"A Real Pain": Buddies have wacky adventures or a Dark Night of the Soul in Poland, but I'm off to the Horseman's Club

 

A Real Pain (2024), on Hulu, is advertised as a wacky buddy comedy with Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg, touring Poland, with a lot of exteriors.  

No doubt they are both absurdly heterosexual and will meet The Girl of Their Dreams, but it will be fun to see how quickly their heterosexual identity is established. 

 Besides, I'd like to see some of the sights, like the Jewish Museum in Warsaw and the University of Krakow. .

Not to mention Kieran's backside.

Scene 1: Benji (Kieran Culkin) is sitting in the airport waiting for David (Jesse Eisenberg), who is just walking out the door of his Manhattan brownstone.  He keeps calling: heavy traffic...no, it lightened up...Ok, so David is the Stick-in-the-Mud, Benji the Free Spirit.

At the airport, Benji grabs him and makes him twirl so he can see his cousin's butt.  Um...an interested in a guy's butt is a sign of gay identity.

He brought yogurt, and some weed for when they reach Poland: "They're not going to arrest two Jews for a little weed."

He chats up the TSA lady: "Her Dad does security for the Knicks."  This annoys David. Doesn't count as heterosexualizing him.

Priya made some trail mix for them.  Doesn't count: she could be an aunt or a sister.

Scene 2: On the plane, David has to take the middle seat. Bummer.

They discuss their back story: David works in digital ad sales, and Benji is a deadbeat. They haven't seen each other for a while.  They're going on a Heritage Tour of Poland.. wait, they're Jewish...is this a tour of the sites of pograms and concentration camps? 

Naw, who would want to see those?  Poland has 1000 years of Jewish history.

Later, David takes his prescription meds and gazes at a video of his daughter. Heterosexualized at minute 6.30. 

It's actually Jesse Eisenberg's real-life son, Banner.  I was confused by his long blond hair.

Scene 3: At the Warsaw airport -- "Welcome to Warsaw" sign in English.  They meet their driver. Some nice location shots as they drive through the city, but David is still gazing at that video of his son.   Why the heck aren't you looking out the window at this major European capital that you've never been to before?

They check in, retrive a package of weed from the desk clerk, and head up to their room. When David kicks off his shoes, Benji complements him: "You have really nice feet.  Graceful as fuck. Reminds me of Grandma's feet."  Foot fetish? Benji is giving off some gay vibes.

Scene 4: Tour Guide James (Will Sharpe, top photo and left) introduces himself: Not actually Jewish, but a degree in Eastern European Studies from Oxford.

The others in the tour are:

1. Marcia Kramer, recently divorced, from New York.  Her mother survived the camps. One of the cousins is obviously going to fall in love with her, but I'm not sure which.  Maybe David is divorced, and Benji's interest in men's butts and feet is supposed to be wacky, not homoerotic.

2.-3. Diane and Mark (Daniel Oreskes), an elderly couple. 

Daniel Oreskes has 40 acting credits on the IMDB, including The Sopranos, Law & Order, Ray Donovan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Only Murderers in this Building.  He is heterosexual.

4. Eloge, from Rwanda, converted to Judaism.  He's a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.

The Cameroon-born Kurt Egyiawan is a British theatrical actor who has appeared in The Exorcist, House of the Dragon, Bodies, and Kaos.  No intel on whether he's heterosexual or not.

More after the break

"The Breakthrough": Swedish murder mystery with Peter's prick, some Stockholm hunks, and a lot of sobbing.

 In keeping with my new policy of just clicking on whatever a streaming service thinks "I'll LOVE!",  without doing any research, I clicked on The Breakthrough, on Netflix: a detective tracks down a killer, with the help of "an eccentric genealogist."  So they'll fall in love, or on the off-chance that they are both men, there will be some buddy-bonding.  

