Frederick Koehler: Chip from "Kate and Ally" grows up, shows his d*ck, plays some psychos, and vanishes. With bonus Beau Mirchoff

Link to the n*de Chip and Mirchoff

Viewers who saw this guy's d*ck in a 2004 episode of the prison drama Oz were shocked.  Not by the d*ck -- there were lots of them on Oz.

Not because he was Andrew Schillinger, 20-year old son of the white supremacist prisoner Vern Schillinger.

 

Not even because he was a heroin addict who would be given a batch by an unscrupulous guard and die of an overdose.

Because we were looking at a grown-up Chip.

Although he had appeared in Judging Amy, Ally McBeal, Profiler, Gideon's Crossing, Charmed, and A Kiss Before Dying,  Fred Koehler was famous for Kate and Allie (1984-89), a sitcom starring two recognizable 1970s tv stars, Jane Curtin and Susan Saint James, a free spirit-stick in the mud couple living together. Fred Koehler played their 10-15 year old son, Chip

No, they weren't lesbians, although they pretended to be in an early example of a "let's pretend to be gay to get some of their incredible privileges" episode. 

After Kate and Ally -- I have to keep checking, but I'm pretty sure it's "ally," not "allie" -- Fred attended Carnegie-Mellon University, got a degree in theater, changed his stage name to Frederick, and returned to Hollywood.

To quote Sally in Peanuts, isn't the grown-up Frederick "the cutest thing"?   Short, rather husky, with a round, handsome face and a befuddled expression that makes him perfect for roles as oddball outsiders with no heterosexual interests.  Instead, they are gay-vague, yearning for love, acceptance, and family.

Like Ben Sharpless, teenage son of the obsessive sheriff Nolan in Birdseye (2002).

Or the mentally handicapped Pemon in Little Chenier (2006).

More after the break

"It's a Wonderful Knife": Psycho-slasher "Wonderful Life" homage with six queer characers and Depner selfies

Link to the n*de photos

It's a Wonderful Knife, appeared on my Hulu feed with an interesting premise: A year after Winnie saves the town from a psycho-killer, she wishes she had never been born, and gets her wish.  So she never existed, and the town is still saddled with the psycho-killer.  She must team up with "town misfit" Bernie to defeat him.

Sounds heteronormative, as usual, but call-backs to It's a Wonderful Life might be fun.  Besides, it stars Justin Long, one of my 1990s crushes.

Scene 1:  Establishing shot of the town of  Angel Falls -- Wonderful Life was in Bedford Falls, har har -- , with Mayor Henry (Justin) extolling the benefits of his new housing development.  Switch to a Christmas festival, with Henry making a speech.  Check out the creepy masked nun-angel atop the Christmas tree -- it will be important later. 

As Main Girl Winnie and her Dad (Joe McHale, top photo) and brother walk home, Mayor Henry and his Adult Brother Buck  (Sean Depner, left) grab them to ask what they thought of his speech.  Brother Jimmy notes that Buck has started an OnlyFans page -- where you subscribe to see a guy's selfies.

He asks "Buck, do you remember me?  You were my PeeWee Football coach!"

Buck ignores him.  Disappointed, Jimmy says "Please shoot me." A very subtle queer moment, but better than nothing: Jimmy is gay.

Sean Depner, who is gay in real life, actually does have a MyFans account, or at least some selfies online.

In other news, Mayor Henry needs an Old Guy to sign over his house so he can build his housing development.  He drags Dad off to  help talk him into it, even though it's Christmas Eve.

Scene 2:  The Old Guy refuses to sign, because his family has lived there for generations, and it goes to his granddaughter after he's gone.   Henry: "You're the past.  I'm the future.  Get with the program, Boomer." Actually, he looks more like the Greatest Generation

Granddaughter Cara comes downstairs, tells Grandpa how much she loves him, and notes that they're both invited to dinner at Main Girl Willa's house tomorrow . Mayor Henry creepily says "You be safe, now," and she's off to the big Christmas Eve party.

