A Gay Glucose Drip for Christmas with a Booger Sugar Chaser

My husband had this to say about Christmas movies: “You can go schmaltzy or take the piss out of the holiday. Neither the twain shall meet.” Though there have been a few exceptions (A Christmas Story, kind of), he’s right. As far as holiday movies are concerned, Christmas is a time of either sugary sentimentality or unbridled debauchery (or terror), no mixing.

Now that holiday movies are trying to be a little more inclusive—and I stress a little— studios might also want to try to combine sappy and the cynical. And who better to tie the nice, the gaudy and the naughty into one fabulous bow than the queer community? I’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, the Netflix movie SINGLE ALL THE WAY would be the one to break down this barrier between the sentimental and the salacious.

I took the inclusion of Kathy Najimy and Jennifer Coolidge in Single All the Way’s cast as a good sign, and though I’ve been burned by Netflix queer content before (the platform’s 2019 version of Tales of the City qualifies as a hate crime, against Laura Linney if not LGBTQs), I held out hope that since Netflix wasn’t bound by the same restraints as the Hallmark Channel, its queer holiday movie would at least spike its eggnog.

The opening scene suggests this gay Christmas might be
a little sexier.

Netflix decided to go another way, which is to say they decided to go the same way: same as Hallmark, same as Lifetime.

Michael Urie tries his best to act against
Tim Lund’s wig-like hair.

Peter (Michael Urie) lives in Los Angeles, works for a social media marketing company but his true passion is plants (he has a separate Instagram account dedicated to them), and for the first time in a long time is genuinely excited about visiting his family in New Hampshire. Why? Because he’s finally bringing home a boyfriend—a doctor no less (“What do I have to do to get cardiac arrested?” swoons one of Peter’s colleagues when the doctor makes his entrance to a plaid-themed Christmas party). But marriage to the doctor is out of the question, especially once Peter learns the doctor is already married. To a woman. Now Peter will have to return home single once again, and after he’s hinted to his family that he’s bringing back a “surprise.”

Instead, Peter convinces his roommate Nick (Philemon Chambers) to come home with him and pretend to be his new beau. Nick is understandably reluctant, first claiming he’s looking forward to having a Christmas staycation, then saying he doesn’t want to dip into his savings to buy a plane ticket (both valid reasons). Peter counters with rapid exposition: he doesn’t want Nick to be alone with his memories of his recently deceased mother, and as for Nick’s finances, he has the money he got from publishing a children’s book about his dog, Emmett. “Now you have all this money in the bank that you’re saving for a rainy day. And look—” Nick gestures at his own anguished visage—“it’s pouring.”

Philemon Chambers mimics my reaction to Single All
the Way’s dialog.

Movie premise established, Peter and Nick head to New Hampshire, where they’re greeted by Peter’s mom Carole (Najimy, doing her best with what’s she’s given), who not only insists on being called Christmas Carole for the month of December but also occupies herself making signs with cute/inspiring sayings, the kind that are derided in Progressive commercials.

Kathy Najimy’s face hidden to protect her dignity.

Before Peter can spring the news that he and Nick are a (pretend) couple, Carole (I refuse to call her Christmas Carole, and Netflix can’t do shit about it) springs a surprise of her own. It turns out her spin class instructor James is gay and single, so she has set the two up on a blind date! Peter is understandably horrified, but that’s before he meets James, who is played by Luke Macfarlane.

“I don’t care if my mom is standing there, I will suck your cock
right now!”

But while Peter is rapidly warming up to being a real boyfriend to James, his teenaged nieces (Madison Brydges and Alexandra Beaton, their performances actually more palatable than I expected them to be) think he and Nick are a better match. Peter’s dad (Barry Bostwick) would also like Nick as a son-in-law, though I suspected he might prefer keeping Peter’s hot roommate to himself. Seriously, I think Peter’s dad wants to fuck Nick, though I may be reading too much into Dad’s cajoling Nick to go down into the basement with him to fix a pipe.

OK, he meant that literally, but I still felt the heat
between these two.

The nieces—with the help of their parents (Schitt’s Creek’s Jennifer Robertson and Victor Andres Turgeon-Trelles) and, of course, Grandpa—make it their mission to gently sabotage Peter’s relationship with James. They needn’t bother, as Peter seems to be doing a good job of auto-cockblocking, fending off James’ invitations to go back to his place because of lame plot contrivances. 

Regretfully, Single All the Way doesn’t take this opportunity to
make a facial joke.

Meanwhile, there’s a subplot involving a Christmas pageant written and directed by Aunt Sandy (Coolidge), an actress whose career high was being Ellen Greene’s understudy in Little Shop of Horrors. It’s this pageant, weirdly, that bridges the dueling efforts to meddle in Peter’s love life, shoveling the snow off the movie’s path as it slides toward a predictably happy ending.

