Short Takes: ‘Only Good Things’ (2025) ★★★

Is it enigmatic, or just pretentious? More
importantly, does either matter when you
get to see Liev Carlos and Lucas
Drummond naked?

It’s difficult to praise the work of Brazilian writer-director Daniel Nolasco without getting defensive. I liked his 2020 feature Dry Wind (a.k.a. Vento Seco), digging Nolasco’s 1970s-Joe Gage-meets-1980s-neon-noir aesthetic and how he presents gay desire like a 1980s queer teen-ager who just got his hands on a copy of Honcho. However, the explicitness of the movie—and I’m talking about the uncut version I wished I’d purchased when the DVD was still in print, not the edited version streaming on Prime and Dekkoo—makes it easy for cinema snobs (not The Cinema Snob) to dismiss Nolasco as just a high class pornographer, as if that’s a bad thing.

Nolasco’s 2025 film Only Good Things (a.k.a. Apenas Coisas Boas) has many of the elements of Dry Wind: vivid photography, attractive actors with an exhibitionist streak, and trans actress Renata Cavalho, albeit in a significantly smaller role. However, Nolasco’s narrative is less direct this time out, which makes it harder to embrace. I liked it upon reflection, but I can see it pissing off many viewers. 

Only Good Things opens in 1984, when Marcelo (curly-haired and very cute Liev Carlos) crashes his motorcycle while riding through the Brazilian countryside, the cause of the accident as odd as it is startling. He’s discovered by a passing rancher, Antônio (Lucas Drummond, really selling that ’stache), who takes the unconscious biker back to his rustic farmhouse to tend to his injuries, as well as admire his cock and taste his blood (how Saltburn!). Later, when Marcelo is still impaired enough to require assistance undressing for a shower but healed enough to get horny, it’s Antônio’s cock that gets admired. And tasted (no money shot, though).

A romance develops, though Antônio is wary, certain Marcelo will leave him at any moment. “There’s nothing here for you,” he reminds Marcelo repeatedly, almost daring him to leave. But what threatens this relationship isn’t Marcelo possibly growing bored with farm life but by Antônio’s homophobic father stepping up his intimidation tactics in an attempt to force his son to sell his land, the escalation leading to tragedy.

Though the first half of the movie moves slowly, with a little too much time devoted to capturing Antônio’s routine (milking cows, herding cattle, cheese making), I was very much invested in his story. Then there’s a time jump to present day. Antônio, now played by Fernando Libonati, is in his sixties, living in a São Paulo high rise and seemingly inhabiting a completely different film. The switch is jarring, and it initially turned me against the movie, never mind that the second half also features some full-frontal nudity from Igor Leoni, as Antônio’s assistant Eduardo. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that Antônio is an unreliable narrator. That realization led to a kinder view of the movie. Still, I prefer the movie’s first half, even if it is belied by the second. 

Short Takes: ‘Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso’ (2025) ★★½

Watching Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso (a.k.a. Homem com H) wasn’t the first time I wondered about the logistics of filming R-rated rim jobs (that would be when I watched the HBO series Looking), but it was the first time I was prompted to do some online research on the subject. And now I know that yes, there are modesty garments that cover actors’ buttholes, dashing any notions I had that Jesuíta Barbosa (as Ney Matogrosso) and Bruno Montaleone (as Marco, the tragic love) were staring directly into each other’s naked assholes when filming their sex scene.

Sorry, I really shouldn’t begin a review obsessing about the particulars of filming simulated sex, but it was top of mind when I finished watching Latin Blood. The movie is not about actors tossing salad, however. It’s a biopic about queer Brazilian singer Ney Matogrosso, known as much for his outrageous costuming and androgynous appearance as for his voice.

That Matogrosso (né Ney de Souza Pereira) rose to such heights is a testament to his talent and determination, given that his father, portrayed in the film by Rômulo Braga, was a harsh, borderline abusive, disciplinarian who seemed determined to break the young Ney’s will at every turn. Then again, proving our parents wrong can be a powerful motivator. After brief stints in the military and performing in a Brasilia college choral group (and having an affair with an older man), Matogrosso moves to Rio de Janeiro in the late 1960s, where he ultimately joins the rock group Secos & Molhados (Dry Ones & Wet Ones), becoming its art director as much as its lead singer. The band is an immediate hit, yet as much as it owes its success to Matogrosso’s stage presence, the film suggests the Secos & Molhados’ founding members—both straight—wanted him to tone it down. Instead, Matogrosso goes solo, to even greater success.