Scene 3: At home, Mom gives a rainbow ornament to "my gay son."  Ok, Jimmy is outed.  Aunt comes in with her wife, annoyed because her in-laws won't believe that they are married, not roommates.  Ok, she is outed in her first sentence. That's three gay characters, plus two LGBT cast members -- Willa is played by nonbinary actor Jane Widdop.  This is turning into quite a queer-friendly movie.

Winnie runs out to go to the party with Best Friend Cara -- the only thing standing between Mayor Henry and housing development plan, remember?   Their boyfriends, Eddie and Robbie, will meet them there. 

Back at the ancestral house, Grandpa is staring morosely at the fire, when there's a knock on the door.  It's a psycho-killer dressed like the creepy masked nun-angel!  Why not just steal his heart medication?

Scene 4: At the big party, Winnie wants to make friends with the Town Outcast, but a Mean Girl pulls her away  -- guess what?  Outcast Bernie is a girl.  I bet she was a boy in the first draft, but they changed her gender so...wait...Boyfriend Robbie and Brother Jimmy arrive and brag about their scores at the big football game.  Then Jimmy goes off to cruise a "brooding, artistic type,"  Best Friend Cara and the Mean Girl go off with their boyfriends, and Winnie is left alone.

Scene 5: Cut to Jimmy and the Brooding, Artistic Guy smooching in the woods. Uh-oh, a twig snaps.  It's the Nun-Angel, leaving them alone.  Not a homophobe, anyhow.

Jimmy is played by Aidan Howard, who is gay in real life.  Three queer cast members.

More after the break.  

"The Final Girls": Psycho-slasher parody with two queer characters and some beefcake.

 

In The Final Girls (2015), not to be confused with Final Girl (2015), actress Amanda and her daughter Max are driving home from an audition that she bombed.  She complains that she is typecast as a "scream queen" due to a role in the famous psycho-slasher movie, Camp Bloodbath, back in the 1980s.  She was the Final Girl, the one who didn't have sex, and therefore got to live.  

But not in real life: at that moment, they get into a car crash.  Mom dies!  

 Three years later, Max is in college, studying with her Love Interest Chris (Alexander Ludwig, left) and a couple of female friends, when horror fan Duncan (Thomas Middleditch) talks them into going to a midnight showing of the movie and its sequel.

Remember, Max is still mourning her mother.  Why go to a movie where a psycho-slasher is trying to kill a younger version of her?

Suddenly, zap!  They are trapped in the movie...and the psycho-slasher is stalking them, too!  They have to use their wits and knowledge of the genre to defeat him.

The first character they meet is Kurt (Adam Devine, right), an obnoxious jock.  He is also apparently bisexual -- he hits on boys and girls both, and thinks that gays "have a cool lifestyle."  Interestingly, instead of a homophobic slur, he tells Chris to "suck a turd." 

Like most psycho-slashers in the movies of the 1980s, Billy (Daniel Norris) targets teenagers having sex, so so when Kurt strips down to his bulge while his girlfriend waits in the next room, Love Interest Chris rushes in to distract him.  Try showing him your dick -- oh, wait, the killer is attracted to gay sex, too.

The other queer character is Blake (Tory N. Thompson), who also black.  You know what happens to the black guy in psycho-slasher movies, right? Gulp! 

Next the visitors from our universe try warning the characters about the psycho-slasher.  Remember, Max is interacting with the movie version of her own mother, so she'd rather not see her skewered.

The plan backfires: everyone runs away screaming.  

Kurt and his girlfriend try to drive away, but they hit a totem pole and die (Kurt is pretzeled).   But in the original movie, they survived!  The intruders have tampered with the plot, and now all the rules are off.  No one will survive.

Well, some survive.  You'll have to watch the movie to find out who. 

Beefcake: Adam in his underwear.  He is contractually obligated to show his dick in every movie appearance.

Heterosexism: No one actually has sex, for obvious reasons. Some girl boobs.

