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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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The Reason Why He Fell in Love with Me: Season 1 (Japanese Series)

By Golu
This goofy little 4 part Japanese shows quite fun to watch. As we have probably talked many times before, Japanese shows somehow have this knack of making these over exaggerated reactions funny and not eye-rolling. Having said that, not everyone can carry it off, which is evident in this show as well, when one of our nice teachers tries to give similar reactions an dit falls flat. Anyway, I must have missed this show when it came out. It's almost like a mini-series where Every episode is about 30 minutes.

A new teacher Hikawa Toru joins a school to teach some troubled kids. Toru is sophisticated, young, smart, handsome and almost everyone gets distracted by his good looks. The same impact happens on this PE teacher Masumi. He finds himself looking at Toru but can't figure out why since he never thought of himself as gay.  As it turns out, something about the mischievous Masumi has attracted Toru too and he is very attracted to Masumi. In fact, he keeps very obviously flirting with him. One night Masumi can't hold back and he kisses a drunk sleepy Toro, and that's is the beginning of a fun relationship. The problem is Toru already has a girlfriend and he first needs to breakup with her, which he does and the two guys decide to get serious. The duo's love story is very ably supported by a few students, Masumi's mother and even the school principal.

This is just a simple, charming, funny, and an adorable show that I enjoyed to a certain degree. It has an incredibly positive message about love and gay love that is accepting and normal. But the production values and the audio in many places was just bad and hard to comprehend, but the saving grace is the two actors. The guy playing Toru has this infectious smile and a gorgeous face so when the show focuses on how everyone is smitten by his smoldering looks, you totally believe it. And then we have Masumi who is just confused by how his mind and body is reacting just by being around Toru and he needs to make a sense of it. His over exaggerated reactions are priceless. My big problem is that with a title like this, you will assume that you will get to know why they fell in love, but we don't. These two strangers just totally randomly meet in school and are suddenly, inexplicably in love despite any real chemistry, meaningful interaction. I was hoping that there would be an explanation on why this happened, but there is none. What's there are some endearing moments of Masumi with his friends and family who support him in everything. The basic premise was decent of the show but a clunky editing and an unexplained love story, became just strictly ok by the end of it. (6/10)
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