"Men": N*ked men and paranormal peril in a quaint English village. What could go wrong? You'd be surprised.

  

Link to the n*de photos

Browsing for a movie to watch this week, we came across  Men  (2022) on HBO MAX.  Imagining musclemen lounging by the pool, and maybe the old magazine Advocate Men, we eagerly clicked "play." Without any prior research...

The Landlord:  Young, extremely successful business person Harper Marlowe drives 4 1/2 hours from London to a village in Herefordshire, where she will be renting a huge mansion from landlord Geoffrey, who has bad teeth (an important character trait).  He is shocked that Harper can't play the piano, and upset that she reserved the mansion as "Mrs.," but there's no husband with her.

The Screaming Being:  Harper takes a walk through the woods, and finds a huge tunnel going nowhere.  Suddenly a being appears at the other end, and runs toward her, screaming in anger or terror.  She runs.

The N*ked Man: On the way back, she walks through an abandoned village.  There's a n*ked man following her: a mid-40s bear type with a hairy chest, a little belly, and a nice c*ck.

She runs back to her mansion, but the N*ked Man follows.  He peers in the windows, pulls apples from the tree, and shoves his hand through the mail slot, trying to get in.  He appears unable to speak.  He is not threatening, just curious, as if he's never seen a house -- or a human being -- before.

Harper calls the police.  They arrive, handcuff the guy, and lead him off. 

The Green Man:  Harper takes another walk, and stumbles across an old church.  Strangely, the altar contains a stone carving of the Green Man on one side, and on the other a man giving birth. 

The Green Man, a face covered with leaves, is often found carved into the stones of old English churches.  He is thought to be a pagan fertility symbol.

The man giving birth turns out to be Sheela na Gig, a woman with masculine features but an exceptionally large birthing part, a common "grotesque" in English churches. 

The Back Story:  Harper kneels, starts sobbing, and flashes to her back story.

In an elegant apartment near the Tower Bridge in London, Harper tells her husband (Paapa Essideu) that she wants a divorce.  He begs, pleads, yells, and threatens self-harm.  Finally he punches her, and she kicks him out.  A few moments later, he comes plummeting past the window.  Apparently he broke into the apartment upstairs, and either jumped or tried to climb down to her balcony, and slipped.  Either way, he glares at her accusingly as he falls.

The Mentally Disabled Boy:  Outside the church, Harper encounters a person wearing a creepy Marilyn Monroe mask.  The mask comes off -- it's a mentally disabled boy, asking her to play hide and seek. She refuses, so he calls her nasty names.

 More after the break

The "Malcolm in the Middle" Krelboynes are all gay on the show, but what about real life? Plus Rami Malek and gay kid Kowen

 

Malcolm in the Middle (2000-06) starred Frankie Muniz (far left) as Malcolm, a genius in a family of underachievers.  In school, he is placed with the Krelboynes, the gifted and therefore constantly bullied students. 

His best friend Stevie (Craig Lamar Traylor, in the wheelchair) is absurdly girl-crazy, but the lesser Krelboynes are all gay coded:

Dabney (Kyle Sullivan, in his underwear), has an obvious crush on Malcolm.

Lloyd (Evan Matthew Cohen, in blue), enjoys feminine activites like tea parties, and is suicidal ( a common gay stereotype).

Kevin (Victor J. Isaac, far right) is in love with his mother, another gay stereotype. 

In Life's Still Unfair, the Malcolm in the Middle reunion miniseries (2026),the Krelboynes all come to the 40th Anniversary Party of Malcolm's parents, Lois and Hal.  The previously girl-crazy Stevie (Craig Lamar Traylor) has come out; he has a husband (Erik Gow) and young son.  Stay far away from the Malcolm subreddit: it's overrun by howls of  "why do they want every single tv character to be gay????"

The three minor Krelboynes attend together (Dabney center, Lloyd left, Kevin not shown).  They hint that they are in a three-way romantic relationship -- which gets vociferous howls of "they're obviously straight!"  in the fan reddit. 

In other news,  they have a son named Hubert (Kowen Caderath, left).