Queer Characters: Kurt and Blake,  through queer codes instead of self-identification.  But this is supposed to be the 1980s, when you were lucky to get that much representation.  Writers M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller are a gay couple, and speaking to their own experiences as horror fans.  

My grade: A-

There are some bulge and frontal nude pictures in the NSFW version of this review.

"Roswell, New Mexico": Soap Opera with Bi Characters and Out-and-Proud Aliens

 

Roswell, New Mexico is the site of the famous UFO crash of 1947, which the town has capitalized on ever since.   It was the inspiration of a tv series about teenage aliens, Roswell, and now apparently a series entitled Roswell, New Mexico: "A woman returns to her hometown after 10 years to discover that her high-school crush is an unusual foreigner."  Presumably he's an alien, although the episode synopses sound more soap opera than paranormal: "Rosa confronts Liz over her reputation; Maria digs into her family history; Isabel's outing leads to an unexpected encounter."  

Outing as in out of the closet?  I'm reviewing the outing episode, "Sex and Candy."

Scene 1: Isobel, a ponytail blond, is fighting with Evil Max (Nathan Parsons, top photo), using energy bursts.  She explains:  "You absorbed the toxicity of Rosa's death, and now you need to expell it! Cause an earthquake or something!"  So he punches the floor and causes an earthquake. Eventually Evil Max collapses from excessive energy expenditure, but his brother (Michael Vlamis, left) rushes in and uses his powers to revive him.  The rage gone, Max apologizes.

His Girlfriend rushes in, and is delighted to find the rage gone.  But there's a problem: Max doesn't recognize her!  

Scene 2:  Back at headquarters. Not only are Max's memories of the Girlfriend gone, he objects to a  "stranger" knowing  all their secrets, which distresses everyone.   I'm guessing that Isobel, Max, and his brother are aliens, but the girlfriend is human.  To avoid upsetting him further, Girlfriend leaves.

Scene 3: Twink Alex (Tyler Blackburn, left) meets Maria, an older woman, at a Mexican Market she has organized to draw business to the Pony (a tavern, I assume).  She introduces him to Forrest, who is helping organize an open-mic night.  They flirt over references to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but when Forrest asks him out, Alex hesitates.  "Maybe I misread," Forrest says, walking away.  "Wait -- you didn't misread."  Two gay guys in Scene 3!  Even if they don't say the Word, that's good news.  I thought Isobel was coming out, but she's dating Max's brother.

Scene 4: A Sarcastic Doctor (Michael Trevino) and a woman in a medical theater, watching the surgical separation of conjoined twins.  She notes that Roswell has a higher than average rate of twin births, and asks "Do you have a crush on me?"  When he says no, she gets angry and storms out. Attractive people with complicated relationships in a hospital -- soap opera!  "Days of Our Lives" with aliens.

Scene 5: the Girlfriend runs into Evil Max from Scene 1 at the Mexican Market, and helps him with his Spanish (he was asking for "carne sin preservativos," which means "meat without condoms").  He asks her out, but she refuses: "You don't really know me." "Right, no one ever goes out on a date with a near-stranger."  So she agrees. (Amnesia is another common soap opera trope.)

Scene 6: Back at headquarters, Isobel and the brother help Evil Max get ready for his date.  

Meanwhile, Twink Alex and Maria from Scene 3 do some sleuthing: when Maria's mother was found after her abduction (soap opera back story), she was wearing distinctive cowboy boots made only by a "weird cobbler" who lives in the desert.  Maybe he keeps records of who he sold them to.  On the way, they discuss past relationships: Twink Alex has never had one.  "What about Kellie?"  "No.  Every time I was with a woman, I was just trying to disappear.  Except when we kissed in high school."  They're the same age?  I thought that Maria was much older, a mother figure.  

Twink Alex doesn't like being gay: "I know what I'm supposed to say, but I don't feel it.  The only time I enjoyed touching someone, was when we kissed."  Um...that means you're straight, dude.

