River Mardesic: "Loser Day" jock tears up the Melbourne stage, stars in artsy shorts, buddies up to Knox GIbson. Just don't ask if he's gay.

The upcoming A Day for Losers stars Dakota Lotus as a military school cadet who can only win the Girl of His Dreams by throwing an epic party.  To do this, he must avoid the bullyin jocks and befriend all of the outcasts and losers. Wait -- the outcasts and losers are invited to the epic party? 

It sounds super retro, with all of that stupid Girl of His Dreams rhetoric, but it also stars Jacob Sartorius and Benji Kroll, who is gay in real life, so there might be some LGBT representation.  

Checking through the male cast members for beefcake or gay content, I came across River Mardesic, who plays a "High School Jock."  

Unusual name (it's Croatian), no photo, only a few acting credits, but a full Instagram, with some beefcake and even a few bulges.  I'm going in for a closer look.  The IMDB is incomplete, so I'll check his Instagram in backwards chronological order.

In 2025, he flies from Australia to the U.S. to appear in A Day for Losers.

 

And he starred in Home Alone: The Australian Musical, "an immersive parody of the classic film with an Australian twist." Jasper McDonald Parsons (center) plays a teenage Kevin, accidentally left home alone when his family flies off to Port Arthur for a Christmas holiday.  

Older brother Buzz (River, next to him) is "an eshay looking for love.  It's a youth subculture given to toxic masculinity and pig Latin, but apparently he gets into a relationship with Gus (John Rochford), an adaption of the Polka king who gave Kevin's mom a ride back to Chicago in the original.

In 2024, River appeared in A Weekend at Nan's, a short film by Matt Harris, which had several local showings before going off to the festivals. The ad says "bring your family and friends."

In 2023, he starred in the short film Speech, directed by Charles Laversha, which won awards at four film festivals. Lloyd (River) has to read a speech by a historic figure to his class.  Then he finds out that the speech was given by a dictator.

In 2022, he was cast in the Wonder Years remake, with the grown-up Dean Williams (Don Cheadle, left), narrating the story of his childhood in Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1960s.  River was going to play the buddy of the teenage Dean, but  due to the COVID lockdown, he couldn't leave Australia. Julian Lerner got the role.

More after the break

Madden Zook: 5 soul-winning movies and 3,000 girl-hugging photos prove that he's straight, right? Plus some nude ballet dudes

 

Madden Zook, who just appeared as #50 most popular on the Teen Idol website, looks like a model -- a little skinny, but with one of those "ratboy" faces that are all the rage. 

No question that he's straight in real life. 90% of his photos show him hugging, kissing, smooching, and licking girls.  Oh, here's one where she is just sniffing his bicep.

The girl-hugging would usually disqualify a guy from further research, but I was fascinated: the heterosexism was so very, very over the top, absurdly excessive.   Lots of straight guys devote most of their social media to hugging and kissing The Girl of Their Dreams, but every single photo on his Instagram and Facebook?  Dozens of them? What are you trying to prove, buddy? 

Ok, I found one with no girl. She must be taking the photo.    

So, how did Zook become a teen idol? Hugging and kissing girls won't make you famous. He must have done some acting or singing at some point.    

He has five acting credits on the IMDB:

Laps (2018): Swimmer Mitchell (Brayden Benson, center) is being bullied, so he tells the swim coach (Ian Lang).  That's progressive.  When I was a kid, the teachers said "You have to settle your own disputes," and my Dad enrolled me in judo lessons.  Didn't help.

Zook (left) and Cameron Judd (right) play the bullies. 

It was written and directed by Ian Lang, whose Internet biography reads: "And we know that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to his purpose" -Romans 8:28. 

Maybe Zook is fundamentalist, and hugs and kisses a lot of girls to prove that he's not "that way" in spite of his swishiness? 

Answer after the break