Spiderman exploring his kinkier side

And Live Hard or Die Free which shows the downside of product placement

Be sure to check out the others

Speaking of a cheeky look at the movies, it's doubtful Will Ferrell will ever score an Oscar win, but his odds of winning at this year's MTV Movie Awards are pretty damn great. Ferrell is up for a whole slow of awards, most notably for our interests, he snagged a nod for Best Kiss for the same-sex snogging in Talledega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby. This follows in the footsteps of last year's winners Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger. However, Ferrell's lip lock with Sacha Baron Cohen in Talladega Nights was considerably more lighthearted than Brokeback Mountain's smooch. (I've got the Ferrell/Cohen smooch after the jump.) Ferrell and Cohen will have to beat out Cameron Diaz & Jude Law in The Holiday, Columbus Short & Meagan Good in Stomp The Yard, Mark Wahlberg & Elizabeth Banks in Invincible, and Marlon Wayans & Brittany Danie lin Little Man.

Looking at that list of nominees, I'd say the same-sex snog has a good chance of winning again.

Other gay noms of interest include Best Picture nominees Blades of Glory, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan and Little Miss Sunshine all of which were more or less gay-friendly. Even Pirates of the Caribbean has a gay-sensibility.

Michael Hinman over at SyFyPortal.com speculates that a good replacement for Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible franchise might be John Barrowman. Hmm, I'd rather see John as Bond, but what the heck. The best part is that Hinman doesnt' even make mention of Barrowman's sexuality.

AE reader Francois tipped me off to a Canadian series called Regenesis which looks like a cross between CSI and House. Greg Bryk plays Weston Field, a HIV positive character, but I'm not certain if he is gay or not. In the show's second season, they did a rather provocative episode where they discover the "gay" gene. After the jump is a clip from the ep and here is a picture of Bryk.

It's official. America is obsessed with gay men. This weekend, Will Ferrell's comedy, Blades Of Glory, tops the weekend box office, raking in over $33 million.

The film explores the ways in which homophobia gets in the way of a straight male figure skating duo from doing there best work. They learn to overcome their fears of man-on-man intimacy in order to dazzle crowds with double axles and triple-luxes--while wearing sequins and spandex.

I haven't seen the film. But I have seen enough of the trailers and clips on TV over the last several weeks to get the premise.

But I think I am going to check this one out. A review I saw yesterday on CBS Sunday Morning helped allay my worries that this film would be just another Hollywood frat boy flick with prat falls, farts and gay jokes.

My fellow AfterElton writer and associate editor Brian Juergens wrote a review of Blades, and also (quite eloquently) responds to this very issue:

Was there a parade of mincing stereotypes? Absolutely. But oddly enough, none of the ridiculous characters was gay or was intended to be perceived as gay. Was the audience laughing at the few gay characters the film actually featured? Yes — because these characters were teaching the others about how dated and pathetic their own machismo-laden perceptions of masculinity really were.

But were Ferrell and Heder headlining a project that treated gay men as cannon fodder just to get a few cheap laughs? Absolutely not. In fact, I would argue that Blades of Glory is one of the most relentlessly clever and keenly perceptive comedies ever made about straight-male bonding, fear of intimacy, and masculinity — and figure skating, naturally.

Most of our favorite gay weekly/monthly mags haven't posted reviews yet, but you can read what the mainstream papers are saying at Meta Critic.

Have you seen it? What were your impressions? Is this a step forward or a step backward?

A few gay-themed movies in theatres this weekend -- here's a rundown.

Blades of Glory
I caught this one earlier this week and was really impressed by the way that it avoided gay-baiting and celebrated male-male intimacy -- something that I really didn't expect from a dumb comedy about figure skating (the film also mines the intrinsic homoeroticism of its central joke for all it's worth). If you want to read more, check out my review.

Peaceful Warrior
Victor Salva (who brought us the insanely homoerotic Jeepers Creepers movies and Powder) brings us this based-on-a-true-story sports movie about a gymnast (Scott Mechlowicz from Euro Trip) going through a spiritual awakening with the help of a stranger named Socrates (Nick Nolte). One critic called the movie "a screwy mash-up of The Karate Kid, The Celestine Prophecy and an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog." Could be a hot mess -- but with hot gymnasts involved, we might be able to forgive.

Race You to the Bottom
Terrible title, I'm sorry, but reviews of this relationship road movie are encouraging. Amber Benson (Tara from Buffy) and Cole Williams play colleagues who are both cheating on their boyfriends with one another. But a trip to wine country might mean the end of the philandering couple -- especially when ex-boyfriends, ecstasy, and internalized homophobia come into play. Sounds kind of like Sideways meets Threesome -- here's a clip from the film of the two attractive leads dancing around:

The L.A. Times ran a great article the other day discussing the recent spate of comedy centered around "straight male bonding" that mines heterosexual male discomfort with closeness to other men for laughs, with varied success.

On the less successful end of the spectrum we've got dumb-dumb, gay-panic-tinged stuff like the Snickers Super Bowl ad and biker shlub comedy Wild Hogs, which lack subtlety and leave a bad aftertaste. But then there are more nuanced uses of the formula, which are more about ignoring or overcoming homophobic tendencies than falling prey to them.

The author specifically singles out upcoming man-on-man figure skating comedy Blades of Glory for praise, noting that "the punch line isn't rooted in the gay man -- it's the straight American male struggling with intimacy and emotion while stuck in some retro notion of manliness". She also highlights Scrubs and Borat as having a more enlightened take on the subject, and ends with a succinct conclusion from sociologist Michael Kimmel:

"The fact that gay people are more visible in people's lives problematizes their relationships with other men," says Manhood in America author Kimmel. "The more the visibility of gay people in American life — which I consider a great benefit for straight men as well as gay men — the richer and fuller straight men's lives will become. You can see that you can express all kinds of feelings, all kinds of emotions. You become safer and more secure in your identity."

You can make your own mind up about Blades of Glory when it opens this weekend (I caught it last night -- be sure to check back on Thursday for our take on it). But in the meantime, what do you think about the Times' take on the recent trend of "gay panic light"? Progress, or more of the same?