So People Magazine has named Matt Damon 2007’s “Sexiest Man Alive”. Which I guess is a fine choice if you like pig-nosed frat boy looking dudes who happen to play bad ass amnesiac spies. I’m a fan of the guy (and it should probably be stated, completely straight), but let’s get real, he’s not better looking than Clooney, Depp or Jude, he just put out a few good movies this year. Also, it was his turn as per the Ocean’s Eleven Collective Sexiest Cast Agreement (if they do a Fourteen, it’s Cheadle’s turn).

The award itself has always gotten way too much press for no particular reason (cause who’s judging this thing, Perez Hilton?), and the distinction is pretty arbitrary (after all, Nick Nolte has one of these). It’s usually nothing more than an opportunity to go on Letterman and make fun of the other guys in the running (this was the sole reason Clooney won last year), and since that’s not even possible this year, the award is especially meaningless. But I guess I gotta be happy for Matt Damon (MATT DAMON!). Bourne Ultimatum was a sweet, sweet flick, he was enjoyable in a rejuvenated Ocean’s Thirteen, he does a hilarious Matthew McConaughey impression and it just makes karmic sense that if Affleck has one of these, Damon needs one too.

And just for funsies:

But what really interests me is not why Damon won, but why everyone else didn’t. So I compiled a list of potential cover boys and tried to come up with a solid excuse for why each of them lost to the star of Stuck On You. Here’s what I came up with:

Brad Pitt – Sexiest Man Alive status called into question as his face is looking more and more like a leather sofa with a bit too much water damage.

Ben Affleck – After already having won the award, did his BFF a favor by graciously bowing out of the race and instead focusing on tagging his hot spy wife, raising his kid, making the best crime drama of the last half decade, and not being a tool. Was a wise choice.

Benicio Del Toro – Maybe if this was People’s “Most Disheveled Man Alive” Award.

Dane Cook – Was in the running until the judges looked at a picture of him, and immediately horked the chicken caeser wraps they had for lunch.

Mark Wahlberg – Did not have a movie to promote, so hence did not win. Also, layout artists for the mag were worried they wouldn’t be able to fit his gihugenormous maw on the cover and no one wanted to fit the bill for a double fold. However, if his M. Night Shyamalan flick scores big next summer, you’re looking at the 2008 winner.

Tom Cruise – Not with that new pageboy haircut he’s rocking. Also, still batshit crazy, which is a rather unavoidable sexiness detraction.

Jonah Hill – Deserved serious consideration if only for coining the mighty phrase “fellashe”, which I totally ninja yoinked from Superbad.

Antonio Banderas - No, no, too sexy, TOO SEXY!

Daniel Radcliffe – A shoo-in for the 2010 crown after he throws down with Voldemort and swerves on surprise hottie “Your Wands To Measly For” Ginny Weasley, in the Deathly Hallows movie,.

Seth Rogen – He tagged Katherine Hiegl in Knocked Up and become an international star; at this point, anything is possible. He could win Mr. Olympia and I wouldn’t be surprised. I’d just be like: “Good Front Lat Spread, sloppy guy who inexplicably nailed Izzie Stevens and learned a valuable, but only slightly funny, lesson in responsibility.”.

Ben Stiller – Simian-looking comedians with an ever-decreasing oeuvre of quality movies need not apply.

Justin Timberlake – Judgment of sexiness still in question from his decision to journey through Cameron Diaz’s Hugemongus Mouth for an extended period of time. Recent excursions through Scarlet Johansson Ave. and Jessica Biel Blvd. are a step in the right direction, though. A quick jaunt through Jessica Alba Lane and he’ll be on the fast track for the 2009 crown.

Jason Statham – Kickass bald action stars get no respect.

Bruce Willis – See above.

Patrick Dempsey – Taken off the list when voters remembered how bloody intolerable and douchebaggy Dr. McDreamy was last season on Grey’s. He should have let Meredith drown.

Jake Gyllenhaal – This isn’t a contest for The Advocate, let’s get real.

Hilary Swank – Not technically a man. Though I’ve never actually seen evidence proving that fact.

Tim Riggins – Too drunk to remember to submit his application. Also, too busy playing Y Tu Mama Tambien with Jason Street and Lyla Garrity.

Samuel L. Jackson – I blame those motherfucking snakes on that motherfucking plane, cause no one has ever looked sexier chaining a sex-crazed Christina Ricci to a radiator, whilst rocking a bald head and grey mutton chops. Okay, maybe Esquire’s Sexiest Woman on the Planet (seriously?), Charlize Theron, for the five minutes in Monster before you realized you just could NOT get past the fact that she was playing a psychotic she-bitch with bad teeth and a Britney pooch.

