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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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Wasp (UK)

By Golu
My first reaction after seeing this film was that I guessed the makers wanted to put this film in the same category of one of my favourite films "Weekend" but alas, this one didn't come any closer. The pretext and the synopsis of the film was quite interesting and to a very small extent, it did a decent job of keeping my interests hooked on. But then the film just kept going no-where. Actually, thats not correct, the film did move but the individuals reactions and behaviours would change so much at random that so many times it would just not make any sense.

Oliver takes his boyfriend on one year James on a romantic break to his parents house in South of France. In France, they bump into Carline, James’ old friend who has been dumped by her boyfriend. The couple agree to let Caroline join them for their vacation but Olivier is less than happy at having a third person around for the duration. Olivier is definitely unhappy about the situation and him and Caroline clash over various things, but at the same time they also connect on certain issues. During a drinking game, when it comes out Oliver has indeed slept with a girl but never since he came out as gay, Caroline for whatever reasons keeps pushing his buttons to get a reaction from Oliver. All this while James doesn’t think much of it because he just is glad to see finally Oliver and Carline are getting along. Slowly a weird sexual tension starts building up between Caroline and Oliver. Carline continues to pursue, while Oliver starts to question his bisexuality. When Carlone finally makes a move on Oliver, he rejects here and she leaves the house. When James confronts Oliver on what has happened, he rushes to bring her back. After they come back, James notices difference in both of them and this is where it starts dawning on him that there might have been a lot more things going right under his nose than he ever noticed. He slowly starts saying attention and confronts Oliver if he has ever cheated on him. In the middle of night, he even forcible confronts Caroline on why she is doing what she is doing. The ending is left open-ended where we need to figure out did something happen between Oliver and Caroline when he went to pick her up and where will this story lead to.

The low budget of the film really shows despite the fact that the setting and house is really beautiful. But thats not even the problem. My main issue was the absolute lack of chemistry between the couple. Oliver and James had just no chemistry. And with respect to Caroline, if she has just been dumped by her boyfriend, she is being nothing but a real mean person by trying to seduce her friends’ boyfriend. Even if Oliver was interested in her, she should have avoided her for various reasons. Its seems her character has no ethics. And if this is supposed to be a romantic vacation, how come the bus are never together. One is reading while the other is cooking and vice versa. Was this vacation really a romantic get-together or a way to address the underlying issues that the couple might have been having. This is one of those films where barring the above open questions and the lack of chemistry, its hard to say what exactly is wrong. But the film definitely fails to hold your attention. Maybe a little more sexual tension and a lot more reaction by James would have helped. The so called surprises are not really surprises.

Strictly an ok film with decent performances but absolute lack of chemistry between the characters. (5/10)
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