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

"Big Mistakes": Dan Levy as a gay Christian pastor with a secret boyfriend and a crazy sister. With Patrick and Pacheco n*de

Link to the n*de photos

We all remember Dan Levy as the befuddled fashion plate David Rose on Schitt's Creek (2015-20), whose sweet, cozy romance with newly out Patrick (Noah Reed) culminated with their wedding.  (I put Noah up after the break to refresh your memory.)

Next up: Big Mistakes (2026), with Dan the creator, writer, and star.  Of course I'm going to watch.

Scene 1: Nicky (Dan) and his sister Morgan (Taylor Ortega) at the nursing home, sitting there looking foolish while Mom (Laurie Metcalf) rushes around,  arranging a birthday party for dying Grandma and managing her mayoral campaign.  Their Competent Sister is helping. 

Grandma wants a diamond necklace for her dying birthday present, but Mom knows that they're losers, so just bring something cheap and nostalgic to brighten her last moments.

Scene 2:  Nicky is preaching in a large church that's mostly empty.  The end of his sermon: don't be overcome by the smoke from the bridges you burned.  That makes no sense.  There are crucifixes in the nursing home but not here, so I'm guessing that Nicky is Protestant while the rest of the family is Catholic.

Update: It's the Glenview Community Church, nondenominational Protestant, probably in the congregational tradition.

The service ends, and he returns to the parsonage and kisses his boyfriend.  

In a later episode, Nicky has a boyfriend named Tareq (Jacob Gutierrez, left), but I'm not sure if this is Tareq, or he appears later.  

Uh-oh, a parshioner walks in -- hide!  Are you closeted, Mr. Minister?  

As he gets dressed and prepares to leave, Boyfriend rubs it in: "I'm being honored by Out and Loud next week for the work that I do."  Being Out -- every heard of it?

Nicky explains that the church is ok with gay clergy, but frowns on them doing gay stuff.  Why would you even accept a job at a church that doesn't accept LGBTQ people?  What about the LGBTQ youth in your congregation?  You're promoting the belief that God hates them.

He promises that as soon as Mom's mayoral campaign is done, he'll find a new congregation where gay relationships are ok.

Scene 3:  Sister Morgan has relationship problems, too.  As he drops her off at the elementary school, Boyfriend Max (Jack Innanen, b*lge on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) wants a long, mouth-swallowing kiss, but she breaks away -- kids are watching.  "Why do you always back away from my touch?"  Because kids are watching?

They argue, and he throws an engagement ring at her.  She is ok with it, but she wants a proper proposal.

Scene 4: The siblings head into the QuickPost to find a cheap present for Grandma.  The clerk, Yusuf (Boran Kuzum, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), keeps staring at Morgan.  Is he into her, or planning something nefarious?

Sister Morgan has her eye on a faux-pearl necklce in a case, but he won't sell it to her: "It's for display only." 

 When she pushes, he becomes aggressive: "Just leave it alone."   Must be real and stolen, or maybe full of heroin.

While they are arguing, Mom calls.  Grandma died.

Scene 5:  At the nursing home, Mom lambasts them for delaying with the gift, so they missed Grandma's last words: "My gloves are new."

Competent Daughter: "I think it was 'I love you.'"

Mom scoffs.  "No, it couldn't have been that."

Morgan wants to know what they're supposed to do with the gifts now.  That's your reaction to your grandmother's death?  She pulls out the faux-pearl necklace!  "I took care of it," she tells Nicky.

You stole it?  Why didn't you just choose something else?

Mom insists that Nicky put the necklace around Grandma's neck, and take some photos to post on social media.  Uh-oh, the bad guys will see it.

More after the break. 

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

The ten best "Righteous Gemstone" episodes, from "Wicked Lips" to the Season 4 Interlude. Plus the ten worst "WTF?" episodes.

  

Link to the NSFW version

The 36 episodes of the Righteous Gemstones are a mixed bag.  Some are marvels of cinematic craftsmanship, tightly plotted, exciting, rewarding a careful investigation of props and background songs, and loaded down with queer codeds.   Others are, to use the scholarly term, crap, with horrendous plot holes, terrible pacing, misleading props and background songs. and just a few queer crumbs -- if not outright queerbaiting. 

The Ten Best Episodes

1.4, "Wicked Lips."  Scotty and Gideon go on a date, and discuss their bedroom activity later. Keefe hasn't thought of Kelvin as a potential boyfriend yet, so he looks for love in a sports bar, and then encounters his old Satanist friends.  Plus Semen Load Guy (left).

1.7, "And Yet One of You is a Devil."  Scotty and Gideon break up, and each tries to pretend that it was just a fling, not true love.  But it doesn't work: Scotty kidnaps his ex-boyfriend and his father, forces them to open the church vault, and cries "You made your choice, and broke my heart" before driving off into oblivion.  Not to worry, Aimee-Leigh brings Scotty back to his true love.

1.9: "Better is the End of the Thing than the Beginning"  After breaking up with Keefe, Kelvin nearly comes out, but decides he's probably the Messiah instead. Keefe returns to the Satanists, and does a performance art piece where he is immersed in a tub of jizz.  Kelvin comes rushing to the rescue. And we see Keefe's d*ck (again).

2.1, "I Speak in the Tongues of Men and Angels."  Who knew that the world-famous televangelist Eli Gemstone started his career as a loan enforcer, breaking thumbs, along with his boyfriend Junior?  And Kelvin becomes the Messiah of Muscle, with a cadre of musclemen lifting weights and frolicking in his front yard.

     2.6: "Never Avenge Yourself, but Leave It to the Wrath of God."  Keefe and Kelvin do bedroom stuff, but fans argued that he was just helping him on with his underwear, leading to extensive conversations about how professionals help invalids get dressed (hint: you don't kneel in front of them).  The God Squad takes over the mansion, forcing Kelvin to become their maid and Keefe to become their s*x slave.  And Eli breaks up with Junior, who runs off broken-hearted (and fans argued that they were just friends!).

2.9: "I Will Tell of All Your Deeds"  The mysteries are all resolved in a way that makes sense, Eli and Junior reconcile, Junior gets a new boyfriend, and Keefe is admitted to the family as Kelvin's partner.  Plus the song "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend" has us all in tears.

3.3: "For Their N*kedness is Your N*kedness."  Kelvin almost calls Keefe his "boyfriend."  Keefe performs a highly erotic fire dance at Cousin's Night.  Afterwards they're shown on their way home for "hot s*x."  Plus Robert Oberst, a Norwegian Fire Viking, and a Balkan s*x god.

3.5: "Interlude 3."  Kelvin is obviously gay, we see Braxton Alexander's bare backside, and Uncle Peter has a beautifully-staged decline and fall.

 4.4.: "He Goeth Before You into Galilee."  At the Lake House, the siblings try various pranks to make their dad Elijah break up with his new girlfriend.  A pleasant, rather fluffy episode.  Plus we see Keefe in drag and a lot of male Gemstones in swimsuits, and Pontius is identified as gay or bi. The only plot problem: when Eli and Lori don't come down for breakfast, the siblings burst into their bedroom, and catch them in the act.  Who would do that? 

4.5: "Interlude IV." The night that the Golden Bible was stolen.  Plus Kelvin as an obviously gay teen idol fan, an effervescent Young Corey, and Young Jesse in his underwear.  I like how Jesse accidentally drinks the intruder's urine, a callback to Keefe's worry about the devil's urine earlier.

Worst episodes after the break