Happy InDePlaidPants Day 2023!

This is one of our sillier traditions here at MNPP -- as if anything is done here with a straight face -- but for the past four years now, thanks to an off-hand comment from a reader, I have posted a gallery of actors wearing plaid pants a la this site's name and re-dubbed July 4th "InDePlaidPants Day." Because patriotism is stupid, but hot guys looking sharp is anything but. It's a smaller gallery than usual this year (and weirdly very black-and-white), but no less quality! Hit the jump and enjoy your sartorial independence...

Which is Hotter?

Ben Aldridge's shoot for Attitude mag is the gift that keeps on gifting! Gifting short shorts, that is. (See the rest here.) This spangly out-take was today brought to my attention, and opens up an opportunity to ask a question that's been bugging me since seeing Ben in M. Night Shyamalan's Knock at the Cabin earlier this year. (And PS for the thousandth time here is my piece on the movie.) If you've seen the movie (and this in itself isn't really a spoiler so don't avert your eyes if you haven't) you know that it offers us both flashbacks and flash-forwards. Which in turn also offers us a look at Young Twink Curly-Haired Ben, as well as Gray-Bearded Daddy Ben. So my question to you inevitably is....

online polls

Pics of the Day

Actor and sexual being Benjamin Aldridge shared some fun set photos for Knock at the Cabin over the weekend via Insta -- one of them I had previously posted but the above snap, with Jonathan Groff feeling up Ben's knee in front of some bookshelves...

... now supplants that one as my fave. Hell it supplants photos of my childhood and family and best friends as a fave. Not sure why he's sharing these now -- it's not out on blu-ray until May (you can pre-order it right here though) but whatever, it presents a good excuse to link to my piece about what the film had to say about gay trauma right here at Mashable. In case you missed it! Anyway there are a few more photos, including lots of hot hugging man-action with Dave Bautista, hit the jump for it...

Pic of the Day

Okay this photo of Ben Aldridge and Jonathan Groff playing papa bears to adorable little Kristen Cui on the set of M. Night Shyamalan's Knock at the Cabin is Too Cute, Too Cute By Ten. If you missed my big piece at Mashable on this movie and on its discussion of gayness and the apocalypse click here and read that. Yes I had mixed feelings on the movie but I wanna see it again as soon as I can, which is a pretty good sign for my future feelings about it.

Quote of the Day

Hey look it's another photo of Ben Aldridge in Attitude magazine -- see the previous bunch here, and really, I recommend it. I hadn't read his chat yet and so I missed that therein he talked about having been in a serious relationship with a closeted famous actor (who he doesn't name) and how their break-up fucked him up -- he went into therapy for it, and found it helpful beyond just that heartbreak stuff and I found this bit of what he said worth sharing:

"You can’t underestimate the trauma of growing up in a world that tells you that you’re disgusting. And I feel like we do the best job of being fabulous, but I think it can wound us deeply, really deeply. More than we can comprehend sometimes.”

I highlight that quote also because it's a good lead-in to linking over to a piece I wrote at Mashable about Ben's new gay horror movie Knock at the Cabin from director M. Night Shyamalan, which went up over the weekend (my piece that is -- the movie's been out for a week now). It's all about the gay trauma of apocalypse talk during our formative years, so fun stuff! But that movie certainly dredged it all up and ended up surprising me some, with how seriously it approached the subject.

Ben Aldridge Seven Times

Knock at the Cabin and Spoiler Alert actor and mustache-rider Ben Aldridge is rocking some short-shorts on the cover of the new issue of Attitude magazine (thx Mac) and readers, I literally choked on my breakfast looking at the cover image seen above. I almost died because of an up-short shadow! That's a new one! (Ed. -- That is not a new one.) Anyway all good tidings and blessings for the new year unto the photographer Kosmas Pavlos who gifted us this shoot -- and if you check his Instagram you'll see he also shot Lucas Bravo this month so he is living the life y'all. (And let's get Ben and Lucas in a swarthy erotic thriller stat!) Aaaaanyway I will have more on Knock at the Cabin coming shortly, but for now let's just enjoy this sexy neon-soaked and stached-up photoshoot. Hit the jump for it...

 

Good Morning, World

M. Night Shyamalan's new movie Knock at the Cabin is out in theaters today -- it stars Jonathan Groff (that's his butt and other bits above on our beloved Looking) and the beautiful and talented Ben Aldridge as a gay couple with a little daughter who must fight off home invaders (including Dave Bautista) who are convinced it's the end of the world. Here is the trailer if you missed it. Anyway I might have had a mixed reaction to the movie (see my tweet at this post's bottom for a brief thought) but it's actually I think a fascinating failure with a whole lot to talk about. I have a piece coming out at some point on some of that over at Mashable (probably Monday because it's spoilery) but as much as I think the movie's let down by its construction I still recommend seeing it. For one...

