Good Morning, Lukas Gage

I haven't been paying much attention to the whole press onslaught that The White Lotus and Smile 2 actor Lukas Gage has been, you know, onslaughting, due to his recently dropped memoir because... I don't know why I am supposed to know or care about that. I have nothing against him! I've liked him when I've seen him in things on-screen and we are contractually obligated to love any hot young actor who is an out homosexual. He also had Murray Bartlett's face up his butt once (that we know of) so he's royalty, practically. But a memoir? In this eocnomy? All that said he wore a jockstrap in his new photoshoot for Paper magazine ...

... and I don't care how much of a stereotype this makes me -- it will always work on me. I can't help it! I saw Rob Lowe in Youngblood at an extremely formative moment y'all! Anyway have any of you read the book? I would love to hear your thoughts if so. What a time to be alive. Anyway just like the last time I posted a Lukas Gage photoshoot this is a photoshoot geared at my preppy jock fetish sweet-spot so I'm putty in his paws. Hit the jump for the rest...

Don't Look For Enlightenment Here

I didn't even recognize Murray Bartlett in this photo at first but when I did my head spun around like somebody just clocked an owl -- anyway since Murray is the patron gay of The White Lotus I will use this random photo that made me go gee-gosh-golly-damn to ask y'all quick-like to tell me what you thought of the third season finale if you watched it last night? I did and I am firmly ensconced in Camp Loved It, which seems to be an embattled place to be but I don't care -- I'm a maverick and I loved it. People seem to be angry at "plot holes" as if this show has ever been about "plot" or as if you even need a plot to make sense for something to be excellent (go watch any Hitchcock movie and get back to me). It yes is probably the messiest of the three seasons but character-wise Mike White's incisiveness into human behavior is still as sharp and funny as ever. Although the darkness at the heart of this season -- a real spiritual malaise and cynicism and, well, sickness -- was very much felt, and I'd say is pretty resonant with our moment in time! Apologies for being kinda vague in these talking points -- I just don't want to toss spoilers out here in people's face less than 24 hours after the show aired, so have at it with spoilers in the comments if you'd like. Me, I'm heading out to a screening -- actually I should warn y'all right now that I have n incredibly busy week ahead (including a half day off tomorrow) and then I'm going home to visit my family for an extended weekend, so it might be semi-dry up in here for a few days. Not that anything can be too dry with that photo of Murray Bartlett staring at us. In summation -- Carrie Coon rules, the end. 

Now THAT is an actor #thewhitelotus

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) April 6, 2025 at 10:52 PM

Good Morning, World

I saw these gifs of Russell Tovey on Looking making the rounds on Tumblr yesterday and I realized I don't think I ever posted these shots here before? Which is insane. And so here they are, Russ in all his glory. Or you know, 85% of his glory anyway. Can you believe Looking is 10 years old already? We are all on death's door. Happy Friday!

Good Morning, World

I wished Murray Bartlett a happy birthday yesterday on Twitter (see below) but it doesn't feel right now to mark the occasion here on the site and when I saw this photo (which I am fairly sure is new to me) I knew... I knew a lot of things. Like I knew the face of god, for example. So happy birthday, god! (I need to rewatch Looking.)

HAPPY 53, MURRAY BARTLETT pic.twitter.com/00Ucy3lipZ

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 20, 2024

Quote of the Day

"I’ll do anything with Mike White.

I’ll hold a camera for Mike White.

I just need to work with him again."

That's The White Lotus actor (and newly gay-married -- congrats!) Lukas Gage talking to Vanity Fair today at the tail-end of an interview that's mostly about his brand ambassador gig for some Armani perfume thing. I hate perfume but what's he saying above is important, and a sentiment I would like to echo. I too will do anything with Mike White. I can't say I want to work with him "again" since I haven't worked with him the first time, but if Mike White wants to film Murray Bartlett eating my butt I am just saying that I am down for that. Just so's you know, Mike!

Good Morning, World

As if getting to have Murray Bartlett stick his face up his bum wasn't enough for one lifetime, The White Lotus actor Lukas Gage got to do a fancy man photo-shoot for Mr. Porter (via, thx Mac) and wear a bunch of clothes I actually like for a change -- as I've complained several times lately fashion isn't especially hitting the right notes for me these days, but I would wear everything Lukas wears in this shoot gladly. Even the pink pants. Maybe especially the pink pants. I certainly wouldn't pull them off as well as Lukas does, but dare to dream. Hit the jump for the full shoot...

