"Of an Age": In a 24-hour Garden of Forking Paths, a Serbian teen hooks up with his girlfriend's brother. With some Serbian d*cks

Link to the n*de dudes

 It's Sunday morning, and I have no tv series or movies waiting to review, so I'm going to click on my Netflix recommendation Of an Age, with a shirtless guy on the icon.  There may not be any gay characters, but at least there will be some beefcake. 

Scene 1: 1999. A scantily clad woman awakens on a deserted beach.  Her bag is gone, so she borrows some coins from a lady exiting a pastie shop and runs to a payphone and calls someone, but gets a busy signal.  This must be Britain or Australia.

Cut to close-ups of the chest, biceps, and face of a sleazy-looking dude as he dances around to "Bandido," a 2003 song by Ana Barbara.  He appears to be working on choreography in his garage, moving too fast to get a good screen shot.  

Knock on the door.  He yells in Serbian, "Don't come in!", then goes out to yell at his little brother (Peter Rayias), but Bro is in his room.  It must have been his  creepy Mom: "I forgot to wash your clothes again, my handsome man, leer, leer."

Finally The Girl gets through: "What the f*ck, Kol!" 

"Sorry, my brother was using the computer."  

She starts stammering.  This guy was going to take her to his boat in Saint Basil (no such town), and she took some speed.  It's very important to know that he was a little older, but not some rando. The next thing she knew, she was waking up on a beach, with no money, her bag gone, no idea what happened, and no idea where she is. And they have the Big Community Center Thing in two hours.  She has obviously been roofied, s*xually assaulted, and robbed, but nothing more is said about it. 

 They use a street sign to deduce that she's in Altoona, an hour's drive away. She wants Kol to go to her friend Tori's house, pick up her dress for the Big Civic Center Thing, then come get her.  

"But I don't have a car."

"Borrow your mom's."

"I can't.  She's being creepy. Can you call someone else with a car to come get you?"

"But if they have a car, they probably have a life, so they won't be home."  Wouldn't people who have lives be out late the night before, so still asleep at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning?  "Wait -- I know a complete loser who everybody hates because he's so lame.  He has no life, so he'll be home at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning -- my brother Adam!"  Har-har.

Scene 2: Kol runs through the neighborhood to his Girlfriend's friend, now named Jaya: "You have to call this complete loser who everybody hates.  I can't do it because if his Mom answers, she'll recognize my voice and ask where The Girl is."

By the way, the Girl is named Ebony, although she's not black.  Another off-kilter directorial choice.

Tori/Jaya calls Brother Adam: "This sleazy gay guy burst in and insisted that I call you."  Wait -- your girlfriend's best friend doesn't know you?  And her brother doesn't, either?  How long have you been dating?

"I'm not gay, but..."  He grabs the phone.  "Adam, you have to drive me to pick up your sister Ebony, an hour away, and then drive us to the Civic Center, another hour, and we have to be there in an hour and a half."  

He grabs the dress, and while waiting, hears more about Brother Adam: "Loser.  Voted most likely to bomb the school.  Some girls tried to f*ck him, but were unsuccessful."

Scene 3: Adam arrives (Thom Green, left, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).  He doesn't think they can make it to Altoona and back in time for "your emergency dance class."  The camera moves around too much to get a good screenshot.

"It's the Dance Finals dude!  Super-important!"  Not that important.  The movie is not about Kol's dancing career.

Kol asks him to stop the car so he can throw up.   This illness is not mentioned again.

"Maybe you could go to the finals next year?"

"My Girlfriend Ebony applied to NIDA in Sydney, so she won't be around."  The National Institute of Dramatic Arts.

He laughs.  "You think she's going to NIDA?  She's a terrible actor."  He ridicules her performance as Lady Macbeth.

Their conversation last for 21 minutes.  I can't cover everything they discuss, but the most interesting topics are:

1. Jorge Luis Borges -- one of my favorite writers. 

"The Library of Babel," containing every possible combination of letters in a book. 

 "The Circular Ruins," where a man dreams a world that is dreaming him.  

"The Garden of Forking Paths," a labyrinth where every decision results  in infinite parallel worlds. .   

2. Tomorrow Kol is flying back to Serbia for his birthday, January 1st, 2000,  the day of Y2K fears.  Y2K is never mentioned again.

3. Kol mentions how much he hates his "psycho uncle."    Adam suggests that he could murder the uncle for Kol, as in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Strangers on a Train.  This is never mentioned again.

4. Adam mentions that he's gay. Kol says he doesn't have a problem with gay people, a standard straight guy response in the 1990s.

More after the break

"Los Espookys": Who You Gonna Call?

I've been posting about a lot of disappointing tv series -- gay teases that don't follow through, gushing praise that masks endless boy-girl kissing.  It's high time we get to a series that it's actually good -- interesting, humorous, gay inclusive -- Los Espookys (well, that title could use a little work).

In an unspecified Latin American country, one of those magic-realism places where weird things happen so often that they're normal, Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco) creates a horror-themed quinceañera for his little sister.  It is so impressive that his Uncle Tico (Fred Armisen), the world's greatest car parker (he can even park two cars at the same time), suggests that he make a career out of creating horror-themed events.

Renaldo conscripts his best friend, the weird blue haired Andrés (Saturday Night Live writer and Great North boyfriend Julio Torres), into the business.

Andrés is the heir to a chocolate empire, immensely wealthy and powerful (what if they started making sugar-free chocolate? every dentist in the country would be unemployed).

His parents and his bulging swimsuit-clad trophy boyfriend (telenovela star José Pablo Minor, top photo) disapprove of his interest in horror, but he agrees to participate.   

By the way, it's not a subtext: they are a canonical gay couple.

Next they conscript their friend Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti), a Goth dentist's assistant; and her delightfully obtuse sister Tati (Ana Fabrega), who has a variety of odd jobs, like running a hand-cranked fan or breaking in people's shoes. (Welcome to the new economy)

They expect to plan horror-themed parties, but for their first gig, Father Francesco (Luis Grieco), the priest at the local orphanage, complains that his new, hot, hip associate Padre Antonio (Cristobal Tapia Montt), is stealing all the glory...of running an orphanage?  He wants to conduct an exorcism to get back into the spotlight.  So Los Espookys create an exorcism for him.

Next up: a millionaire's dying wish is to give his fortune to whoever can spend the night in a haunted house.  Los Espokys are hired to create the house, and ensure that the millionaire's son does not win.

They have found their niche, creating fake paranormal events: a sea monster for a seaside town to use as a tourist attraction; an alien autopsy for a UFO researcher to show her bosses; a magic mirror for "the American ambassador"; a fake dream for an insomniac.

Along the way they have the usual daily hassles of magic-realism life.

1. Andrés is pressured by his family to marry his trophy boyfriend (so his cookie empire can be combined with their chocolate empire).

2. Renaldo is pressured by his mother to get a girlfriend or boyfriend, even though he has explained that he only wants friends.  He's openly asexual!

3. Ursula, who is a lesbian, has any number of hookups.

4. Tati keeps expecting the guys she meets on dating apps to look like their photo.  So the quirky, odd comic-relief is heterosexual.  

Only 6 episodes, but fortunately Season 2 is already in the works.

My grade: A+