Stephen Louis Grush: From Pericles to Peter's Militia, with shirtless shots and gay subtext roles in between

 

Link to the n*de photos

 Stephen Louis Grush grew up in New Orleans, and graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago with a BFA in Theater. He has over 30 credits on the IMDB, often in projects that emphasize gay subtexts, or texts.

In Catch Hell (2014), two toughs (Stephen, Ian Barford) kidnap a Hollywood actor (Ryan Philippe) with the intent of torturing and killing him.  They do a lot of torturing, and a lot of n*de struggling, but Junior (Stephen) also falls in love with him.

In Gracepoint (2014), Stephen plays a plumber's apprentice who may be gay, accused of murdering a small boy.

In a 3-episode story arc on Rectify (2016), focus character Danny (Adan Young) is  living in a halfway house.  His roommate Manny (Stephen) walks around n*ked in front of him; this is particularly upsetting because he was repeatedly r*ped in prison.  But Manny won't stop.  Finally Danny tells the house leader about it, expecting the guy to be kicked out.  Instead, they give him a new roommate.

More after the break

"Saltburn": Brideshead Revisted for the post-gay generation, with kink and penises

 

Whenever possible, I check out plot synopses, reviews, and trailers before watching a movie. Since Amazon Prime has been pushing Saltburn , I checked the reviews: "a spectacularly crafted masterpiece"; "brilliant"; "sick, savage, and satisfying"; "vibes forward" (I don't know what that means); "a febrile thriller."  Sounds like a mishmash of Brideshead Revisted and The Talented Mr. Ripley, a poor (well, middle class) boy longing for the unstated homoerotic tensions and sybaritic excesses of the Polo Club crowd.  Except set in 2016, not the Georgian Era.

Some of the reviews contained plot synopses, which allowed me to make my decision: don't watch, don't even look at a trailer.  Here's why. 

1.  The focus character, sort of, is decadent Oxford richster Felix, seen here eating a popsicle and reading a Harry Potter book like a modern day Sebastian Flyte.  He's played by Jacob Elordi, a bad boy in Euphoria.

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2, Felix feels sorry for the sob stories of poor-but-honest classmate Oliver (Barry Keoghan, who has received awards and appeared on a list of the greatest living Irish actors),  So "Come out to Brideshead...um, Saltburn with me."

Oliver doesn't want to date Felix, he wants to be him.  So he does something too disgusting to mention here.  Really, really disgusting.   I'm not kink shaming: probably 3/4ths of the population will get physically sick just by reading about it, but if it's your thing, fine.   Why not just give him a blow job?

3, Felix conquered, it's time to coerce Cousin Farleigh(Archie Madkwe) into sex.  Then Felix's sister, with another really, really disgusting kink.  

4. Felix gets tired of the lies, deceptions, and disgusting kink, and orders Oliver to leave Saltburn.  But Cousin Farleigh ends up dead!  Then Felix! Now, of course, Oliver has to stay to find more family members to do disgusting kink with. Then Venetia kills herself!

5. Oliver is running out of family members.  He tries to seduce Mom, but she refuses.  Wait, dude, you forgot Dad and the Butler  Then Dad, tired of the lies, deception, and dead family members, bribes Oliver to leave.  He does.

6, But when Dad dies, Oliver returns, forces Mom to sign Saltburn over to him, and kills her.  Now he is the master of Saltburn, so he dances around naked.  

Actually, this looks sort of interesting, an a post-gay, everybody-does-everybody way.  Maybe I'll watch, but skip over the disgusting kink scenes. Or I'll just fast forward to the last scene with Barry Keoghan dancing naked like a sybaritic sycophant.

See also: Revisiting Brideshead Revisited