Good Morning, World

A scruffy salt-and-pepper Murray Bartlett wearing sweaters and leather pants (and memorably, as seen above, less) hanging out among bookshelves -- are the people at Mr Porter trying to murder me? These photos (via) might as well be a dagger in my heart, or if not exactly my heart, somewhere below the neck anyway. But they can twist this dagger because I like the way it penetrates, I do.(Sidenote: No I haven't caught up with Murray's turn on The Last of Us yet -- I'm not sure I'm watching that show, I didn't like the pilot. We'll see. I know this recent episode was supposed to be good and very gay so I could be convinced...) Aaaaanyway now that we've fetishized full penetration already today -- hello! I'm back from my Virtual Sundance Adventure of the past ten days, and will be up and blogging again today. That's not to say I'm through with Sundance -- I have several reviews that have gone up already that I need to point you towards and I will have several more coming out in the week ahead to do the same with. But I will also do other stuff too, i.e. the nonsense you expect from me on a daily basis. Like some ogling or Murray Bartlett's bare arms perhaps? Perhaps if you hit the jump you'll find out...

Good Morning, Gratuitous Spencer Boldman

I doubt I'll get around to doing one of these posts for every single one of the strippers on the Welcome to Chippendales show (see also here) -- we will have to move on at some point! But I had to do this one as an apology to actor Spencer Boldman -- he played the perfectly named "Lance" on that show who became the lead dancer thanks to Murray Bartlett's character's obsession with him and I just did not get it. I was the doubting Kumail Nanjiani! It's true. But dude looked different on the series...

... than he does in real life. Not just in the Rocky Horror rip-off dance -- that 80s mullet hair was really getting in my way. I couldn't see the trees for the mullet! But then yesterday I saw Spencer photographed and interviewed as his own hot self for my old friend Schön! magazine and the clouds parted... well really what parted was his shirt collar to reveal that dude is hairy in real life.

And we all know the magic that works. I could see the forest for the trees now -- the forest of thick, lustrous chest hair that is. I'm sold! That said Spencer has been around for awhile (I guess he was in the first 21 Jump Street movie but I'll be damned if I remember anything about the first or the second 21 Jump Street movies) and before this new shoot for Schön! he seems to have been a long-time advocate of shaving his true glory, so most of what you'll see below (mostly stolen off his Insta) is of the waxed-down variety. It's okay! I can see past that now. (As long as he promises to keep the fur from now on!) Hit the jump for a big ol' batch of photos...

Body By Kumail

I don't know what the hell else I was doing on September 20th when the teaser trailer for the Welcome To Chippendales series dropped, but seeing as I've been following every whisper of every development of the series from Day One it seems truly bizarre that I just realized I'd never posted it. So I'm righting that right now, even though y'all have had weeks to watch it and I have nothing new to add to the conversation at this point. The series has an incredible cast with Kumail Nanjiani in the lead as the creator of the male stripping empire, alongside Murray Bartlett...

... Annaleigh Ashford, Juliette Lewis, Andrew Rannells, Dan Stevens, Roswell, and Robin de Jesús, and it will tell the story of the murder that rocked its g-string kingdom back in the 1980s. The series will premiere on Hulu on November 22nd -- you know, just in time to watch it with your Grandma and Grandpa after stuffing yourselves sick with turkey feast. The perfect holiday entertainment!

When We Were White

I think this news got a little lost in the mix with the exciting Emmy wins for the series stealing the spotlight, but Mike White's phenomenal HBO series The White Lotus was released on DVD last week, so if you don't have HBO and missed what all the hullaballoo was about this is your chance to be hip like us hip kids in the know. Buy it at this link for a measly 20 spot. It's only 20 bucks to be hip? What a bargain! To think of all the money I blew on piano key ties. Anyway this is a good moment to also share the teaser trailer for the second season of the show, which will premiere in just a few weeks, some time in October. Cannot wait!