"With a surrogate?" Malcolm asks.

"Um...yeah sure," Dabney says, hinting that they acquired the child some other way, maybe through an advanced cloning procedure. 

The potential clone Hubert appears in three scenes.  First, he corners an ant that was crawling across the floor, to save the group from the wild beast.  Next he looks extremely embarrassed at his dads' awkward but enthusiastic dancing.  Finally, Lois tells her granddaughter Leah to make friends with him, because he "looks lonely,"  reflecting Malcolm's high school relationship with Stevie.

I'm conducting research to determine if any of the Krelboynes (plus Hubert) have played gay characters since Malcolm, or are gay in real life.

Craig Lamar Traylor (Stevie), who does not actually use a wheelchair or have a missing lung, has nine acting credits, mostly small roles like "Bookstore Customer" and "Child in Classroom."  He retired from acting in 2012, but returned for Renner (2025), starring Frankie Muniz as a AI developer who meets the Girl of His Dreams.  

According to a "where are they now?" article, Craig is an artist specializing in tattoos.  He doesn't say a word about romantic relationships, which suggests that he may be gay and closeted. 

Kyle Sullivan (Dabney) was a well known child star before Malcolm, with roles in Mad about You, The Hugleys, Unhappily Ever After, and Tuesdays with Morrie.  Afterwards, he starred in The War at Home (2005-07), with Michael Rappaport as a macho man struggling with the existence of gay people and Muslims -- then he has to take in a gay Muslim boy (Rami Malek).  Kyle plays his son, who is also assumed gay, but eventually comes out as straight.

After War, Kyle retired from acting.  There are many, many guys named Kyle Sullivan with social media pages, even when you specify that they have to be actors.  At least one is gay, but I don't know if it's our Kyle or not. 

Evan Matthew Cohen (Lloyd), not to be confused with actors Evan Cohen and Matthew Cohen, had three acting credits before Malcolm: an episode of Encore! Encore!, Soccer Dog: The Movie, and the Fox animated series Fillmore!  (Exclamation points were very popular at the turn of the millennium!)

After Malcolm, he retired from acting.  I'm not sure if this is our Evan, or another of the many Cohen actors.

Victor Z. Isaac (Kevin), not to be confused with Victor Isaac, has 16 acting credits, including episodes of Will and Grace, Pushing Daisies, Everwood, and Criminal Minds (left: he's being arrested for stalking).  

His last role was in The Social Network (2010), about Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) creating Facebook.  Victor plays Stuart Singer, who tells Mark "I'm in your O.S. lab. You're doing an awesome job with Facebook."

Then, like the other Krelboynes, he retired from acting.  There's a Victor Isaac actor who's gay, or at least plays gay, but he's in Spain.

Hubert, you're my last hope (after the break)

I do not love thee, Justin Long. With an homage to "Green Eggs and Ham," and Justin's d*ck and backside and such

 

     Link to the n*de photos

I first saw Justin Long in the slasher movie Jeepers Creepers (2001): the teenager's sister states specifically that he is gay.  But he's straight.  Grr.

Then Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008): he plays gay porn star Brandon St. Randy, an interminably offensive stereotype sleaze.  Grr.

Then Strange Wilderness, F is for Family, Drag Me to Hell, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, It's a Wonderful Knife....almost every one of his characters grates on my nerves.

 In Latin class we learn the famous story of Oxford student Tom Brown, who was constantly getting in trouble.  The tyrannical dean Dr. Fell ordered him to translate the 32nd epigram of the Roman poet Martial.  So he said:

I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.  The reason why, I cannot tell.

But this I know, and know full well: I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.

That's where I got my title, "I do not love thee, Justin Long."  But for the poem, I think I'll use Green Eggs and Ham,

I do not love thee, Justin Long

I do not love thee as a tease

I do not love thee as a sleaze

I do not love thee carrying books.

I do not love your nasty looks.

I do not love thee climbing a rock;

Why would you need to hide your c*ck?

I do not love thee being hugged by a  dude.

You didn't hug back; it just looks rude.