Criss Angel – Douchebag manscara wearers need not apply. Also, too much skeevy association with wrecked blonde girls (see: Spears, Britney and Diaz, Cameron).

Peter Petrelli – Would have been an awesome choice, despite being fictional and currently stuck in an unwatchable season of Heroes.

Gerald Butler – Had the inside running until grumblings about his 300 abs being digitally enhanced bogged down his candidacy. When informed of the decision, Butler kicked the Editor-in-Chief of People down a large well and yelled “THEY’RE! REAL! AND! THEY’RE! SPECTAAAAAAACULAR!”

Kiefer Sutherland – Might have had a chance if his show hadn’t sucked this year, and he didn’t spend all his off-time getting ripped and jumping into Christmas trees.

Clive Owen – No idea why he didn’t win. I mean, did you see Children of Men? He survived multiple gun battles, delivered a baby, protected a mother and child in a war zone, took a bullet to the stomach and STILL rescued humanity. How is Jason Bourne cooler than that? Not to mention him tagging Monica Bellucci and pwning it up in those insane gun fights in Shoot ‘Em Up. And no one on the planet drops a “fucking cunt” bomb better than him. Which goes a long way in my book. This should have been the guy.

Orlando Bloom – Technically not considered a real “man”. But he has the Kids People “Sexiest Bland Pussy Boy Alive” Award in the bag!

Bangarang!

Better words will come from better writers today, and as such, I will not attempt to editorialize on the impact of 9/11 nor its unending societal reach six years later. I am not a newsman or a pundit, I’m not a D.C. blogger nor a member of a political party. I lost no one in 9/11 and I know very few people that were even remotely affected by the tragedy.

The biggest connection I have to the event is that 9/11 just so happens to be both my father’s and my best friend’s birthday. I don’t go out of my way to have a conversation about politics or world events, and I readily avoid discourse on President Bush. In short, I am exceedingly apathetic both towards the state of the nation, and my need to enact change in the world. I just don’t care all that much about politics.

But in an effort to honor the enormity of the day, I will write what it is I am good at writing about. And that would be sarcastically making fun of celebrities! We’re kicking it obvious style today by doing a star roll call and taking a big old clichéd swipe at each one of them. No subtext, no cleverness, no subtle creative genius, just blatant stereotypical jabs at the public personas of all the celebs who grace those wonderfully patriotic tabloid rags.

I can’t think of a better way for me to memorialize this sad day in American History than by calling Britney Spears a paunchy trainwreck with zero vocal talent (Gimme More!). Let’s start the blatant “honoring”…

Ben Affleck – Was the bomb in Phantoms, yo!

Jack Black – He’s so zany! Can you believe how zany he was in King Kong? I couldn’t get over all the zaniness! This is a tribute.

Orlando Bloom – Bland as an episode of Seventh Heaven. And with the same acting range, too! Moted, Will Turner! Moted.

Nicolas Cage – Hit or miss. Also, totally cooky! Love his choice of women (Michael Jackson’s ex, Alabama Worley, that Asian chick who waited on him at Sushi Roku).

George Clooney – Likes to bang hot chicks. Oooh! Consider yourself pwned, Danny Ocean!

Dane Cook – IS. NOT. FUNNY. For reals, yo!

Russell Crowe – Uh oh! Russell’s on the rag again, watch out for flying Black Berry’s. Zing!

Tom Cruise – Short. (Other jabs redacted for fear of litigation.)

John Cusack – Ah man, so edgy and cool! He’s like the personification of indie cred. Also he totally ruled in Con Air.

Matt Damon – MATT DAMON!

Colin Farrell – Kind of a manwho-er.

Richard Gere – It’s a myth, people! Suck it hard, urban legends! (But yeah, it totally happened! I know a guy who has a sister who dated this dude who used to buy weed from this drug dealer who knows a lab tech that sleeps with the nurse who blows the doctor who actually performed the surgery. You can’t buy that kind of intel!)

Mel Gibson – Jews are bad! Rawr!

Ryan Gosling – He’s intense. Grrr!

Paris Hilton – Talentless! Herpesfull!

Samuel L. Jackson – Why does he always say “motherfucker” in his shitty studio movies? That muthafucka crazy!

Scarlet Johansson – If you’re gay, you’re allowed to grab her boobs. Start tossing some salad, gentlemen!

