Cloverfield: Come for the alien invasion, stay for Godzilla. With Vogel butt, Hud dick, and endless misdirection.

 

For movie night last night, we saw Cloverfield (2008).  I don't usually review movies from that long ago, but there are some nice nude photos of the cast, the utter lack of LGBTQ representation requires comment (this scene is just a tease), and I have some questions.

The first is: we thought that it would be thematically linked to The Cloverfield Paradox (2018), about a space station that accidentally gets zapped into a parallel universe.  But there's no connection except the name.  Cloverfield (2008) is a "found footage" movie, presenting a videotape that was found in the ruins of what used to be called Central Park, no doubt dug up by archaeologists thousands of years after our civilization was destroyed by an alien invasion.

There's a prelude that is not connected to the rest of the movie in any way: An extremely wealthy middle-aged man films the ruins of New York from his apartment.  There are many fires below, so no doubt the Apocalypse has already begun.  He awakens his wife, and they discuss how much they love each other and kiss a lot.  He takes his shirt off, but this was a DVD, so I couldn't get a screen shot, and I can't find him in the cast list.  

We cut to an interminable party with a huge number of immensely rich young adults, all white except for the token black guy, having interminable boring conversations and being elitist (they're shocked when a lady knows who Superman is).  Are straight people's lives really this boring?  

The takeaways from the endless boredom are:

1. This is a going-away party for Rob (Michael Stahl-David, top photo and left).  He's moving to Japan tomorrow to take a huge, huge promotion with a massive, multi-million dollar pay increase.  We never find out what his job is, but I assume it will have something to do with saving the world from the alien invasion.  

2. His friends don't think he should go, because he'll have to leave his girlfriend, Beth, who is the most beautiful woman in the world, and way too good for him.  It's a miracle that someone that beautiful wanted to be with him in the first place, and he'll never find anyone close, so why would he give her up?

3. Ron and Girlfriend Beth argue, and she goes home.  Turns out that he  had sex with Lily. his brother's girl, so now Beth wants to dump him.  Fortunately his brother Jason (Mike Vogel, left) doesn't know. yet.

4. Rob's friend Hud (TJ Miller, below) is filming the party, and asking for testimonials from people, but mostly stalking the Girl of His Dreams, Marlena, who seems to be an extremely famous fashion model.   She is not at all interested, but he keeps trying.  All women have stories about that obnoxious guy who refuses to take "no" for an answer: that's Hud.

Suddenly there's a news story about an oil tanker that overturned in New York Harbor, near the Statue of Liberty.  The apartment is in Lower Manhattan -- they can see Harbor from the roof, so they all go up to look.  There's a power blackout, and rockets zoom over the city, some exploding.  They're being invaded!

Rob says "I know what started this. I saw it."  We flash back to the subway, where he's filming his girl, and accidentally catches a sinister-looking bald man, who gets up from his seat. That scene is repeated several times, but it is never explained.  It's an alien invasion, not a terrorist attack. 

Everyone runs outside.  Suddenly the head of the Statue of Liberty crashes onto the street!  With a stick up her nose.

More zaps from alien spacecraft zooming across the sky.  Plus a giant monster is  smashing into buildings, and smaller, human-size spider-beings are killing people.  This seems like an inefficient weapon for an  invasion.  

Everyone runs into an all-night bodega. That is, Rob, Brother Jason, Lily (Jason's girl, whom he slept with), Cameraman Hud (left and below), and the Famous Model. The promo says that there are six friends; this is just five.  Will they be joined by someone else later?

The other party guests scatter. 

The police or military tell everyone to evacuate the city by crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.  Except it is bombed by the aliens, and they have to return to Manhattan.

Rob talks on his cell phone to someone, but all we hear are clicks.  Then he says "I know what I have to do," and heads toward the monster!  Obviously he was talking to the aliens, and now is under their control.  This is never resolved.

They try to take subway tunnels, where they are attacked by the spider-monsters.  The Famous Model is bitten.  Fortunately, they find a triage unit set up in a department store, but it's too late for the Famous Model: she starts coughing blood, and dies.  