I spent the first thirty minutes of Single All the Way groaning and rolling my eyes at the obvious jokes (old people struggling with their smartphones; referring to HGTV as the “Homosexual Gay” network; “Christmas Carole”), but the movie eventually won me over as it went along. 

The moment I was won over.

The movie is basically a feature-length syndicated sit-com, and most of the performances are pitched accordingly, meaning most of the cast displays Kelly-and-Ryan-on-meth levels of enthusiasm, though a few (Chambers, Macfarlane, Bostwick) favor of a more grounded approach. Coolidge, as always, is in a class by herself, but her scene-stealing potential is squandered by a script that is too beholden to a TV-PG rating, reducing her Aunt Sandy to little more than a sight gag.

And Bette Midler impersonator.

Netflix gets points for casting gay actors (all three male leads are out IRL), as well as presenting interracial dating as the non-issue it should be. Had it remained a gay version of a Christmas fake engagement movie (and, goddamn, are there a lot of them), Single All the Way might have held its own. But it more closely resembles Lifetime’s The Christmas Setup, and it suffers from the comparison, failing to have half the charm of that movie. While Single All the Way is a pretty good approximation of a Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movie, considering all the holiday movies those two channels churn out one would think Netflix would want to do something different to distinguish itself. Oh, well. At least we can watch it with our parents without fear of any uncomfortable conversations.

“What is felching?”

Straight Christmas Cynicism

After watching Single All the Way, I immediately wanted to watch something cynical to cut the sweetness, so I watched Zach Clark’s 2013 black comedy WHITE REINDEER. 

Single All the Way also gave me a strong desire to subscribe
to Noir Male, but I guess that’s not Christmas-y
enough for this post.

Jeff gives Suzanne an excuse to buy Hawaiian
Christmas CDs.

Washington, D.C.-area real estate agent Suzanne Barrington (Anna Margaret Hollyman) loves Christmas in a way only a woman with the middle name Noel can. And at the start of White Reindeer, Suzanne’s Christmas is set to be an especially merry one: she sells a house in her neighborhood to a charming young couple, George and Patti (Joe Swanberg and Lydia Hyslop), then, after a pre-dinner fuck, her TV weatherman husband Jeff (Nathan Williams) surprises Suzanne with the news that he got a job at a station in Hawaii.

But Suzanne’s dreams of a holiday luau end abruptly when she returns home from Christmas shopping to discover her home ransacked and her husband’s brains splattered across the floor. She’s still in the early stages of grief when one of her husband’s colleagues, wracked with guilt, reveals that Jeff was having an affair with a stripper named Autumn, who worked at a club near the TV station.

Autumn meets her lover’s widow.

Suzanne goes to the club confront Autumn (Laura Lemar-Goldsboro in her only film role), except their interaction isn’t confrontational. Suzanne is more curious about the other woman than angry with her. Suzanne is quickly bonds with Jeff’s lover, joining her and the other strippers for coke-fueled nights clubbing and going on shoplifting sprees at Macy’s during the day. They even get close enough for Autumn to share her real name: “Autumn is my stripper name. My real name is Fantasia.”

The high holidays.

Partying with strippers isn’t Suzanne’s only diversion from her grief. She spends thousands of dollars shopping online. She also angles for an invite to George and Patti’s housewarming party and attends even after she learns it’s not your typical holiday soiree.

Unless you’re Thomas Middleditch.

Though she’s game, sex with strangers isn’t as much fun as Suzanne hoped it would be. I’ve never been to a swingers’ party, but I suspect White Reindeer’s portrayal, which includes guests standing naked around the kitchen discussing one of their children’s struggles with little league, is closer to the unsexy reality.

The party always ends up in the kitchen.

But getting pounded by George while blowing a roly-poly guy with erection issues isn’t Suzanne’s rock bottom. No, what sends Suzanne crashing back to earth is discovering her credit cards are maxed out from her indiscriminate spending.

Though a few other things happen on the way down.

Hollyman is perfect as Suzanne, portraying her character with the right mix of optimism, despair and cluelessness one would expect from an upper-middle class white woman whose world is crashing down around her. Likewise, Lemar-Goldsboro’s Autumn/Fantasia is quietly tough, a woman who has dealt with enough shit by her early twenties that she’s unfazed by whatever shitstorm comes her way. The two actresses play well off each other, both deadpan but far from wooden. 

Suzanne is determined to have the best Christmas
money can buy.

