"Fairfax": Woke Teens Strive to Become Influencers on Fairfax Avenue

 

The animated series Fairfax, on Amazon Prime, caught my attention because Fairfax Boulevard is traditionally the eastern edge of West Hollywood.  According to the trailer, it's about four 13-year olds, one of whom is so woke that she protests the milking of almonds. No doubt one of them is gay.

Scene 1: A futuristic totalitarian factory making t-shirts for the Latrine Company. The caped supervillain boss decides that the next Latrine t-shirt will feature Dr. Phil, the conservative talk show host, and suddenly everyone on Earth gets the ads on their screens.  Did I accidentally click on the wrong series?

No, we switch to Benny (Peter S. Kim), a chubby boy with traditional Korean parents, seeing the ads, getting all excited, and calling his friends to a special meeting.  

Meanwhile the woke Derica is protesting "milking almonds" at a supermarket.  She gets the word and kayaks down the Los Angeles river to the meeting.  (Ok, this is not my West Hollywood).

Teen dream Truman (Jaboukie Young-White) is photographing a middle-aged lady for her Tinder profile when he gets the word.  She flirts with him, but he reminds her that he's only 13.

Scene 2: The line outside the Latrine Store extends for blocks, all the way to the Fairfax Sign (this is not our West Hollywood).  A chubby man who got his t-shirt early taunts them.  A pigeon is congratulated by his friend for getting his t-shirt. 

Meanwhile timid Dale (Skyler Gisondo) is cowering in the back seat while his parents drive him onto Fairfax Avenue.  They've moved to West Hollywood to take over his uncle's vape store.  He worries that he won't fit in among the cool kids, but his parents point out that he is cool: he was president of the hiking club.

Scene 3:  While his parents unpack, Dale wanders past the Latrine Store, and is amazed: it has a skating ramp, multicolored shoes, and fluorescent mannikins.  The old guy from Scene 2 offers him $50 for his hat, and they go into the alley to make the deal.  Is he actually suggesting sex? 

Whew, he really just wants the hat.  The other three kids come to the rescue by pointing out that those hats go for $200.  

Scene 4: The others are shocked that Dale is not making an ironic statement: he actually is Middle American normalcore.  They take him to Schwimmer's Deli (Canter's?), where everything is second-rate and over-priced, to explain the grooviness of Latrine: the more absurdly overpriced Latrine products you display, the more "likes" you get on social media, and you're on your way to becoming an Influencer, and then all your dreams come true: 

Benny: Push Dad out of an airplane

Truman: Direct a movie starring two hot babes.

Derica: Save the ecosystem.

But how can they get one of the t-shirts?  They're sold out!  Dale comes to the rescue: he saw the manager of Latrine hiding a t-shirt in the back room.  

Scene 5: They sneak into a facility where artists are painting a man green and sculpting fish, to meet with the Plug, aka Joaquin Phoenix, but actually voiced by Jeff Bottoms (in West Hollywood you run into celebrities all the time).  He's busy lighting himself on fire, and doesn't have time to help them locate a t-shirt.

Scene 6: They kidnap the dog of Lucas, the store manager, to force him to hand over the spare t-shirt, but he recognizes them.  They try to send a drone in, but it's detected and exploded.  

Scene 7: Dale bursts into the vape shop, exuberant over his new friends: 

 Bennie: "Like the Wizard of Oz"

Derica: "I'm not sure if she identifies as a girl, but she could legit be president someday"

Truman: Has actually had sex with a girl.  

He just needs to figure out how to get the t-shirt, so they will like him.

That night, Dale has a vision of Dr. Phil, the guy on the t-shirt, who advises him to "think outside the box."

More after the break

12 hunks and hunkoids of "The Fosters," all grown up. With a few grown-up d*cks.

Link to the NSFW photos

The Fosters (2013-2018) was a groundbreaking drama on ABC Family, now on Netflix, about a lesbian couple (Stef and Lena) with five children, biological, adopted, and foster (Brandon, Jesus, Jude, Callie, Mariana). The Fosters have foster children, har har 

But it wasn't all sunlight and diversity. Actually, it wasn't sunlight at all. I never watched -- I don't do tragedy -- but the episode synopses sound grim. There were drinking problems, psychological problems, incurable diseases, deaths, homophobic hate crimes, custody battles...like a live-action Howard Cruse comic.   But for many viewers, the remarkably open gay content was worth being depressed.

Besides, there are endless teenage boys with their shirts off to draw in the gay boys and straight girls. I'm checking to see if there were any adult hunks in the crowd, or if any of Fosters Fave Raves have grown up.

