November 22, 1963: Failed writer goes back to practically perfect 1960. Does he buddy bond, or meet The Girl? With Franco cock but no glory holes

I love time travel stories.  I've read all the classics: "All You Zombies," "A Sound of Thunder," "By His Bootstraps," "Mimsy were the Borogoves."   Time travel movies, not so much: they all seem to be about meeting, winning, and finding infinite happiness with The Girl. But when 9-22-63 dropped on Netflix, I saw that the disillusioned writer and his buddy work together together to prevent the Kennedy assassination.  Gay subtext -- ok, I'm in.

Scene 1:  Elderly Adult Education student Harry (Leon Ripper) reads a story about a boy whose his father murdered his mother and siblings on Halloween night, 1960.  Teacher Jake (James Franco) gives him an A+ -- right in front of the class.   What if he got an F?

Then Jake goes to the run-down diner near a horrible closed factory and orders a burger from elderly Al (Chris Cooper, left), who complains about his eating habits.  Not a good idea to diss the food you sell, buddy.  

The ex-wife comes in; they discuss his father's death, and then he signs the divorce papers.  This woman acts as if she is deeply -- very deeply -- in love with him, so why are they getting a divorce?  So they can reconcile later on, or just to establish that he's heterosexual?

Al goes into the kitchen for a few minutes, then returns, pale and haggard, and collapses.

Scene 2: Jake takes him home.  Big reveal: He's got cancer. "But you were fine five minutes ago."  "Come over tomorrow, and I'll explain everything"  

Back to class: A film about shock therapy in the 1930s, while students laugh and are bored.  So are we establishing that Jake is an awful teacher, or that kids today are awful?  

Scene 3: At the diner, Al says he'll explain everything  if Jake goes into the closet, looks around, and comes back.  I'd be suspicious -- there could be bodies in there, or he could lock you in and keep you a prisoner.  But Jake goes in...

And...plop!  He's outside the diner, but back in the early 1960s.  There's a billboard for Moxie Cola, and kids playing softball instead of scrolling on their phones.  So it's like the wardrobe that leads to Narnia, You can also go back in time via a secret staircase  (on Dark Shadows) or in an elevator (Time at the Top).  

It's a wonderful, joyous, absurdly idealized world.  I couldn't get a screenshot that would do it justice. Everything is very bright, with primary colors dominating. Delighted factory workers file out for their lunch break.  A milkman (Colin Doyle) drops a bottle, and exclaims "For the love of Mike!"  No profanity in 1960, har har. Three girls drive past in a pink convertible.

An old guy notices that Jake is from the future, and yells "You shouldn't be here!"   So he runs back into the diner, and ends up in the present day.

"You were just in October 21, 1960," Al explains.  The time portal always goes back to the same moment.  He doesn't know where it came from or how it works, and he hasn't told anyone about it. But now that he's dying, Jake has to take over his goal: to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.  So he wants a random stranger to do the job?

Scene 4:  Jake accepts time travel instantly, but wonders why Al is interested in the JFK assassination.  "Because if JFK lived, he would have stopped U.S. involvement in Vietnam, all those boys would be alive, and the world would return to how it should be, always summer,  primary colors, food that tastes good, polite kids, no divorce (hear that, Jake?), white men in charge (isn't your boss a woman, Jake buddy?), no gay people, and everyone joyful all the time."

Left: 1960s guys.

"Then why haven't you prevented the assassination already?"

Al tells him to go back to 1960, carve something in the tree outside, and see if it's still there today.   

Scene 5: Jake goes back -- same moment. He pushes off the "You don't belong here!" guy, carves JFK while locals glare at him, and rushes back to the present.

Left: Josh Duhamel, who plays Adult Education Student Harry's father, the one who murdered his family on Halloween, 1960.  Yeah, I thought it was fiction, too.

Yep, the carved JFK is still there.  But then it fades away.

"When you return to the present, time will reset.  You can stay for years, but when you get back, it resets. And no matter how long you're away, only two minutes have passed in the present." That's a lot of very precise rules for a magical gateway.

Oh, the reason he suddenly got sick: he went through for two years while Jake was signing the divorce papers.

"So if everything resets, how can I prevent the JFK assassination?"

"You have to go through, and never come back."   