At least it's in Swedish, so I can use some of the photos from my trips to Stockholm -- one of my favorite cities in Europe (In case you're wondering, it goes: Paris, Prague, Barcelona, Tallinn, Stockholm)

The language is cool, too.  Remember in fairy tales, the monster threatens to "eat you up."  In Swedish, that's how you say "eat":

Eat my sausage.

Ät min korv opp

Episode 1: "The Unthinkable."  

Scene 1: "On October 19, 2004, a murder investigation begins: the second largest criminal investigation in Swedish history." Cut to a bedroom, with an Arab or North African Dad showing his son Adnan how to use a watch: "When the hands reach 12:00, a new day begins, and then another, forever and ever.  Time always moves forward."  Then why are we so obsessed with the past? 

Someone types on a computer "Must kill."

Scene 2: Linkoping, in southern Sweden about 2 hours from Stockhom by train.  This all happens in montage, splitting back and forth.

1. The Detective (Peter Eggers) jogs past a soccer game, says hello to a guy he knows, pets a dog.  

2. Mom wakes up Adnan and his sister, who now have bunk beds, for breakfast with their Dad.  They all cuddle and smooch and discuss how much they love each other.  Not once, as I was eating my cereal, did my mother ever smooch the top of my head and say "I love you so, so, so much."  Thankfully.

 Adnan sets off for school.

3. An old guy and his wife hold hands in bed. She has nail polish of a very strange color, like an orange push-up (remember those?).  They get up and discuss ringing Samuel about Christmas. Maybe there will be a cute son droppiong by? Wife leaves and heads through the park.

4. A man with a hidden face rides on the subway.  He gets off and head down the street, fingering a knife.

You know where this is headed, right?  The Man stabs Adnan; the wife sees him, so he stabs her, too.  Why is the park so empty in the morning, if everybody walks  through it on their way to school or work?

Scene 3: Another montage.

1. The Detective brings food home to his pregnant wife (established as heterosexual at Minute 4.5). Close up of his hand with a wedding ring on her stomach.  Ok, the heteronormativity is getting a little loud in here. He gets a call about the murders.

2. Adnan's sister walks past the cordoned-off area and sees his toy tyrannasaurus.  She runs to his school to check -- nope, not there. 

Scene 4:  You heard me.

Left:Peter's prick

1. The Detective listening to his car radio, reports about how we're all doomed.  Is this a post-Apocalyptic series, or is it just supposed to set a dark/depressing mood.  At the crime scene: the woman is still alive, at the hospital.  Adnan is dead.  A witness, a woman who was cycling past.  They start canvassing house to house.  Uh-oh, a man is watching from afar.  Must be the murderer.

2. The Husband of the Injured Woman calls Samuel to see about Christmas.  Samuel does not appear in the credits, so why is he being emphasized so much?  A cop knocks on the door: "A woman was assaulted in the park across the street at 8:00 am.  Did you see anything?" 

"No, but my wife, who I love more than anything else in the world, was walking through that park at 8:00 am.  Maybe she saw something...oh."

3. Adnan's parents arrive at his school to see his sister wrapped in a blanket, crying.  

Scene 5:  Maybe we're done with the montages.  The Detective in a parking garage, calling his wife.  She doesn't think he should lead the investigation, with the baby due any minute.  Wait -- is this all going to take place in 2004?  I thought we would jump ahead, with the main story in 2024.  Otherwise what's the point?  It's just a murder story.

Next the Detective addresses plain-clothes cops or community members.  The Wife has died, so it's a double murder.  He sends them out to check if anyone in the neighborhood knows anything

He interviews the Witness and her husband, but she can't remember what he looked like.  

More crying and some cocks after the break.

