when the acting job bit.  His Some Kind of Wonderful, about four gay guy looking for love in Palm Springs, won four awards for Best LGBTQ Film. 

Then he hit the big time playing the silent supernatural Big Daddy, a symbol of AIDs in American Horror Story, NYC. (Set during the first years of the AIDS epidemic.)

Matthew is also a bodybuilder, obviously. He took first place at the 2023 Miami Muscle Beach Contest in the NPC Open Super Heavyweight Category.

And a philanthropist, devoted to recovery, AIDS awareness, and LGBTQ advocacy.  10% of the sales of this "Make the Deposits" shirt go to the New York LGBTQ Community Center.

More after the break

"Christmas on the Square": Be grateful that you haven't seen this movie. With Josh Serrano, Treat Williams, and random n*de dudes

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. 

Link to NSFW review

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 hesistation.  They were trivial, steps on the road to the Girl of Your Dreams destiny.

I kept looking for a place where I could be 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 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, 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.

More after the break, if you dare