A picture of Alex Pettyfer...

...just because.

Guilty Pleasures #1: The Films of David DeCoteau, part one

Where did it all go wrong for David DeCoteau? He started out making standard issue gay porn(New Wave Hustlers), moved into Cinemax After Dark territory (Beach Babes from Beyond) and direct-to-video horror movies (Curse of the Puppet Master). He even tried to jump on the New Queer Cinema bandwagon with the dreadful Leather Jacket Love Story. And the thing is, he was never a good filmmaker. In fact his movies were all terrible. Like, Ed Wood terrible. Even his porn wasn't very good porn. But then, I don't know, something in him must have snapped because starting with Voodoo Academy (2000) he went off in a direction that made him a household name. Well, in certain households.

According to DeCoteau he wanted to make "the first horror film for girls." If by "girls" he means gay men, he succeeded admirably. Voodoo Academy is about as homoerotic as they come without actually being a gladiator movie, a cornucopia of 18-21 year old boys wondering around in boxer briefs, taking long hot baths, having oil rubbed all over their smooth chests while strapped to a table, and in a scene that must be seen to be believed, forced by voodoo magic to fondle themselves in their sleep, throwing off the covers and writhing around in their underwear while feeling up every inch of their own tight young bodies for a good ten minutes.

Excuse me while I have some quiet time.

I'm back.

Voodoo Academy is full of bad to marginal acting, although, surprisingly, several of the actors have managed to sustain careers: Drew Fuller, Riley Smith, Huntley Ritter (the "gay one" in the minor classic Bring It On). I doubt any of these boys include Voodoo Academy on their resumes. On a technical level nothing about Voodoo Academy succeeds. Its lack of budget shows at every turn. The script is awful, the story makes no sense. And yet. And yet. If something were to happen to my copy of Voodoo Academy I would cry for days. Well, maybe not, but I'd be very unhappy.

Somehow Voodoo Academy failed to garner any Academy Award or Golden Globe nominations, nor did it win a Palm D'or at Cannes or the Golden Lion at Venice. I don't think it even figured at the Razzies. But for David DeCoteau, as we shall see, it opened a new era in filmmaking.

Geek Love

You'll have to excuse me today. That's because the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee is today, probably the only time you will ever find me glued to ESPN. Tune in to ABC tonight for the finals. It really is some of the most involving television you will ever encounter.

More Hayato Ichihara part 2

As promised: More Hayato Ichihara

I can hardly believe that it has been seven years since I was first impressed by Hayato Ichihara's performance in the beautiful and harrowing All About Lily Chou-Chou. Ichihara has become quite the heartthrob in Japan, working constantly in movies and TV, often playing the gorgeous but goofy type. Fans might want to seek out his TV mini-series Waterboys 2 (less a sequel than a remake of the 2001 movie Waterboys and its TV spin-off about high school boys forming a synchronized swimming team) in which he sports a Speedo for roughly half the running time. Not that anyone asked, but I'm not really wild about the blond hair.

Boardies or Speedos?

What's your favorite swimwear?

Random (Not Quite) Shirtless Guy of the Day

Name is Enrique, apparently. That's all I know. And yes, I'll admit that is a shirt he is wearing. 

Making Up Mitch

Scroll down to see Mitch Hewer's naked Cosmo "centerfold". The Cosmo people have kindly posted a behind-the-scenes video of Mitch getting prepared for the shoot, which means lots of body make-up. It kind of gives you an idea of how tedious these photo shoots must be for their subjects, but our Mitch seems to be having fun. You can see the video here.

Smilin' Ed Speleers

Shortly after Ed Speleers made his film debut in the title role of the semi-disastrous film version of Eragon some British tabloids made a big deal over the fact that he was working on a construction crew. "How dare he have pretensions to be an international movie star! Serves him right!" Since then he has signed to a modeling agency and co-starred in the semi-disastrous UK TV series Echo Beach, from which these pictures are taken. Not sure if acting is really his thing, but he is very photogenic, and has a lovely deep voice with a great accent so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Incidentally, according to the prestigious internet, Ed's Eragon role was originally offered to Alex Pettyfer, who turned it down in favor of Stormbreaker.

Judy Garland

I warned you. It can't all be hot mens.