Gemstones Episode 1.9, Continued: Kelvin goes dark, Keefe goes down, and Captain America saves the day

Previous: Episode 1.9: Jesse is racist, Judy is a rapist, and Kelvin is the devil

He's not my boyfriend:  Earlier in the episode, Kelvin reveals that "he's coming apart," certain that his lack of interest in women and recent forays into "darkness" signify that he is the Devil.  The siblings tried to comfort him, but apparently it didn't help: he shows up at the teen group wearing a Goth teddy outfit, mascara, pale lipstick, dark glasses, and shiny vinyl pants, and announces "I have transformed myself into something Dark."  He's not Jesus, but a vile creature of sin.  He must leave them.  

But his replacement, Ronald Meyers (Josh Warren), is "pure": chubby, greasy-haired, an assistant manager at the GameStop.  One can't help but conclude that "pure" means "never had sex," a contrast with Kelvin, who obvioulsy has. 

Kelvin makes a dramatic exit.  Dot Nancy, whom he rescued from Club Sinister, scoffs, as if to say "What an idiot!", and follows. "Is this about your boyfriend?"  Notice that she is not being pejorative; she honestly believes that they are a gay couple.  

Kelvin corrects her:  "Ok, no, he's not my boyfriend. We're just a couple dudes who like to hang out. Why?"  He's being awfully nonchalant -- compare Season 3, where "rumors swirling around" drive him into a panic.  He's already the Dark Lord, a being infused by homoerotic desire, so why get upset over a simple mistake?

Fans who insist that "Kelvin is straight!" often point to this statement, but maybe they're not "boyfriends," partners in a caring, emotionally-fulfilling relationship.  Kelvin believes that Satan is all about sex, not love, so whatever he feels for Keefe -- whatever he does with Keefe -- must be driven solely by lust.   

That will all change in a moment, when Dot shows him Keefe's instagram page. He has returned to his old job as Baby Queef, a performance artist at Club Sinister: "The baby is back!"  and "Haven't I fallen far enough?"  

Responses from fans: "I'm psyched!  I can't wait!"  "We're off to never-never land!" 

Yelling "No, no, no," Kelvin rushes off. Why is he fine with turning into the Dark Lord, but upset when Keefe becomes one of his followers?  Maybe because his transformation was all about wallowing in self-pity, while Keefe's is for real. He is about to be destroyed, spiritually, psychologically, and maybe even physically.

Gideon in Haiti: Before we can find out what happens next with Kelvin and Keefe, we cut to Gideon in Haiti: colorful "third world" shots of goats, a taverna, Gideon  meeting a group of k*ds, and so on.  The Water 2 Haiti ministry reflects the real Water for Life, which has been sponsoring well digging and irrigation since 1983. 

Jesse tracks Gideon down and asks him to come home. He refuses: he's doing missionary work to expiate his sins, so he can find peace.   Jesse will have to find anothe way to reconcile with Amber.

Check out his reaction when Jesse notes that Scotty has died: eyes wide, mouth agape, trying to restrain a whimper.  Sure, the guy robbed and assaulted him, but he was still Gideon's first boyfriend, and apparently really good in bed.

BJ is Shocked:  Back to the Gemstone Compound, night.  BJ wants to do a grand gesture to get Judy back (you dumped her, remember?), but Brock the Security Guard makes fun of his name and won't let him in (he lived there before the breakup -- wouldn't Brock know him and let him by default?).  

Rejected at the gate, BJ says "It's time to be a man" and finds an isolated place with a fence he can climb over.  We get a good view of the amusement park as he sneaks through.   But the stealth plan doesn't work:  he is surrounded by security guards and tazed, killed in a death-and-resurrection scene.

A Transitive State: Meanwhile, Kelvin is trying a grand gesture of his own (you dumped him, remember?). He arrives at Club Sinister with yet another party going on (or is there always a party in the Satanic realm?)  He pushes through the crowd (and, significantly, shrinks back with audible “Ewww!” at the sight of a naked lady), and finds Keefe's old friend Daedalus.  

"Keefe is discovering some things about himself," he says. What does Keefe not know about himself?  Surely he knew that he was gay.  