Pics of the Day

This morning Vanity Fair has shared with us the first photos from Welcome to Chippendales, Kumail Nanjiani's series about the dude who got that male-stripper thing rolling back in the 1970s and 80s, and then also that whole murder thing that happened that got covered by the tabloids and turned into a TV movie and such. VF has some photos of Kumail in character but they're really boring photos of him wearing ugly suits so you can click over for those -- I only stole the juicy ones. Murray Bartlett seen up top was cast back in January as the (doomed) choreographer, and I guess he's found his niche. Dead gays! I wonder if they'll kill him on Physical? He can have a full trifecta. Also on the show is Dan Stevens in an insanely flamboyant role I spoke about when he was cast -- they haven't given us any photos of him yet, I guess they're saving them. Anyway this show was previously called Immigrant but I guess they took my advice on changing that title because good grief was that title never gonna work! Welcome to Chippendales is a little clunky but at least it's not making the male stripper television program sound like a dour sepia-toned James Gray movie about cholera rats.

I Thought He'd Be Bigger

When news broke last November that Jake Gyllenhaal was thinking about starring in a remake of the trash-classic Road House (one of my life-long faves of trash cinema) with Go director Doug Liman I was... well let's say flummoxed by the news. It's a lot! But I sort of forgot about it being a thing immediately -- one, because the world is even more "a lot" and I get distracted. And two, who the hell thought such a thing would actually come to fruition? Jake announces projects like I announce crushes -- we are easy whores, and our whims are a dime a dozen. And yet here we are nine months later and this news is here to tear out of our wombs like a that little deformed baby in that one movie, you know the one -- Variety is today reporting that the Road House remake starring Mr. Gyllenhaal and directed by Mr. Liman is now a go go go.

"According to the studio, the new take stars Gyllenhaal as a former UFC fighter who takes a job as a bouncer at a rough-and-tumble roadhouse in the Florida Keys, but “soon discovers that not everything is what it seems in this tropical paradise.”

Okay so Jake as a "former UFC fighter" means

that Jake is getting back into Southpaw shape then, I assume?

I can deal with that. But that's not all though! They also announced some co-stars and they include Lukas Gage -- and I wonder if Gage would be annoyed being referred to as "the guy whose ass Murray Bartlett ate in The White Lotus"? I wouldn't be annoyed being referred to as that if given the opportunity; hell I would have business cards made -- and the hot-to-trot Travis Van Winkle...

... (and you can see plenty more o' Travis right here),

and, speaking of Southpaw, Jake's Southpaw co-star Beau Knapp...

... who starred in one of my favorite recent horror films, the wildly underrated Mosquito State. (You should see Mosquito State dammit.) Oh and as if those guys aren't enough to get us excited... did I say Billy Magnussen? That's right. Billy Magnussen!

Remember when Billy humped Jake on the red carpet for their movie Velvet Buzzsaw? I sure remember it. Anyway those are a lot of Jake's former co-stars that he's gathered up, and hot fun ones at that -- this sounds like a party! And I can't believe it didn't occur to me until today -- Jake famously worked with the original "Dalton" himself, Mr. Patrick Swayze, in Donnie Darko. This suddenly makes a little more sense to me? Anyway who knows, the world is insane -- this is hardly the most insane thing in it. We will see!

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

The fact that half of the cast got an Emmy nomination yesterday wasn't the only good news that we got about Mike White's great The White Lotus -- and I've seen some people grumbling about all of the praise being heaped on it, saying its overkill, to which I say pooh, pooh on you! Mike White is finally having his moment after years upon years of delivering weird-ass delight into our lives, we will cherish all of this run dammit. Anyway Emmy pile-up aside the other good news is that the show is getting released onto physical media! Weirdly only DVD not blu-ray, but we'll take what we can get since we're physical media + Mike White obsessives. The six-episode set will hit on September 13th and the press release says it will include "bonus content" but they're not specific as to what that means. Well if it's an hour of set-footage of Steve Zahn trying on boner prosthetics we all win. I'll update this post with a link once it's actually on Amazon, but for now below is the DVD's box-art - set your darn calendars!

Quote of the Day

“It’s very easy to feel overwhelmed in the world we’re in at the moment. Armond came to represent, for me, that part of us that is like, ‘I can’t take this anymore. This is insane,' There was something about him crashing and burning that felt like a really powerful metaphor… hopefully that’s not the fate of the human race. ... Sometimes it feels like we’re just hurtling toward things that we could prevent, but we’re just choosing not to. Let’s not be Armond."

