"Honest Men": South Africa-teasing, porn-teasing, claustrophobic, confusing...but at least there are a lot of gay guys.

 

Honest Men on Prime Video has a shirtless hunk on the icon and the promo: "Unraveling family dynamics, Honest Men follows Colby's return home after his father....(probably his father's death: somebody is always returning home after the death of somebody).   The names of the cast members sound African (King David, Donta Hemsley, Tripp Ali), so it's probably set in South Africa, and we'll get some interesting citscapes of Johannesburg or Cape Town

 Scene 1: Closeup of a man's back. So far so good. Suburb at night, then Colby (King David) addresses the camera, talking about his friend named Andre when he was a kid, who had a violent, abusive father  but nevertless was "sexy as hell." While he speaks, the violent, abusive father disrobes behind him and steps into the shower.  Colby: "Don't judge me for what I'm about to do.  I was only 17."  He starts beating off while watching. Hey, a gay character!  I guess he meant that the father was "sexy as hell."

King David is very hard to research.  Even if you specify "King David" and "actor," you just get the many, many actors who have played the Biblical king: Russell Crowe, Daniel Craig, Clive Owen, Christian Bale (left), Michael Fassbender...

Scene 2: 4 years later: Closeup of Colby's hands as he opens the door, puts his keys on the counter.  This is very tight, claustrophobic.  Very tight,  very claustrophobic.  I'm thinking we're not going to see Constitution Hill in Johannesburg or the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town. 

A lengthy scene of the guy changing clothes, with very tight closeups of part of his eye and his neck.  Then a butt shot but no dick.  At least we have nudity.  

After watching the scene several times, just to make sure that I'm being accurate, har har, I conclude that the guy we're watching is not Colby, but Mark, the Abusive Father (Donta Hensley).

More partial body bait and switch -- you think it's more Abusive Mark, but it's actually Colby as he checks his messages: Wait -- who has an answering machine in their house anymore?  This must be Dad's apartment.  

#1: Funeral home guy complementing him on his coffin choice: "Rest in peace with our great prices."   Har har

#2: Mark the Abusive Father.  He was doing some work on Colby's Dad's fridge, and wants to stop by Saturday night to finish the job.  Saturday night?  Really?  Sounds like there's more than one job you want to finish.

 Scene 3: Semi-body part closeups as Colby answers the door.  It's Mark the Abusive Father, dressed like a refrigerator repair guy in a porn movie.   He suggests that Colby is taking his death hard, but no, "He stopped existing long before he died."  Some people like staying home, dude.  They got their books, their music, their Grindr hookups....

Mark remembers at Colby and Andre's graduation, Colby stood up and yelled some shit about his Dad, who never forgave him. "Well, I hated him."

"That's weird -- my son Andre loved him."  You were abusive, buddy.  

Mark confesses that he hated his son, too:  the kid came into the world and ruined his life when he was 14 years old.  "But I changed."  "Too bad my dad didn't."  Got it, Andre and Colby, both with abusive dads and hate all the way down.

Hey, these guys both have American accents.  I'm starting to think that the South African names are just a tease

Scene 4: A young man in his underwear, feeling himself up, talking to himself about how "she" is going to be so impressed tonight that he'll get him some.  

Text from his mom: Tell your Dad about the graduation party. A flashback to the night of the graduation, where Colby yelled some stuff and Dad never forgave him?  So this is probably  Abusive Mark's son Andre.

Andre texts a tight closeup of his Dad's various body parts but instead of the grad party, it's "Submit J's grad fees before Friday."  Dad's body parts groan, hating his kid.   Wait -- Andre does not appear in this episode, and he's not named J.  This must be JTT (Tripp Ali).  A third kid with an abusive dad?

More after the break

"Sinners": Twin brothers fight vampires and klansmen in the Mississippi Delta. With Jordan junk and O'Connell cock

For movie night this weekend, we actually went to a movie in a theater, for a change: Sinners (2025), about twin brothers fighting vampires in the Mississippi Delta in 1932.

The first hour is quite naturalistic: Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan in a dual role) return to the Deep Delta from their gangster career in Chicago with a lot of money and Irish booze, buy the old abandoned mill from a klansman who says he's not a klansman, and organize a juke party. We get the sense of the vast emptiness of the cotton fields, and the terror of everyday life for African-Americans in the Jim Crow South.  

You had to be very careful; glance at or speak to a white woman, accidentally bump into a white man, and you would be attacked.  Gay people live with a similar fear -- hold hands with your boyfriend or display a Pride flag, and you could get attacked or killed.  But at least heteronormativity ensures that most gay people are assumed straight, and can keep hidden in the riskiest situations.  Most African-Americans could not.

Left: Michael B. Jordan

The brothers pick up Preacher Boy (Miles Caton), who is torn between the church and the guitar (which his Preacher father calls Satanic).  After he agrees to perform tonight, they split up.  

Stack and Preacher Boy go to town, where they recurit another performer, the elderly, alcoholic Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo).

They hire shopkeeper Bo Chow (Yao) to make up signs and fry the catfish.

Left: Malaysian actor Yao received a MFA from Yale University in 2023.  He played a gay character in #LookatMe (2022).

They pull Cornbread (Omar Miller) from the cotton fields to act as bouncer.

The brothers are so intimate that I was sure that one or both would be gay, but heteronormativity is running rampant.  Both of them, and Preacher Boy, get girlfriends, whom they have s*x with, one after the other.