Then: "I transformed him back into the earliest state of his being. He's sinking beneath his reality as we speak.  He's regressing to a transitive state."  I couldn't find an exact meaning for this phrase, but it probably means a state where you can be transformed into a different person.  

Kelvin threatens him: “Take me to him right now! I will f*ck you up!”  

The Isolation Tank after the break

Gemstones Episode 1.9: Jesse is racist, Judy is a rapist, and Kelvin is the Devil. With a Haitian dick bonus.

Previous: Episode 1.8: Kelvin's testicles, Chad's testicles, Jesse's butt, and ancient Philistine penises

Episode 1.8 ended with all of the Gemstone siblings and their partners broken up, plus Gideon cast out from the family.  It's going to take a lot of work to make things right again.  

Title: "Better is the end of the thing than the beginning." Ecclesiastes 7:9.  Not things being over: at the beginning of the task, there are many problems ahead, many ways that things could go wrong, a lot of pain and sadness.  At the end, you can relax and enjoy the results of your hard work.

Chicken bone voodoo:  After a flashback to Aimee-Leigh's death (and a bee that will re-appear later in the episode),we cut to Eli finding about about the blackmail, Jesse's assault of Rev. Seasons, and Judy's embezzlement. Kelvin stood by and let them do things that he knew were wrong, so he's just as guilty. Eli angrily fires them all. 

Later, Amber tells Jesse that if he wants to reconcile, he'll have to go to Haiti, where Gideon is doing missionary work, and bring him back. Their conversation is surprisingly racist, referencing chicken bone voodoo, AIDS, and cannibalism. (Left: Port au Prince)

Judy's frst boyfriend: Judy meets with BJ "at a neutral location," the Outback Steakhouse, to give back the stuff he left when he moved out. She admits that she hasn't really "gobbled 1,000 cocks"; it was a lie to impress him. Notice that she is taking a masculine role: usually straight men brag about how many partners they've had, while women and gay men are slut-shamed.  

Judy continues with a monologue about her only previous boyfriend, actually her economics professor in college: she misinterpreted his casual conversation,  sexually assaulted him in his office, then kidnapped his son. BJ is mostly shocked that she never had vaginal sex before, so he "took her virginity."

Judy and Kelvin's relationships run parallel.  Since Judy had no sexual experiences prior to BJ, can we conclude that Kelvin was out there "gobbling 1,000 cocks" before Keefe introduced him to the idea of a loving gay relationship?

Jesus never dated much: Sibling movie night at Kelvin's house ((notice the K and the arcade game behind their couch).  They're watching The Neverending Story., at the scene where Artax  horse/companion of the hero Atreyu, is literally consumed by his sadness, sinking to his death.  Atreyu yells: "Fight against the sadness. You have to try. You have to care. You're my friend.  I love you."  Suddenly Kelvin bursts into tears (Top photo: star Noah Hathaway, no doubt one of the teen idols of Kelvin's youth).  

In the movie, the Childlike Empress is sick, thus allowing the Darkness (hopelessmess, despair) to slowly devour the Kingdom of Fantasia.  Young hero Atreyu is looking for a cure to save Fantasia, but he is unable to save his horse/friend Artax.  Maybe Kelvin is thinking of how he couldn't save Keefe from his own Sadness:  "My emotions are all over the place. I feel like I'm coming unhinged." The siblings ignore him, so he repeats: I'm in emotional turmoil, dealing with some very painful questions about myself."  

"For real?"  Jesse immediately becomes serious.  Remember, he thinks that Kelvin is gay, but in denial.  Is he ready to come out?

Nope.  "I've always felt like, maybe, I'm Him."  He's always felt like he is Jesus? Say what?  Dude, that's full-blown psychosis.

Actually, many cult leaders claim to be Jesus.  Wikipedia lists 40 in the 20th and 21st centuries alone, including Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, Charles Manson, Shoko Asahara, David Koresh.  It doesn't usually end well.

