Max Casella after dating Doogie: Christian Bale's buddy, Tony Soprano's driver, Timon, Bottom, bi. With a small d*ck bonus.

 

In the early 1990s, if your parents belong to a certain socioeconomic class, you were required to watch ABC's ultra-conservative programming block on Wednesday nights: 

The Wonder Years, with Fred Savage as a boy winning the Girl of His Dreams in the 1960s.

Home Improvement, with Tim Allen grunting with tools.

Coach, with Craig T. Nelson as a...football coach.

And Doogie Howser, MD, with Neil Patrick Harris as a 16-year old who somehow managed to finish medical school, become a doctor, and get girls.

I wasn't of a certain age, I was not living with parents of a certain socioeconomic class, so on Wednesday nights I was watching Seinfeld.   Not Doogie Howser, because of its ridiculous premise and "Girls are the meaning of life!" ideology.  

 But I did notice Max Casella, who played Doogie's buddy: 22-26 years, "cute as a bug's ear," as the oldsters would say, and a member of the Short Guy Brigade at 5'7".

As everyone knows, Neil Patrick Harris came out a few years after Doogie, and for some inscrutable reason agreed to play "himself' in the homophobic Harold & Kumar movies and heterosexual horndog Barney on How I Met Your Mother (2005-14).  More recently, in Uncoupled (2022), he played a gay man dealing with the death of his partner and suddenly becoming single at midlife. 

But what has Max Casella been doing?

I'm researching the three standard questions: 

1. Any gay roles?

2. Gay in real life?

3. Any n*ude photos?  

1. Any gay roles?

In Newsies (1992), a Disney movie about the newsboys' strike of 1899, Max plays Racetrack Higgins, who may be gay or bisexual.  When focus character Jack (Christian Bale) says that they can't beat up the newsboys who refuse to join the strike, he "jokingly" suggests kissing them.

In Ed Wood (1994), the biopic of the director known for crossdressing, Glen or Glenda? and Plan 9 from Outer Space, Max plays Paul Marco, the gay actor who often starred in Wood's films.  His sexual identity is not mentioned here.

Later Max moved into animation, voicing characters on Pepper Anne, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Kim Possible; and video games such as Jak and Daxter (a humanoid elf and his previously-human otter-weasel buddy) and Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony (he doesn't voice Gay Tony).

He appeared in 28 episodes of The Sopranos (2001-07) as Benny Fazio, who is partnered with Chris Moltisanti and sometimes works as Capo Tony's driver.  He's married with children.

Inside Llewelyn Davis (2013) depicts a day in the life of the folk singer (Oscar Davis) in the early 1960s Greenwich Village scene.  Max plays Club Manager Pappi Corsicato, who has sex with Llewelyn's girl.

Tulsa King (2024-): Sylvester Stallone plays a mob boss who tries to start a new cosa nostra among the Oklahoma cowboys.  Max plays Manny Truisi, formerly a soldier in the Invernizzi Family, who tried to assassinate Stallone's Dwight, then fled. and started a new life working on a horse ranch.  He's got a wife and kid.

More after the break.  

"Hell of a Summer": Six gay, bi, and "not into labels" guys work together to prove that gay people don't exist. And there's a psycho-slasher.

I haven't reviewed many movies lately because I've been burned several times.  

There are promos of two men gazing longingly at each other, but it turns out that they are about to fight, not kiss.  

There are trailers with guys buddy-bonding and no girls, but when you click "play," you get five minutes of a man and woman in bed.  

There are movies starring 35 gay male actors, and every single one of them is playing a straight guy.  

For example, the summer camp psych-slasher movie Hell of a Summer (2023) just dropped on Hulu with an icon featuring three obviously gay guys staring at a bloody axe.  

When I checked the cast list, I discovered that five of the top seven male cast members are gay or bi in real life.  

Obviously this will be a movie about a group of gay guys fighting a psycho-slasher.

Time to check the trailer.

Scene 1: Jason loves Camp Pineaway so much that he returns year after year.  Now age 24, he gives a "welcome" speech to the new counselors, with the rules: no smoking, no drinking, no cell phones.

Jason is played by Fred Hechinger (top photo and icon left), who is heterosexual but played the "I'm gay but the skittish producers won't let me say so" Emperor Caracalla in Gladiator II.

