"A Knight before Christmas": Time-Traveling Christmas Rom-Com

I'm not in the habit of watching Christmas movies, especially those with dumb pun titles like A Knight Before Christmas (2019).  But I couldn't resist nitpicking. A knight is zapped from 14th century Britain to Small Town Ohio in the present day.  Sort of Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court in reverse.

But there were no knights in the 14th century  (except as ceremonial titles), and the Middle English of the era would be nearly incomprehensible:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;

Sir Cole (Josh Whitehouse)  is upset because he hasn't proved himself a "true knight" yet (but that's what the title "sir" means).  His younger brother, Sir Geoffrey, is having a knighting ceremony in a few days, so he feels left out.

Harry Jarvis is buffed, but I can't figure out a way to copy his instagram post.

In the woods on a snowy day, Sir Cole is nice to an Old Crone (who actually looks like a middle-aged faded beauty).  She promises to guide him to where he can prove himself.  She zaps him into a 21st century Small Town.

Meanwhile, Small Town resident Brooke (Vanessa Hudgens) is not one of these liberated Disney princesses who fight alongside the prince.  She's longing for a "knight in shining armor," a "happily ever after" Camelot.  Instead of the  black best friend traditional in rom-coms, she has a single-mom sister and niece (not to worry, Officer Stevens, the only cop on the Small Town police force, is black, so the producers could check off the "racial diversity" box).

Cole and Brooke have a meet cute when she hits him with her car.  Feeling guilty, she takes him in, and humors his contention that he is a time traveler.  His wonderment over 21st century marvels like TV and coffee ensues, and plot complications...

Well, no real plot complications.   Sir Cole does challenge her ex-boyfriend (Neil Babcock) to a duel because he's not as chivalrous as he should be, there's a girl stuck on thin ice who needs rescuing, and a teenage pickpocket to be subdued (the latter gets Cole a job offer.  Apparently you don't need to go to the police academy in Small Town Ohio.  Just show up, and they strap on a gun).

Oh, and a Christmas party to prepare for.  Did I mention that it's Christmastime?

Some indecision on Cole's part, but Vanessa tells him: You can be anything you want in life, if you try hard enough.

The main "tension": Will Cole go back to the past after he learns to "believe in himself", or stay in Small Town Ohio with Brooke?

What do you think?

Well, he does go back, for a few minutes, to see Sir Geoffrey, and give him some advice on how to become a true knight: "Be kind to all you meet."

Wait -- how does he go back and forth in time at will?

Beefcake:  Almost everybody in town is female, and the men keep their clothes on.  But check out stuntman Alex Armbruster, who played "Young Husband at Tree Farm."

Buddy bonding: Almost everyone in town is female.

Gay characters: Evan, whose daughter Cole saves from the thin ice, hugs him.  But Cole is mystified by the gesture: "Is this some sort of Christmas wrestling match?).  He's unfamiliar with the concept of men hugging.  (Evan has a wife)

There's also a single dad (Jean-Michel Le Gal) who is struggling financially, so Vanessa give him money to buy his kids presents.  He has a slew of kids, so I'm thinking dead wife rather than gay.

I guess rom-coms are the final frontier for queerness.  I imagine that Netflix bigwigs feel thatt the rom-com audience is "not ready" for gay characters hanging around and being gay at Christmas time.  Everybody knows that gay people flash out of existence just after Halloween and don't return until Oscar Night.

The Gay Tease of "Always Be My Maybe"

Netflix recommended this movie for me with a 98% match: Sasha and Marcus had a brief romance in high school.  15 years later, Sasha has become a celebrity chef, while Marcus is still living in his parents' basement.  They feel the spark of attraction again, but can they adapt to each other's worlds?

I sat stunned.  Blurbs about movies with gay people don't include the terms "romance" or "spark of attraction."  They say "forbidden love" and "attraction that threatens to destroy their lives."

And the title would never be Always Maybe.  It would be something like Alex Strangelove.    But the illustration -- it's hard to see from across the room -- seems to show two men.  And Sasha and Marcus are both boys' names.

Remember Sasha Mitchell, sitcom star turned martial artist (top photo)?

And Marcus Schenkenberg, the Swedish model who was popping up all over the tv screen in the 1990s?

Could a gay romance be presented so nonchalantly, as "a romance"?  Could gay people be just....people?  How come we overcame, and nobody told me?

Just to be sure, I checked the byline: Ali Wong, Randall Park, James Saito.  Two of those people are Sasha and Marcus, and all three are men.

So I turned it on.

More after the break.

How Many Boys Have You Loved Before?

If I tried to get every boy I had a crush on in high school into the same room, I'd have to rent a convention center.  Jocks, nerds, theater types, preacher's kids, teachers, coaches, my friends, my brother's friends, my brother's friends' dads, plus countless teen idols and beefcake actors.