I do not love thee you getting down.

Not with a girl's legs all around.

I do not love thee in Robin's tights.

After Burt's bulge, it doesn't look right.

More after the break

Angel Mock Curiel: LGBTQ and Latinx roles culminate in Lil Pappi on "Pose." Not much after except n*de modeling and Denver.

Link to the n*de photos

It's the late 1980s in Manhattan, the era of Reaganomics, Tough on Crime, and the AIDS crisis.  It's cold outside.  Especially if you're poor, a racial minority, and femme, trans, or gay: "the world hates you.  When you die, it breathes a sigh of relief."

All you have is a "house," a family of choice with a "mother" and her children.  And ballroom.

 Pose (2018-21) is set in the ballroom subculture, where African-American and Latinx trans women, drag queens, and occasionally gay men "posed,"modeled, house against house in the quest for realness.  Some brought home gigantic trophies, and became legends. 

Li'l Papi (Angel Bismark Curiel) was living on the streets, surving through drug sales and hustling  (he preferred women, but accepted male clients).  After stumbling upon the ballroom subculture, he was entranced, and petitioned Blanca of House Evangelista to "adopt" him, even though he wasn't gay or trans.  She agreed, with the rule that he stop dealing, and pose occasionally as a muscleman. 

In Season 2, Li'l Papi starts dating Angel (Indya Moore), a s*x worker whose previous plot arc involved an affair with a married man (Evan Peters).  After various arguments and breakup-reconciliations, they get married.  He opens a talent agency specializing in LGBTQ models, with Angel as his top client.  They have a happy ending (sort of), a welcome relief in a show that too often emphasized people being rejected by family, murdered, or dying of AIDS.

 This was Angel's first exposure to trans people.  In an interview with Attitude, he notes that he grew up in a "very cis, very heteronormative, very rough" Afro-Dominican community in Little Liberty, Miami.  He was bullied for being short and artistic, and for having asthma, and escaped into the world of the theater.  At the Miami Arts Charter School, he performed in The Rose Tattoo, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Jesus Hopping the A Train, and upon graduating in 2013, he enrolled at Pace University in New York as a drama major.

He dropped out in 2015 due to inancial problems, was homeless for awhile, survived anyway he could (he doesn't specify, but I imagine that hustling was one of his survival jobs), and finally found a job in a hotel.  But he still auditioned, and in 2016 landed his first on-screen role in America Adrift.  He played a middle-class teenager on Long Island who drifts into heroin addiction and drug dealing.

And loses his clothes.

Davi Santos, who is gay in real life, played his older brother, giving Angel his first close contact with LGBTQ people.  

Next came the short Louie's Brother Peter (2017).  Peter (Andrew McLarty) has Asperger's Syndrome, but that doesn't stop him from helping his brother with the drug deliveries.  Angel plays Zeke, one of their customers.

Andew McLarty is gay in real life.  .

Night Comes On (2018) is a "slow, painful, grim" indie drama about an African-American, lesbian girl nameed Angel, who is released from juvenile detention at age 18 with no money and no place to stay.  She gets a girlfriend, tries to find social connections, and seeks out her father to punish him murdering her mother.  Dad is played by John Earl Jelks, who often plays gay characters

You're pushing up the LGBTQ representation, Angel buddy

Our Angel played a store clerk. 

Monsters and Men (2018) is not about James Whale and the Frankenstein movie - that's Gods and Monsters.  It's about an incident where six police officers corner a black man and "accidentally" kill him during an arrest.

You're pushing up the Black/Latinx representation, too.

When Angel saw the casting call for L'il Pappi, he thought, "That's me!  Those are my experiences!"  He got the part, and since he had so little exposure to trans people, tried to educate himself, hang out with them, ask about their lives -- and he ended up in a relationship with producer/writer Janet Mock, an African-American transwoman -- while she was still married to her husband.  She is the one who suggested expanding Papi's role by giving him a romance with Angel Evangelista. 

Pose turned out to be the high point of Angel's acting career.  He was starring in a popular tv series, but more importantly, he  had found a community.  

More after the break