White Reindeer is, as far as I’m concerned, a holiday classic. It fits neatly in the empty space left when I had to banish The Ref to the same purgatory where all the other Kevin Spacey movies I’ve enjoyed now reside. White Reindeer is a bit rough around the edges due to its limited budget, and some of its humor can be a bit cringey (Suzanne to Autumn/Fantasia’s mother: “Oh, you look pretty healthy for somebody on disability”), as well as kind of juvenile (Suzanne sniffing her own fart), but it always had me laughing. Given the past couple of years, I found it much easier to relate to Suzanne processing her grief in unhealthy ways than Peter’s deciding which hot man he wanted to be his boyfriend. I’m all for holiday escapism, but maybe next year Netflix could give us something we could watch with Family instead of with our families.

At Least She Didn’t Go to Vanderbilt

This fifth installment in Robert Vincent
O’Neil’s Angel franchise is pretty
underwhelming.

In the right hands, the story of Miriam Weeks, the Duke University student who began starring in porn videos as Belle Knox as a means to pay the school’s astronomical tuition, has the potential to serve as a social commentary on soaring education costs, men’s and/or society’s fucked up attitudes towards female sexuality, and how the Internet simultaneously feeds and devours our fame-obsessed culture. It could easily become a biting satire in the vein of Election or I, Tonya.

But the 2017 biopic FROM STRAIGHT A’S TO XXX was in the hands of Lifetime, so it has nothing to say beyond the salacious title they spent all of three minutes coming up with.

In the opening disclaimers, it’s explained that “Miriam Weeks did not authorize this Film and disputes her portrayal in the Film.” No shit. I also dispute its portrayal of Weeks, and my knowledge of her doesn’t go beyond vaguely recalling seeing a few titillating headlines about her while in line at the grocery store. Then again, that’s about all the makers of From Straight A’s to XXX know about her, too.

In the first few minutes of the movie, Miriam (Haley Pullos) learns she’s been accepted into Duke University, though the school is stingy with its aid money. “Vanderbilt offered you a full ride. It’s just as good a school,” says Miriam’s tight-assed older brother Paul (Garrett Black). But Miriam is determined to go to Duke. “If Duke is what you have your heart set on, then we’ll find a way to make the finances work,” says Miriam’s father (Pete Graham). Miriam’s father is a doctor, by the way, but, as we later learn, he has only recently paid off his student loans.

And he still can’t afford to buy lenses for Miriam’s glasses.

And Miriam wants to avoid a similar fate. So when her father, also a military reservist, is called back to Afghanistan — “That’s a huge pay cut,” gasps Miriam’s mother (Imali Perera), worrying about what really matters — jeopardizing the financing of Miriam’s college education, she’s as adamant about not taking out any loans as she is about not going to Vanderbilt. But how else is Daddy’s baby girl going to afford her $60,000-a-year dream college?

Her roommate Jolie (Sasha Clements, who adopts a thick Alabama debutante drawl even though her character is supposed to hail from New Orleans) suggests she take an on-campus job, but Miriam dismisses that idea, correctly reasoning that any job she could get wouldn’t make a dent in her tuition costs. Then she and Jolie make a few joking suggestions, like starting a Ponzi scheme or robbing a bank. When Miriam giggles and suggests she become a porn star (as if!), I half expected an animated lightbulb to appear above her head.

Her women’s studies classes usually don’t teach such things
until a student’s sophomore year.

Sure enough, after thirty seconds of careful consideration Miriam’s submitting her application and scantily clad selfie to Kinky Jobs. She’s immediately contacted by a producer offering to fly Miriam to New York to do a scene for FacialAssault.com for $1,500. In reality, the site was Facial Abuse, which has created a Facial Assault URL [very NSFW] that simultaneously promotes Belle Knox’s scenes for the site and From Straight A’s to XXX, a bit of piggyback marketing I didn’t expect, especially since the Lifetime movie depicts the site as being run by a bunch of rapists.

Which might not be too far from the truth.

Miriam may be traumatized by her intro to sex work, but she’s not dissuaded. She gets the name of a reputable agent and flies out to L.A. to meet with him. The agent, Don, is played by none other than Judd Nelson, so anyone worried that he was no longer getting work can breathe a sigh of relief. Don is significantly more supportive than the pigs in New York, and though she’s a little awkward in her first girl-girl scene, she quickly gets into her weekend alter-ego Belle Knox. 

“No, really. They used to put my name above the title and
everything. God, I miss the ’80s.”

The hottest Zoom call ever.

She forgets, however, that Belle Knox’s existence isn’t confined to weekends and that people also watch the videos. Miriam nearly shits her pants when a classmate, Jeff (Cardi Wong), asks her point blank if she’s in a porn video. She tries to deny it, but finally breaks down and admits she’s Belle Knox, getting Jeff to pinkie swear that he’ll tell no one. 

Free lunch.