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

Will Buie Jr.: Another Bunk'd hunk shows his stuff, then turns out to be straight. With queer codes, tall grass, daytime divas, and Jake junk

 

When Will Buie Jr. (right) appeared on the my teen idol feed, I noticed right away that he has a buddy and a nice chest. Two good signs.

The first twenty or so photos in his file show him with buddies.  I like how they are in non-revealing outfits, but Will takes any opportunity to show off his chest. 

And his "Pullin" underwear.   You gonna pull it yourself, or do you need a buddy to pull for you?

But lots of straight guys have buddies, and...um...pull things.  Next I'll check Will's acting career for gay or gay-subtext roles.

His on-screen career begins in 2017, when he was ten years old, with the movies   Gifted and The Last Movie Star, episodes of  Red Blooded, and Modern Family, plus a recurring role in Daytime Divas, about five feuding hosts of a morning talk show.  One of the divas is pansexual, and another has an 8-year old trans daughter,  which is a problem for her transphobic husband. Will plays the girl's brother. 

Queer-adjacent.  A good sign.

 McKinley Freeman (left) plays...um..well, who cares?  He's on the show.

In 2018, Will was cast in Bunk'd, a Disney Channel teencom featuring the counselors at a never-ending summer camp.  He continued for 69 episodes (2018-2024) as Finn Sawyer (Huck Finn-Tom Sawyer, get it?). 

LGBT people appear in only one episode of Bunk'd:  In 2023, Camper Winnie gets a visit from her older brother (Jacob Haran) and his boyfriend (Frankie Rodriguez of Chad Powers).  Each reveals that he intends to propose at the camp, but keep it a secret. 

However, Karan Brar (Ravi) came out as bi 2023, and at least three other cast members are gay or probably gay: Luke Busey (Jake), Kevin Quinn (Xander), and Nate Stone, left (Timmy).    

More after the break

The shirtless parking valets: A shock of joy on "Suburgatory" on the night before Thanksgiving. With Mohr and Parker butts and a lot of bare chests

When I was growing up, you almost never saw a bare chest on tv.  On the rare occasions when it happened -- Denny Miller surfs to Gilligan's Island, Ponch and Jon hit the beach on CHIPS, Kevin poses for an art class on Mr. Belvedere -- you felt an intense, palpable joy.  Not desire so much as understanding.  This is it, what we were made for. Beauty.  Truth.  The Eternal Masculine. 

With the advent of cable and then streaming tv, nearly every actor took off his shirt frequently, and some even put their butts and cocks on display.  And of course we can go online and see 100 naked men before breakfast. When you see it all the time, that shock of joy vanishes.  

But it returned on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011, the night before Thanksgiving, when Suburgatory aired Episode 1.8, "Thanksgiving."

Suburgatory (2011-14) starred Jeremy Sisto (left, showing his sausage) as George Altman, an architect who moves his teenage daughter Tessa (Jane Levy) from Manhattan to Chatswin, Connecticut.  She is not pleased, but she tries to find some semblance of cool amid the Mean Girls, Dumb Jocks, and Ladies Who Lunch.

It was not our favorite show -- mostly women in the cast, a lot of heterosexism, and some low-key gay stereotyping -- but it aired between The Middle and Modern Family, so we had no choice.

Left: George's butt.

In Episode 1.8, it's Thanksgiving in Chatswin, and Tessa is upset because Dad George has rejected their traditional Manhattan activities for dinner with the ultra-rich Dallas Royce.  In the B Plot, Tessa's friend Lisa is upset because her middle-class Mom, Sheila Shay, insists that she wear a "Puritan dress" to their Thanksgiving Dinner.

 When Tessa and Dad George arrive at the Royce mansion, they see shirtless valets parking the guests' cars.  

Whoa, that shock of joy came rushing back!  

Maybe because it was so unexpected.  Who hires shirtless valets?  Especially at Thanksgiving, when it's in the 30s and 40s out?  And there are twelve people at that party. Why do they need four valets?  

