HE is sorry to report that Nicholas Stoller and Billy Eichner‘s Bros, billed as the first mainstream gay romcom, is already dead. The wide release is under $5 million for the weekend, and not expected to earn much more than $12 million domestic. I wrote a mostly approving review two nights ago and it reportedly played half-decently in the big cities, but most of the country (especially the deep hinterlands) wasn’t into it, bruh. Everyone likes a good romantic tale, and Bros is just as good (and certainly as well written) as any Tom Hanks or Billy Crystal romcom from the ’90s, and most auds approve of frisky sexual behavior but…well, perhaps not so much in the realm that I’m afraid to identify in this sentence for fear of being called homophobic. The collapse of Bros shows that Joe and Jane Popcorn are not all that keen about wading into a sexual-emotional realm that is not theirs to have and hold. If you count Zoomers the U.S. gay population is somewhere around 6% or 7% — do the math.

The common consensus is that whatever you may think of Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, a dryly farcical ‘80s period drama set in an Ohio college town, the final sequence — an ambitiously choreographed dance sequence featuring shoppers at an A & P supermarket — is the highlight.

The sequence affirms the film’s basic theme about nearly everyone turning to all kinds of distractions (including food) to avoid contemplating their own mortality.

Though brilliantly staged, the dance number is undercut by Baumbach’s decision to use it as a closing credits backdrop. Here’s how I put it to a friend:

“The LCD Soundsystem ‘New Body Rumba’ finale could have been great if Baumbach hadn’t decided to overlay it with closing credits. I almost shouted out loud ‘Oh no!! He’s blowing it!!’

“I’m saying this because once the credits begin we instantly disengage as we tell ourselves ‘okay, the movie’s over so the aisle–dancing is just a colorful bit, a spirit-picker-upper…whatever.’

“If Baumbach hadn’t given us permission to disengage, the dancing could have been wild and mind-blowing in a surreal Luis Bunuel-meets-Pedro Almodovar way. It could have been a mad slash across a wet-paint canvas…a Gene Kelly consumer-orgy crescendo.

And then it could have segued into a closing credit crawl. Alas…

This morning a Geek Squad tech guy was visiting the condo. Problems resulting from competing internet systems (Optimum vs. eero) were being addressed.

The first thing the GS guy did was call an Optimum agent about establishing a bridge connection. (Don’t ask.). The street address and account # had been verified, but the Optimum agent also needed to verify the name of the account holder (Joanne Jasser) and the corresponding phone #.

The latter was provided but I told the rep that the principal’s first name was a colloquial Jody rather than the more formal Joanne. Her response: “We don’t have an account holder by that name.”

It was soon after explained that Jody and Joanne were one and the same, but until that moment of clarity the Optimum rep was ready and willing to stop exchanging info. Everything but the first name had synched. The Optimum rep was being extra precise, of course. It could also be argued that she wasn’t the brightest bulb. I’ll let it go at that.