You know what’s great about Sean Connery … aside from everything, I mean? He’s got that unbearably smooth cool thing, that burly roughness thing, and that seething ferocity thing going for him and they’re all good. Incredibly good, I grant you, but that's not what’s truly great about the Scottish actor who's been on stage and screen since the 50s.

What’s great about Connery, Sean Connery, is that no matter his age, he projects a wonderful daddy-thing.  Even when he was clumsy and gawky in (shudder) Darby O'Gill and the Little People, he had this smoky primal thing going on.  Yeah he looked like his voice might have just broken but even then you knew that he’d be the one slapping you on the back while you sipped a pint at the bar, or the one playfully wrestling you for the check when it was time to drunkenly stumble home.

Even during the years he was shaking-not-stirring his martinis, he had a dark edge, an almost brutal dynamism. You could still see that there was a playfulness there, though; a rough and tumble kind of fun streak. You could see him horsing around with the stunt guys, trading rude jokes with the extras, and leading the bit players in drinking games. 

Mr. Connery exudes class and a kind of burly elegance, but more than that there’s a realism he always brings to whatever he does.  It’s there in The Man Who Would Be King, there in Murder on The Orient Express, there in The Molly Maguires, and even in the surreal weirdness of Zardoz (where he spent most of the film in a very weird, and hot, outfit): a presence that’s fifty percent brilliant actor and fifty percent Sean Connery just being his usual down-to-earth, just-one-of-the-guys, self.

And he’s gotten better as he’s gotten older.  He still has that rough edge, that punch-you-in-the-shoulder manliness but he’s also developed an even more (if that’s possible) fatherly aspect.  Yeah, you could see the 60s and 70s Connery as the perfect daddy but also one that might be as much a competitor as a kind hand and a sweet touch. But the 80s, 90s and current Sean has become a real dad, a true father figure.

That it would happen isn't a real big surprise - this being the age of micro-productions and all.  But that a musical about California's bigoted Proposition 8 should feature not just teddy bear bad-boy Jack Black AND reborn wild and crazy (and damned funny) Neil Patrick Harris (not to mention honorary queer guy Margaret Cho) is nothing short of ... well, WOW!

But that's just what has happened, compliments of Marc Shaiman, who composed such Broadway hits as Hairspray.  Ladies and Gentlemen: Proposition 8 The Musical!

Just goes to show you: never piss off 'the gay' - especially ones who know how to sing, how to dance, and how to put on a kick-ass show!  So enjoy the show and also be sure to go to jointheimpact.com to get involved.

Yes, you read that right: Sean Penn wanted to do James Franco. No, no, we don't mind if you take a moment for that to sink in. As-far-as-we-know straight Daddy -- and a yummy daddy at that -- Sean Penn is on the record as having wanted to, and we quote ... well, The New York Post's Page Six quotes: 

James Franco and Sean Penn from "Milk"

James Franco says Sean Penn pushed the gay sex scenes in "Milk" further than he expected. "In the original script I read, there was only one real kissing scene," Franco tells next month's Elle. "A month after [director] Gus [Van Sant] asked me to do it, they sent me another script, and on Page 5 there was a full-on love scene. And I was like, 'Gus, what the heck?' He says, 'Well, it was Sean's idea.' "

Mr. Penn was already high on our list for even doing Milk, but after this revelation all we can say is that our heartfelt thoughts, well-wishes, and extremely hot and heavy fantasies go out to Sean ... and that he and James Franco might get a chance to 'act' together again sometime in the very near future.