Director Alex Hardcastle was not even trying to be realistic. He presented us with a vision of masculine beauty to counterbalance the feminine vibe of the rest of the episode (spoiler alert: Tessa's friend Lisa spends about ten minutes of air time naked, in protest of that Puritan dress). 

The first Indian Valet vanishes immediately, but when George's friend Noah hands his car keys to the second, we get a bare chest and shoulders close-up.  He looks like a college athlete.

He disappears, but as Noah walks toward the door, we see the two Pilgrim valets, one extremely muscular, the other a rather thin twink.  No closeups, but they are visible for several seconds, organizing the various parking slips.

Later we get quick glimpses of the two Indian Valets at the Royce table,  so they must be Royce relatives co-opted for the job.  The Pilgrim Valets are visible at the middle class Shay table, so presumably they were hired. 

But who are the actors?  In 2011 I let the scene slip into memory, but last night I saw it again during a rewatch. With15 years of experience on this website, Nysocboy's Beefcake and Bonding, and Tales of West Hollywood,  I was equipped to research their other acting roles,  look for nude photos, and check their social media to see if they are gay. 

More after the break.

A high school boy gives me his underwear

When I was growing up, we visited my parents' home town in northeastern Indiana about twice a year, at Christmastime and during the summer.  My favorite part of the visit was when Grandma announced "Let's go to Fort Wayne!"

When we were very little, Mom and Dad came, too, and when we were older, my baby sister came with us, but for about five yeares it it was just Kenny and me, fighting over who would get to ride "shotgun" in Grandma's brown Chevy Impala as she drove down country roads through Butler Center and Laotto and Huntertown, and finally  Fort Wayne:

The biggest, brightest, most exciting city in the world.

It was unimaginably huge, bigger than Rock Island, Moline, and Davenport put together, and it had the most fascinating places I had ever seen.  There was always something new: a gigantic County Courthouse; a candy factory much nicer than that scary one in the Willy Wonka movie; a Children's Zoo with its own train; an art museum; the history museum at Old City Hall; Kern's Toy Store; a memorial to Johnny Appleseed.

Somehow Grandma always knew where there were a lot of cute boys:  playing basketball in schoolyards, crowded into booths at the soda shop, building snowmen at Lakeside Park,  running around in groups at street fairs.  Sometimes she let us play with them, while she sat on a bench, reading a magazine.

We usually stopped for lunch at the Famous Coney Island on Main Street: hot dogs with chili, cheese, and onions, and steamed buns.   Plus french fries, onion rings, and root beer floats (vanilla ice cream floating in a gigantic mug of root beer).

And a never-ending supply of cute high school boys in white shirts, black pants, and black bow ties who brought out your orders.

On a cold day just before Christmas in fourth grade, we were having lunch at the Coney Island, and my brother and I were rough-housing, stealing fries off each other's plates, shoving each other, and laughing.  Grandma Davis told us to settle down, so I stopped and picked up my root beer float.

Then Kenny shoved me again.  I dropped the heavy mug onto my chest, drenching my shirt with root beer.  More root beer splashed onto my pants, and the clump of melting ice cream fell right onto my lap.

Gross!  Cold and wet!  I pushed it onto the floor.

Kenny laughed and pointed.  "You peed your pants!"  

"Oh, no, you're soaked!" Grandma Davis exclaimed.  She grabbed some napkins and tried to dab me, but the root beer and ice cream had already soaked in.  "You can't ride all the way back to Garrett like this -- it's freezing out!"

A high school boy came running up: short, compact, muscular, with brown hippie-hair and a bright smile.  He was carrying a little pad and pencil.  I don't remember his name, if I ever knew it, so I'll call him Jim.

"Don't worry, Ma'am, I'll take care of your grandson," he said.  "Come on, champ, let's get you cleaned up."

 He took me by the hand and led me past the staring patrons to a little door marked "Employees Only."  Inside it looked like a kitchen, with tables and chairs and a little refrigerator.  There was a bank of lockers on on side, and a rack with a lot of coats hung up on it.

More after the break