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‘Stop! That! Train!’ is Loud! Dumb! and Gay!

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‘Stop! That! Train!’ is Loud! Dumb! and Gay!

RuPaul and Matt Rogers in Stop! That! Train!

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When I tell you, reader, that the new film Stop! That! Train! plays exactly like an extended, slightly better-than-average Acting Challenge on a slightly better-than-average season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, some among you will nod sagely, and hie your butts to the theater in boisterous gaggles of girls, gays and theys. (A not-insignificant subset of you may also stop along the way to buy a box of cheap-ass blush wine so you can remove the bag and smuggle it into the theater, and I can’t stop you, that’s your own business.) Some among you will take that same report under advisement, secure in the knowledge that you’ll be fine waiting to stream it in the comfort of your own homes, where you’ve stashed enough champagne … to fill da Nile! Some among you — let’s face it, the younger, hotter, more evolved crowd that prefers your humor to grow organically out of things like characterization, cultural insight and dry wit — will grimace, and resolve to avoid it at all costs.

But the vast majority of you haven’t watched enough Drag Race to internalize its every formulaic tic, and thus won’t be able to glean any useful information from the comparison, so let me break it down for you.

Stop! That! Train! parodies ’70s disaster movies in exactly the way the 1980 film Airplane! did, which is to say: By submitting it to a ceaseless fusillade of broad, sweaty and very dumb jokes, by busting out a parade of game celebrity cameos and by deploying a just-shy-of-legally-actionable number of precisely the same gags.

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The only salient difference turns out to be one of sensibility. Where Airplane!‘s humor chiefly arose from encasing its jokes in a thick layer of deadpan solemnity (think Leslie Nielsen’s Dr. “And don’t call me Shirley” Rumack), Stop! That! Train!‘s entire schtick is one of arch, winking camp (think Stephen Stucker’s Johnny, the hilariously queeny control-room worker who served as resident court jester/chaos gremlin).

So think of it as Airplane! with nothing but the Johnny jokes. In a word: drag.

Which only makes sense, as the film’s key roles are filled with queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race and those who love them. There’s Jujubee and Ginger Minj as DeeDee and Tess, two not-so-fresh-faced “train hostesses” whose low-rent rail service folds, causing them to bluff their way into jobs on a Glamazonian Express luxury bullet train.

They receive a frosty reception from the train’s trio of first-class hostesses, Amber (Brooke Lynn Hytes), Allie (Marcia Marcia Marcia, credited here as Marty Lauter) and the ridiculously spelled Ayshleiygh (Symone). Keep an eye out for Latrice Royale, Monét X Change and Angeria Paris VanMicheals while you’re at it.

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If you’re finding yourself concerned that you’re eight paragraphs into this review and still don’t know what the movie’s actually about, just know that you, cookie, are not the target demographic for this particular project. But here goes: A high-speed train malfunctions on a cross-country journey and barrels into a series of mishaps involving an escaped scorpion, a haunted tunnel and a climatological event known as a “Stormaganza” while a lot of very funny people stand around making stupid, usually pun-adjacent jokes. Also: RuPaul sports a Deborah Vance wig to play U.S. President Judy Gagwell (see above, in re: pun-adjacency) and does some really stellar face-acting.

Ginger Minj and Jujubee.

Ginger Minj and Jujubee.

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Also also: the great Rachel Bloom plays Donna, the only government official to understand the peril facing the train’s passengers and crew, whose dire warnings fall on the cartoonishly boorish, misogynist ears of her co-workers. (Her boss, played by Evan Mulrooney, delivers a masterclass in the kind of prideful, bullying willfulness currently stalking the halls of power; it’s the closest thing this defiantly silly little flick comes to a political statement.)

The whole thing’s over and done with in a brisk 90-minute trot, and you’ll have a very good time. Oh sure, you might find yourself squinting at the special effects, such as they are. Not because they evince the now-familiar muddiness of bad CGI, but because they instead bear the disquietingly bright, clean, sharp lines of AI slop. (Director Adam Shankman felt compelled to release a statement attempting to clarify the film’s status, which reads in part: “There are a sum total of ZERO shots conceived by AI in the movie.” [Emphasis mine, because he’d apparently already told Xtra Magazine that some AI was used, in combination with CGI.]) But in the end, the jankiness of the film’s effects only feed into the hey-queens-let’s-put-on-a-show vibe, not distract from it.

You may also find yourself wishing, as you watch drag queens trading barbs, flaring their nostrils and mime-slapping the bejeezus out of one another, that the barbs in question were better, meaner, fiercer. They’re mildly cutting when they could and should be lacerating, and they feel like place-holders. But the script’s downright neutronic joke-density ensures that you won’t be able to linger over such quibbles; so many more jokes are barrelling toward you that by the time the credits roll (do I need to tell you there’s a gag reel? Of course there’s a gag reel) the comedic signal to noise ratio will prove satisfying.