Scene 2:  The campers haven't arrived yet, so the counselors party.  I don't notice any boy-girl coupling. The extremely femme Chris arrives with his boyfriend Bobby, and yells "Hey, Girl!" at a girl named Shannon.

Chris is played by Finn Wolfhard (icon right), who is "bisexual." Usually this means attracted to men and women, but apparently Finn means attracted exclusively to men but not wanting to say "gay," just in case he may be attracted to a woman in the distant future.

Boyfriend Bobby is played by Finn's real-life boyfriend Billy Bryk (left and icon center).  He is "not into labels," meaning "gay, but afraid to admit it because then people might think he was gay or something."

Finn and Billy are also the writers and directors.  This is their project.

Scene 3: Later, femme Chris kisses Shannon?  WTF?

And brags to boyfriend Bobby that he performed oral sex on her.   Why isn't the boyfriend upset?  Are you a feminine-presenting heterosexual with a gay bestie, Girlfriend?  That's a big gay tease.

Left: Two gay guys to tide you over.  This is going to get rocky.

More after the break

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

"Caravaggio's Shadow": As time goes by, the gay Baroque painter becomes more and more straight. With nude Italian men

When my generation was growing up, teachers, reference books, and movies always presented historical figures as absolutely, undeniably straight.  My paperback copy of The Importance of Being Earnest said that Oscar Wilde was imprisoned "on scandalous charges."  I asked the teacher what those charges were. She said she didn't know.

In the 1980s, we started to uncover the "lies, secrets, and silence," reveal the gay men and lesbians of the past who had been denied us.  We collected them like beacons of hope in a homophobic world: Plato, Aristotle, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, Gertrude Stein, Michelangelo...and Caravaggio (1571-1610), who introduced the Baroque style of bright, naturalistic color to Italy, who scandalized the art world by using thieves, beggars, and prostitutes as models for religious-themed paintings.  And who was gay.

Everybody in West Hollywood went to Caravaggio (1986), by filmmaker Derek Jarman (who announced that he was gay later that year). We were expecting a lot of cute Italian guys (there are some), and hoping that they would be nude (no). 

We were also hoping that Caravaggio would be presented as gay, but resigned to the likelihood that he would be straightwashed: turned heterosexual, or mostly heterosexual (a few men as trivial dalliances as he pursued the Woman of His Dreams).  

He was straightwashed.

As a child and teenager, the artist (Dexter Fletcher, left), is the victim of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.  This "turns him" gay, or rather pansexual. 

As an adult (Nigel Terry), he is a decadent figure like something out of a Pasolini film, consorting with men and women, although he prefers women.   He seduces both Raduccio (Sean Bean) and his girlfriend Lena.  But Raduccio is just a dalliance; the heterosexual romance is True Love.  Then Raduccio kills Lena, and a distraught Caravaggio kills him.  Gay lives must always end in tragedy.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Matt Crabtree: Shy, quiet, stuttering Southern boy grows up to "Modern Family," "Will and Grace," one-man shows, and dicks

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Brendan Scannell: M&M Guy, queer Heather, bondage top, stand-up comedian. With the boyfriend and Joel Kim Booster

When I reviewed the Disney Channel's long, tediously careful coming-out story Diary of a Future President, I didn't recognize the M&M guy, Brendan Scannell.  But he starred in a Netflix tv series that I reviewed, Bonding (2018, 2021), one of those semi-autobiographical series featuring the early experiences of a gay comedian (Rightor Doyle, not Brendan).

The bonding on my other website means male bonding, gay-subtext friendships. This bonding is BDSM.

Psychology student Tiff gets a job as a dominatrix (heterosexual BDSM top), and talks her friend, aspiring comedian Pete (Brendan), into becoming her assistant.  Well, he gets to touch hot guys' willies, and most heterosexual BDSM scenes don't involve vanilla sex. Besides, he's sort of bi.

Episodes involve learning the ropes of BDSM (har har),  quirky clients, Pete introducing his BDSM experiences into his comedy act, and both of them facing the problem of how to tell romantic partners about their job. Pete dates Josh (Theo Stockman), and Tiff Doug (Micah Stock, left).

Alex Hurt, left, plays Pete's wacky roommate, who is sort of straight.

I found it a bit too cliched, depending on silly stereotypes, especially of clients.  Plus a bit too heterosexual for a gay coming out story: Pete is sort of in love with Tiff.