Scene 7: Max arrives at the soda shop where Girlfriend works.  She gives him a Little Green Man milkshake, his favorite since they started dating at age 14, hoping that it will restore his memory.  Nope!  And he doesn't like mint anymore, which upsets her.  "Your tastes have changed since you came back from the dead!"  So order something else.   The date involves riding horses. 

Meanwhile, Twink Alex and Maria are still driving through the desert (as Joel and the Bots would say, will they ever reach the fireworks factory?).  Why didn't she bring Michael along?  "No, I don't like him.  He lied."  "He lied to save your family from my family.  And he spent 10 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit, to protect Isobel."  More standard soap opera tropes. Wait -- I thought Michael, Evil Max's brother, was dating Isobel.  

Scene 8: Yet another character, a woman in heavy makeup, goes into the Planet 7 Bar and flirts with the female bartender.  "I feel like I'm over-dressed."  For a small town in the desert? Always.  "I just got out of jail, and I'm looking for trouble.  The good kind."  She sees Sarcastic Doctor from Scene 4, who groans. Not another woman who has a crush on me!  I have to bat them away!

Scene 9: Still driving through the desert, Twink Alex and Maria get a flat tire.  A scary guy with an axe wants to know why they're trespassing on his property.  Surprise -- he's Travis (David Anders, right), the weird cobbler. I was expecting Gepetto.

Inside the house, they try to call for a tow, but get no bars on their cell phones.  Travis tries to flirt with Maria, and offers them warm milk (weird!).  He remembers the boots -- Maria's mother bought them.  Mystery solved!  

Meanwhile, at the bar, Heavy-Makeup Lady asks Sarcastic Doctor, "Why aren't you at the Pony? Are you avoiding Liz (Max's girlfriend) because Evil Max returned from the dead?" Heavy intertwining of romantic relationships, innit?  He counters with "Why are you here?", and she explains "After Noah, I'm not into a bar full of straight guys on the prowl."  So Planet 7 is a gay bar?

They all start dancing: lots of grizzled cowboy couples.  Who knew there were so many gay people in a small town in the desert?  Sarcastic Doctor invites her to watch the meteor shower, but she refuses: "Meteor showers remind me of the night my entire family burst into flame upon entering Earth's atmosphere." Psych!  She's playing with him!  Are all aliens out and proud?  I thought Evil Max and his gang kept it a secret

I'm fast forwarding through the endless scenes of Evil Max and Girlfriend heart-to- hearting on their date.

Scene 10: At Weird Cobbler's cabin.  Maria goes off in search of cell phone bars, and Twink Alex snoops. When Weird Cobbler catches him, he explains: "Maria's Mom was abducted, and three weeks later she returns, wearing a pair of your weird boots.  Naturally we think you know more than you're letting on."

Weird Cobbler sings "I think we're alone now" and approaches in a threatening manner.  "Drink your milk!"  When Twink Alex refuses, he attacks!  Then he goes outside, tells Maria that Alex is dead, and chases her with an axe.  If they kill off the gay guy in Episode 6, I'm leaving.

She runs into a cornfield, and gets grabbed!  Psych -- by Michael!  (Evil Max's brother, the one she doesn't want to date.) Wait -- it's an hour drive from the city; their car broke down about 10 minutes ago.  He would have to leave shortly after they did.  How did he know to come?  Maybe his alien powers?  But before Michael can rescue her, Weird Cobbler conks him on the head. 

Scene 11: Back at Planet 7, Heavy-Makeup Lady asks Sarcastic Doctor to go into the bathroom with her for a quickie, but he refuses.  He's interested in someone else.  So Heavy-Makeup Lady starts dancing with the female bartender.  