Ben Aldridge, real deal pic.twitter.com/G8dx5aYu41

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 3, 2023

... the actors are all terrific. Ben Aldridge specifically knocked me out -- after killing it in both this and in Spoiler Alert (review here) I am very much Team Ben at this moment in time. For another, and I don't really get into this in my Mashable piece so I can get into it a little here, it's an incredibly smart movie on the COVID pandemic without actually being about that. What it is about is a family trapped inside a house while everyone outside goes crazy with conspiracy theories and the only way they have of keeping abreast of the world is the television and they start becoming convinced themselves of Fake News and Crisis Actors and without pushing any of this directly it is very much about the past few years in ways that impressed me. So ultimately I don't think it fully works as the thriller that it's supposed to be, but as a collection of ideas and ruminations on Our Moment? It's interesting. It's definitely interesting. But we'll talk more next week once my piece is out. (No not that piece, you pervs. That's Groff's job.)

I had EXTREMELY mixed feelings about #KnockAtTheCabin which takes a shit-ton of interesting ideas (and good perfs) & drops them in a really frustrating container. It somehow feels simultaneously over-stuffed & half-baked. I didn't buy it but I also can't stop thinking about it pic.twitter.com/yow85pHs6E

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 1, 2023

Smile You've Got Sexy Cancer

I would use that photo here -- I am so predictable. Anyway that is of course the actor Ben Aldridge and that is the actor Ben Aldridge in the tearjerker Spoiler Alert, which is out in theaters today. There is as far as I recall one shot of him shirtless in the entire movie, a shot they use it in the trailer and a shot I am using here today to grab your slutty, slutty attentions to point you in the direction of my review of Spoiler Alert, which is up at Mashable today. This is my first review at Mashable, which I'm excited about! I hope I get to write more of them but for now you'll have to click over and read it and give it traffic so maybe that happens. That's the way the internet works, folks. I don't make the rules. I just manipulate them using beefcake.

Good Morning, World

I had gotten halfway through this morning's "Good Morning World" post posting the hot new photos of soccer player Jack Grealish, when I realized he's in homophobic anti-Semitic Qatar right now playing at the World Cup and I was suddenly not in the mood for those photos anymore. I will not be gay baited under such circumstances. So instead here are a few pictures of openly gay and extraordinarily terrific Ben Aldridge, who's starring in the gay dramedy Spoiler Alert out next week...



... and I just realized that I hadn't shared the trailer somehow? Anyway I will be reviewing that next week after the holiday (speaking of -- PS I'm off tomorrow through Sunday) so stay tuned, and hit the jump for a few more new-ish Ben photos of note...

Knock Knock, Gays There

Getting to this late because of a screening this morning but lo behold we have gotten the first trailer for Knock at the Cabin, the new thriller from M. Night Shyamalan. Now you might be saying to yourselves -- "But Jason! You're of the mind that M. Night hasn't been at the top of his game for a very long time! Why dost thou care?" And first off I don't know why you suddenly went all Shakespearean there at the end but I like it; you should keep that cool shit up. Secondly -- I actually mostly liked Night's last film Old. Until he went as he's wont to do and crawled up his own ass with his complications having complications, anyway. But Old was goofy fun! Most importantly though, Knock at the Cabin stars Jonathan Groff and Fleabag out-gay Ben Aldridge as a pair of Daddys, so obviously I'm gonna talk about this movie. Come on. What am I doing here if not exactly that? They play dads to a little girl who all go to a cabin in the woods when, wham, a group of nogoodniks (including Dave Bautista and Rupert Grint) comes a'knockin. But don't let me describe it poorly, just watch the damn trailer:

Knock at the Cabin is out on February 3rd. What do we think?