Kevin's reasons: we both care about people; people like us, and want to follow us. Wait -- you just have one follower, Keefe, and he's not worshipping you.  He gets on his knees for another reason entirely.  

Plus: "(Jesus) didn't date much, didn't have the urge or the need to.  That's me for days."  Fans sometimes use this line to argue that Kelvin is asexual, not experiencing desire for anyone, but in a heteronormative society, surely he means "urge or need to date women."  I'm sticking with the theory that Kelvin was out there breaking his celibacy promise, shoving his cock through the glory holes at Club Sinister every night, and feeling guilty about it the next morning.  

Jesse, aware of another reason for Kelvin's lack of interest in women, assures him that he's not Jesus, but "that doesn't mean you're not a decent man."  Notice that he uses the term "man," signifying that Kelvin is grown-up, an adult, regardless of his sexual identity.

But Kelvin doesn't buy it.  Another voice is telling him, "If you can't be him, maybe you can be me...Satan."  We know from the Satanic Sweep and the Club Sinister rescue that, in Kelvin's eyes, Satan is all about sex, or sex is all about Satan.  The only way he can explain his homoerotic desire, and maybe his homoerotic intimacy, is by fashioning himself "the Dark Lord of the family."  After all of this, how did fans continue to argue that Kelvin was straight?

He's very tired -- he hasn't been sleeping well lately. Because he usually shares his bed with Keefe?  And he misses Mama, who used to tell him that everything's gonna be ok.  She's gone, so Jesse and Judy step up: "Everything's gonna be ok.  You'll get it figured out."  It's not hard to figure out, Dude.  Lots of people are gay.

Haitian dick bonus after the break

Daryl Sabara: Juni grows up, fights cannibals, bikers, and Satanists, and shows his dick, but I'm still depressed

Spy K*ds (2001) stars gay actor Antonio Banderas (left) and Carla Gugino as a husband and wife spy team.  Well, actually, their son and daughter, Juni and Carmen (Daryl Sabara, Alexa Vega), who get swept up in an age-appropriate diabolical plot involving tv host Fegan Floop (Alan Cummings, who is bisexual in real life).   

Although everyone is ostensibly heterosexual, some reviews call the film a queer classic due to the extremely hot Dad -- and Mom, apparently, which led to the "queer awakening" of an entire generation of lesbians; the shy, bullied, gay-coded Juni; the kick-ass Carmen; and the gay-coded villain who turns out to be not all that villainous.

The Banderas dick is just to draw your attention.  This profile features the shy, bullied, gay-coded Daryl Sabara.

There were 3 sequels:

The Island of Lost Dreams (2002) strands Juni and Carmen on a Jules Verne/Dr. Moreau "mysterious island," where they run afoul of a mad scientist creating animal hybrids.  Carmen gets a boyfriend, but Juni remains gay-coded.

I didn't see Game Over (2003) where Juni must venture into a video game to save his sister, but the queer coding ends with him meeting The Girl.  He also meets two guys, video game teammates Ryan Pinkston and Bobby Edner.

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

The 2011 All the Time in the World minimized Juni and Carmen in favor of a new sibling team.  The brother is played by Mason Cook, who would go on to Speechless.

During the Spy franchise, Daryl Sabara appeared in the usual one-shot tv spots: Will and Grace, Fatherhood, House, American Dragon: Jake Long, and so on.

He has a starring role in the animated lion-drama Father of the Pride (2004-05) as Hunter, a shy, anxiety-ridden Lord of the Rings nerd. That is, basically Juni as a lion.  In one episode, his grandfather Sarmoti thinks that he is gay, or as the fan wiki says, "homosexual; but this is absolutely not true."  Rather homophobic, aren't you, fan wiki?

Then things start to go downhill.  In a 2006 episode of Criminal Minds,  Daryl plays a teenager who charges men to watch him do bondage videos.  So he has an OnlyFans site?  The agents convince him that what he is doing constitutes prostitution, and will put him in danger from internet predators.  It is all presented as extremely sleazy, and one can't help but conclude that being gay is always seedy and sordid.  

