Justin Berti: The Movie Rewards Godfather finds his niche in Shakespeare and adult videos. We see his backside a lot, but what about his front?

  

Link to the n*de photos

If you've been to a movie theater within the last year, you've seen this commercial: A moviegoer stumbles upon three Godfather-parodies discussing what seems to be illegal activities.  The movie premiered over 50 years ago, but it's been parodied so often that the guys and their mannerisms are instantly recognizable.

She asks, "Are we going to make somebody sleep with the fishes?"

"Aee-oh," the Head Godfather protests. "We just do Movie Rewards."  He explains: "Maybe a free ticket falls from a truck.  Or the online fees just...disappear!"  Laughter.

They settle in with their voluminous snacks.  "It's an offer you can't refuse."

This commercial has made actor Justin Berti more recognizeable than anything else in his career.

Wait -- what else has this guy been in?

According to his resume, Justin was born in Connecticut, spent time in Texas and California, and then attended Columbia University. After graduating in 2003, he moved to Japan, where he modeled, played semi-pro baseball, and performed in Fiddler on the Roof, Little Shop of Horrors, and Macbeth.  

And he had a guest spot in The Ramen Girl (2008), about a woman stranded in Tokyo who trains to become a ramen and takes off her stuff a lot. 

Back in New York in 2015, Justin appeared in King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Troilus & Cressida, and the non-Shakespearean A Fool for Love, Glengary Glen Ross, and The Full Monty

His American on-screen roles begin with some video game voices and music videos, but he quickly finds his niche, as you can see from the titles: Submission, The Love Machine, His Secret Past, High Heel Homicide, Secret Life of the Surgeon's Wife, Forbidden Love, Lethal Desire, My Dark Romeo...

It's softcore, so no d*ck shots, and his backside is on display only when he's doing stuff with a lady.

I don't see a lot of gay content. The Stepbrother I Hate to Love (2026) is about two stepbrothers who get with each other during a  hookup with a girl, but Justin is far down the cast list, playing someone named Victor.  Matthew Campbell (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) is far down the cast list, too.

Torn Between My Stepbrothers (2026) shows a bi encounter with two stepbrothers (not the ones in I Hate to Love), but the plot description is quite different: "a young man faces many challenges after losing everything."  Justin plays their dad.

 

His "known for" list on the IMDB has four movies:

 Secret Lives of Housewives (2022): Kendra starts an affair with the younger Erik (Bo Yokely)   When he is killed, she suspects her husband (Justin), but it turns out that he was doing stuff around the neighborhood, so lots of husbands are angry.

Divorce Bait (2022):  Alexis pretends to be divorcing her husband (Justin), to see which of her friends tries to move in on him. If they think he's divorced, what's the problem?  Meanwhile, an old flame (Erik Fellows) tries to move in on her! 

More after the break

Max Casella after dating Dougie: Christian Bale's buddy, Tony Soprano's buddy, Timon, Bottom, bi. With a small d*ck bonus.

 

Link to the n*de dudes

In the early 1990s, if your parents belonged to a certain socioeconomic class, you were required to watch ABC's ultra-conservative programming block on Wednesday nights: 

The Wonder Years, with Fred Savage as a boy winning the Girl of His Dreams in the 1960s.

Home Improvement, with Tim Allen grunting with tools.

Coach, with Craig T. Nelson as a...football coach.

And Doogie Howser, MD, with Neil Patrick Harris as a 16-year old who somehow managed to finish medical school, become a doctor, and get girls.

I wasn't of a certain age, I was not living with parents of a certain socioeconomic class, so on Wednesday nights I was watching Seinfeld.   Not Doogie Howser, because of its ridiculous premise and "Girls are the meaning of life!" ideology.  

 But I did notice Max Casella, who played Doogie's buddy: 22-26 years, "cute as a bug's ear," as the oldsters would say, and a member of the Short Guy Brigade at 5'7".

As everyone knows, Neil Patrick Harris came out a few years after Doogie, and for some inscrutable reason agreed to play "himself' in the homophobic Harold & Kumar movies and heterosexual horndog Barney on How I Met Your Mother (2005-14).  More recently, in Uncoupled (2022), he played a gay man dealing with the death of his partner and suddenly becoming single at midlife. 

But what has Max Casella been doing?

