In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual 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.

• John Barrowman credits skinny-dipping sessions with Denise Van Outen for his youthful appearance. Oh, and also the Botox.

• Is gay director Bryan Singer's latest project, Valkyrie, snakebit? Given that it stars Tom Cruise, would we expect anything otherwise?

• Tearoom: A 56-minute color silent film of an Ohio public restroom that was used to convict men of sodomy circa 1962 is now an art exhibit and a book. (via Towleroad)

• Wow. I mean, WOW: World of Wonder's new telanovela campfest, ¡Viva Hollywood!, looks like the most insane Latin soap opera competition with overacted death scenes, gratuitous male nudity and Charo EVER.

• Just because I think he's the best thing to happen to this state since the 1964 World's Fair: New York Governor David Paterson's videotaped address to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's 2008 dinner, in which he pledged to push for equal marriage rights for gays and expressed regret at missing the chance to meet John Waters. No, seriously.

• And I really don't know how to set this up other than to say it's a preview for a post-apocalyptic horror musical about organ harvesting starring Anthony Stewart Head from Buffy, one of the Spy Kids, Sarah Brightman, and Paris Hilton. Ladies and gentlemen ... Repo! The Genetic Opera!

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

Yesterday the news hit the Webs that Gus Van Sant, who pulled a magnificent leapfrog move over director Bryan Singer in getting his Harvey Milk biopic into production first, had extended an invite for the X-Men wonderkind to make a cameo appearance in his Sean-Penn-led film, Milk.

Van Sant made it clear that scheduling such things is tough but that Singer had indicated that he was interested. So this leaves us with a delicious and rare inverse Fantasy Casting situation: What would you like to see Bryan SInger play?

It might be interesting to see Singer play assassin Dan White's lawyer, Douglas Schmidt, in faux newsreel footage or the like over the end credits. Singer could also play a customer at Milk and partner Scott Smith's Castro camera shop. Or a pot legalization demonstrator, disco flag-dancer, blue-skinned mutant, or city councilman.

Or how about a Twinkie?

Any suggestions? 

Steve Carell in Little Miss Sunshine

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual 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.

• Might Steve Carell have played Harvey Milk in Bryan Singer's Mayor of Castro Street, had Gus Van Sant's Milk not beaten them to the punch (starring Sean Penn)? The fat lady ain't sang yet, so we'll see ... but isn't Carell inspired casting? I miss you, Uncle Frank!!

• Readers of the Louisville Courier-Journal were appalled to see two straight basketball players in what looked like a celebratory kiss in the Sports pages. Fifty bucks says if they'd been WNBA players no one would have complained.

• John Barrowman loves Ugly Betty and buying home decor at TJ Maxx. Related: John Barrowman is one Chico's shopping spree away from becoming my mom.

• A gay British actor who played one of the Toombliboos in the hit children's show In the Night Garden is suing the production company (who also created the smash hit Teletubbies) for anti-gay harassment. Tinky Winky is said to be contemplating a class-action suit.

• And in case you haven't heard, Zac Efron doesn't care what He Who Blogs Behind the Rows says about him, including the gay-baits, noting, "Honestly, if the worst he can say about me is that I’m gay, then I think I’ll be fine. I can handle it."

In a sad development, it's being widely reported that Bryan Singer's Superman sequel appears to be dunzo. Deputy editor of Variety Anne Thompson reports on her blog that it’s "highly unlikely" that the director will be helming the sequel, instead choosing to focus his attentions on completion of Valkyrie (which seems to be facing its own bout of troubles, having its release date pushed from June of this year to October 8th) and prepping production for his Harvey Milk biopic, The Mayor of Castro Street.

While it’s great to hear that Singer apparently wants to focus attention on the rare film with an explicitly gay plotline, as a known defender of Superman Returns and a huge fan of his X-Men films, I have to admit that I was really looking forward to another of Singer’s intelligently handled superhero movies. And as Cinematical points out, it seems an odd choice to bow out of Superman entirely when filming is completed for Valkyrie and Castro Street is unlikely to be a lengthy shoot. Why not schedule for both?

Continuing the tragic news, it has been confirmed that Brandon Routh will not be reprising his role as the Man in Tights (UPDATE: The site referenced has reversed their claim and now refers to their earlier confirmation as a "rumor". Thanks, guys!). It now seems less likely that Supes will be played by whoever gets cast in the role for the Justice League movie, currently in development with a fresh young cast. I still for the life of me can’t figure out why Routh didn’t catch on with audiences. I thought he was pretty great in the role; appropriately befuddled in his Clark scenes, handsome and charming as Supes, and damn did he fill out that costume.

Sean Penn has been signed to play gay rights icon Harvey Milk in one of two dueling biopics about the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the USA. Penn will take on the title role in Gus Van Sant's Milk.

We reported earlier when rumors came out of the Toronto Film Festival saying that Penn was in talks to play Milk. At the time Matt Damon was also discussing the possibility of playing Milk's killer, Dan White (who also killed Mayor George Moscone). Damon is reported as having dropped out due to scheduling conflicts.