Brendan has 25 acting credits listed on the IMDB, beginning with heterosexual roles like a disgruntled husband in  Limp and Crunchy (2015) and disgruntled prank victim bait in Kill Game (2016).  

But he got to be gay, or rather queer (wearing feminine outfits and use they/them pronouns) as Heather Duke in the 2018 tv version of Heathers.  In case you haven't seen the 1988 movie or 2010 musical, it's not a comedy.  There are multiple murders and suicides, plus blowing up the prom.

More after the break

"Getaway": Nick Frost and his gay son vs. a creepy Swedish ritual and a transphobic stereotype. With Kit Conner and a stunt d*ck

Getaway or Get away, either "a holiday" or "someone is chasing you!" is a 2024 vanity project, written by, directed by, and starring Nick Frost, who has played the sidekick in several Simon Pegg movies.  But it also stars Sebastian Croft of Heartstopper: he plays the closeted boyfriend that Charlie (Joe Locke) has before he starts dating Nick (Kit Connor, below).  

Sebastian is "not into labels," but he supports queer causes: his line of Queer Past clothing supports LGBT refugees.  So maybe his character will be gay.

Scene 1:  Dad Richard (Nick), Mom Susan, teenage son Sam (Sebastian), and teenage daughter Jessie are heading on a holiday (vacation) through Sweden, with Finland as a stand-in.  Their destination is the island of Svalta, where in 1824 the islanders quarantined themselves for fear of a deadly flu pandemic. Two and a half years later, when British soldiers checked, most of the islanders had died of starvation, or turned to cannibalism. The soldiers were murdered.  Why are the British checking on an island in Sweden? 

They mention that it's near Kristianstad in northern Sweden.

Every ten years the islanders commemorate the event with an eight-hour long play, Karantan.  Really? Not every year?  Jews have yahrzeits to remember their dead loved one every year.  

Scene 2: Two Days Until Karantan.  They arrive at a horrible cafe at the port.  The surly owner snarls and mocks their weird menu requests, like cheese on a hamburger  (well, the Ugly Americans didn't even try to speak Swedish.  Wait, they're Brits).

Like every horror movie ever, he warns them not to go to the island. There are no hotels -- "no worries, we have a B&B" -- and the islanders hate outsiders, especially during Karantan.  

Then why is there a ferry several times a day?  And why do they have a tourism brochure?  Oh, wait, I know why.  I've seen "Midsommer" and "The Ritual"

Son and Daughter find a decapitated bird, but that's not a sign or anything.  Off they go. Whoops, Dad left his wallet on the bar.

Scene 3: The ferry lady has never heard of outsiders going to Svalta before, and warns that they'll be stuck for three days.  Dad goes to fetch his wallet.  Why did they bother with the "leaving it" bit?

Left: Nick's dick, actually a stunt cock. Not from this movie.

Cut to the ferry, with islanders glaring like they want to attack.   When they dock, a crowd of islanders is staring at them and growling.  Finally Commune Leader Klara asks what they are doing there.

"We've come to see your play."

"Billy Elliot is a play.  Grease: the Musical is a play.  Karantan is our life."  The isolated islanders get around.

She orders them to go back to the mainland: "You are not welcome here."  I'd be outta there, but Mom insists on staying. Otherwise be lousy story.

Mom tells them that one of her ancestors died here: he was one of the British soldiers murdered by the islanders during the quarantine.  So that's why they are so adamant about staying?  She wants revenge or something?

Scary lady licks her face to force her to leave, but at that moment Matts (Eero Milanoff) appears and tells the islanders that it's ok, he rented them his mother's house. They growl, but what can you do?  

Scene 4: At the house, Matts tells a long story about his mother walking across the ice to get married in 1974, and dying 10 years ago at the age of 91, beheaded in her favorite chair. So she was 50 when she married?

Then he creepily sneaks up on Teenage Daughter.  I can't tell if she likes him or not. 

Scene 5: While Mom and Dad cook dinner, and Teenage Son complains about the lack of cell phone service, Teenage Daughter takes a bath (five minute long closeup of her boobs).  She hears a shuffling noise, and investigates, but finds nothing.

More after the break

"And Just Like That": Carrie's return has elitism, bisexuals, dongs, musems, marital spats, s'mores, and shoes. Lots of shoes.

I never watched Sex and the City when it first aired on HBO (1998-2004), although I knew about Mr. Big (Chris Noth), for obvious reasons.  Who wants to watch four super-entitled New York-centric ladies having lunch? The only episode I watched featured Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) investigating bisexuals for her "Sex and the City" newspaper column.  

