The Top 14 Hunks of "The Bride", including Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, a gay guy, and a lot of queerbaiting


This weekend we saw The Bride! (2026).  I assumed that it would be a sequel to Frankenstein (2025), but it is not.  The frenetic, lunatic ghost of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, channeling Bellatrix LeStrange from Harry Potter, complains that she died before she had a chance to write anything meaningful (lady, you died at age 53, having published dozens of novels, short stories, essays, travel journals...)  So she possesses a 1930s floozy named Ida, who starts a lengthy diatribe and falls down a flight of stairs.  Frank the Monster (Christian Bale, left) convinces a mad scientist to revive her, and they go on a rampage, channeling the Joker and Harley Quinn, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Me, Too Movement.   



There are a few nods to 1930s gay culture: Ida kisses a lady in the first scene, and takes Frank to a nightclub frequented by a few same-sex couples.  But it is ruined by a monumental queerbaiting. 

 Detective Jake Willis (Peter Saarsgaard) and his partner Myrna, who has to pretend to be his secretary because female detectives aren't allowed, investigate the murder of a railroad cop in rural Indiana.  After Jake gets intel from the small-town sheriff, Partner Myrna points out that she does all the detective work; all he has to do is seduce small town sheriffs to get intel.  

In the 1930s, all sheriffs were male.  She very clearly and unambiguously states that he has sex with men. 

But at the end of the movie he admits that he keeps letting Ida get away because he is in love with her; they used to be romantic partners, before her accident.

WTF?  A real life person could be bisexual, of course, but in movies, a hetero-romance obliterates gay references.    Myrna's statement was an outright lie, a nasty joke played on the audience. 

This is not a review of the g*ddam monstrosity (it would get an F----).  I was so angry that I looked through the entire cast list, hoping to find a gay person to profile.  I finally found one, after researching a gaggle of straight hunks:


1. Christian Bale as Frank the Monster

2. Peter Sarsgaard as the queerbaiting Detective.

3. Jake Gyllenhaal as Ronnie Reed, a Fred Astaire-like dancer.  Frank idolizes him, so they travel to all of the sites where his movies were filmed.









4. Zlatko Buric, on Nysocboy's Beefcake and Bonding, as mob boss Lupino.  The Mafia is involved, too.

5. Will Dagger, left, as a guy at a movie theater who is trying to get with his girlfriend in spite of her protests.  Frank and Ida intervene.







6. Louis Cancelmi as Officer Goodman, one of the cops that the couple kills.









7. Neil Vincent Smith as a patron in a restaurant that the two disrupt.  Sorry, I couldn't find a photo where he isn't hugging a lady.

8. Antony Abbato, left, as another restaurant patron.

The gay guy after the break

"Love Like a Bike": three gay romances, a lot of hot physiques, four d*cks, and a view of Pattaya. Plus sex work and human trafficking.






Netflix just dropped a Thai tv series called Love Like a Bike (I think; I am not familiar with an expression about life or love being like a bicycle).  The blur promises "three siblings raised in different countries reunited," but the illustration shows six men , so doubtless at least one of them will be gay.

Scene 1:  Pattaya, a resort town about two hours by car from Bangkok.  A slightly cross-eyed young man named Sailom (Tanapol Jarujittranon)  is walking on a path overlooking the shore, when a guy asks for directions and grabs his hand.  He freaks out, screaming "Don't touch me!", and runs into the path of a bicyclist, who is thrown off.  He falls to the ground,  the bicyclist on top of him, mouth to mouth (I don't understand the trajectory -- did the bicyclist, going forward, somehow manage to fall backwards and spin around?).    He yells "Don't touch me!" again and runs away.  Dude must be on the autism spectrum.  And he's obviously gay. That was fast.


He runs into a cafe (English sign) and tells his brother and sister what happened.  They must be the three siblings. Darn, he lost the necklace that his Mom gave him.  They go back to the shore and look around, but can't find it.

The Brother, James, is played by MJ Teachin Paksa (left). 


Scene 2:
The bicyclist, Nubnueng (Masu Junyangdikul), ends up at a Mental Health Clinic (sign in English and Thai), where he works as a psychiatrist.  He talks down an angry husband who claims that Nubnueng encouraged his wife to dump him. I'm going to start calling him the Doctor.

Left: A brief search suggests that this is Masu's cock.

Scene 3: Next stop: The Life is Like a Bike Coffee Shop, run by the Doctor's mother and baby sister.  Uh-oh, in the accident, he lost the ring that he planned to use to propose to his girlfriend, but he found a necklace; he'll use that. 

Cut to that night: the Doctor and his girlfriend are having dinner.  They simultaneously tell each other, "I have something to say." He pulls out the necklace, but asks her to go first.  Gulp...she's going to dump you, isn't she?

Yep: cut to the Doctor in a bar with neon Bible verses on the wall, morosely dangling the necklace.  Sailom and his friends drop in.  He recognizes the necklace, and accuses the Doctor of stealing it.  

"I didn't steal it, I found it -- here, I'll give it back."  He presses it into Sailom's hand -- hey, no flinching.  

The argument draws security guards, who start manhandling Sailom.  He has a full panic attack, but the Doctor talks him down, and invites him to come to the mental health clinic whenever he needs to.

Later, Sailom takes a bath (some beefcake) and wonder why touching the Doctor was ok.  

