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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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Chou Jue Deng Chang (Mandarin) [Enter The Clowns]

By Golu
Billed as a gender-bender film, this film is quite odd and weird and stage itself more like a series of vignettes, trying to shock you possibly using queer, trans, gay themes. The way this film is shot, I doubt if this was ever seen outside any film festivals. Having said that, I am suite surprised that a film like this (with its bold theme) actually came from China.

Opening scene has Xiao Bo nursing his father on death bed who now wants him to call his mother. She shows remorse for not being able to feed Xiao her breast milk and as a dying wish, asks for his son's milk, who obliges the father with an act of oral sex. Yes this is just the beginning. We then see Xiao Bo renting with his boyfriend Nana who has had sex change now. Even though Xiao denies being gay, he is no longer attracted to female form of Nana. Desperate for revenge, Nana decides she will find many lovers but never let any man love her. He joins a club as singer where the owners brother falls head over heels in love with her, who either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about her confused sexuality. The movie continues in this fashion, presenting a series of interconnected vignettes in which the main character is usually someone carried over from the preceding scene. And all sorts of interesting sexual interactions happen. I was so done by this time, that I really stopped caring of what's going on in the film

This film is abstract in every way, even though initially it started off as a familiar story about the pitfalls of denying one’s true nature of being what they are. Pretty soon it keeps going weirder and weirder and sadly without a purpose. It’s as though by going so far over the top, the director can disspell any expectation about sexual identity, and that becomes a liberating force in the film. Ben though the film is just about 80 minutes, with its experimental nature, it just feels way too long and you wonder why was this ever made. I am very sure this is not he kind of films I wanna see. (2.5/10)
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