Meanwhile, Weird Cobbler chases Maria through the cornfield.  She ambushes him, conks him with the axe, and runs away.  She grabs Michael; Alex, still alive, comes out of the cabin.  They all run toward the truck, chased by Weird Cobbler. Suddenly another Weird Cobbler emerges from nowhere and shoots...um, his clone?  He explains: hisevil  twin took part in a government research project that fried his brains.  He appeared three weeks ago, and locked the real Weird Cobbler up.  Fortunately, amid all of the axe-chasing, he managed to escape. 

After all the psycho-slasher shenanigans, with her friends and the evil twin in need of emergency medical care, Maria still asks the real Weird Cobbler about her mother!  "I don't remember her.  I get lots of customers.  Could you please call an ambulance?"

Scene 12: Evil Max has his memory back, Sarcastic Doctor actually was interested in the woman he rebuffed back in Scene 4,  Heavy-Makeup Lady smooches with the female bartender.  Michael uses his alien powers to heal Twink Alex's gunshot wound and then smooches with Maria, Twink Alex smooches with Maria, Michael smooches with Twink Alex.  Busy night!

Scene 13: Morning.  Twink Alex reports to Michael that the sheriff didn't find anything: Weird Cobbler and his evil twin had vanished, and their cabin had burned down.  They discuss last night: "If anyone had told me that I would be having a three-way with my best friend and my first love...."   Then Twink Alex leaves.  Michael returns to Maria.  They smooch again.  So, just a one-time thing?  Alex is alone again, naturally.

Meanwhile, Evil Max and Girlfriend smooch, say "I love you," and smooch again.  Six times.

Scene 14: The open-mic night.  I'm getting tired of the drama.  Forrest (Christian Antidormi), who got rebuffed by Twink Alex in Scene 3, is performing.  Twink Alex comes in and grins at him. 

Meanwhile, Max goes home.  Isobel, apparently his sister, presents him with a t-shirt: "I Got Probed at Planet 7."  She was Heavy Makeup woman from last night!   He goes to the bathroom to take a shower, sees weird markings on his back, and flashes back to the alien spaceship when he was a boy.  The end.

Beefcake: A little of Max.  Some of Michael as he undresses for the three way.

Gay Characters: Isobel, Alex, and Michael are all apparently bisexual.  Forrest appears in six episodes, so apparently Alex gets a semi-permanent boyfriend.

Gay/Straight Kisses: 30/2

Soap Opera Tropes: Exhausting.  

Aliens:  Are they in hiding, or not?

My Grade: B.

Addendum:  This was actually Season 2 (Netflix will do that to you).  I reviewed an episode of Season 1 back when it premiered in 2019, and forgot about it (over 300 reviews per year will do that to you).  See: Roswell, New Mexico: At Least the Gay Guys Kiss.

"Blair Witch": A Gay Guy and Two Hysterical Girls Fight Whatever Evil Lurks in the Maryland Woods

 

The Blair Witch Project (1999) was a found-footage movie about some college students who go into the Maryland woods to investigate the legend of the Blair Witch, and end up being killed in a mysterious empty house.   One of them does not display any heterosexual interest, and so could be read as gay. The sequel Blair Witch (2016) sends a young man out searching for his sister, one of the students who disappeared.  Sister instead of a girlfriend immediately raises a gay or gay-subtext potential.  

Scene 1: James (James Allen McCune) reviewing the found footage while Lisa films.  "That might be my sister."  The searchers never found the house where the students disappeared, but maybe they weren't searching in the right place.  A paranormal investigator has discovered a DV with the house, and posted it online.  

Peter (who unfortunately is named Brandon Scott, like 1,000 other celebrities) and Ashley come in with groceries, and get the deets: they're going to recreate Blair Witch journey to look for James' sister, who disappeared when he was 8, and Lisa will film them for her class.  This time they have much better cameras, drones, and cell phones with a GPS, so no getting lost.

Scene 2: At a nightclub, Lisa interviews the other participants: Peter is James' childhood friend.  Ashley met him through dating Peter.  Lisa has only been "friends" with him for a short time.  Not a girlfriend?  Is James gay?  I can't tell if he's looking at men or women..

