Danny Pintauro: When the "Who's the Boss" star is outed, Hollywood turns (more) homophobic. With HIV awareness and n*de photos (of adults)
North of North: Inuit lady, her gay bestie, some paranormal, some Inuk culture, and a lot of Inuk hunks. With Jay's junk and a bonus n*de dude
North of North (2025) appeared without warning on my Netflix list: a woman feels stifled in her tiny village in the Artic. I can relate to that, so let's go.
Scene 1: While showering (only shoulders visible), a young woman named Siaja explains that she's from as far north as you've ever been. I think that's Calgary in the Western Hemisphere, and maybe Oslo in Europe. Then much farther north than that: Ice Cove, Nunavut.
A quirky Canadian small town and Inuit culture? I'm there.
Siaja has achieved the Canadian Dream, with a husband and child. Only now husband Ting (Kelly William, top photo) is the Golden Boy of the town, and she's only known as his wife.
First up: he gets to drive the car to the Spring Festival, while she has to haul the supplies on a lame Ski-Doo (snowmobile).
Scene 2: She drops in at Mom's very nice house -- lots of windows -- and announces that because it's a new year, she's going to apply for a job. Mom dispproves: you're a wife and mother.
Mom opens the store next door, which sells artisanal soap and miscellaneous stuff. Suddenly her hookup from last night walks in, shirtless. Siaja asks where he was in 1998 -- he could be her father! He scrams.
Mom criticizes her for scaring all of her hookups away. How many hookups could she get in a town of about 2,000 with no tourist trade and the nearest neighbor 300 miles away?
Left: I think the Handsome Man is played by Jeff Roup. who shows his d*ck or a prosthetic here.
A blond woman named Helen, apparently the town mayor, comes in complaining about the 14-hour days that supervising the festival takes, while other town business just sits there. Siaja butters her up with coffee and suggests other cultural activities spread through the year. Didn't you just hear her? And she wants to be hired as a full-time cultural manager.
"Nope. You have zero work experience and no leadership skills."
"But I see life and beauty in everything!" At that moment, a guy walks in, wanting to know where to put the fish heads.
Scene 4: While Radio Announcer Colin (Bailey Poching) and a purple-haired woman are discussing how much partying to do tonight, Siaja comes into their office and screams. Helen didn't even look at her job proposal.
Left: Bailey Poching is gay in real life.
"Why do you want a job anyway?"
"To make our community a better place...ok, I want something of my own."
"But Inuit culture is all about community. Your own needs are irrelevant."
When Helen comes in to order the others to get back to work, Siaja asks for a chance. Couldn't you get a job, like, somewhere else? Ok, a petition to prove that the town wants a cultural director. 500 signatures -- but that's a quarter of the town! -- by tonight!
More after the break
Blake Michael: The "Dog with a Blog" brother starts a band, stalks a teacher, vanishes into corporate. With Blake and Dano dicks
I haven't been watching Disney Channel programs regularly since the days of Hannah Montana, so all I heard of Dog with a Blog (2012-15) was buzz about how ridiculous the premise was: three kids discover that their dog is sentient, can talk, and actually has a blog where he discusses his experiences and tries to find other dogs. How is that more ridiculous than a pop star pretending to be a regular girl, both daughters of a famous country-western music singer, and no one suspecting for an instant?
Critics lambasted the show for its "lackluster writing' and absence of any actual blogging, but it averaged 3 million viewers in the first season, and was nominated for three Emmies. The main players appear to be Chloe and Avery, two tween sisters from a blended family, but there was also a teenage brother, Tyler (Blake Michael).
Plus Dad Bennett (Regan Burns) and Avery's enemy/crush (L.J. Benet), who now has abs but smiling smugly as girls in bikinis surround him.
He had a starring role in Lemonade Mouth (2011), which I never saw because I thought the term referred to some kind of terminal cancer. It's actually the name of a bad that five high schoolers who start a band -- I guess disgusting names are de rigeur for rock bands. The boys are Charlie (Blake) and Wen (Adam Hicks). Both get girlfriends, and the remaining girl gets a boyfriend, and so on, and so on. Heteronormativity fulfilled.
It's a little tangential, but Adam Hicks is known as one of the Disney Channel's skateboarding dudebros on Zeke and Luther (2009-12). His partner, Hutch Dano, has retired from acting to become a painter.
Gemstones Episode 4.7, Continued: Teenjus meets the Devil. So does Kelvin. With a gay Christian, Jordanian junk, and Dustin's d*ck
Previous: Gemstones Episode 4.7: Kelvin and Pontius have their nards threatened, Gideon finds his voice, and skaters show their d*cks
Teenjus Meets the Devil: The TV the studio in Goose Creek, about 30 miles from Charleston, which Baby Billy characterizes as the "middle of nowhere." (And there is a Middle of Nowhere Bar and Grill in town).
An Eight Ball and $2 Million: The Board Room. Baby Billy yells at Judy and Jesse for cutting his Teenjus budget by 29%, Instead of a cement factory in Goose Creek, he should be in Jordan "filming in some Muslim tombs."
Family Visitors: Jesse is going through Kelvin's house, looking for him. He checks the foyer, a hallway with baseball-sized gummi bears mounted on the wall, the bedroom, and then back to the foyer. Nitpick: The bedroom is on the ground floor. In Season 2, it was on the second floor.
Cut to Kelvin lying on blankets in his tree house, eating Fiddle Faddle and Bugles and playing with his monster movie toys, when Jesse and Judy knock on the door. They flew up in jetpacks!
Check out the cool prop photo of Kelvin and Keefe hugging. It will be used as the cover of their wedding announcement. Don't complain about spoilers, we all know that it's going to happen.