{"id":91735,"date":"2023-08-20T20:24:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T03:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=91735"},"modified":"2023-08-20T20:24:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T03:24:19","slug":"red-white-royal-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2023\/08\/20\/red-white-royal-sex\/","title":{"rendered":"Red, White & Royal Sex"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI went to an English boarding school, dear.
\nTrust me – you’re in good hands.\u201d <\/em><\/span>
\n\u2013 <\/em>The Prince’s response to his inexperienced Yank in Red, White and Royal Blue<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

At long last, my impressions of Red, White and Royal Blue<\/em><\/strong>.  The Amazon Prime <\/em>flick is based on the New York Times Best Selling<\/em> novel of the same name.  Full disclosure \u2013 I have not read the book.  But one colleague described it as the Hallmark <\/em>version of Paul Rudnick<\/strong>\u2019s Playing the Palace<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 which I enjoyed very much.  Both owe a debt of gratitude to Political Animals<\/em><\/strong>, which starred Sebastian Stan <\/strong>as the gay son of a US President (also produced by Greg Berlanti).  The writing of this film is short on subtlety.  Calling the Prince of England <\/em>\u201cYour royal hardness\u201d or \u201cLittle Lord Fuckleroy\u201d might seem cute on paper, but is cringeworthy when spoken aloud.  It was directed by Matthew L\u00f3pez<\/strong>, who wrote the award-winning play The Inheritance<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 and if that isn’t a downward career trajectory, I don’t know what is!  While there are the occasional good moments in his work, all of a sudden you get a shot of the Washington Monument or the Eiffel Tower after the sex scene \u2013 oooh, how clever!  In an interview, Matty made a point of saying how vital it was to get a shot of the prince’s face during the \u201cmoment of insertion\u201d \u2013 yes, that\u2019s the term he used.  I bet you won’t find something like that in a Candace Cameron Bure <\/strong>flick!<\/p>\n

I don’t think it’s too early to announce the winner of the Worst Accent in a Made-for-TV Movie <\/em>will be Uma Thurman <\/strong>as the Texas-born US President.  My God, it\u2019s like a bus and truck tour of The Ann Richards Story<\/em><\/strong>!  That said, her character handles her son\u2019s coming-out beautifully, if not believably.  You see, believability has nothing to do with movies in the Hallmark<\/em>\/Lifetime <\/em>vein.  They are all hampered with a formula and a deliberate style of acting, which I really abhor.  This film is not helped by a soundtrack straight out of the Bugs Bunny<\/em><\/strong>\/Road Runner <\/em><\/strong>cartoons!  And speaking of animals, has a dog ever appeared less excited when its master came home from an overseas trip?  The Prince\u2019s pup did everything but yawn \u2013 which I assume will be in the outtakes!<\/p>\n

Aside from the egregious Uma, the acting is acceptable.  Taylor Zakhar Perez<\/strong>, who plays Uma’s son, is delightfully delicious and is quite believable…when he\u2019s not mugging (mostly limited to the first 10 minutes).  Nicholas Galitzine <\/strong>as the Prince is somewhat blander, but likeable enough.  They have chemistry and varying degrees of attractiveness in their corner.  If the idea of a fairytale ending has not been beaten out of you by reality, then you might really enjoy this flick.  But I kept thinking how much more interesting it would have been if the President had been a Republican.  Anyhoo, like Mary Todd Lincoln <\/strong>said long before me \u2013 all in all, it was entertaining.<\/p>\n

\"colorbar1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If Red, White and Royal Blue<\/em> whet your appetite for more middling gay made-for-TV fare, you won\u2019t have to wait long.  The Hallmark Channel <\/em>has announced Notes for Autumn<\/em><\/strong> will air on September 16th<\/sup>.  This film is about a classical pianist (Ashley Williams<\/strong>) who needs a break from her city life.  Her gay best friend is an author with writer\u2019s block (Luke Macfarlane<\/strong>) who needs a break from his life in the wilderness.  They decide to swap homes\u2026and hilarity ensues, I\u2019m sure.  Luke becomes entangled with his new neighbor, played by the dashing Peter Porte<\/strong>.  I dunno anything else, except I feel safe in predicting we won\u2019t see a single \u201cmoment of insertion\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI went to an English boarding school, dear. Trust me – you’re in good hands.\u201d  \u2013 The Prince’s response to his inexperienced Yank in Red, White and Royal Blue. At long last, my impressions of Red, White and Royal Blue.  The Amazon Prime flick is based on the New York Times Best Selling novel of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91736,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91735\/revisions\/91736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}