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Stop! That! Train!

By Golu
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...
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Seek (Canada)

By Golu
What the hell was this film? When it ended I had a mixed feeling of relief and regret. Relief that it was over and regret for having bothered watching it. But then, I have seen much worse films, so this one at least didn’t give me a headache and didn’t make me feel wanting to punch the director.

Evan is a young journalist who works for a gay magazine that covers the local community. He doesn’t get an offer from Gazette, his dream company but they do offer him a job of writing a piece about city’s night life. He knows that his colleague Aidan isa big circuit party man who writes about these pieces and could probably give him some insight. Aidan helps Evan meet Hunter, who is the king of the night clubs and hosts the best parties in the city. In hunter’s company, Evan finds out about all the hard work that goes into making these parties successful. Hunter, it seems likes Evan but Evan’s personality is so shy that he is completely oblivious to the admiration. In between all this, we see 2 long interviews with 2 different couples who are very happy inline despite being very different and we also get to see almost a 10 minutes long unedited drag queen performance. Also, memories of Evan’s ex-lover keeps coming through in hi mind and dreams. What’s the relation of his ex-lover with Hunter and Hunter’s love; this is a question that even I don’t have an answer to. Anyway Evan ends up finishing his piece, gets published and finally is making his mark in the big city. He and Hunter finally even hook up after playing cat and mice.

I have way too many questions unanswered after watching the film. Very obviously, the whole connection between Evan and Hunter and Hunter’s ex-Jordan. Was Jordan the same guy as Evan’s estranged love? Jordan never ended up hooking up with Evan, so why did Hunter become obsessed with Evan? Did he have a different motive initially which changed over a period of time or was he also attracted to Evan just because at one point he believes Jordan was attracted to him. And then besides this, what was the point of these 2 long drawn interviews, Evan’s relation with his girlfriend and subsequent fight; there just was no logic behind all that. There is absolutely no chemistry between Hunter and Evan or even Evan and Aidan as friends. And the stupid smirk that was a constant fixture on Evan’s face was quite annoying in the first half. After that I just assumed that this was a way of showing he is shy! Lame! I am trying to figure out what was the whole point behind making this film. Was it to show that we all have our own paths to happiness and we all ultimately get there. Who cares!

This film would have been better as a short film. Stretching it into a full length feature film was a real bore. (4/10)
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