The other Milk biopic in development is Bryan Singer's adaptation of The Mayor Of Castro Street, the book written by out journalist Randy Shilts. According to Variety, is reporting that project is currently in limbo due to the writers' strike: a final script wasn't turned in before the strike began and, therefore, the project won't be able to move forward until the strike ends.

Andy Towle adds a couple additional casting rumors about the film, saying that James Franco could be playing Milk's brother, Robert, while Mark Wahlberg might take on the role of Dan White. Towle warns that these are completely unsubstantiated, so take them with a grain of salt.

A nifty behind-the-scenes teaser trailer was released last week for Valkyrie, openly gay director extraordinaire Bryan Singer's upcoming World War II epic, due out next summer. Valkyrie is based on a true story and revolves around the German plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Tom Cruise stars as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, with Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Eddie Izzard, and Stephen Fry rounding out the rest of the cast. Early footage looks promising and I've got high hopes for the film, as I've loved just about everything Singer's done, including the vastly underrated Superman Returns.

Singer's filmography is fascinating in that he obviously has a predilection toward films with themes he can relate to; growing up both Jewish and gay has obviously influenced him a great deal. After all, few filmmakers would have opened a big budget superhero film in a Nazi concentration camp or included a "coming out" scene, as he did in X-Men and X2, respectively.

It will be interesting to see how Singer handles a film more explicitly about these themes when he tackles the Harvey Milk biography, The Mayor of Castro Street, which Singer is still (as far as I know) attached to direct, before he moves on to the Superman sequel. That film will be in competition with Gus Van Sant (another openly gay director) and his, as yet untitled, Harvey Milk project, already in pre-production.

UPDATE: A higher quality version of the teaser has been uploaded to the Apple website, in glorious Quicktime.

Of course, nothing's a done deal in Hollywood until the projector starts rolling with film in it, but there's news coming out of Toronto that one of two long-planned Harvey Milk biopics has its leads in place, in the forms of equally impressive Sean Penn and Matt Damon.

For gay director Gus Van Sant's planned biopic, Penn is attached to play assassinated gay San Francisco supervisor Milk, and Damon to play his assassin, fellow supervisor Dan White (who killed both Milk and Mayor George Moscone in 1978 and was convicted merely of voluntary manslaughter as a result).

Milk was the first openly gay city supervisor of San Fran. And interestingly, this is the first time Penn (who has been acting for what seems like 50 years or so) will play a card-carrying gay character in a movie. Damon's participation is dependent on scheduling (he likely has The Bourne Redundancy and The Bourne Ice Capades to film later this year), but he and Van Sant have made magic together in the past and it would be great to see them together on this one.

Remember, Bryan Singer's The Mayor of Castro Street project (based on Randy Shilts' book) is still up in the air as well. Still no word on any development or casting news on that one.

Given this announcement, any suggestions for the other film's leads?

• Germany bars gay director Bryan Singer's new film from filming there -- not because of Singer, but because of Scientologist star Tom Cruise, whose beliefs are what the government considers to be a profit-based business concern, not a religion. I'm all for exposing the hypocrisy of that cultish mess as much as anyone, but let's be fair: when has Hollywood moviemaking not been a profit-based business concern? Discrimination ain't cool, any way you slice it.
• Cheyenne Jackson to appear in a staged reading of new musical Red Eye of Love at an upcoming festival. Please tell me it's based on that movie with Rachel MacAdams and Cillian Murphy where she stabs him with the pen! Oh ... sorry, Cheyenne ...
• Audience members at the premiere of the new Alan Cumming/David Boreanaz flick Suffering Man's Charity (about which we interviewed Cumming a while back) fainted and walked out. Success!
• Our sibs over at AfterEllen.com have compiled a great list of TV's most memorable dance scenes, and whaddaya know, there a few fella-fella foxtrots in there.
• Recently-out David Hyde Pierce has started a campaign against Alzheimer's, from which he has seen two family members suffer.
  

• Ask a Gay Man to be a webisodic show on Bravo's OutZoneTV, starting June 21st. Until then you'll just have to ask someone else.
• Gay director Bryan Singer adds Eddie Izzard to his fact-based drama Valkyrie, which tells the story of a unit dispatched to kill Hitler during WWII. Did I mention that Tom Cruise stars? No? That's because I actually wanted to you read the whole bullet.
• Breaking: Gay icon Ellen Pompeo (Grey's Anatomy) was essentially raised by drag queens. Related: Ellen Pompeo (Grey's Anatomy) is a gay icon.
• This is already a bit old, but it's kind of funny: a parody story about the nonexistent teen girl reaction to David Hyde Pierce's coming out.
• Ugly Betty's Michael Urie (who plays gay Marc) participated in a reading of Lou Diamond Phillips' Burning Desire, a romantic comedy that co-starred Amy Smart and Phillips himself as the devil. And yes, you just read that right (above pic snagged from the ever-wonderful Televisionista).