And he doesn’t…until he gets a couple drinks in him at a frat party. Soon, Miriam’s the target of online and IRL harassment (in one scene guys pelt her with hot dogs and sodas as she walks by). Miriam’s crush, Josh, who has heretofore snubbed her because her lens-less glasses and cardigans have blinded him to the fact that she looks like Haley Pullos, is now suddenly inviting Miriam back to his place, an offer she almost accepts until she realizes he’s setting her up for a gang bang.

Though she’s at first miffed that her roommate kept her double life a secret from her, Jolie quickly becomes Miriam’s staunchest ally. She encourages Miriam to do an interview with the school paper to tell her side and defend her choice. Though the paper protects Miriam’s identity, Miriam’s nevertheless unsatisfied with the resulting article, complaining it “makes me sound like I contradict myself!” Wait until she sees From Straight A’s to XXX!

All the stress of her campus life starts to take a toll on Miriam’s porn career. She interrupts a scene to complain that the man she’s about to straddle is too old. “I’ve been super clear that I don’t want to book any scene with any co-star over thirty-five,” she whines to Don, as if she’s been paired with Ron Jeremy and not someone who looks like he could play the lead in a prime-time soap. 

You know he can hear you, right?

Also, was Miriam driven to set blindfolded? Even Facial Assault introduced her to her co-star prior to shooting. Anyway, Don warns Miriam that if she refuses to do the scene, she’ll be labeled difficult, which is enough to convince the poor thing to endure fucking a handsome blond DILF.

Between shooting her porn scenes, Miriam tells performer, Dora (Alyson Bath) about the stress she’s been under since being outed on campus. Dora encourages her to come out to her family as well, since they’re bound to find out eventually and it’s better that it comes from her. So, Miriam texts her mom, who calls her back because of course she does. Miriam has already tested the waters in an earlier scene when she told her mother she was paying tuition with money earned from selling pot, which went about as well as you’d expect (“You could get expelled from school! You could get arrested!”) Mom’s not any happier to learn where her daughter’s money is really coming from, telling Miriam, basically, that’s she’s thrown her life away.

Having ripped off that Band-Aid, Miriam decides to come out nationally, agreeing to be interviewed on CNN. She also appears on The View, where Miriam tells of being a porn consumer since she was 12 years old, which was a bit of a surprise given that this movie portrays her as having no prior interest in pornography beyond it being a source of quick cash.

Is sitting across from Piers Morgan more or less dignified
than being spackled with cum? Discuss.

You Go, Whore!

Miriam’s hitting the talk show circuit has mixed results. Her father is heartbroken, her mother scandalized and her brother Paul, who’s got a stick the size of a California Redwood up his ass, refuses to be in the same room with her. The national exposure raises her status as Belle Knox, but also raises the hackles of her porn peers. According to From Straight A’s to XXX, Belle Knox is porn’s biggest star/pariah since Traci Lords. “No one asked you to go on every talk show and blog and speak for us,” Dora hisses during an adult industry awards ceremony after party. “You’ve been in this industry for five minutes and you don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Mean girls.

By the movie’s end, Miriam is speaking at a feminist rally on campus, proclaiming herself as economically conservative and socially liberal, then espousing her Libertarian views (the real-life Miriam Weeks is reportedly a fan of Ron and Rand Paul), further proving that her story is perfect fodder for satire. After the speech she’s approached by the same school newspaper reporter who first interviewed her. Miriam turns down the reporter’s request for an interview. “I’m trying to keep a low profile,” she says with nary a whiff of irony. She does sorta kinda answer one off the record question: Is she still doing porn? “Let’s just say I’m refocusing my energy on the bigger picture,” she says, forgetting that IMDb is a thing. Now she’s concentrating on politics.

Uber.

As lurid Lifetime ripped-from-the-headlines biopics go, From Straight A’s to XXX isn’t as terrible as I expected, but it’s a far cry from good, not even the “so-bad-it’s…” kind. Considering Anne-Marie Hess’s screenplay isn’t interested in its subject and her motivations so much as it is in recreating/embellishing key events culled from the Belle Knox Wikipedia page, the movie gets far better performances from its cast than it deserves. Pullos’ performance is a bit uneven, but then again, she’s having to navigate the constantly shifting characterization of Miriam. Is she a socially awkward nerd? A resourceful vixen? A victim? A sex positive feminist? A duplicitous slut? The movie’s answer is yes.

Ultimately, From Straight A’s to XXX embodies the attitudes of WAP, both its 1970s meaning and its present meaning. It’s shaking its fingers at the hypocrites shaming Miriam Weeks for her choices while simultaneously doing the same thing, but also covering its ass by adding some half-hearted defenses of sex work and incorporating the word “feminist” in a few lines of dialog. So, in the end, the movie’s message is less You go, girl! and more, You go, whore!

And also: Fuck Vanderbilt!

Welcome to Lifetime TV!

Lifetime: Where Men are Psychos and Women are Schizo

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.