1. David Lambert (left):  Brandon, the oldest son in the family. an aspiring pianist whose dreams are dashed when an injury paralyzes his hand.  He also becomes the victim of statutory rape by hooking up with his father's girlfriend.

2. Danny Nucci: Mike, Brandon's biological father, a cop who has a drinking problem, shot an unarmed suspect, and has a girlfriend who hooks up with Brandon.

3. Tom Williamson: AJ, Mike's foster son.  Where does he find the time to be a foster parent?

4. Jake T. Austin (left): Jesus, the second son, who has Attention-Deficit Disorder.

5. Brandon Quinn: Gabe, Jesus' biological father, who didn't tell Jesus because he didn't want the boy to know he's a registered sex offender.

6. Hadyn Byerly: Jude, the youngest son, who becomes mute in angst over coming out as gay (with lesbian parents?), but eventually learns to accept himself and starts dating, with probably the youngest same-sex kiss on television.







More grown-up Fave Raves after the break

"Huge in France": Watch It for the Beefcake

Huge in France (2019) stars Gad  (Gad Elmileh, a comedian who actually is huge in France).  He comes to America and is shocked to find that no one recognizes him.  He is constantly walking into a room, announcing "C'est Gad!", and expecting people to fawn over him.

He's come to reunite with his long-estranged son Luke  (Jordan Ver Hoeve), who wants to become a professional model, and...

um, sorry, I lost my train of thought.

Maybe just one more photo, to get me through the rest of the review.

Jordan is from San Diego (I would have guessed Amsterdam).  He's represented by Brand Model and Talent, which offers a large portfolio of his work.  His instagram offers some even more revealing shots.

Ok, this is the last one.

Luke is being managed and trained by his mom's boyfriend, failed actor Jason (Matthew Del Negro).










More after the break

The 9 Worst TV Series Finales in History

If you watch every episode of a 100-episode sitcom, you've spend 2300 minutes or nearly 40 hours, not including reruns.  That's the equivalent of 19 feature-length movies or 11 novels. A suzeable chunk of your life.

If it was a 60-minute dramatic series, make that 38 feature length movies and 22 novels.  

Then comes the series finale.  There will be no more episodes.

You know the characters better than many of your real-life friends.  Saying goodbye is going to be painful.

For years you've set aside a special part of your week for the program.  You rarely missed it, and when you did, you taped it to watch later.  You watched all of the summer reruns.There will be a hole in your life for quite some time.

So you sit down for the series finale, hoping for a warm, funny, memorable sendoff.  But instead, you get garbage.  Mind-destroying, depressing, confusing, WTF garbage.

May 10, 1983: Laverne and Shirley (1976-1983).  A sitcom about two bromantic "girlfriends" sharing an apartment in 1950s Milwaukee, right?  Except by 1983, there was just Laverne, it was Los Angeles, and the heart of the 1960s (Laverne's boyfriend is a Star Trek fan).  Way to destroy your premise.

But the series finale isn't even about that; it's about Laverne's singer/dancer/male prostitute friend Carmine going to New York to audition for Hair.  

We don't find out if he got the role or not. And we don't see his nude scene.

May 21, 1990: Newhart (1982-1990): For eight years, Bob Newhart played the owner of a bed and breakfast in a small New England town full of quirky residents, whom you grew fond of over the years.  Who can forget "I'm Larry, and this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl?"

But on May 21st, 1990, Bob wakes up in bed as Dr. Bob Hartley, the psychologist in his old series, and tells his old wife, Emily, "What a dream I had!"  Way to destroy beloved characters, Bob!

July 20, 1994: Dinosaurs (1991-1994).  A nuclear family spoof starring cute, cuddly dinosaurs in ABC's kid-friendly Friday night lineup.  Remember "I'm the baby, gotta love me"?

How best to end the hearwarming series:  how about with a eco-catastrophe that kills every dinosaur on the planet?  Including the entire Sinclair family?  Including the baby?

May 20, 1997: Roseanne (1988-1997).  The queen of lower-middle class urban blight and her ragtag family spent eight seasons being the anti-Cosbys, not affluent, or educated, or elegant.  It featured Johnny Galecki as a teenager with a terrible hairdo.  Then Roseanne wins the lottery, and spends the last season hob-nobbing with the rich and famous.

That's not the worst of it, though -- in the last episode, we are told that this has all been a story that Roseanne has written.  The real people are all different.  Dan is dead.  Jackie is a lesbian, so her husband and child don't exist.  But Mom isn't a lesbian.  The daughters switch husbands.  Everything we thought we knew about the show is wrong.

More terrible finales after the break