Director Esmir Filho, who co-wrote the script with Laura Malin, has crafted an entertaining film, featuring some superb performances, especially from Barbosa, and a few questionable wigs. It’s not a very impactful film, however. The problem with biopics that go from cradle to grave—or cradle to present day, in this case—is they tend to play like highlight reels. Latin Blood rapidly cycles through Matogrosso’s life, from 1949 to present, barely allowing the audience time to get its bearings before jumping to the next decade, only slowing down for the 1970s. Characters appear with little introduction—perhaps, in the case of Cazuza (Jullio Reyes), because the filmmakers believe none is needed. But if you’re unfamiliar with Brazilian musicians of the ’70s and ’80s, you’ll think he’s just one of Matogrosso’s fuck buddies, until it’s revealed in another time jump that he was a famous singer in his own right, and an AIDS casualty a scene after that. There is no time for tears, however, before Latin Blood hops to another moment in Matogrosso’s life as it races to a finale concert by the real, present-day Matogrosso.

You may get more out of Latin Blood if you’re already a fan of Matogrosso’s music. If not, at least appreciate that, despite often playing out like a Wikipedia page with sex, nudity and a soundtrack album, it’s not some Bohemian Rhapsody PG-13 bullshit.

What if ‘Hellraiser’ was Gay(er) and DTF?

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A Bizarre (and Kinda' Hot) Love Triangle

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Short Takes: ‘The Love Machine’ (1971) ★★

There’s a reason The Love Machine
doesn’t share the same cult status as
Valley of the Dolls.

Twentieth Century Fox’s adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls was lambasted by critics upon its 1967 release, but that didn’t stop audiences from recognizing its awesomeness and turning it into a huge hit. So, it was inevitable Susann’s follow-up bestselling novel, The Love Machine, would also be adapted for the big screen, by Columbia Pictures this time out.

This time, instead of dolls it’s dick that drives characters to ruin, specifically the one attached to its main character Robin Stone (John Phillip Law). Stone is a New York City newscaster/manwhore who moistens the panties of Judith Austin (Dyan Cannon), the much younger wife of IBC network head Gregory Austin (Robert Ryan). Judith, pussy aquiver, urges her oblivious hubby to make Robin IBC’s new anchorman. It’s not long before Robin is named head of the network’s news division, and Judith shows up expecting to be thanked hard and often. Robin is happy to oblige, especially now that his model girlfriend/doormat Amanda (Jodi Wexler) is out of the way, having killed herself after Robin dumped her. Judith, however, won’t disappear so easily.

The Judith and Robin business is mostly confined to the movie’s second half. The first half focuses more on Robin treating Amanda like shit, even hitting her when she tries to leave his apartment early in the morning because she must get ready for a photo shoot, and butting heads with IBC’s programming head, Danton Miller (Jackie Cooper). There’s also an underdeveloped subplot about a hack comic, Christie Lane (Shecky Greene), who hosts a schlocky-but-successful variety show on IBC, getting involved with Amanda briefly before entering a transactional relationship with IBC’s publicist/“celebrity fucker” Ethel Evans (Maureen Arthur). Flitting about the movie’s periphery is openly gay fashion photographer and Robin’s best friend Jerry Nelson (David Hemmings), who holds out hope he can get his hands on the love machine one day.

The Love Machine is no Valley of the Dolls, though it offers some campy fun here and there. Dyan Cannon is miscast (an older actress like Lola Albright or Eleanor Parker would’ve been a better fit even if they had less marquee value), her portrayal of Judith rendering her less a calculating ballbreaker than a bratty high schooler, but at least Cannon understood the assignment. Same goes for Hemmings, whose performance is one of the more entertaining ones in the movie, stereotypical though it may be. Unfortunately, John Phillip Law mistook his character’s name as a character trait, acting like a stone and robbing the movie of much of its entertainment value. He’s attractive, yes, but totally unbelievable as a “love machine.” (BTW, “the love machine” of the title is primarily referring to television itself, though that point gets lost when the movie focuses more on Robin’s compulsive need to fuck as many women as possible.)

Director Jack Haley, Jr., does the movie no favors by simultaneously mimicking Valley (cheesy fashion advertisements, an author cameo, plus two Dionne Warwick songs) while also including some self-aware camp, such as having the Hallelujah Chorus play as Danton Miller exits Gregory Austin’s office, relieved he was not summoned there to be fired. And don’t expect its R-rating to up the ante. Though you get some fleeting glimpses of bare tits and ass (including Law’s) and a couple of F-bombs (but way more F-slurs, especially in the movie’s homophobic last act), they do little to amp up the sleaze. In the end, the movie adaptation of The Love Machine never establishes itself as anything more than a cheap imitation. All that said, it’s still more enjoyable than the turgid 1975 adaptation of Susann’s third bestseller, Once is Not Enough.