Her conclusion: they are all gay, and fooling themselves.  Bisexuals don't exist. 

So much for bi representation. 

Researching this review, I discovered that Carrie has a stereotypic gay best friend with the incredible name Stanford Blatch (why, was Bruce Van Swishington taken?).  

Having never watched the original, I've never been interested in the 2021-25 sequel, And Just Like That (presumably the title means that 20 years have passed "just like that"). But I've seen n*de guys parading around on occasion, and the plot synopses mention several LGBTQ characters.  We'll see if the portrayals are cringy.

I'll identify the five main ladies by their careers.  From left to right, Filmmaker Lisa, Art Dealer Charlotte, Columnist Carrie, Realtor Seema, Lawyer Miranda. 

Episode 3.5, "Under the Table," has three main plot threads.

The Charlotte/Lisa Plot:

Scene 1: The Guggenheim.  I love that museum.  Wait -- they didn't visit, they're just walking past. Art Dealer Charlotte's boyfriend Harry (Evan Handler) reveals that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, but they found it early, so he has a 98% chance of full recovery. 

In other news, they're going glamping (glamor camping) with the kids at Governors Island this weekend.

Scene 2:  Nuclear family breakfast in a huge, super-elegant kitchen. Filmmaker Lisa won't be back from filming her documentary until late Friday, so she tells her husband, Herbert Wexley (wow, what unrealistic entitled name), to take their children to Governors Island for glamping with Charlotte and her boyfriend. 

Husband is played by Chris Jackson

Wait -- this is the first he's heard of it. "No, I've told you several times." "No you haven't."

 

"Sorry, I can't do it.  I have a photo shoot for my campaign."  He has to pretend to be a "regular guy," eat one of those...um...frankfurter sausage things...and ride on the...you know, the poor people train...the subway.  

"You can do the 'regular guy' shoot on Monday, " Filmmaker Lisa commands. "This weekend we're going glamping with the Goldblatts."

Scene 3: Art Dealer Charlotte is trying to cook, but she's too distracted.  Her friend Anthony (Mario Cantone, left) asks if she's ok. 

Her children, a girl and a nonbinary person, ask if they can skip glamping.  "No, you're going" It's important because her boyfriend has prostate cancer, but he doesn't want them knowing that.

Scene 4: Governors Island (no apostrophe), just south of Manhattan, with views of the skyline.   The nonbinary child notes that there's a spa and go-karts. 

Art Dealer Charlotte's boyfriend complains about the mosquitos. 

 Filmmaker Lisa bursts in, and her husband criticizes her for being late. "Well, four hours ago, I was in Atlanta."  Then they bicker because one of them told the other to buy chocolate to make s'mores.  This couple is on the outs.

Scene 5: A tent big enough for three beds and a living room set. The boyfriend and the kids are lounging around, playing on their cell phones, when Art Dealer Charlotte bursts in and complains that they should be doing outdoor activities. They refuse. My parents used to say that on family vacations.  "You shouldn't be lounging around the cabin reading comic books.  Go enjoy the outdoors."  

How does one "enjoy" the outdoors? It's a place you go through on the way to enjoying things.

Meanwhile, Filmmaker Lisa and her husband bicker. She takes a photo of him and their kids.  When he looks at it, he accidentally scrolls to the last one she took: a selfie with her editor Marion (Mehcad Brooks).

"Are you having an affair with Michael B. Handsome?  Talk about getting your chocolate in Atlanta!"

"No, it's just a work crush."

He continues to growl, so Lisa stomps off, and runs into Charlotte at the pier.  They complain about their partners, and decide to ditch them and take a spa day. 

Cut to the spa. Close up of ladies in bikinis.  They're really pushing the heterosexual male gaze. 

Carrie/Miranda and Seema after the break

Miles Heizer: Gay and nearly-gay roles, a real-life girlfriend and several boyfriends, plus a penis and Guy's Bar

I am certainly going to visit a bar full of  guys, even if it's spelled wrong.

Or is Guy the owner, so it's Guy's bar?

I'm going either weay, but I'm not sure if Miles Heizer wants to come along.