Normal Adolescent Behavior (2007) is an anti-hookup cautionary tale,with no gay content: three girls and three guys in a friendship group pair off randomly.  Daryl appears as Nathan, who crushes on the mother of one of the girls. Ugh.

Raviv Ullman, formerly Phil of the Future, plays one of the guys in the friendship group.

Next Daryl played Tim Scottson in 7 episodes of Weeds (2005-12), about suburban marijuana growers. He shot his stepmother Nancy Botwin because he assumed that she was responsible for his father's death, but she recovered and hired him as her assistant.

Worst. Prom. Ever. (2011) has Daryl planning the perfect prom for his girlfriend, but when her two friends tag along, things go crazy, with a car crash, armed thugs, Satanists, and an amorous lady biker.

In The Green Inferno (2013), some student activists go to the Peruvian jungle for ecological stuff, and are captured by a cannibal tribe.  

A cannibal tribe?  I thought the "spear-throwing savages" trope went out with Johnny Quest. But at least the guy dragging Daryl toward the cooking pot has nice abs and a basket.

Daryl gets a girlfriend and displays his dick before being eaten.

More Daryl dick after the break

"Bad Ideas with Adam Devine": When you need to f*k the Sadness in a hurry. With bonus buddy bulges and butts

Sometimes you need to f*k the Sadness in a hurry, and your best bet is Adam Devine.  Not (just) because of his hotness, because his stuff is always upbeat, with no hatred, no tragedy, no angst, not a lot of heteronormative mishegas, just whimsical problems, humorous braggadoccio, and homoerotic bonds. 

But you don't have time for a whole movie, or an episode of  Workaholicsor   The Righteous Gemstones. What do you do?

The reality series Bad Ideas with Adam Devine, streaming on Roku, is a perfect solution. In each episode, Adam. "the world's greatest movie star, the world's greatest lover, the guy who clearly writes his own intros," teams up with one of his comedian buddies to do something dangerous:

1. Compete in the World's Hottest Pepper Eating Contest, in the Bahamas. With Thomas Middleditch from Solar Opposites

2. Compete in a demolition derby, the Night of Destruction, at Perris Auto Speedway, near Riverside, California. With Blake Anderson from Workaholics

Blake bulging as a cop-stripper

3. Become stunt performers in a Western movie (after seven minutes of training). With Rebel Wilson from Pitch Perfect

4. Drive an ice cream truck up highway P3 in Peru, called "the Death Road" for its hairpin turns and 1000 foot drops. With Anders Holm from Workaholics

More after the break

"American Sports Story": Football player turned murderer, with evangelical homophobia everywhere

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

"Cucumber": Lots of cucumbers on display as gay life in Manchester gets increasingly dark.

 

Cucumber, on Amazon Prime, is like gay Revenge, with plot twists, hidden agendas, and people who are not what they seem.  It starts out as a comedy, but turns darker and darker.  The nonsensical title, by the way, comes from a measure of erectile hardness, from tofu (semi-soft) to cucumber (rigid).  

Instead of scene-by-scene, I'm going to summarize the various cocksploits and tearjerks.

1. Middle-aged Manchester insurance salesman Henry (Vincent Franklin) gets angry when his boyfriend Lance (Cyril Nri, top photo) brings an anonymous guy, left, home for a three-way.  Maybe if you'd asked first, and waited for him instead of just going down?

Henry calls the police and has the two arrested (on what charge? consensual sexual acts are legal in Britain.), 

2. Henry moves out and seeks refuge with a twink couple from work, Dean and Freddie (Fisayo Akinade, Freddie Fox, left).  And starts flirting with Freddie!  Wait -- you get all huffy when your boyfriend wants an open relationship, but it's ok for the twinks?

Freddie the Twink says "No, thank you, we're monogamous."