Scene 3: The next morning, they check out the equpiment and go.  They drive all day and stop in one of those single-story Mom-and-Pop hotels for the night: boys in one bed, girls in the other. 

Scene 4: They arrive at Burkittsville, which used to be called Blair before it was mysteriously abandoned, to interview the guy who found the DV: Lane (Wes Robinson), a frizzy-haired redneck with a giant confederate flag on his wall.  But his girlfriend has pink-and-purple hair. Maybe she's LGBTQ.  They insist on escorting the gang to the place he found it.

On the way, he gives them a run down of the mysterious happenings in these woods, which "no one likes to talk about."  Are you kidding? Paranormal activity is a big tourist draw.  

In the 1940s, Rustin Parr brought 8 kids to his house in the woods, and killed 7, becaue the voice of an old woman compelled him to.  But it's not the house they are looking for: it burned down. Ghost house!

Scene 5: More mysterious happenings, as they cross a creek: "A girl drowned in this creek.  Her mother saw a hand reach out of the water and pull her in."  

Ashley cuts her foot on some broken glass or something!

They send the drone up to look for a clearing where there may be a house.  Nothing.

Scene 6: Camping for the night.  They're not good at assembling the tents.  Tell me they've been camping before!

Hot dogs and marshmallows around the campfire, and deets on the Blair Witch: Elly Kedward (no person was ever named in the original): accused of witchcraft after some local kids said she took blood from them, taken out to the woods, and tied to a tree to die of exposure.  Then people in town started disappearing.  Finally those who remained fled, and the town was abandoned.  She still haunts the woods: if you look directly at her, you'll die of fright.

Scene 7: Bedtime: James gets his own tent.  Definitely not dating Lisa.  He is awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of someone moving around outside.  One of your friends getting a midnight snack, dude.  Nope - a lot of branches breaking.  Suddenly Lisa bursts into his tent.  "What the hell was that?" 

Lane is missing!  James and Talia, Lane's girlfriend, look for him. That's what cell phones are for.   Psych!  He was just out -- um, peeing.  Yeah, that's what we'll call it.  

Scene 7:  Morning.  Lisa spent the night with James!  Boo!  But there was no smooching scene: maybe she was too spooked to sleep in her own tent. I'm still holding out for James to be gay.   There are weird symbols like St. Andrew's crosses hanging from the trees. Evidence that whoever killed the first group is still around; maybe the police will re-open the case!

Lane uses a DV camera, just like the one that took the video in the house. Ulp!  But he's too young to be the murderer.  And there's rope in his backpack -- exactly like the rope used to make the St. Andrews' crosses!  

He explains: they faked the crosses to scare them away, because there's something bad in the woods, and he didn't want them all to be killed.  They why did you insist on coming along?

The gang tells them to go home. Lane begs: "It's not safe!  Let's all go home!"  But they force him and Talia out.

James is upset; he was sure that they would find his sister's murderer, or at least evidence that the police could use.  Instead they were just being played.

Scene 8: They head for home.  But even with a GPS, they end up walking in a circle, back to last night's campsite.  And Ashley's foot is worse: she can't walk anymore.  Time to set up camp.

I'll stop the scene by scene there.  You know what happens to them, right?

Beefcake: None.  This is mostly a "women in distress" movie, with Lisa and Ashley freaking out and being harmed. 

Gay Character: James can definitely be read as gay.  No heterosexual interest of any sort throughout.  However, he's not the focus character.  Lisa turns out to be the Last Girl.

Plot Twists:  More than I expected.  

The Blair Witch:  In the original, the threat is never explained.  It may not be a person or ghost at all.  It detracts from the sense of unease to make it Elly Kedward.

Sequel: Turns out that this is the second sequel to the Blair Witch Project.  Another, Book of Shadows, appeared in 2000.  Lane mentions the events in one of his stories of mysterious happenings.

My Grade: C.  James should have played a bigger role.  We can see girls blubbering into cameras in 30,000 psycho-slasher movies; why repeat it here?