I'm researching the three standard questions: 

1. Any gay roles?

2. Gay in real life?

3. Any n*ude photos?  

1. Any gay roles?

In Newsies (1992), a Disney movie about the newsboys' strike of 1899, Max plays Racetrack Higgins, who may be gay or bisexual.  When focus character Jack (Christian Bale) says that they can't beat up the newsboys who refuse to join the strike, he "jokingly" suggests kissing them.

In Ed Wood (1994), the biopic of the director known for crossdressing, Glen or Glenda? and Plan 9 from Outer Space, Max plays Paul Marco, the gay actor who often starred in Wood's films.  His sexual identity is not mentioned here.

Later Max moved into animation, voicing characters on Pepper Anne, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Kim Possible; and video games such as Jak and Daxter (a humanoid elf and his previously-human otter-weasel buddy) and Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony (he doesn't voice Gay Tony).

He appeared in 28 episodes of The Sopranos (2001-07) as Benny Fazio, who is partnered with Chris Moltisanti and sometimes works as Capo Tony's driver.  He's married with children.

Inside Llewelyn Davis (2013) depicts a day in the life of the folk singer (Oscar Davis) in the early 1960s Greenwich Village scene.  Max plays Club Manager Pappi Corsicato, who has s *ex with Llewelyn's girl.

More after the break

Gangs of London: A gay assassin, his boyfriend, a gay mafia son, some sex parties, and a lot of violence and dicks

 

Link to the mafia dicks

In dramas about crime families, the youngest son is traditionally gay -- think Deran in Animal Kingdom, Ian in Shameless, and Kelvin in The Righteous Gemstones.  So I'm reviewing the first episode of Gangs of London, on Netflix, to see if the traditionl continues.

Scene 1: An upside-down view of a cityscape.  Telling us that this is an alternate world?  No, it's a guy hanging upside down from a tall building, crying and begging Sean (Joe Cole, left) not to kill him.  But he says "What choice do I have?", douses him with gasoline and sets him on fire.  Soon the rope snaps, and the burning body falls. Kind of an overkill.

Scene 2: Irish Traveler Darren (Aled ap Stefan), who apparently works as a hit man, gets a new assignment -- "nobody, just some pedo," and invites his Buddy ( Darren Evans) along.  They park, and Darren goes up the stairs to an apartment, where he waits to shoot the guy.

Downstairs, the Buddy has trouble from a group of toughs.  Then Finn Wallace arrives!  The hit is on the head of the biggest, most important, most brutal crime family in London!  He tries to call Darren, tell him to cancel the job, he's not who they said,  but it's too late, Finn Wallace goes upstairs, and Darren shoots him.

Meanwhile, his Driver Jack ( Emmet J. Scanlan) is terrorizing the Buddy.  When he hears the shot, he runs to the car for his gun.  All the Buddy can think to do is run him over. 

Emmet's dick is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Scene 3: While Darren soaks in a tub, being horrified, the family gathers for the funeral.  

We meet Family Advisor Alex (Paapa Essidue) and a little boy named Danny, who may grow up into a main character.  The costumes seem a little quaint, so I'm thinking that this is all a flashback

They watch the guests arriving, wondering if any of them ordered the hit.

Scene 4: Sons Billy and Sean (Brian Vernel, Joe Cole) play Dad's favorite song, "Suzy Q," so loud that everyone is disturbed.  

We saw Sean being brutal in Scene 1.  Billy is the gay one, and a recovering heroin addict, naturally.  

Left: Horror Hunks claims that this is Brian Vernel, but the one in Gangs of London is younger, with black hair

Family Advisor Alex advises them to not look for the killer, or they'd have a war on their hands.

More dicks after the break

The Sopranos: Five things I liked, three things I didn't like, and six Italian-American hunks

 

My partner and I have finished watching The Sopranos (1999-2007), about Mafioso Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and his "family," which controls southern New Jersey.    

Left: Tony's cousin and right-hand man Christopher (Michael Imperioli).

What I liked about it:

1. The interesting inner workings of the Mafia families.

2. The exteriors in New York and New Jersey.

3. The historical references (well, they weren't historical then)

4. The Italian-American dialect: dropping the ends off words ("Let's have some pizz'"), throwing in Italian words (even people whose families have been in American since the late 19th century), and especially using pronouns, with the subject at the end of the sentence; "She's smart, your daughter."; "I owe him a lot, Ton'." 