I guess we've established, that Jake hates his job, he has no friends, his wife has divorced him, and his father is dead, so he has nothing to stay in 2016 for -- except the internet, global travel, medical breakthroughs, gay neighborhoods, cultural diversity....but it's a trade-off: life is perfect in the 1960s.   Um...I know this is Stephen King's nostalgic memory, but still, it's a little naive. Ok, a lot naive.   Life wasn't perfect in the 1960s, even for straight white men.

Al has prepared a fake id for him, a lot of early 1960s money, and a notebook full of sports matches to bet on, so he can support himself.  

Jake thinks he is crazy and runs off.

Scene 6: The Adult Education Program graduation.  Everyone is bored, not-engaged, not joyous, and the principal disses Harry, so Jake says "Screw it!  I'm going back to 1960!"

Al's dead, so Jake grabs the stuff, goes to the diner, and heads through the portal.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

Fin Burke: A little shop of horrors, a certain school of magic, and a grave in the clouds. With his boyfriend, some artistic dick pics, and Cole Sprouse

 

I spend over an hour looking for beefcake photos of cast members of Welcome to Derry, and all I found was a potential Chad Root and two of Fin Burke, in his underwear and hugging his boyfriend. He's definitely getting a profile.

Fin, aka Finley, was born in Toronto around 2006.  His mum Dawn worked in the script and continuity department for 125 episodes of Murdoch Mysteries (2008-25), about a 19th century detective (Yannick Bisson).  She has also worked on Goosebumps, American Psycho, Wind at My Back, The Listener, and Children Ruin Everything.

Fin attended Greenwood College High School in Toronto, where he took classes in acting and musical theater and starred in a lot of plays:

Troy Bolton in High School Musical

Wayne Hopkins in Puffs: an orphan boy who is invited to attend a certain school of magic (not that one).

Seymor in Little Shop of Horrors. Who is he dancing with?

Tyler in Public Enemy, about a family dinner "with a surreal twist."  If I'm reading the French correctly, playwright Olivier Choinière is queer, so I imagine there is some gay content.  

He also starred (as a voice on the telephone) in the 2023 short Clara is Awake: A teenage girl gets texts from someone who claims to have met her last summer; "I really miss you.  I know you better than you think."  Ulp.

She texts back: "Leave me alone. I don't know you, and you're being weird."  He doesn't leave her alone.  

He graduated in 2024, and enrolled in the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal as an acting major.

Two on-screen acting credits since:

The first episode of Welcome to Derry (2025): the snarly, critical older brother of "bury your gays" Teddy.

The short Grave in the Clouds (2025): a Jewish man (Steven Hobé) discovers that his teenage son (Fin) has written an essay denying the Holocaust, and introduces him to a survivor. 

Here Fin and his buddy meet former Disney Channel teen Cole Sprouse.  I cropped out the girls; most of Fin's Instagram photos have him hugging a girl.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

"Welcome to Derry": "It" prequel with interesting monsters, Cold War paranoia, 1960s racism, and "bury your gays."

 

I've seen the 1990 miniseries and the 2017/2019 movie adaptions of Stephen King's It, with Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgard (left), respectively, playing the transdimensional "destroyer of worlds" who animates every 27 years to kill kids.  The original novel has a gay character (buried right away), and the 2017/2019 adaption has a gay-subtext guy, played by Jack Dylan Grazer and James Ransone, who sort of comes out in a blink-and-you-miss-it gesture. 

So I don't have high hopes for the tv series Welcome to Derry (2025).  The usual Stephen King heavily closeted and buried-right-away traditions will be compounded by the setting: 1962 (every 27 years, remember?).  But we'll give it a look.

Scene 1: The Music Man (1962) is playing on the big screen.  Young teenager Matty (Miles Eckhardt), sucking on a pacifier, watches.  Manager Cal yells at him for sneaking in without paying, and chases him into the lobby.  A girl covers for him (always kind, nurturing girls and blustering, bullying boys, innit?).  

Notice that it's Christmastime (actually January 4, 1962), and Matty has a black eye, signifying that he's a victim of abuse (obviously --what Stephen King kid hasn't been abused?)

Matty runs out into the snow, past a billboard reading "Welcome to Derry, Birthplace of Paul Bunyan.

Several towns claim to be the birthplace of the folk hero, including Ankely, Minnesota (where they hold Paul Bunyan days every summer), and Bangor, Maine.

Left: Camper at the Bunyan festival.

Matty hitchhikes, and is picked up by a male-female couple, a Wednesday Addams-looking girl, and a young boy who spells out everythiing; "L-I-E-S,"  Not R-E-D-R-U-M? Asked where he's going, Matt says "Anywhere but Derry."

