The I-Land: "Lost" Written by a Writing-School Dropout

10 people on a desert island, with no memory of who they are or how they got there.  Sounds interesting, sort of Lost light.

We discover almost immediately that this is a computer simulation (the title I-Land is one clue.)  But that's ok, maybe a combination of Lost and The Prisoner.   Does someone want in-for-mation?

Except: the people are complete jerks.  They immediately start bickering, hooking up, and trying to rape each other instead of looking for food, water, and shelter.

For plot complications, there is a cannibal among them, and two bounty hunters named Bonnie and Clyde (Clyde played by KeiLyn Durrel Jones, left).

We learn all the details in Episodes 3 and 7 (the finale),  which are all long plot exposition discussions.  Hey, did anyone take Creative Writing 101?  Show, don't tell?

Due to global warming, Texas is now mostly underwater, so the crime rate has increased, and the prisons are full:   "So many more people are criminals, now that the water has reclaimed the land, that we have to find a way to redeem them."

Um...we've had rehabilitation programs for over 180 years.  Job training, GED classes, life skills classes, drug treatment, counseling....

 So they are trying out a program to give parole to murderers if they can prove that they have been reformed.

Um...what about the non-violent inmates?  Maybe parole them first?

So the murderers are memory-wiped, put into young, hot bodies, and dumped on a hologram-island to see what happens.  This group consists of:

1. Chase, who killed her husband and children
2. KC
3. Cooper
4. Moses (Kyle Schmid, left)
5. Blair

6. Mason, a mass murderer
7. Donova
8. Taylor
9. Hayden
10. Brody (Alex Pettyfer, left)

It would be very interesting to see the back stories of all of these people, to learn how and why they became murderers, but nope, the writer never took Creative Writing 101.  We learn nothing about the lives of most of them.

Therefore I have no idea if any of them are gay.  Some shy away from hetero-hookups, but that's as far as it gets.

I sort of liked the scenes set back in real life, with Bruce McGill as the Warden channeling the Rich Texan from The Simpsons.  He is so incredibly over the top that I thought he must be a parody.  After all, Bruce McGill has been in a lot of movies.  He must have taken acting lessons, right?

Now, if we can just get the writers into Creative Writing 101....

Mid90s: Drugs, Suicide, Homophobia, and Pedophilia

Jonah Hill says "It was important to tell the truth" in Mid90s, his directorial debut, and hopefully his swan song.  I think it's more important to not make viewers sick.

When I searched for one of the cast members, Gio Galicia, this photo came up, with the caption "Screenshot of Bohemian Rhapsody."    It's obviously from Mid90s, not Bohemian Rhapsody, nor is Gio Galicia in the shot.

Goes to show how f*ked up this movie is.

Oh, sorry, we're being real.  The movie is fucked up.  It's a piece of shit.  It is especially offensive to gay viewers, even though producer Scott Rudin is gay.

It's a Kids reboot about a little boy named Stevie, 13 years old but played by 12-year old Sunny Suljic.  Apparently Jonah Hill cast him deliberately to get someone who looked "young."  He's living with his neglectful mother and abusive older brother (Lucas Hedges, top photo) in Los Angeles in the mid-90s.

I lived in Los Angeles in the mid-90s.  It was great.

Stevie tries to alleviate his pain by hanging out with some older kids at a skate park.

Way older.  Their leader, Ray, is played by 25-year old Na-Kel Smith.

Stevie learns to smoke marijuana, fight, get drunk, and use racist and homophobic language (every other word is "fag"),

I agree that it's "real"  There are real racist, homophobic assholes in the world.  Why make a movie about them?

Of course Stevie has sex (with a girl played by a 23-year old actress).

That's a Class 1 Felony. Even pretending to have sex with a 13-year old is inappropriate.

But Stevie's newfound drug abuse and prepubescent sexual activity does not bring happiness.  He gets two head injuries, one in a skateboarding accident and the other in a car accident, and attempts suicide.

One would expect at least some buddy-bonding among the skateboarders.  But they mostly argue, posture, and fight.  .

\No beefcake.  We see Stevie's prepubescent body, of course, and Ian (his older brother) briefly in his underwear as he's beating up Stevie. 

Here's the only shirtless photo of a cast member I could find, Olan Prenatt, who plays  Fuckshit.

My rating:Is there anything lower than F-?

How about fuckshit?

Christopher Knight/Peter Brady

I was saddened to hear of the death of Florence Henderson, who played (among other roles) Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch, surrogate mom to millions of Boomers.

Every Brady Boomer had every episode memorized, and had an ongoing series of crushes on one or more of the six Brady kids.

Most gay guys liked Greg (Barry Williams), the oldest boy, and the self-appointed hunk of the group, but he was obnoxiously girl-crazy.  I liked Peter (Christopher Knight), the middle boy, who hardly ever displayed any interest in girls, and had other traits that would get him dubbed "a Fairy" in my junior high.

He liked to sing; he belonged to the Drama Club; he donned a Campfire Bluebird uniform to sell cookies door-to-door.  A great role model for boys growing up in small towns with no interest in girls or sports.

And, as the years passed, Christopher Knight grew hunkier than Barry Williams.  He was displayed in shirtless spreads in Tiger Beat long after the series ended, and was asked to take off his shirt on tv a lot.

Though he's been busy with various Brady spin-offs and sequels, he's had time for a lot of tv appearances, on The Bionic Woman, Chips, Happy Days, The Love Boat, and others.  He starred on Joe's World (1979-80) and the soap Another World (1980-81), and as himself on The Surreal Life and My Fair Brady (2005-2008).







Today Christopher Knight is probably the most gay-friendly of the exceptionally gay-friendly Bunch.   He starred in two of Greg Araki's gay-themed angst movies, Nowhere and The Doom Generation, and played half of a gay couple (with tv brother Barry Williams) a 2006 episode of That 70s Show.  He was interviewed on the gay talk show Queer Edge. 

And he still has an amazing physique.

See also: Barry Williams/Greg Brady.