Our king Murray Bartlett -- normally I would say "our mustachioed king" but dude's not rocking the stache in these photos, gasp! -- is the cover dude for Variety this week, talking that perfect slice of wonder The White Lotus that he starred in last year, and listen. I woke up weirdly early this morning and am kind of delirious from exhaustion already and so I'm not entirely in my right mind (whatever that is) but this interview (specifically the bit above) made me start crying? I think he was right to zero on that aspect of the show anyway, because I think he's right on with why it resonated so much last summer and continues to today. (Sidenote: here is my review of The White Lotus.) I can remember how vividly its panic-attack vibe hit anyway -- that score! -- and to be honest I only feel more like Armond by the day. So that's fun! Let's stare at a couple more photos of Murray, even if he is stache-less, after the jump to calm us down (or to at least channel our tensions towards other parts of our bodies)...

Dan is This Man

My opinion on the actor Dan Stevens tends to swing wildly around depending on the project -- if I'd gotten to know him circa The Guest we'd have been good, but I hated him on Downton and I think that gave us a shaky foundation upon which all else has been built since. That said Dan and me are in an upswing right now because that movie that had him speaking German and playing a robot (the movie called I'm Your Man) was an absolute delight and he was absolutely delightful in it -- if you haven't been able to see it yet I recommend you do! (It is on blu-ray and available to stream, FYI.) Anyway that's good news for him getting cast on Kumail Nanjiani's forthcoming limited series Immigrant, which is about the formation of the male stripper league called the Chippendales and that nasty business with the murder that happened. And even better was when I googled the real life dude he's set to play, named Paul Snider:

Oh my god THIS is the guy that Dan Stevens was just cast as in Kumail Nanjiani's CHIPPENDALES series pic.twitter.com/a9AYWIShPx

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 24, 2022

Dan Stevens is about to have some fun, you guys. DH describes Snider as "a hustler and serial schmoozer whose unlikely partnership with struggling LA backgammon club owner Banerjee (Nanjiani) led to the birth of the Chippendales." Snider is also best known for the 1980 murder of his wife, the Playboy model Dorothy Stratten (who'd been sleeping with Peter Bogdonavich), after which Snider killed himself -- all of this then got turned into Bob Fosse's movie Star 80...

.... where Snider was played with grand sexy sleaze by Eric Roberts. This is so much information. Anyway last we'd heard about Nanjiani's series was when mustache-king Murray Bartlett got cast in the series as the stripper-choreographer; actually scratch that I did hear a few weeks later that Andrew Rannells of Girls fame got cast as Murray's boyfriend. And DH says that charmer Annaleigh Ashford also has a role, which is always welcome; like Jake we love that lady!

Dance Murray Dance

Great week for Murray Bartlett and fans of Murray Bartlett, as he's both been rightly nominated for a SAG award for his performance in The White Lotus and won a prime role in an upcoming thing we're looking forward to. The "upcoming thing" is Kumail Nanjiani's limited series Immigrant for Hulu about the sordid true-life story of murder and mayhem behind the exotic male dancer empire known as the Chippendales -- Murray has just landed the role of the choreographer Nick De Noia...

... who (spoiler alert I guess but this is a well-known tabloid story from the 1980s) is the dude who got murdered in the middle of this most sordid and bow-tied tale. I like how the press release describes the character:

"Producer-choreographer Nick De Noia is a charming, fast-talking New Yorker who’s certain he’s God’s gift to entertainment. Just ask him. He is the person responsible for transforming Chippendales from a seedy male strip joint in West LA to the global juggernaut it would one day become. A man of many passions, Nick loves drinking, drugs, women, men–and most of all, show biz."

Post-Lotus this casting almost feels like typecasting it's so dead-on, right? Anyway we're very excited for Murray, dude deserves all of this, and I hope Immigrant is great. Immigrant feels like an awfully self-serious title for this, I have to say, even though the story of the dude Nanjiani is playing will likely warrant that -- I just hope it's not entirely wiped clear of the sordid entertainment value inherent in its beekcake-y premise. I know you have a lot of heavy thoughts of men's body image issues now, Kumail, but it's not all doom-and-gloom!

