Be Thankful: These are 2023’s Hottest Guys
Last year around this time I posted my first blog, a ranking of the year’s “hottest guys” (this means something very specific and I urge you to read more about it in the aforementioned blogpost). I am here today to repeat that activity in celebration of this blog turning one, and in thanks to the many of you who read it and tell me things like “I enjoy reading this.” It is also to commemorate the pre-Christmas limbo of “Thanksgiving” that always feels like the end of the year but isn’t. This is when I think all end-of-the-year stuff should happen, for instance, La Chimera: why do I have to wait until some mysterious 2024 date to put La Chimera between slots 5 and 20 of my end-of-2023 movie ranking? I want to do it now. In any case, here are the hottest guys of 2023:
Honorable mentions:
The Killer
There are very few moments I can recall from my life that are so acutely visceral, like a car crash or getting a really good email, when you think in slow motion, “I can’t believe this is real or that it is happening to me.” 15 minutes into watching Shame for the first time in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, I experienced an infinitesimal version of that feeling, similar to what I felt when I watched John James Preston perish atop a Peloton bike: WOW! What are the limits of what people can create, and what they can seriously consider to be worthy of aesthetic reproduction?.
When, in Shame, Michael Fassbender’s character begins to present his penis in public places, I felt such a confluence of human emotions–embarrassment, relief that it was not my embarrassment but that of Alicia Vikander’s husband and inventor of Robert Duvall’s performance in Widows–I laughed aloud so earnestly, I knew forever I would hold a delicate appreciation for Mr. Fassbender’s frightening physique: what an un-handsome man with such an average amount of talent, such ageless a face and decrepit a torso. An abuser, you say? Even better: a clown in reality and farce. And now, in a movie David Fincher very proudly made for Netflix.com, this man is eating McDonalds? He is ordering products on Amazon? He is The Killer? These are things we cannot resist with any fervor; whether, to you, The Killer is art or merely fetish, you cannot, may not, deny that Michael Fassbender wears no-show socks as The Killer.
Nicholas Galitzine
Red, White & Royal Blue is a harrowing and quintessentially American text. Like The Kissing Booth, I believe it will emerge a demonstrative product of the cultural and technological worlds in which we live, but, unlike The Kissing Booth, will also stand testament to the political and stylistic potentials held forever by the cinematic medium. If you are unaware, like one of my other favorite movies After wherein Ralph Fiennes’ nephew plays Harry Styles, Red, White & Royal Blue is essentially the adaptation of fan fiction: The Prince of England and Son of the President of the United States fall in love. The American boy is someone I don’t find to be memorable. The British one, however, who was also the only marginally humorous element of the movie Bottoms, is quite striking, facially and otherwise. His name, also reminiscent of Ralph Fiennes’ nephew’s “Hero Fiennes Tiffin,” is “Nicholas Galitzine.” Welcome, Nicholas.
5. Jack Black
One of the most critically underrated films of the year is The Super Mario Bros. Movie. It is loud and not boring, keeping the pace and charm of its titular games while adding new and conceptually abrasive elements like Fred Armisen’s worst performance in anything as one of my favorite characters from anything, Cranky Kong. Another charming element of this movie was that they made Bowser sexy. I am not really trying to be funny or random like an 8th grader, I really mean that in this movie Bowser is as hot as Aladdin is in Aladdin. This is because, like Aladdin being voiced by Steve from Full House, Bowser is voiced by someone I have had a crush on since I was 8 years old. When I saw Jack Black moving around in School of Rock for the first time, I was as inspired by his talent and the warmth of his earnestness as I was convinced he was one of the most handsome American performers. I still believe this: he is random like an 8th grader, something our culture has discarded with the fall of epic bacon. I, on the other hand, would never disregard the power of a hilarious and bearded man with a beautiful voice who was in Shallow Hal. He also reminds me of one of the other most critically unrecognized films of the year, Five Nights at Freddy’s, which is a franchise created by a Christian video game developer that features an animatronic Girl Chicken named Chica.
4. Chris Pine
First of all, I like when Chris Pine sings. He doesn’t have to sing well, or for the purposes of something good: any singing will do. This year, Chris Pine supposedly sang badly as another hot cartoon in a Disney movie that is strange to me but which I will likely pay to see in a movie theater on account of wanting to smile due to magic. That’s terrific.
Secondly, I like when Chris Pine appears as himself in public. When he does, I can guarantee something unique will happen with his hair and/or pants, which not only visually stimulates me but reminds me of when he dated a random girl who was in the movie Tag.1 What I mean by this is that Chris Pine doesn’t even have to sing, although I would love him to, because he’s a great celebrity simply by virtue of being alive on his own terms. I love you, Chris Pine.
3. Alden Ehrenreich
If I were in charge of the world’s order–which I should absolutely be–Alden Ehrenreich would 1) receive free hair transplant surgery, and 2) be fast-tracked to any Oscar-bait studio role of his choice for each year remaining of his life.2 If the film Elvis would not have been produced as it was, I would have offered the same things to Austin Butler. But now, Austin Butler does not need my help. Alden Ehrenreich, it seems, does not really need my help, either: he had an absolutely memorable role in one of the year’s most memorable movies for adults, Oppenheimer, and seemingly received a paycheck for a movie that went straight to Netflix.com called Fair Play, which, as my friend Matthew very correctly explained, should have been called Clare Play, instead. In the first 3-5 minutes of Fair Play, Alden Ehrenreich performs a sex act. I think that’s great for him and for me. Though, memorable and sex act are not all that Alden Ehrenreich deserves. As I write this, I am looking at a full-size poster of Austin Butler in a prosthetic Elvis nose. That’s more along the lines of what I’m imagining for Alden Ehrenreich, and why I hereby promise to include him on this list for every year he is a credited actor in a distributed project. Anything I can give to him as an apology from what we’ve failed to give him in the years since Hail, Caesar! is appropriate.
2. Cillian Murphy
It is typically easier for Irish people and Australians to be recognized in my heart as important or physically attractive than it is for Americans, and certainly for British “people.” Why, then, I never really paid attention to Cillian Murphy as an old weird guy with a freakish face and way of moving around, is quite the mystery. Never watching a single second of “Peaky Blinders” is likely contributory, as is my disdain for most Christopher Nolan films. I’m not even a very big fan of Oppenheimer, but a couple days after I saw it I dreamt of the way Cillian Murphy might look if he wore T-shirts. There is not much more to say.
1. Austin Butler
If you are familiar with the work of actress (?) Annabelle Wallis beyond her turn in Tag (2018), I apologize to you, her fan, and to Ms. Wallis herself for my ignorance.
I do not think Alden Ehrenreich needs to correct his hairline. I have simply noticed, by virtue of being a long term and adoring fan, that that line may be receding. If anything that means he is getting older, and thus, hotter a guy. All I am suggesting is that, if he wants to replace his hair for free, that should be something that is available to him.