In the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, I have donated to the Milwaukee Freedom Fund, which has extended its support to protestors in Kenosha. Can I encourage you to do the same?
A few years ago, I invented a game called “Murder at the Wedding,” and it’s very easy (and fun!) to play. You give someone two actors’ names and the title Murder at the Wedding, and they must come up with the plot of hypothetical film that involves… a murder at a wedding. The initial movie idea was “Catherine Keener and Parker Posey star IN… Murder at the Wedding,” and while I don’t remember much of the plot details, I am pretty sure that in it Catherine Keener and Parker Posey play estranged sisters who reunite on the eve of Catherine Keener’s daughter’s wedding, which is ultimately foiled when Parker Posey accidentally murders the groom. (Nicole Holofcener directs.)
This is a great game for when you’re stoned with friends (or, honestly, alone!) and/or on a road trip. After many years, the rules have changed as I have gotten bored with that old familiar plot device (the classic murder, at a wedding), so now when John and I play it we come up with new movie titles in addition to the actors’ names. For example, once John told me to come up with a movie called Sea of Trees starring Jessica Lange and Michael Shannon, and I pitched a film in which Lange and Shannon play eco-terrorists who fall in love. A few years later, Gus Van Sant actually directed a film called The Sea of Trees starring Matthew McConaughey as a man who plans to kill himself in Japan’s Aokigahara forest after the death of his wife, played by Naomi Watts. It was a box-office bomb, and I can’t help but think that my movie was a better idea. (A24, you know how to reach me.)
Every now and then we’ll watch a movie that falls into the Murder at the Wedding genre — movies that seem like they were spawned in the brain of someone who was simply trying to pass the time. A few nights ago, after we spent our typical forty-five minutes scrolling through various apps trying to decide what the hell to watch, John suddenly howled with laughter and said, “Oh boy, I have found a real Murder at the Wedding!” He then read the following film synopsis: “When conservative, Texas church-choir director Maybelline inherits her recently deceased son's drag club, she surprises her closed-minded husband and everyone else she knows by moving alone to San Francisco to save the club from bankruptcy.” The stars? Two-time Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver and Adrian Grenier. I sighed, and said sure.
Stage Mother, as you may have guessed, stars two-time Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver as Maybelline, who learns early in the film that her son Ricky — known better in the (fictional) San Francisco drag community as Ricky-pedia. Ricky’s death comes early; he collapses and dies onstage, which is a very aspirational way to go. (The best onstage death in film is, of course, the assassination of Barbara Jean in Robert Altman’s Nashville.)
Against the wishes of her controlling husband Jeb, who probably also made her vote for Trump, Maybelline flies to San Francisco to attend Ricky’s funeral. Real-life drag queen Jackie Beat (playing the fictional drag queen “Dusty Muffin”) leads the ceremony, which culminates in a performance from Ricky’s drag sisters. It is, of course, simply too much for the straight-laced, probably Southern Baptist Maybelline, who flees the scene and returns to her surprisingly ritzy hotel. Later, she goes to Ricky’s apartment that he shared with his partner, Nathan (Adrian Grenier, breaking type!), who informs Maybelline that she has inherited Ricky’s half of the gay bar Pandora’s Box that the couple owned together in the Castro district. I don’t really understand the legalities of this — why would Ricky leave his half of a business he owned with his partner to the mother who disowned him? I was very deep into Animal Crossing during the expository stage of this film — but Nathan is livid. You know how everyone says that Adrian Grenier is the real villain of The Devil Wears Prada, the boring chef boyfriend that holds Anne Hathaway back from fulfilling her full potential at Not Vogue Magazine? He brings a similar energy here, upping the ante and serving Full Gay Bitch in a way that I ultimately must respect.
An interlude:
A week or so after I moved to New York in 2010, a dear childhood friend of mine texted me to ask if I wanted to go meet up with her at Marquee in the Meatpacking District to see Adrian Grenier’s band perform. She worked in some capacity with the band, and thus was able to put friends on the guest list. From what I understood, the guys had all gone to school together; Adrian Grenier (on drums) was the only famous person, and it was sort of a fun hobby for them. Obviously I said yes, because one does not turn down one’s first invite to go to a Meatpacking District club to partake in free bottle service. (One should absolutely turn down any subsequent invites to Meatpacking District clubs, bottle service or no bottle service.)
After the show, which was fine, we lounged in a roped-off VIP section, and I made myself truly awful gin and tonics with the Tanqueray so graciously provided. After a while, someone — probably Adrian Grenier — made the executive decision to bounce to another club, so we all made our way outside to wait for cars to take us to our second destination.