3. Henry is upset because Freddie the Twink rejected him, but then goes out and hooks up with another old guy, Cliff (Con O'Neill).

4. Meanwhile Ex-Boyfriend Lance tries to hook up with Straight Guy Daniel (James Murray, left).  He refuses: "Sorry, I'm straight."

5. Henry's Sister and her hot teenage son Adam (Ceallach Spellman, right) arrive to stay forever. Henry decides to make some extra money filming his nephew having sex with other guys.

Meanwhile Ex-Boyfriend Lance empties the joint checking account. Never leave much in that joint checking account, buddy. One tiff, and it's gone.



More cucumbers after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.3: Baby Billy sings forever, Kelvin can't say the word, BJ poses nude, and I'm depressed

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Brad Hallowell: A decade of dicks. The rest is silence.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Paul Mescal: Does he appear in anything good? Is ok to post cock pics?

 

Paul Mescal was born in Maynooth, Ireland, about 30 minutes west of Dublin.  He graduated from Trinity College in 2017, and went to work in the theater, getting roles in The Great Gatsby, The Plough and the Stars, A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Streetcar Named Desire and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. 

 In 2020 he broke into television with a starring role in Normal People, about two Trinity College undergrads in love.

Wait -- why are they "normal people"?  Do they have some marginalized trait, like being autistic? Reading the description, it doesn't sound like it. Marianne is rich and outspoken, Paul an A-list athlete. Sounds like "Love Story." The only conflict I can see is that they both have friends who would oppose the match, so they have to keep it a secret.  I guess "normal" just means being heterosexual, as opposed to gay.

Apparently the two have a lot of sex, with long scenes of them being languid in each other's arms afterwards, so if you can find some way to crop the girl out, you can get a lot of dick pics. 

But wait -- Buzzfeed News tells us that "Paul Mescal just called out a woman who made him "really angry" by telling him she'd seen him naked and saved a nude screenshot." 

The woman approached him in a bar and said: "I didn’t think the show was any good, but I saw your willy and I have a photo!”

His response: “Truly gross. What is a person supposed to reply to something like that?  That's fucking rude!"

I can understand his reaction: you haven't seen the actor naked, you've seen the character he is portraying.  Besides, even if you did see someone's dick without an invitation, like in the urinals or the locker room, why would you brag to them about it?  It would be like saying "I'm stalking you."

But he brings up a question: is seeing an actor's penis on screen substantially different from seeing his face, or his bare chest?  The aesthetic appeal of the actor's face and physique adds to our enjoyment of the movie, in some cases quite a lot.  But does the penis move the scene away from the aesthetic into the erotic?  And is that inappropriate?

I don't think so.  An actor's work can be enjoyed on many levels.  Faces and physiques can be quite erotic, and a penis has aesthetic appeal.  Viewers can enjoy an image in many ways, for what it reveals about the character, for its placement in the narrative, for its symbolic value, because it is beautiful, or because it is hot. Especially with the girl cropped out.

Next question: Does Paul star in anything good? That is, with gay characters, gay subtexts, or an intriguing premise, and minimal red flags like terminal illness.

Normal People is out.  I'm turned off by the implication that being heterosexual is "normal," so being gay is "abnormal."  Besides, it's just a collegiate romance.  We've seen hundreds of them.  

According to the IMDB, Paul next appeared in four episodes of The Deceived, 2020: A university student falls in love with her prof, who may have killed his wife.  Paul's character is in love with her. Looking for gay content, I found a reference to a subplot on a discussion board, but nothing about it appears in reviews. Nope.

The Lost Daughter, 2021: A university professor on holiday in Greece remembers being a "selfish and unnatural" mother who had an affair and abandoned her family.  Yuck.

God's Creatures, 2022. "In a windswept fishing village, a mother is torn between protecting her beloved son and her own sense of right and wrong"  I'm looking for something interesting, innit?

More Paul after the break