So I figured that the new Netflix movie To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2019) would be a teen idol fest, with Tiger Beat fave raves lined up down the block and around the corner.

The gimmick: High school junior Lara Jean (Lana Condor) has been in the habit of writing letters to all of the boys she likes, sort of a way to work through her feelings.  Obviously the crushes must never see the letters, but Laura Jean gets them ready to mail anyway, putting them in envelopes with addresses and the proper postage.

One day the unthinkable happens: her little sister finds the letters and mails them.  The recipients think that Lara Jean is still crushing on them, and begin showing up, either to explain that they aren't interested, or to proclaim that they are.

Ok, that's unbelievably contrived.  Why would anyone do that, especially a teenage girl in 2018?  She might instagram, snapchat, blog, vlog, text, or even email, but she certainly would not write letters. And get them ready to mail if she didn't intend to send them.

But never mind.  Let's get to the endless line of fave raves.

1. Current crush Josh (Israel Boussard), who has just broken up with Lara Jean's older sister.  He's not interested.
















2. Former crush Peter (Noah Centineo).  Also not interested, but he agrees to fake-date Lara Jean in order to make Josh and Gen (his own ex-girlfriend and Laura's ex-best friend) jealous.

Then the movie becomes a standard rom-com, with the various plot complications leading to the inevitable conclusion of the fake relationship turning real, as Lara Jean and Peter fall in love.

I fast-forwarded through those scenes, waiting for the line of cute guys, humorous set pieces as nerds turn into hunks, hunks turn into nerds, one has become a Hare Krishna, one is now famous, and so on, a hundred scenarios before breakfast.

But there are only 3 more guys.

3. Lucas (Trezzo Mahoro, right), who has since come out as gay, and is now Laura Jean's bff and "Why don't you go after him, girl?" advisor.













4. Kenny from summer camp. (Edward Kewin).  Lara Jean has a flashback about him, ut he's moved, so he never gets his letter.

5. John Ambrose (Jordan Burchett), who Lara Jean met at the model U.N., shows up in the last scene to proclaim that he is interested.  He is actually the focus character of the sequel.


That's it.  A total of 5, not 20, or 200?     I feel completely cheated.

There aren't even very many non-crush cute guys in the cast.

1.Andrew Bachelor (right) as Peter
or Josh's sidekick, I don't know which. Does it matter?

John Corbett as Laura Jean's Dad, some kids playing young versions of Peter, Josh, and John Ambrose, and Dean Alonzo Hoover as "Student on Bus." And that's it.

The movie should be titled To the Two and a Half Boys I've Loved Before.

Christmas with Travis Milne

Canadian actor Travis Milne has one of the most strikingly beautiful faces in recent screen history.  Plus his real name is George Travis Darold Milne XI.  That's right, there have been 10 Travis Milnes before him, generation after generation of strikingly beautiful faces.














Unfortunately, drop-dead gorgeous guys are  often relegated to romantic comedies.  Travis has starred in several of those dreary "finding love at Christmastime" movies:

Holiday in Handcuffs (2007): Melissa Joan Hart kidnaps Mario Lopez, and passes him off as her boyfriend at a Christmas gathering, where her brother reveals that he is gay.  That's more surprising than committing a felony?  Travis plays the gay brother's boyfriend.

A Gift-Wrapped Christmas (2015): Workaholic single dad (Travis) finds love with a harried personal shopper.  At Christmas, natch.

Runaway Christmas Bride (2017): Kate leaves her fiancee at the altar and falls in love with an Olympic skiier (Travis).    At Christmas.

Apparently you just need to add the word "Christmas" to a movie to qualify for it to air on the Hallmark Channel in December.  Let's try it out:

Christmas in Casablanca.
A Jurassic Park Christmas
Home Alone at Christmas

He has also been some generic "finding love" romcoms:

Nearlyweds (2013): Three female friends find out that their weddings, to Ryan Kennedy, Steve Bacic, and Travis Milne, were performed illegally.  Complications ensue.

Couldn't they just do them over?  What is this, 1964?

Summer Love (2016).  How's that for a generic title?  They're not even trying.  A widowed mom has to choose between two hot guys (Travis, Lucas Bryant).

Same Time Next Week (2017): A widow and a widower (Travis) find love.

Other than finding love, Travis appeared in some shorts, some sleaze (Confessions of a Go-Go Girl), and some Canadian cop shows, including story arcs on Rogue and Saving Hope and 78 episodes of Rookie Blue (back before he buffed up).

Plus he hosted My Green House, a Canadian environmentally friendly DIY series.

Quite a lot of work for someone of  his age, but nothing most gay men would go out of their way to see.