You probably remember Miles from Parenthood (2010-2015), the sitcom with Craig T. Nelson and his four children and eight grandchildren.  It was like Modern Family without the diversity.  Miles played grandson Drew Holt: shy, sensitive, artistic, but still girl-crazy, with several girlfriends fighting over him.

The Greenville, Kentucky native was born in 1994, and began acting in 2005, with many guest spots before Parenthood, plus Rails & Ties (2007), about a young boy who survives a catastrophic train crash, and Rudderless (2014), about a father grieving over his dead son.

He had some gay-positive roles after Parenthood.

In Love, Simon (2018), he plays Cal, who the closeted Simon mistakenly identifies as Blue, another closeted teen who posts about his experiences online.  Cal is not, but he offers an ear if Simon wants to talk, suggesting that he may be bisexual, or at least an ally.

In 13 Reasons Why (2017-20), which spends three seasons explaining why a high school girl killed herself, Miles plays Alex Standell, who kisses his boyfriend Timothy Granaderos, after they are named prom kings, and everyone in the school applauds. 

He also gives us a n*de scene.  Wait, that's a woman you're on top of.  What gives?

According to Wikipedia, he dates Jessica in Seasons 1-3, then Winston Williams (Deaken Bluman) and Charlie St. George (Tyler Barnhart) in Season 4. 

Wait -- AZ Nude Men says that Miles is  kissing Timothy Granaderos (left), but the fan wiki says Charlie St. George.  Granaderos plays Montgomery de la Cruz, a series antagonist who hooks up with guys, but isn't actually gay. 

Take your pick.  

After 13 Reasons, Miles appeared in two podcast series, Undertow: Narcosis and The Sisters.

He also starred in The Ex-Husbands (2023): a Manhattan dentist (Griffin Dunne of American Werewolf in London gets dumped by his wife, so he flies out to Tulum to crash his son's bachelor party. Whoops, that son gets dumped, too. Miles plays another brother, who is gay and therefore doesn't have to worry about marriage (um...gay marriage happens?)

It gets weird after the break

Riley Polanski: From Xanadu to Silverlake, with n*de photos and bonus Michael J. Fox

Instagram recommended another guy I never heard of: Riley Polanski.  Be sure to include the -n, or you'll get a lot of ladies.  I checked the IMDB to make sure he's an actor.  But before looking at his work, let's check his Instagram to see if he is gay.

Over 150 posts, a lot of muscle-shots (nice swimmer's build), architecture, design, music. No girl-hugging in the first 100 or so, unless you look very carefully: notice the girl in the top photo on the far left, and just behind him next to the handbags in this photo.  

Nicely decorated apartment, but if you look carefully, you'll see a framed 1960 ad from Christian Dior, with a swimsuit lady in the forground.

The last 50 posts display girl-hugging all the way down.

And no guy-hugging. This looks promising, but Riley states that this is his best friend, not a boyfriend, and they're at the Hotel Cafe on Cahuenga, just south of Hollywood Boulevard, near the famous corner of Hollywood and Vine: one of the more heterosexual parts of Los Angeles, a good three miles from the border of West Hollywood.  Dudes are straight.

I pieced together a biography from the IMDB, Backstage, Facebook, and Linkedin.  Riley was born in Pomona, California in 2000, and started acting when he was 10 years old: the Western 6- Guns (2010),  starring 1980s staples Barry Van Dyke and Greg Evigan; Airline Disaster (2011), starring former Family Ties cast members Meredith Baxter-Birney and Scott Valentine; Baseball, Dennis, & the French (2011). 

Left:  In case you are interested, the first celebrity I met when I moved to Los Angeles was Michael J. Fox, who played Alex on "Family Ties."

We just had lunch, but I told my friends that it was an energetic hookup.

  

When he was a teenager, Riley had to put his career on hold due to "family illness." He still performed, in Mulan at the Claremont United Methodist Church (2015) and Xanadu at Claremont High School (2017), and he won second place at the California State Thesbian Festival.

He graduated from Claremont High in 2018 and enrolled in Pasadena City College.  During the next two years, Riley worked as a production assistant on You're the Worst, with Stephen Schneider, and did a lot of acting, primarily in student films:

Worthless Words (USC): "A world where your words are controlled."

The Cup (St. Mary's University MFA): Two aspiring actors encounter a 1920s flapper.

Paz (Chapman University MFA): An abused girl finds strength in a spiritual connection.

Alice In/Somnia (2020): a girl in the Sleep waiting room has to deal with bureacracy.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.