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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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Golden Delicious (Canada)

By Golu
A coming of age drama centering around a Canadian-Asian teenager, who is torn between his girlfriend’s dreams of their future and his father’s ambition, all the while struggling with finding himself and following his own desires.. The film does have some standard tropes of coming out: attraction, then confusion, then hiding and then accepting. The film is not just about this teenager's coming out, but it's also equally about dreams of the whole family, what they wanna do, where they are and how they get out of it.

Jake, our lead guy is a high school senior. He is constantly pushed around by his father to play basketball to make into the team, probably because of his own shattered dreams. But Jake is not very good at it and is honestly least bothered. He has a girlfriend for a while who is pressuring him to lose their virginity together, but for Jake it doesn't feel right. Something is off. Things change when a new boy Aleks moves across him, an out and proud gay boy who also happens to be a good basketball player. Before he realizes, Jake finds himself very attracted to Aleks and the feelings are reciprocated. He suddenly starts taking interest in basketball just to be close to him. With his continued attraction, he still keeps going around with his girlfriend. In the meantime, Jake's mother finds out that her husband has been cheating and the family foundation that Jake thought was secure starts to crumble. Meanwhile Aleks tries to be supportive of Jake since he is new to this, but Jake doesn’t know how to cope with that identity at a social level. Having experienced homophobia, he assumes the worst in everybody. Eventually everything starts to fall into place. Jake has a heart to heart wit hhis girlfriend and explains her everything and slowly starts to accept who he is. Meanwhile, the love between two boys gets stronger and they even attend prom together. All this while the parents try to be as supportive as possible and the film ends with a beautiful kiss between the boys.

As much as the film is about Jake, it is equally about his family. We see her over worked mother finally reaching a breaking point in her restaurant career which she never wanted to do but got forced into because of marriage. His father is going through his own crisis not sure of what to do with life while his marriage crumbles. And coning go Jake, he is trying his best to live in this world of facade where he can keep everyone happy. The more that Jake struggles to adhere to the socially imposed ideals that his parents and girlfriend demand of him, the more the facade cracks. There is a lot going on when it comes to Jakes relation with his girlfriend and his attractions for Aleks. The script never fully addresses how aware Jake is of his own queerness, but it’s clear that things with Val aren’t working sexually. And when openly gay and very sexy Aleks comes in the picture, we know for a fact where things will be headed. At places the film feel stretched but still there is a calmness about the plot a certain identifiable aspects of the film, that makes it for a decent watch. Watch it for cute Jake and hot Aleks. From the perspective of a queer coming out story, Golden Delicious ends with a sweet, romantic flourish that confirms Jake is going to be ok; but it needed a few more minutes of Jake making amends and putting in the work to repair his relationships, and/or a little less forgiveness. (6.5/10)
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