The Boys Can't Help it

The two photos I am sharing in this post (via) of actor and former Fleabag-ian Ben Aldridge (mmmmm) are the reason this post is even happening, because as I was prepping it I discovered a shock that almost put a cramp in the entire thing! A wrench in the gears, a punch to the caboose! Okay I don't know what the words falling out of my fingertips are even meaning anymore, let's try getting to the point. I was all set to share the news that "broke" over my week away that Ben here and our boy Jonathan Groff are the stars of M. Night Shyamalan's next movie A Knock at the Cabin that's about a gay couple and their son being confronted by some weirdo strangers (including Dave Bautista and Rupert Grint) who claim the world is ending. The movie is an adaptation of a book, Paul Tremblay's The Cabin at the End of the World, and you can read more details about the book on its Amazon page -- hell maybe you've already read the book and know all the details your own damn self! People like read and shit, it's crazy. Anyway we know more about the plot than we usually do with M. Night things because it's an adaptation -- we'll have to see if he's spiced it up with some twists of his own when the time comes. 

 

Anyway to get back to the shock I mentioned that almost derailed this entire post, if it hadn't been for these photos anyway -- this news isn't really news! I had somehow inexplicably forgotten it but I reported this back in March! How the hell does one forget that Jon Groff and Ben Aldridge are set to play a couple in a horror movie by M. Night? Well in my defense... the world is a hellscape. Really that's the only defense I neeed for forgetting anything these days. But further in my defense -- we didn't actually know in March that Groff & Aldridge were playing a couple in the movie. We didn't know it was going to be an adaptation of this book at all. I even said in my March post that I assumed this movie would be sex-less because all of M. Night's movies are sexless. And I actually still assume it will be in practice sexless. But just Jon & Ben playing a couple in front of me, that will go a long way toward making me, you know, think about sex, despite Night's best efforts to tamp that shit down. I mean I posted a photo of Jonathan Groff fully dressed on Twitter earlier today and (see below) Twitter put a content warning on the tweet! That's how much sex Groffy exudes just by existing. He can overcome M. Night no prob!

This photo of Jonathan Groff that his Looking costar Frankie Alvarez posted last night, phew pic.twitter.com/AOPSLrFZGW

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 20, 2022

When the Groff's A'Knockin...

The good movie news today is that a double dose of hot homosexuals have been cast in M. Night Shyamalan's next movie -- good so far as the "hot homosexuals" part goes; I'm not so sold on Shyamalan these days but we'll take what we can get. The homos of choice are Jonathan Groff and former-Fleabag-ian Ben Aldridge (see our previous posts on Ben here), who are joining Dave Bautista and Rupert Grint in Knock at the Cabin, a thriller which... probably involves a cabin, who knows. M. Night's not saying. There will be knocking? One hopes of the bedpost-against-wall sort with Ben & Jon specifically, but Night's movies are always sexless so I have my doubts on that front. Dare to dream. In related news...

... Ben's Fleabag queen Phoebe Waller-Bridge has set up a new series at Amazon! And like with M. Night's movie we know absolutely nothing about it! But it's great news all the same. She should make it about a throuple played by Ben, Andrew "Hot Priest" Scott, and her Crashing co-star Jonathan Bailey. I know I know they are all very similar looking white gay men but... I'd still want to see that. Who wouldn't want to see that? If you wouldn't want to see that you just hate fun. 

Jonathan Bailey, Netflix and #Bridgerton respecting the time honored tradition of hot fops getting out of the water in soaking white shirts within period-storytelling you love to see it pic.twitter.com/uueTss6eiW

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 2, 2022

Ben Aldridge Five Times

Congrats to Fleabag actor Ben Aldridge for coming out last year and also for now getting an award for it -- I didn't get any awards when I came out! I demand retroactive decoratory compensation! Or at least a sexy mustache and a magazine cover, that is surely not too much to ask. These are for Attitude magazine (via) where they gave him their "TV Award" whatever that is, but good for him -- this reminds me of an old tweet of mine:

I love Phoebe Waller-Bridge's love for hot somewhat identical gay dudes pic.twitter.com/yiQHRs77aT

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 5, 2021

There's no facetiousness in that tweet -- I really do love that about our Phoebs. I don't know that any single person has done so much for casting openly gay men as hetero love interests. For real. I mean it. You know I mean it because I also tweeted that once on its own.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge has done more in the past 5 years to prove that openly gay men can play thoroughly convincing heterosexual love interests than all of Hollywood in the past 120 pic.twitter.com/Nuux8qp6TB

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 29, 2020

I apparently am obsessed. I'm either obsessed or I spend too much time on Twitter, although why I present these options as mutually exclusive I ain't a clue. Insert "Why not both" meme here, but I will refrain from embedding a third tweet. Just picture it. With your mind! Aaaanyway I just got out of my final NYFF press screening this morning and am, to be honest, entirely burned out, but you could probably tell that by all of the gibberish I have so far served. Y'all just enjoy these photos after the jump while I get some caffeine and try to pull myself together...