Weird family, bragging that the daughter is "our little harlot," and having the boy spell scary words like "necrosis," "kidnapping," "strangulation," and "cadaver."  "I want out!" Matty screams, and they repeat "Out! Out! Out!"  

Mom gives birth to a bloody bat-winged thing that flies around and attacks everyone before deciding to kill Matty.  

A very impressive scene. But what's with introducing a major character, then killing him off?

Scene 2: Four months later, April 1962.  A Femme Boy  is making a list of the fighter planes that fly by.  

The plane lands, and two soldiers get out: Russo and Hanlon (Jovan Adepo, seen here with his boyfriend in Watchmen). Russo complains about being stationed in small-town Derry, where nothing exciting ever happens, har har.  But the Big Boss notes that as the northernmost air force base in the U.S., it's essential to monitor Soviet air space and prep for Cold War era-nuclear war.  Wasn't Alaska a state in 1962?  

Hanlon has rented a house in town; he and the Missus are longing for "normal."

"Well, if normal is what you're looking for, you're going to love Derry."  Har-har.

Scene 3: Cut to the "idyllic" small town.  A year after Bay of Pigs led the world to the brink of nuclear war, everyone is on edge. At the high school, they practice "duck and cover."

A teen girl walks through the halls, getting stared at and pranked by jars of pickles.  Her friend consoles her.

Meanwhile, Femme Boy tells his boyfriend Teddy (Mikkal Karim Fidler), "We're not alone in the universe."  He doesn't mean gay people, seven years before Stonewall -- he means aliens.  Maybe they have one hidden in the Derry Air Base.  Boyfriend thinks he's crazy.  

"Teddy sucks balls" on his locker. Homophobic or all-purpose slur?

"Did you study for the test?"

"What's the point, when World War III is imminent?"

Femme Boy is played by Jack Molloy Legault, who fills his instagram with photos of his girlfriend (except for this one with the director).  But I assume that Mikkel Karim Fidler is gay in real life because, when his talent agency got him tickets to the advance screening of Karate Kid: Legends, his date was a boy. 

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Russell Posner: The incredibly cute gay teen of "The Mist" plays a politician, gets tied up, shows his dick, and vanishes. With bonus nude Morgan Spector and Jack Black

I used this photo of an incredibly well hung guy as an  illustration for my profile of the Norwegian Fire Viking.  He looks a lot like the incredibly cute Russell Posner, so I thought I would do a profile, on the off chance that they are the same person.

Turns out that the incredibly cute Russell Posner is not too easy to track down.

Famous Birthdays promises "A complete biography," but the complete biography consists of: "Canadian actor, born in 2003." 

Rotten Tomatoes adds: "began acting in commercials while in elementary school, and made his stage debut in Lost in Yonkers in 2012." When he was nine years old?

Broadway World likewise promises a "complete biography," and says only that he starred in The Mist.

His listing on We Audition says only that he's a "New York based actor" 

Trying to find him by googling "Russell Posner" and any of "high school," "college," "theater," "commercials," "Canada," and "actor" yields a guy from Florida who died at age 77 and a postdoctoral researcher in oncology.

Plus a shirtless photo of an incredibly cute guy who doesn't look like him.

Russell has 14 acting credits listed on the IMDB, beginning with the 11 year old son in Eugene! (2012), a tv movie starring Eugene Mirman.

He played the 14-year old son of  Dan Landsman (Jack Black) in The D Train (2015).  Dan is organizing a high school reunion, and tries to get the most popular guy in school, Oliver (James Marsden), to come.  They end up doing some incredibly sexy stuff, but the buns belong to Dan as he gets up from a tryst with his wife.

Next Russell played the son of a journalist who decides to research The Pirates of Somalia (2017).

Russell's most famous work to date is in The Mist (2017), based on the Stephen King novel.  I just read the plot synopsis on the fan wiki, but it sounds incredibly homophobic:

As a murderous mist descends upon the town, high school Adrian (Russell) is at a party with his girlfriend, getting bullied for being gay (wait, that doesn't...).  Later while taking refuge in a hospital, he kisses Tyler (Chris Gray), who beats him up, then relents and agrees to sex.

He is kidnapped by a psych ward patient who sees "the incredible evil" in him.  They must mean being gay.

His Dad says that he could have loved him "in spite of being gay,"  if only he were "right in the head."  In spite of?  

More after the break