Neil Breen, two gay boys and an exorcist walk into a bar…

Heartstopper (Season 2)

Definitive proof that shows aimed at teens don’t have to be super ham-fisted and without subtlety, no matter how grand the intentions. After a near perfect debut season, the hit Netflix show about a friend group of gay/queer spectrum teens returns with a second season that doesn’t quite measure up to the first but is still smarter than most any program streaming aimed at a teen audience, more specifically a queer teen audience who now more than ever need to hear there’s nothing wrong with them. Featuring a uniformly excellent ensemble of young actors and primarily focusing on the evolving romantic relationship between Nick (Kit Connor), a bi rugby player and Charlie (Joe Locke), a quiet art kid, the show’s second season adds in some realistic speed bumps for the two including parental acceptance, social acceptance and dealing with a homophobic older brother character (who is authentically drawn and layered and not simply some beer-swilling, f-slur dropping shitass – credit to actor Jack Barton) but the stakes somehow never feel as urgent as they did in that first season, even with the novelty of the Paris scenes.

We also check in on the relationship problems between their lesbian friends, Tara (Corrina Brown) and Darcy (Kizzy Edgell), as well as the emerging will they/won’t they relationship between Charlie’s two best friends – nerdy film authority, Tao (William Gao) and recently transitioned quiet art kid, Elle (Yasmin Finney). The biggest laughs this season come from their constantly problematic straight ally, Imogen (the hilarious Rhea Norwood, show MVP?) who gets romantically involved with Charlie’s abusive, closeted ex, Ben (Sebastian Croft). There’s also a super forced romance subplot between two male teachers that seems to have just been shoved in there to show that queer people face similar problems and challenges regardless of their age and where they are on life’s journey. It’s well played by adult actors Fisayo Akinade and Nima Teleghani, but it really doesn’t need to be there.

Small criticisms aside, I realize this show is not aimed at me for the target audience and that’s totally okay. This is going to resonate far more with kids and teens – gay, straight, or bi – and if it helps or drives them to be more empathetic towards themselves as well as others that’s a better reason than any for Netflix to keep this program running and in the catalogue. Grade: B+ (Netflix)

Cade: The Tortured Crossing

I was lucky enough to score tickets to an Arizona screening of Neil Breen‘s latest cult trashic Cade: The Tortured Crossing, so popular the theater I frequent had to add not one, but two additional showings of the movie. The auditorium was packed, with loud, enthusiastic BREENIACS who loudly proclaimed their love for their Lord when he first appeared on screen, only to be hit by a CGI bus seconds later and comically tumble down a poorly rendered green screen street. There’s a lot of green screen in Cade: The Tortured Crossing, in fact, there’s not a single brick and mortar location in the entire film. The whole thing is shot on green screen, with most of the supporting actors obviously filmed one at a time on their own green screens, sloppily edited together for scenes where not one person is reacting to the other. As for background extras, they are filled in by lifestyle Shutterstock footage on loop – there’s a stock footage clip of an excited guy with a tablet showing a co-worker his tablet that keeps showing up throughout the film at different press conferences and private parties.

So who the heck is this Neil Breen cat and what the fuck is this movie about? Neil Breen is a Las Vegas real estate agent who decided, fuck it, I may not live in Hollywood but I can make movies just as good as them, so he did and made himself the hero/star of all of them. He does basically everything himself from the editing to the on-set catering, and he never forgets to credit himself for everything he does. The ending credits of his movie is just an armada of “…….Neil Breen” and it’s insane but not nearly as insane as his melodramatic, frequently incoherent and always self-aggrandizing narratives where he’s humanity’s last hope against the vast and unparalleled conspiracy of the mysterious people who run the world. This movie, Cade: The Tortured Crossing, is a sequel to his last movie, Twisted Pair, about two identical twin brothers, one good (Cade), one bad with a fake mustache/beard combo (Cale), who were once abducted by aliens and biologically modified to be “superior beings”, but the government couldn’t control them and thus turned on them? Now in the sequel, the bad twin is an outlaw but the good one, Cade, is working to find the bad one to make him good again? There’s also a conspiracy and a white tiger who is actually the spirit of Cade’s dead girlfriend.

Look, there’s no way to explain any of these movies, just know it’s one of the best in theater experiences I’ve had in years. I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair, and was hoarse for the rest of the evening. In terms of Breen movies I’ve seen (this, Twisted Pair, and Fateful Findings) this is second only to Fateful Findings. The problem with most so-bad-they’re-good movies is pacing, a lot of the time you’ll have to suffer through dull, 20-minute periods before getting to something laugh out loud funny or weird. Cade: The Tortured Crossing doesn’t have this problem – you will be violently guffawing every two or three minutes. It’s a never-ending swan dive into pure fucking lunacy the likes of which I haven’t seen since Tommy Wiseau arrived on the scene. Breen is better in my opinion, if only because he’s more capable of cranking these things out at a consistent rate. This, along with Fateful Findings, may just be the new midnight movies. There’s even a musical number towards the end of Cade, so move over Rocky Horror. Grade: #:3| (Screening Next Month)

The Pope’s Exorcist

The Pope’s Exorcist is at its best when it leans into how stupid it is. When Russell Crowe, sporting a terribly campy Italian accent, is wisecracking in the Vatican or facing down a demon like a total badass, or riding his small scooter all the way from the Vatican to Spain to perform an exorcism, my heart leaped with joy on how ridiculous the whole thing was. When Crowe is off-screen, the picture suffers by becoming another generic studio exorcism movie with uninteresting supporting characters we never really care about. You see, in the world of The Pope’s Exorcist, which is 10000% based on a true story that actually happened in real-world life, the Vatican had a star exorcist who was respected in the 60s and stuff, but as years passed into the new millennium, the church felt he was an unsightly relic of a bygone era. So basically, this corporate shill in a Bishop’s robe waltzes in and speaks all this crap at Russell Crowe about how the devil doesn’t exist in that way and how his whole job is bullshit. Crowe takes it with a grain of salt, like a total badass, because he knows the church will need him…eventually. And the next scene, they need him. There’s a family in Spain experiencing some really insane Satan shit. There’s a big reveal as to why the demonic possession is happening, but I’ll let Russell Crowe reveal that to you in the movie’s third act. The Pope’s Exorcist is not great nor quite the camp masterpiece it could have been. Still, the premise is golden – a bumbling Russell Crowe sporting a fake Italian accent rides around on a scooter and kicks Satan’s ass. No spoilers, really, but the end of the movie sets up 199, yep, you heard me – one-hundred and ninety-nine – sequels. This is a franchise we need, and we need it yesterday. I think by the third installment, hopefully titled The Pope’s Exorcist Goes Hawaiian, the franchise stops trying to be a standard possession movie, and simply trust falls into the world of pure chaotic campy horror comedy. Listen to me. Already marking it a franchise. Fingers crossed. Grade: B- (Netflix)