AfterElton Briefs: Oscar's seismic shift, a "True Blood" vs. "Twilight" smackdown, and more!

Out Chad Allen attends the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival's "Straight Talk About Gay Movies" (Pic: Getty)

Following this assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom raised the rainbow flag from the balcony of his city hall office today, an annual tradition that officially starts the gay pride celebration.

• Antonio Banderas talks about playing gay twenty years ago, and what audience perceptions were like back then compared to today. "It's interesting to see how people can pardon you for murdering a man, but they can't pardon you for kissing one."

• In what represents a seismic shift for the Gay Super Bowl Academy Awards, there will now be ten contenders for the Best Picture Oscar. So does this mean Year One has a shot at a nomination?

• Above you can see Rachel Maddow chat with Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach about what his military life has been like since he came out publicly on her show. Here's a shocker ... his fellow soldiers don't care that he's gay.

• Finally, True Blood vampire Stephen Moyer has some harsh, but hilarious words for Twilight vampire Robert Pattinson.

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

This guy!

Peter Klingingwell