No mention of a wife or girlfriend, but I still get the distinct impression that he's heterosexual.

The 10 Crazy Ripped Hunks of "Crazy Rich Asians"

I don't usually watch romantic comedies, but Crazy Rich Asians (2018) was set in Singapore, it had an all-Asian cast, and it was based on a novel with a gay character.  Plus it was $2.99 on Vudu, so I figured, why not?

It is definitely bright and glittery, with lots of interesting location shots in Singapore and Malaysia.  But the premise is a bit strained:

Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), who grew up in a poor household, is now an economics professor at NYU, which I don't believe for a second.  She doesn't say anything that sounds the least bit knowledgeable about economics, or for that matter about anything else.  She's something of an airhead.

Her boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding, left), a history professor at NYU (I don't believe that for a second, either), invites her home to Singapore to go to his best friend's wedding and meet his back-home crew.  Not until the flight begins does he reveal that he's crazy rich, heir to the biggest financial empire in Asia.

Rachel is introduced to various crazy-rich friends and relatives, all of whom have colorful back stories.  It's hard to keep them all straight; I had to take notes.

 Some welcome her as a potential sister in law, and others aren't aware of her poor origins and keep asking "Are you related to the Taiwan instant noodle Chus?"  But Nick's Mom snubs her as a gold digger.

Like usual soap operas, there are affairs, long-simmering feuds, sabotages, and shocking revelations.  The biggest is that Rachel actually comes from crazy rich money, too: her mother had an affair with some big wig and then fled to the U.S. to avoid the scandal.

There are some gay-subtext scenes: bff Colin (Chris Pang) tells Nick, "If I wasn't marrying Araminta, I'd ask you to marry me."

The only actual sign-wearing gay person is the super-flamboyant Cousin Oliver, who gossips, comments on fashion faux-pas, and out-twees Truman Capote.

Other than the settings, the main draw of this movie is the beefcake.  The crazy rich Asians know their way around a gym.

Here are the top 10 Crazy Rich Hunks:

1. Nick

2. Colin

3. Bernard (Jimmy O. Yang), Nick's "I'm super rich.  I can afford to buy France" friend.

4. Ronny Cheung as one of Nick's cousins.

5. Remy Hii as another cousin.

6, Pierre Png as Michael Teo, who is married to Nick's cousin Astrid.

7. Harry Shum Jr. as Charlie Wu, whose character was actually cut from the movie.  I understand that he appears during the closing credits.

8. Charles Grounds as Curtis, one of the few non-Asians in the movie.

9.Shuhei Kinoshita.

Sorry, I ran out at #9.  But here's Henry Golding again, barbecuing with his buds.

You: What's Worse, a Predatory Lesbian or a Hetero Stalker?

I don't usually watch romance movies, and I didn't even know that romance tv shows were a thing, but when you're visiting relatives, you watch what they watch, and what they watched was You.

A tv series with a title that makes internet searches extremely difficult.

It's a bland anxiety-stalker romance with not enough twists to keep your interested past the first episode.  Unless your relatives insist.

Manhattan used-bookstore manager Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley, who I originally confused with comedian/atheism activist Penn Gillette) falls in love at first sight with customer Beck (Elizabeth Lail), a creative writing student. Through a combination of traditional stalking and social media mining, he manages to arrange some meet-cutes and tries to push his way into becoming her boyfriend.

Beck has some problems: she's insecure about her writing, a gold-digger, and a sex addict with a penchant for authority figures.  And that's just obvious: there are dark secrets in her past.  But nobody's perfect.

Of course, there are obstacles on the way to True Love.  Joe kidnaps, and eventually kills, Beck's ex-boyfriend Benji (Lou Taylor Pucci, left), manhandles her harassing academic advisor (Reg Rogers) and the therapist she's having an affair with (John Stamos).

Rich friend Peach (Shay Mitchell), a predatory lesbian with designs on Beck, is the worst threat, suspecting Joe from the beginning.  So Joe kills her, too, both to keep his secret safe and to keep Beck out of her clutches.

Meanwhile he befriends Paco, the kid next door who is living with a druggie mom and her abusive boyfriend (Daniel Cosgrove, left).  See, he's not such a bad guy.  Besides, he has a dark back story of his own.

I expected more plot twists to maintain audience interest.  I expected Beck to turn the tables and be a stalker-murderer of her own, like on the episode of Amazing Stories where a serial killer discovers that his intended victim is another serial killer who's been targeting him!

But nothing that clever.  I only saw 4 episodes before leaving Indianapolis, but back home I watched Episode 8, and it's still still "Oh, gee, that guy's a threat, I think I'll kill him, and then go buddy-bond with Paco."

