"Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice": Time traveling gangsters, a cannibal assassin, a gay party, Jimmy Tatro, and Arturo's d*ck

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Hulu recommended a movie with a title so stylized that I couldn't decipher it, but the icon featured two guys, and I don't have enough movie reviews here, so I clicked on "play."  It's Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (2026).

Scene 1: A Wacky Scientist (Ben Schwartz) working in a room full of old-fashioned desktop computers and dot-matrix printers.  The quantum stabilizers are engaged, so he wolf-howls with joy and sings a rap song about being the greatest person on Earth (but really, aren't all rap songs saying that?).   Continuing his song, he heads to the chalkboard and finishes his equation.  

Uh-oh, the portal starts to glow, and a figure appears.  Wacky Scientist pulls a gun to defend himself, and accidentally shoots himself, and sets the lab on fire.  Must be him from the future.

Scene 2: A sixth birthday cake, and a lot of people yelling "Welcome back, Jimmy!", but Jimmy is at least 80, unless the old guy they're cheering is someone else.

Yep, Jimmy is off to the side, not the guest of honor at his own party; everyone is cheering his Crime Lord Dad (Keith David).  And it's not his birthday: he's out of prison after six years.  Director: why have the guest of honor off to the side, while everyone cheers his father? Do you have any idea how confusing that is?

Jimmy yells "Get loose, biatch!", whereupon everyone applauds, and a cute Short Guy yells "Awright!"  They must be responding to his catch phrase?

Crime boss Dad notes that someone in this room is responsible for Jimmy going to prison, and he'll be dealt with tonight.  But for now, have fun.

Scene 3:  A Sleazoid, standing at the bar, gets flirted with by a lady, while a Posh Guy glares at him; three ladies smooze; the Short Guy flirts with a sleeveless Muscle Hunk, then walks off with him.  A hookup!

I checked the cast list:

Slezoid: Mike (James Marsden)

Posh Guy: Nick (Vince Vaughn)

Short Guy: Dumbass Tony (Arturo Castro, left) 

Muscle Hunk: Roid Rage Ryan (Lewis Tan, top photo.).

Posh Guy is glaring because the lady flirting with the Sleazoid happens to be his wife, Alice.  She asks if he's going to the after-after-after party.  He's not, because he hates her, so she turns her attention back to the Sleazoid.

Scene 4:  Sleazoid, with flowers and wine, walks through dim blue-lit hallways.  It looks like a s*x club, but it's actually a regular hallway in this hotel (crazy!), leading to a regular (albeit extremely dim) suite.  He calls Posh Guy's Wife to tell her that he left a key at the front desk for their hookup.  

There's a knock on the door.  "Holy shit!" Sleazoid exclaims.  It's Posh Guy -- did he catch on that Sleazoid is cheating with his wife?  "I know you're in there!!! Open up!!!"

Sleazoid texts the Wife.  "Don't let him in!  If he knows about us, he'll kill you!"  

Turns out that Sleazoid is an enforcer, breaking legs and murdering people, and Posh Guy has a job for him: "it might get heavy and weird."   

"But I wanted to go to Jimmy's after-after-after party."

"Nope, this is too important."

"I'm planning to leave the business, so no killing. But I'll beat someone up for you."

Scene 5: They drive to Posh Guy's house.  He tells Sleazoid to take some chloroform and knock out the person who answers the door, no matter who it is.  

Arturo Castro's backside is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends. I didn't have enough to make a full profile, but you're going to get his d*ck before this review ends.

The door is answered by: Posh Guy himself!  Wearing another outfit.

The chloroform doesn't work. They fight.  There's fireplace pokers, photos of wives, aquariums, and a trophy, and finally Posh Guy is killed.  

Scene 6: Our Posh Guy arrives, and is not happy to find the house destroyed and the Other Posh Guy dead.  Plus  "The Crime Boss will be here soon, and he can't see you."   

They clean up just in time for Sleazoid to hide.

Crime Boss arrives, and tells Posh Guy that he knows who ratted out his son Jimmy to "those pig c*cksuckers."  Homophobic slur, in 2026!  I am disgusted.  You get one more before I'm outta here.

More after the break

"The Last Beergin": Filipino Dark Night of the Soul, with JC Santos as a priest who might be gay. Plus Zaijian Jaranilla's two gay teens

 

Last night we watched the Filipino movie The Last Beergin (2025) on Netflix.  A play on "The Last Virgin?"  A very precise English pun for a movie in Tagalog, and it's about gin, not beer:  as two men argue over the last bottle of gin at a convenience store, a rich girl screams and makes them drop it, and crash into a display case.  The boy who has been staring at her offers to pay for the damage, and I forget why a middle-aged woman gets involved, but they all end up at a restaurant, drinking, playing ice-breaker games, and eventually going through a Dark Night of the Soul:

The bellicose Hilo (Pepe Herrera, far left) has a gambling problem.  He took out a mortgage on his in-laws' house, without their permission, to finance a bet.  Then he lost it all.

Rich Girl Sandy has a spending problem, which caused her parents to cut off her finances.  Now how can she support her three boyfriends?

Sullen teenage Isaac (Zaijian Jaranilla, center) is in love with Rich Girl Sandy, but she doesn't notice him.  Also, he had a life-threatening disease, and his parents promised God that if he got better, they would force him into the priesthood.  But he doesn't want to be a priest.

Middle aged Tere has been married for many years, but is still a virgin.  Her husband is paralyzed, and unable to perform in the bedroom.

The morose RG (JC Santos, top photo and right) moderates the others' confessions and offers advice.  He is particularly interested in Isaac, which makes Hilo suspicious: "Do you have a crush on him?"   

When Teenage Isaac runs to the bathroom to cry,  Reticent RG follows and hugs him.  This enrages Hilo: "Are you gay?"

"Why do you have to be so insulting?" RG counters.  "Are you homophobic?"  You're the homophobic one, buddy, thinking that "gay" is an insult.

"Of course not!  I support the LGBTQ+ community."  He actually says the "plus."  The guy knows up-to-date acronyms.

Later the two guys get so chummy that I thought they were interested in dating.  Especially in the morning, when everyone else leaves, but RG and Hilo stick around.

Reticent RG offers to host the next meeting of the newly-formed friend group.  To everyone's surprise, the address he gives is a church.  He's a priest!

He explains that he was having a crisis of faith, not sure if he wanted to stay in the priesthood.  But counseling the others at the restaurant convinced him to return.

"I'm so sorry, Father," Hilo exclaims.  "I called you a pervert!"  Ok, that's homophobic. Didn't you know the proper acronym five minutes ago?

Wait -- RG was staring intently at Isaac before he told the story of his parents forcing him into the priesthood.  Is he gay after all?  That is never established.  

To get a better idea, I checked to see if any of the male actors played gay characters before, or are gay in real life.

JC Santos (Morose RG): Straight, but he starred in the Filipino tv series Till I Met You (2015), about a boy (James Reid, left), a girl, and a "closeted homosexual" who fall in love with each other.  Whoa, the  "homosexual" slur, and the contention that they are not men. I'm disgusted. 

The Philippine Entertainment Network is utterly shocked: "JC Santos doesn't mind playing GAY and kissing a GUY!!!!!!!!"

Pepe Herrera (Bellicose Hilo): Straight, but he's been in several Filipino tv series that get complaints like "Why do they have to make every tv character  gay?  Nobody wants to see that!"  I can't tell if he's one of the gay characters or not.

More after the break