Scene 4:  A bike shop.  A customer is harassing the bike guy  (Us Nititorn Akkarachotsopon), demanding that he work faster.  He's interrupted by a news story on his phone: on this day last year, an airplane on a  Bangkok-Chiang Mai flight crashed, killing a young girl.  The bike shop guy was the Pilot!  

Nititorn is gay in real life.  Have we got three gay characters so far?


Scene 5:
 Dindin (Ta Nannakun Pakapatpornpob) is taking tickets for a boat tour, when two toughs, one named Aish, approach him.  Their boss needs his money right away!  Dindin ditches them and runs down the streets of Pattaya, while they discuss how much trouble they'll be in if they don't get that money to the boss.  As he is running, he gets a phone call.  So he stops to take it?  They want him to sing at the bar tonight.   He also sees a job ad for a baker at the Life Like a Bike Cafe.  So, are you a singer or a baker?  I think I'll call you the Baker.

Left: I couldn't find nude photos of Dindin, so here's a random Thai guy.






More after the break

Rooster: Trashy novelist at an elite college, hetero romance problems, a gay sidekick, Dunster dick, and the guy from "Scrubs"

 


Robert Heinlein once complained that science fiction was about exploring the vastness of time and space, while mainstream fiction -- the Rabbit Runs, Appointments in Samarra, and  Complaining Portnoys of our college lit classes -- was about men who hate their jobs and their wives.  "For Heaven's sake, get new jobs, get new wives, and shut the f*k up."

I am reminded of that quote when I think of the works of Steve Carrell:  Anchorman, Dan in Real Life,  The 40 Year Old Virgin, Cafe Society,  Date Night, Dinner for Schmucks, The Morning Show, The Four Seasons, all about little men trying desperately to find meaning in jobs and wives that they hate. Coincidentally, this is precisely the "job, house, wife, kids" trajectory that I rebelled against growing up.

So I wasn't planning to watch the HBO MAX series Rooster (2026).  Then the promo showed a young man telling Steve, "nice washboard (abs)," referring to the hunk on the cover of his book.  Later he seems to become Steve's sidekick.  So Steve probably writes gay novels, and probably has a gay sidekick.  Enough potential to review Episode 1.


Scene 1: 
Famous novelist Greg Russo (Steve) looks morose as he is escorted through the elegant Spanish Colonial campus of Ludlow College (actually the University of the Pacific, Stockton).  He sees a naked old guy, who waves -- but his escort, Eric (Myles Perez, left), doesn't see anyone.  A hallucination?

Eric tells him to wait here, then zones him out and refuses to speak anymore.  Fortunately, Professor Shepherd, who arranged his campus visit,  is just walking up. 

He's nervous -- he writes trashy beach novels, not literature: "Characters you like have sex, characters you don't like get shot in the face."  Why would elite college students want to see him?  

Scene 2: The reading, in a giant lecture hall.  The students criticize his protagonist, Rooster, for describing the Girl in food terms during their 17 sexual acts (18, if you count the blow job). Isn't that sexist?  

Russo counters that she is strong and powerful -- she rescues Rooster, remember? "But she takes off her bikini top to do it."   A jock praises that scene: "The Girl is smokin'!"  Hey, isn't he the gay sidekick?  I'm starting to suspect that I've been tricked.


Scene 3
: Next Russo meets the College President (John C. McGinley, the homophobic, sexist jerk on Scrubs).  He strips to his underwear to show off his physique: "You're thinking, most college presidents are bookish shut-ins, but this guy is jacked!" He looks like the naked guy from earlier.  So it wasn't a hallucination, just a crazy act that would never happen on any real college campus.

They allude to a "sex scandal" involving Katie and Archie (not mentioned before), and the President offers Russo a job as Writer-in-Residence.  "But I didn't even go to college."  "Who cares?  It's over-rated."  Academic malaise at its snarkiest. 





Left: McGinley's butt

Scene 4:  Next stop: Another giant lecture hall, a lecture on French impressionism, Monet at Giverny.  It's Russo's daughter Katie, a professor of art history (and the sex scandal lady).  As the students leave, she notes that her Dad doesn't like interacting with other humans, so they can get extra credit for looking him in the eye and saying "I love you very much."  A student does it!

Next Katie points out that the college has asked Russo to do a reading a billion times; why agree now?  "Admit it -- you're checking up on me, to see if I'm ok after the sex scandal."  We finally find out what it is: her husband Archie dumped her for a grad student.  Hetero Romance Problem #1.  

She has no idea why. Everything was normal, and then she was moving into the dead hockey coach's house.   Everybody on campus knows, and keeps staring at her and asking questions.  And it's difficult to avoid running into him or his new girlfriend on a small campus.  She's about to crack.

She points them out, sitting on a park bench.  "The girlfriend isn't even hot.  She's like a regular person.  Why did he dump me for her?"  Maybe he liked her personality?

As Russo peeks through the bushes, husband Archie and the girlfriend leave, and a lesbian couple notice him.  They think he's a perv, har har.   He runs away as they film him.  

Spoiler alert: This is set up to have consequences, like Russo being arrested, or the job offer rescinded, but it is never mentioned again.


Scene 5
: Russo stops at a convenience store for some water.  Tommy (Maximo Salas), the jock from earlier, praises the Rooster books. Uh-oh, he forgot his id, so Russo buys his beer for him.  If he's under 21, you're in big trouble, buddy.

More after the break