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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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Hoan Doi Thanh Xuan (Series) (Vietnamese) [Comet, I Love You]

By Golu
Yet another one of those silly Asian BL drama. I want to like it and enjoy it and i can see why locals would enjoy it. It is kind of silly and funny in a weird sort of way. I am sure I would have enjoyed these series a lot when i was much younger, but at this stage, when good cinema and series are abundantly and easily available, its hard to dismiss and over the top series like this.

A young teenage girl is the daughter of school headmaster. One night she dreams that a boy is stealing her boyfriend, who is the very handsome yet brat Duong Lam. Next day , a young boy from the village named Van Thanh is introduced to her classroom as a new student. He had already met Duong Lam earlier. When she reaches home, she finds out that he is her distant cousin and her being a queen bee and diva can't digest this. Moreover, for some reason Duong Lam takes a liking for Van Thanh. Circumstances keep throwing these two boys together and Duong plays with his heart but we find out only in the end that he is actually serious. We find out who is the ghost boy whom Van Thanh keeps meeting. Apparently he was bullied by Duong's father to an extent that he committed suicide. And now with the comet crossing out earth's atmosphere, it is the right time to take revenge. Silliness continues and the series end in sort of a cliffhanger (maybe season 2).

This is the main story which could easily have been finished in maybe 3-4 episodes. There was actually no reason to have 13 episodes of about 15 minutes each, but then thats just my opinion. Maybe on a different day and in a different mood, I would have enjoyed it more. Every episode has about 5 minutes or so, where the 2 teachers of the school get in an interesting banter. Then we have the girls gang, who are there to make Van Thanh's life miserable, we have Duong's gang of bullies within which it turns out that one of them is also gay and may have feelings for Duong. So many such smaller tertiary storylines keep running in parallel.

Luckily the lead boys are good to look at and also actually act quite decent, so it wasn't very terrible to get through the whole thing. (5/10)
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