Austin, Formerly of Swallow Fame

Some might say that two posts about the menfolks of Mike White's show The White Lotus in a row might be too much, but to those people I say fuck you. Git atta he', see!! Sorry don't know why Edward G. Robinson just took over my body, but the sentiment remains. Git! Especially since as seen above we're talking about Swallow actor Austin Stowell -- and yes no matter what Austin does for the rest of his career he will be forever referred to by this site as "Swallow actor" -- this time, as shown in the teaser for this weekend's finale (watch it below), and that's an extra special little gift. And I want to have a post at the top of the site for y'all to tell me your thoughts and feelings on the finale, when it happens. And since it's now time for my three-day weekend, y'all can do that in the comments here. Austin Swallow I mean Stowell approves!

More Lotus Please

Tremendous news today that we must celebrate with THAT SPECIFIC PHOTO of actor Murray Bartlett -- Variety's just reported that Mike White's HBO show The White Lotus will be getting a second season! Huzzah upon huzzah! The second season will take place at a different resort location -- clearly Mike White has figured out how to travel luxuriously on somebody else's dime! -- but there might, he says might, be overlap with some characters from this first season showing up at the new location. If you had your choice which characters would you want to see show up again? I'd be fine with any of them honestly, but the one that would surprise me the least -- in that I really think it will happen -- would be Jennifer Coolidge's Tanya. White had written that other show for Coolidge that HBO didn't pick up, so he's clearly smitten. As are we all. Anyway here's my review of The White Lotus over at AwardsWatch, in case you missed it -- the season (not series!) finale airs this Sunday at 9pm!

Quote of the Day

Top tier human, MNPP longstanding beloved, and creative genius Mike White has been enjoying some well-earned success this summer thanks to his HBO series The White Lotus, which y'all know I loved -- I wrote about it at AwardsWatch -- but that usually means nothing; I always love things that flop! So I am pleased as pleased punch that this one seems to be a hit! I mean I have no idea what its ratings are but I've seen people talking about it, with enthusiasm, all over the internet the past few weeks, and that's as important a metric as any now right? Whatever, let me have this. So with good buzz comes write-ups, and White's given a big interview to The New Yorker this week (thx Brad) that I can't recommend highly enough if you've ever been a fan. He talks Lotus, he talks being on Survivor, he talks future projects and then about how he's been putting off doing a third season of Enlightened even though HBO has expressed interest (I KNOW). But my favorite section comes when he describes the gloriously-deranged-sounding show he wanted to make with Aubrey Plaza, and what he then says about the current state of TV alongside it, so that's today's quote:

"O.K., so, I wrote a script that I was really into, for Aubrey Plaza and for me to be in. We were playing ourselves, but it was this weird sex comedy set in Sweden. My character was basically a very predatory version of myself. There were some MeToo elements. The script was definitely poking the bear. And so we went around to all of these streamers, and I could tell people really liked the script. But everybody was kind of afraid to do it. There are all these streamers right now, and there’s all this business. It does feel like there’s a lot of places to go and take the meeting. But then, when you go into the rooms to have the meeting, you realize they all want the same thing. There’s not a lot of incentive for them to try something that feels like they might get criticized for it. There’s a very corporatized thing going on. There’s not that big of an upside to taking on something that would cause more problems than it’s worth. 

 It was always hard to make stuff for me. But, back in the early two-thousands, I just felt like there were more people running places who were individuals and had their own individual taste and would take different types of risks. It’s not to say there aren’t cool, risky things being made. But, when they type my name into the algorithm at Netflix, it must come out zeroes or something. When I go to their offices, I get no sense that they have any idea who I am or what I’m doing there. You really feel like it’s some kind of Terry Gilliam “Brazil” version of futurist entertainment."

Paradise Loused

I hope you all know by now that a new Mike White project is a thing to savor -- they don't come nearly as often as they should, and they never last as long as we want them to, but every second of every one has been a blessing and a gift. And that score ain't changing with his new limited-series The White Lotus, which is premiering on HBO Max this weekend. (Watch the trailer here.) And so, out of sheer thirst I had intended to plow through my screeners of the show in the span of an afternoon when I first sat down with them a few weeks back... but couldn't, I just couldn't. The show was again too good, too much to rush through, and I took my time with it -- and I'm glad to see that HBO is similarly doling out the series on a weekly basis, because it benefits from that breathing space. Anyway I only finally finished watching the entire series last night and I wasn't sure I'd write anything, but as it does when it wants to be said the words just came pouring out of me today -- head on over to AwardsWatch for my review of the show. It's as great as anything Mike White has ever done, which is, uhh, some high praise I'd say.