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And hey, it’s Pride. You’re already out and about; why not top off your brief interlude with these cinematic queens by taking in a real drag show where IRL performers are waiting, tucked and plucked and working hard, sweating through their foundation to entertain you? Between numbers you can nip off to the bar and debate with your friends which one of the film’s dumb jokes was the absolute dumbest.

Trust me, you’ll be there a while.

Lifestyle

10 new books you won’t want to miss in July

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10 new books you won’t want to miss in July

I regret to inform you I’ll need to keep this introduction brief. Not because there’s any lack of things to say about July’s crop of notable new releases; it features award-winning journalists and several different flavors of anxiety about our bleak ecological future and data-dominated present, as well as the welcome returns of several beloved novelists.

No, these books certainly deserve some love, dear readers. It’s just that I’m finding it a bit tough to type while bearhugging a box fan. And since it seems that may be my last best chance to get through this latest U.S. heat wave here on the east coast without sweating through my shirt, I feel some urgency to get back at it.

So enough with the ado. With any luck, you’ll soon be cracking open one of these great reads on the beach — or in front of a decent air-conditioning unit, at any rate.

You Won’t Get Free of It: Stories of Mothers and Daughters, by Rachel Aviv

You Won’t Get Free of It: Stories of Mothers and Daughters, by Rachel Aviv (July 7)

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Aviv, New Yorker staff writer and finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize, has a fairly extensive purview in her role as reporter at large. Still, when reviewing her latest work, Aviv noticed a crucial throughline: “I realized that, to some degree, I’d been writing about mother-daughter pairs for the last decade,” she explained to the Paris Review. Seeing this, she decided to collect and revise half a dozen of those stories, which cover ground from a daughter’s troubling fugue states to the immigrant nannies who must leave their own children behind, to Alice Munro’s daughter, whose claims of sexual abuse went unheeded yet regularly resurfaced in her mother’s fiction.

Country People, by Daniel Mason

Country People, by Daniel Mason (July 7)

In Mason’s first novel since North Woods, 2023’s critical darling and book club stalwart, readers are plopped right back in the New England woods but the time scale has shrunk considerably. Whereas North Woods spanned centuries, his new novel confines itself to a single year, during which Miles, loving family man and lackadaisical Ph.D. candidate, plans to finally buckle down on that derelict degree of his and reassert his worth to one and all! At least, that’s the idea. But plans don’t stand much of a chance when there are eccentric neighbors to befriend and mysterious local legends to investigate.

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Jessica McCormack: How a Challenger Is Seizing the Jewellery Opportunity

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Jessica McCormack: How a Challenger Is Seizing the Jewellery Opportunity
The London-based independent jewellery label, which sells high-end pieces for everyday wear, has boosted sales by leveraging jewellery as a means of self expression. Chief executive Leonie Brantberg details in our latest report ‘Face to Face With Luxury Clients’ the brand’s strategy and expansion plans.
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Lifestyle

What a divorce coach wishes couples knew before ending a marriage

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What a divorce coach wishes couples knew before ending a marriage

Karen McNenny is a certified divorce coach, certified co-parenting specialist and author of the book The Good Divorce: How to End Your Marriage Without Ending Your Family.

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When Karen McNenny was facing divorce about 15 years ago, she was afraid of what it would mean for her future: despair, debt and a lifetime of resentment, she says.

At the same time, she was thinking of her two children, she says. She didn’t want their father to become her enemy.

So she and her former husband chose to approach divorce differently as a couple. “We’re going to renovate and transform this family. We’re not going to destroy it,” she says. “The marriage is ending, not your relationship.”

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For McNenny, a mediator, certified divorce coach and certified co-parenting specialist, divorce is a tool, not a weapon. She expands on this concept in The Good Divorce: How to End Your Marriage Without Ending Your Family, which came out this spring. The book offers guidance on how to maintain compassionate and respectful ties with a former spouse while also healing and moving forward.

According to Pew Research Center, a third of Americans who have ever been married had a first marriage that ended in divorce. For that reason, McNenny hopes her book becomes a must-read for couples before they get married. “The best time to talk about divorce is before you need to talk about it,” she says.

She shared insights from her book in a conversation with Life Kit. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The book is called The Good Divorce. What does that mean?

[For those with kids,] the good divorce is about protecting the future of the family while we dissolve the marriage.

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After the paperwork is done and the assets have been divided, can you and your co-parent sit on the same side of the bleachers during the basketball game? Can you still see yourselves as a partnership, with the ability to have thoughtful conversations about your kids?

For those who don’t have kids, [the good divorce is] about protecting your health — your mental health and your physical health. If we are doubling down with resentment and bitterness, all of that gets stored in the body and shows up in different ways. You deserve a pathway that’s less destructive.

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