5. A lot of very cute guys, notably: Tony's cousin Christopher (Michael Imperioli), Carmela's cousin Brian (Matthew Del Negro), a bunch of daughter Meadow's boyfriends (they keep getting murdered, so she has to get a new one), and two mooks (left) who live together, apparently hang out in their underwear with semis, and are killed for some reason I don't remember.

What I didn't like

1. The hundreds of characters.  Tony's extended family, his business associates, their extended families.  People from two seasons ago re-appear, and we're supposed to know who they are.  I got tired of asking "Who's that guy?  Has he appeared before?" and started treating the characters as interchangeable: One of Tony's associates who might get in trouble for running a side business or betraying him, and will probably go to prison or be murdered by the end of the episode.

Left: Daniel Sauli, who played one of Meadow's boyfriends.

2. The girls.  Mega sickening.  I don't think I saw a single bare-chested man.  At home, their girlfriends are wearing bikinis or skimpy underwear, or dangling their boobs.  Tony's main office is at his strip club, Bada Bing, so an innocent scene cuts abruptly to a close up of a naked girl, too fast to look away.  The camera gradually moves out to Tony and the guys discussing something -- and she keeps gyrating in the background.  

Left: Jason Cerbone, another boyfriend,

3. The intense, intense, incredible homophobia. Their standard slur is "cocksucker!'  They are so disgusted by the idea that Uncle Junior keeps his interest in cunnilingis a secret: the guys will think that if he likes going down on women, he must like sucking cock, too.

Left: Al Sapienza.  No idea who he played.

Even people who seem pretty modern go balistic at the idea that gay people exist.  When the teacher says that Billy Budd has gay symbolism, Tony's wife Carmela starts yelling: "What kind of sick pervert is teaching you those lies?  That's what's wrong with schools today.  They tell you that everybody and everything is gay, so naturally all the kids want to try it."

But it gets worse when one of Tony's captains, Vito, is outed: the guys drop by to extort money from a gay bar, and he's there!  He immediately leaves town, adopts a new name, and goes into hiding, but the guys are irate: "I shook hands with that fucking cocksucker!  I had him in my home!  Now I probably have AIDS.  That disgusting freak has a wife and kids!  They're disgraced forever!"

Left: Matthew Del Negro.  I think he played Tony's wife's cousin.

For the rest of the season, until thankfully Vito is found and tortured to death, each episode featured one of the guys yelling "That fucking cocksucker!  I wish he was here now -- I'd kill him with my bare hands -- no, I wouldn't do that.  I couldn't touch him without throwing up!"  We kept fast-forwarding past the five-minute long rants.

Strangely, most of the cast is gay-positive in real life. 

The Gay Couples of "Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag"

In some movies, you get exactly what the title says: Snakes on a Plane; Sharknado; Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997).

The heads are in the custody of mafioso Tommy Spinelli (Joe Pesci), who is transporting them across the country to prove to his boss that their owners are actually dead.  Unfortunately, the bags are switched at the airport, and the bag with the heads gets picked up by Charlie (Andy Comeau), who is en route to Mexico to visit his girlfriend and meet her parents for the first time.

Question: how did he get the human heads through security?

Question: wouldn't you notice right away that your duffel bag contained hard, round things instead of shirts and pants?

Trying to track down the heads, Tommy runs into Charlie's friends, Ernie and Steve (David Spade, Todd Louiso).  At first he tortures them in humorous ways (in their underwear), but then they bond, and agree to help him track down Charlie.

Humorous complications follow: Charlie loses a head, his girlfriend's parents think he's a serial killer, and so on. Tommy and Charlie bond, and the kind-hearted mafioso decides that he should give up crime.

But the hit men who originally killed the eight men (Anthony Mangano, Joe Basile) are upset over the "double cross," and put Tommy, Charlie, and the whole crowd on their hit list.

It's not very funny.  Most of the humor involves someone trying to keep someone else from realizing that he has a human head in his possession.  But there are gay subtexts everywhere in this movie.  Ernie and Steve come across as a gay couple.  So do the two hitmen.  Tommy, who keeps bonding with men, expresses no heterosexual interest, and could easily be read as gay.

By the way, Todd Louiso has an impressive physique.  Andy Comeau doesn't show anything here, but you can see his penis on tv series Huff (2004).