My friend and I were sharing a cigarette as we waited, and she asked me if I had gone on any dates since I had arrived in the city. I hadn’t yet, but as I told her of my dating high- and lowlights in Chicago, I noticed that Adrian Grenier was suddenly standing in close proximity, possibly eavesdropping — a theory that was confirmed when he jumped into the conversation.
“Oh, are you gay?” Adrian Grenier asked me.
I paused for a moment, as I was taken aback by the question, and I softly replied, “Yes…?”
Adrian Grenier gave me one of those straight-boy nods of approval. “That’s cool, man,” he said.
I am not sure what I said in return, but what I thought has been stuck in my head for nearly a decade: “Adrian Grenier……… thank you.”
This was roughly one month after Dan Savage launched the It Gets Better campaign, and I just want to say for the sake of history that Adrian Grenier had his finger on the pulse (of my limp wrist)! What a thrill it was to celebrate his celebration of me at the next location: Tao in Midtown, where I skipped the line as part of (I apologize) Adrian Grenier’s entourage. Kim Kardashian was also in attendance, throwing her second thirtieth birthday party within the span of one week. Once Lil Jon graced the stage for a surprise performance, I said to myself, “This is simply what life in New York will always be like for me!”
While that may not have turned out to be true, I do not think it is too much of a leap to say that Adrian Grenier found inspiration in this lovable Gay Bitch to play the role of Nathan a decade later in Stage Mother alongside two-time Oscar nominee Jackie Weaver! I am certain I made an impact!!! (I have not reached out for comment to confirm or deny this.)
While your typical Murder at the Wedding only requires two actors, it’s always fun to pad out the cast with other stars. Which is why, I guess, Stage Mother also features Lucy Liu as Sienna, Ricky’s best friend and now a single mom to her own son named Ricky. (She swears to Maybelline that Ricky was not the father.) Sienna is sassy and brassy, a friendly contrast to the prim and proper protagonist played by two-time Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver.
And yes, there are a few moments where she drops some risqué humor and Maybelline is like, “They don’t talk like that in Red Vine, Texas!!!” One such moment, in which I thought I was in the middle of a fever dream, involves Sienna getting ready for a date and saying things like “Camel toe is so chic right now” and “I know he’s got a dick and I haven’t been laid in a year.” Maybelline balks at Sienna’s admission that she’s planning on sleeping with the guy on the first date (she’s not sex positive), and when Maybelline says, “I can have an opinion,” Sienna says with a wink, “Not about my pussy!” Which is… an incredible line of dialogue!
I should note here that “Jacki Weaver and Lucy Liu in Not About My Pussy” is an excellent Murder at the Wedding.
By the end of the film, Maybelline has proven herself extremely valuable in San Francisco. She’s directed a brand-new drag revue at Pandora’s Box, which she has renovated to look a little like the speakeasy where Jessica Rabbit performs in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (with shirtless twenty-something male waiters instead of animated penguins, unfortunately); she’s helped drag stars Cherry Poppins, Joan of Arkansas, and Tequila Mockingbird with their respective personal issues (drug addictions, mommy issues, etc); she’s won over both Dusty Muffin and Nathan; she threatens to shoot Sienna’s date, who gets too rough with her in bed (“Now get your ass outta here before I put another hole in it!” shouts two-time Oscar winner Jacki Weaver); and she meets a handsome man who manages a hotel in town, despite being still married to her shitty husband Jeb. You can tell that Maybelline and Nathan have finally found some common ground because Nathan, upon meeting Maybelline’s new beau, shakes his little shoulders and says, “Well hello, Daddy!” (Adrian Grenier saying “Well hello, Daddy!” is our current woke era’s answer to the now-cancelled Jeffrey Tambor saying “Yasss, queen!” in Transparent. And once again… May I take credit?!)
The whole thing culminates in two-time Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver singing a cover of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” and by the end of it I wondered if I were somehow watching a science fiction film that had been miscategorized. Then I realized, during the end credits, that the movie was filmed in Nova Scotia rather than San Francisco, and the whole thing finally made a little bit of sense — it at least explained that slightly off-kilter feeling when you watch something set in the United States that’s actually shot in Canada
Considering this year’s sorry crop of films, can the straight-to-VOD Stage Mother have us saying “three-time Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver” next spring? Probably not. But folks, I’m desperate for new movies, and I’m not going to risk my life for Tenet. So here we are. I paid $5.99 to rent this movie, by the way, and considering my current unemployment, I would say it was not worth the full price. When it’s streaming on Hulu for free in a few months, by all means — go nuts and watch Stage Mother, but don’t blame me if you’re shouting “Not about my pussy!” at everyone for days afterward. (In your home, of course. Do not go outside and shout at people, we’re in a pandemic. And wear your mask!)