Gay characters: A predatory lesbian, but otherwise this is a gay-free Manhattan.  I expected more from Greg Berlanti, who is gay in real life.

Beefcake: A lot of chests and butts of the guys Beck screws.  A lot of hunky cops, bookstore patrons, party guests, and bohemians. And don't forget the cheery, lacking-in-dark-secrets Ethan (Zach Cherry).  Frankly, I'd rather date him than any of jerks-with-muscles on the show.

Once Upon a Time: Finding or Losing True Love

In the idyllic New England town of Storybrooke, a young boy named Henry (Jared S. Gilmore), adopted son of Mayor Regina (Lana Parilla), suddenly realizes that everyone around him is a story book character, mostly from Disney adaptions of fairy tales.

His teacher is actually Snow White (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937)
Regina is actually the Evil Queen who gave Snow White the poisoned apple.

The seven dwarfs are wandering around doing various civilian jobs, as are the Magic Mirror, the Huntsman, Prince Charming (Josh Dallas), and characters from other Disney movies and fairy tales: Jiminy Cricket (from Pinocchio), Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel.

Henry has told only a few people of these amazing revelations, and they all think he's crazy.  They have no memories of their other lives, or really any memories of the past at all.  Oddly, no one questions this collective amnesia.

Or the fact that time is standing still: for the last thirty years, no one in Storybrooke has aged.  No one is born (Henry was born outside), no one dies.  No one moves to town (except Henry), no one leaves.

Then Henry's birth mother, Emma, arrives, and time starts again.

Another startling revelation: Emma is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming (real name David).  So Henry's  teacher is his grandmother.

We gradually discover what happened:  Regina is angry with Snow for destroying "her  happiness": apparently she told the evil Queen Cora that her daughter was dating a stable boy named Daniel (Noah Bean), and the queen had him killed. 

So Regina arranged for a "Dark Curse" to bring everyone to a world without magic and zap their memories.  She will then be able to keep Snow from being happy (that is, from dating Prince Charming).

This is the premise of Once Upon a Time (2011-), currently streaming on Netflix. I've only seen the first season, but I understand that it gets very, very complicated.  Regina has a long, harsh back story and eventually is redeemed and becomes The Good Queen, while Snow can be petty, vain, and...well, malicious.  The back stories of many other characters are revealed (evil people are invariably evil because their "true love" was killed).  And the palette expands from Storybrooke to Neverland, the Looking-Glass World,  and who knows where else?

Robin Hood (Tom Ellis) and Captain Hook {Colin O'Donoghue) fight Hades (Greg Germann) from Greek mythology, who is in love with the Wicked Witch of the West (from The Wizard of Oz)

Cruella Deville (from 1001 Dalmatians), Maleficent (from Sleeping Beauty). and Ursula (from The Little Mermaid).kidnap Belle (from Beauty and the Beast)  in order to force her boyfriend Rupelstiltskin (who happens to be the son of Peter Pan) to give her the magic Gauntlet of Camelot, which he got from Victor Frankenstein.

Hokey smokes!

The mishmash of fairy tales, legends, mythology, popular novels, and Disney movies sounds very annoying.

Even in the first season, I am annoyed by the trope of "finding happiness" which is always equated with finding or reuniting with your "true love," the person you are destined to spend your life with.  When you have found your true love, you are by definition happy.  When you have not, you are by definition unhappy.

You can always tell when you find your true love: you stop whatever you're doing -- fighting goblins, running for your life, hugging your girlfriend -- and stare at them with a dumb expression.

There are only three motives for every act:
1. To find/win your true love/happiness
2. To fight those who are trying to destroy your true love/happiness.
3. To get revenge on those who have successfully destroyed your true love/happiness.

The concept of "true love" was invented during the 17th century to promote companionate marriages over the arranged marriages of the past.  It is amazingly simplistic and patently untrue: our emotional bonds with friends and lovers come in an infinite variety, and none were predestined at the beginning of time.  It's daytime soap opera nonsense.

Once doesn't offer much beefcake.  This is a show about the power struggles of princesses and queens, with men as mostly interchangeable "true loves," all around 30 years old (regardless of their true age), tall, fair-skinned, and dark-haired. Their only distinguishing characteristics appear to be hair length and degree of androgyny.   Although I have over 50 years of experience in evaluating masculine beauty, I have a hard time telling them apart.

I don't even know who this one plays.  Like, Emma's grandson, or Rupelstiltskin's grandfather, or both?

No identified gay characters in the first season -- I understand that there are some lesbian "true loves" around Season 6.

But I do find something gender-transgressive about Henry's obsession with the adults being adequately paired off: "You have to be together!  It's true love!"  It doesn't sound like the sort of thing a straight 10-year old would be harping about.