1. Stack with his ex-girlfriend Mary, who is an octaroon (one-eighth black), so Jim Crow laws still apply to her.

2. Smoke with his estranged wife Annie (Wummi Musaku).  She's rather old , so I thought she was his mother until they started doing things.  

She's also quite butch, so I figured that the actress must be a lesbian. LezWatch says that she is cisgender, unspecified sexual identity, but she has played at least three queer characters.

3. Preacher Boy with Pearline, a married singer.  Fortunately, her husband isn't around. 

It keeps going like that.  Bo Chow has a wife (we learn their favorite s*xual activity).  Cornbread has a pregnant wife.  Delroy Slim isn't married, but discusses the hetero exploits of his youth.

Left: Michael A. Newcomer, who plays a bartender in a white joint, is gay in real life.  

Vampires after the break

"Teacup": Body-jumping aliens, two heterosexual romances, a gay subtext boyfriend betrayal, and Rob's knob

Probably-gay actor Jackson Kelley notes that he had a starring role in the paranormal horror Teacup, on Peacock. I figured he would be playing a gay character, so I checked it out.

The premise: On a farm full of good country folk, animals start behaving strangely, then people start trembling and speaking in riddles.  The power and WIFI go out. 

An invisible "teacup" trap marked by a blue line appears around the property; any person or animal that crosses it dies a horrible death.  A guy in a gas mask keeps patroling and gesturing.  Sound doesn't get through, so he uses a board to say things like: "Stay behind the line" and "Trust no one" 

The people trapped inside the "teacup" are divided into heterosexual nuclear families:

Family #1: James (Scott Speedman, left, from Animal Kingdom), his wife (a veterinarian), sick elderly mother, teenage daughter, and preteen son.

Family #2: Ruben (Chaske Spencer from Twilight), his wife, and his teeange son, trapped there when they brought their horse to see the veterinarian.   

Soap opera plotlines: The wife is secretly having an affair with James, and the son has been in love with James' daughter since he was in second grade, but is trapped in the Friend Zone (but not for long). 

Family #3: Donald Kelley (Boris McGiver. left) and his wife from the farm next door also happen to be there when the teacup is  put up.

The Newcomers: While everyone is dealing with the crisis and soap opera stuff, preteen Arlo (Caleb Dolden) tells his sister and her not-boyfriend that the Assassin is coming to kill them all.  The only way they can escape is with a multicolored liquid from a crashed meteor, so they gather a vial full.

Gas Mask Guy wants the vial, and crosses the blue line to get it, whereupon they stab him.  

Meanwhile, James finds the injured Travis (Jackson) hiding in the basement, worried that he's "one of them" and ready to shoot.  As they have a standoff, Travis tells his story:

Gas Mas Guy at a Bar: Flashback to Travis as the new guy working at the bar, mesmerized by Gas Mask Guy, McNab (Rob Morgan).  Wouldn't you be?

Left: Rob Morgan having coffee n*ude.  But he doesnt' have a lot of tattoos; maybe it's his breakfast companion?

He's telling about the aliens who set force-field "teacup" traps that incinerate any complex organism that tries to get through.  They're non-corporeal, using human bodies as hosts.  They can jump from body to body.  Often the humans aren't even aware of it, so anyone could be hosting an alien.

Bartender Big Al tells Travis to pay attention to the other customers; he'll wait on McNab himself.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Gogo Lomo-David: "Shameless" actor, singer, model, motivational speaker. Did I mention his cock?

Nigerian-American actor Gogo Lomo David was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania but grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, where his Dad taught business analytics at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.  

He graduated from Dad's school (free tuition!) in 2013.  Summa cum laude, with two degrees: a B.F.A. in Professional Theater and a B.A. in Business Management.

Gogo has 28 acting credits listed on the IMDB, quite a lot for someone whose screen career began in 2014.  Well, except for a short, Wrap It Before You Slap It (2011).

His first major screen role was Israel in Field of Lost Shoes (2014), which, he tells us, won Best Dramatic Feature at the GI Film Festival (for movies about military veterans).  It's about the cadets at the Virginia Military Academy drafted into the Civil War, oddly presenting them, and every Confederate, as not at all racist. 

Other significant roles include:

Loterna in a 2015 episode of Zoo, with Jason Wolk as the leader of a team trying to figure out why animals are starting to attack.

Walter in Evil Nanny (2016), also starring Demetrious Stear (left)

Danjuma Okafor in two episodes of the crime drama Shameless (2019), "Adios Gringos" and "Sparky."  The character is not listed in the fan wiki or wikipedia synopsis.

Gogo's biggest role to date is Craig Simkins, the younger brother of the Simkin siblings, arch-rivals of the Gemstones, in the Righteous Gemstones.   He defeats Jesse at car racing in Episode 3.1 and defeats Kelvin at Bible Bonkers in Episode 3.9.  

And he'll be back in Season 4, maybe as an ally of Big Bad Vance Simkins, maybe working against him.  

His resume says that he appeared in Iron Man 3, Banshee, Homeland, and Under the Dome, but they aren't listed on the IMDB. Maybe he was a background player.

Also commercials for Bojangles, Inforeach, Republic Wireless, the North Carolina Lottery.

And theater: A Raisin in the Sun, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Shadow Box, Black Nativity, Midnight of the Soul, and The Wiz.

More after the break