Coming out of the same studio that gave us RuPaul's Drag Race, and stacked with a whole crew of former contestants, Stop! That! Train! plays like RuPaul basically taking a bow for the entire franchise she's built. It's not really a gay film in the traditional sense, but with so many drag stars from Ru's shows popping up alongside a few cameos from well known out gay actors, I figured it earns a spot on this blog anyway. The whole thing is completely over the top, packed with GenZ slang, loud flashy visuals, and humor that's constantly winking at you knowing how ridiculous it is. Going in you'd assume it's meant to be a laugh riot, and a lot of critics online seem to be eating it up, but I just couldn't get into it at all. I've never really been someone who vibes with campy silly stuff like this, so honestly my reaction doesn't surprise me one bit. The setup follows Tess and DeeDee, two low level stewardesses who sneak onto the fancy Glamazonian E...
This amazing film takes on huge cultural issues and taboos that neither the Germans or their Turkish "guests" really want to face. Add to this setting the fact that the film deals with the taboos of gay life, transgender and transvestite men, and the stresses of families who deal with these issues on a daily basis and the result is a film full of richly detailed stories. Lola, a Turkish drag queen has a lover Bili, a macho, closeted Turk who views his role as the Man and Lola as the woman and encourages Lola to have gender altering surgery so they can live as husband and wife back in Turkey. Murat is Lola's baby brother, also gay, living with his mother and older brother, Osman who disowned Lola for being gay. Murat was born after Lola left home. After 15 years Lola returns home to demand his inheritance share to proceed with his sex change and finds out about Murat. They reunite because Murat is tired of Osman. Lola and Murat plan to meet the next day but 2 days later ...