Queen of the Tabloids

Unlike the tabloids, I don't give a rip whether or not Gossip Girl star Chace Crawford is more than friends with former 'N Syncer JC Chasez. Those two may be hiking down the Hershey Highway or they may be the latest incarnation of Matt and Ben, but frankly all this "are they or aren't they" speculation strikes me as being counter-productive, silly and just plain boring. The fact that anyone even cares is proof that we still have an awful long way to go.

However...

A bit of advice, Mr. Crawford: if you want to show us how manly and macho you are there may be better ways to do it than dressing up like a Brokeback Mountain reject or carrying around a football while wearing pajama bottoms. But by all means continue to take off your shirt for us. In fact, please do.

How Time Flies Department

Does anyone remember fourteen year old Jeremy Sumpter playing the title role in the 2003 movie Peter Pan? Well, he's nineteen now and has three new movies in the can. I wonder if he still has that cute little lisp? If you're looking for a great bad-movie experience on a par with Reefer Madness, try to track down a TV movie sixteen year old Jeremy made for the Lifetime Cable Network entitled Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life in which his life is ruined by his addiction to internet porn! The only thing he doesn't do is play the piano really fast while laughing hysterically.

Don't do it Mitch!!!

Mitch Hewer in a photo by Kai Z. Feng. Suicide is a bad thing, boys and girls. Shirtless Mitch Hewer is a good thing.

Random Shirtless Guy of the Day

Married to Mimi

I've never been a big fan of Mariah Carey, so while all the tabloids are wondering if she has married a golddigger, I just think she is lucky to snag someone as completely adorable (and need I add, hot) as Nick Cannon.

Japanese Hotness: Hayato Ichihara!

Thanks to poster Rarebit at Famous Male Forums. More to come.

Forbidden Alex! Banned from Famous Males Forum!

After I scanned and edited all my Alex Pettyfer pictures I posted them to Famous Male Forums, which is one of my favorite places on the web. Predictably, the first comments there were of the following variety:

1) OH MY GOD! HE'S SMOKING!
2) TATTOOS?!?! I HATE TATTOOS!

I exaggerate slightly, but it seems as if anytime anyone posts pictures of Alex there (and they do frequently) the reaction is the same.

Now, just for the record, I am not a smoker, I dislike cigarettes, and I wish that people would not pollute their bodies with cigarette smoke. But come on people, we love him because he's beautiful, not because he's smart. If he were photographed shooting up with Amy Winehouse I'd be concerned.

Also, I am not a fan of tattoos. I believe that human skin is about the most beautiful thing in the world, and it is a shame to cover it up with ink. But yeah, even with those awful tattoos, Alex is still a gorgeous, sexy man.

That said, I thought that just for the fun of it I would remove his tats just to see how gorgeous and sexy he would be without them. Thank you, Photoshop. In the meantime, another forum member, Krew, who apparently is not a fan of photographer Mariano Vivanco's deliberately grainy style decided to perform his own Photoshop magic, essentially brightening the photo and removing noise. The result, though a tiny bit plastic for my tastes, was a remarkable sharp and clear photo of Alex, tattoo and all.

So far, so good, we both posted our results in the thread I started, with at least some positive feedback.

As I said before, I love the Famous Male Forums. There is so much good stuff posted there daily (a lot of junk too, of course) and with its distinctly British point of view there is much to be found that you would never see on an American site. However, the rules there are strict, often arcane and and at times downright paranoid. Last night a moderator who calls himself Tiuri removed both of the images I mentioned above and left a message that read , "Please do not post edited images." Really? Every one of the images I posted was edited by me. In their original state they were huge, over 3000 pixels wide and upwards of 3 megs in size, some of them were upside down and almost all of them were askew, several had writing that I removed and all of them were edited to remove the parts of the magazine page that were just empty space. So if edited images are not allowed, should I remove all of them? But yes, I removed two tattoos in that one photo, so I guess that by some stretch of the imagination it could be considered "fake." On the other hand, all Krew did was clean up the photo, there is nothing fake about it, or at least it isn't any more fake than 99.9% of all the photos you see in magazines every day. Ridiculous call, if you ask me.

So here they are; too hot for Famous Males Forum to handle. Enjoy.

More Alex Pettyfer part 2

More Alex Pettyfer part 1

I told you that there would be a lot of lovely Alex Pettyfer here, didn't I? I had already seen the pictures by Mariano Vivanco that were published in the Summer 2008 issue of GQ Style Italia, but my obsession is such that I bought the €3 magazine on Ebay for $15, and paid an additional $17 for shipping from Italy. All worth it I might add. So here then are my scans.