Angelina Jolie – She used to be all gothy weird, but hot. Now she’s all momerific and philanthropic, but hot. Upgrade!

Tommy Lee Jones – Craggly!

Nicole Kidman – Was much cooler when she had the wall of red hair. Bring back the red wall, Ice Queen!

Diane Lane – She’s hot…wait for the qualifier…wait for it… for an older chick. Ka-BOOM!

J. Lo – Her butt is really big! Have you noticed that? Taco flavor kisses for her Ben!

Lindsay Lohan – Does a lot of drugs, rocks the ginger pubes. In your face, Parent Trap!

Alyssa Milano – Has hairy forearms!

The Olsen Twins – Food is overrated! Space alien faces are underrated!

Keanu Reeves – He’s dumb, but makes great movies. Whoa!

Winona Ryder – She steals stuff! Sacre bleu, Heathers!

Charlie Sheen – Yay for hookers and blow!

Will Smith – Has big ears. Aw, hell no!

Ben Stiller – Looks like an ape! Is quite neurotic in a diminishing comedic returns kind of way. Do it! No no, DO IT!

Hilary Swank – Big teeth. Might be a dude. Encourages Paul Haggis. Ditched her beard when she won her second Oscar. Used to be Steve Sanders’ plaything. Excellent credentials… for me to poop on! (that joke courtesy of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Thanks for the solid, NBC!)

Donald Trump – His hair is weird! You’re fired! Who-damn that’s topical!!!!1!!

Vince Vaughn – HahahahaROTFLMAO! He’s so funny with all the fast talking and the jerkiness! I ignore his expanding belly, receding hairline and Gucci luggage-sized bags under his eyes to appreciate his ribald humor and his nailing of Jennifer Aniston on screen. What a pretty slash funny couple they make. Golly jee!

Reese Witherspoon – Perky and not at all a total bitch. Snapadoo, Elle Woods!

Renee Zellweger – Her face is so scrunchy! Why is her face so scrunchy? Someone tell her to layoff those Lemon Bitch shots. Hiyo! What what?

God Bless Celebrities. And God Bless America!

(Seriously on that second one.)

Bangarang!

I really need to be hired as an official Oscar prognosticator by some reputable news source. I went eight for eight in the big races, and also nailed Best Documentary, Editing, Animated Feature, Cinematography, and Makeup. I’m especially proud of picking the Alan Arkin upset. My only real lapses were Foreign Film (I was banking on a Pan’s Labryinth sweep of the minor categories), and underestimating the tremendous Dreamgirls backlash. Somebody powerful really hates Bill Condon (but likes Jennifer Hudson).

Check any of the other eight million entertainment websites for a detailed recap of everything Oscar, because you’re not getting one here. I wasn’t overly impressed by the show, as I suspected I wouldn’t be, and don’t really want to spend any more time dissecting just how unnecessary the Michael Mann America montage was, or just how lame and unfunny the “Ellen giving Martin Scorsese” a script bit was. Instead, I’m giving you what I always give you. A look at what was on the minds of the celebrities as the walked the red carpet for the biggest night in Hollywood. It’s a little something I like to call…

Things Overheard on the Oscars Red Carpet…

Nicole Kidman: I should never have made out with Charlize Theron’s dress last year. I knew I was gonna catch something.

Jessica Biel: I can’t wait for the day when I’m nominated for Best Actor, um, I mean Best Actress. Dammit! Why do I keep doing that? I really need to lay off the bench press.

George Lucas: Wait, did I ever have a chin? I don’t think so. Maybe I can digitally insert one in post?

Beyonce: I knew I should have had Dakota Fanning kill Jennifer. I don’t know what it would have cost, but it would have been worth it.

Ryan Gosling: This is all so beneath me. I’m going home to Rachel McAdams, like I care if the dude from Battlefield: Earth beats me?

Elisabeth Shue: Wait, why am I here? Am I being belatedly honored for my work in Hide & Seek?

Kate Winslet: Well, this is gonna be an uneventful night for me. Again. Good thing I brought my iPod. (singing to herself) My humps, my humps, my lovely lady lumps…

Jackie Earl Haley: Danny Bonaduce WISHES he looked as good as me.

Forrest Whitaker: This all just goes to show that the key to success in this business is starting your career in Jean Claude Van Damme movies. Maybe if Peter O’Toole had played Tong Po in Kickboxer he’d have won one by now.

Meryl Streep: I love that everyone points out all my nominations but doesn’t mention the fact that I haven’t actually won one since 1983.

Ben Affleck: So I gained all the weight and did the respectable actor part everyone told me I needed to do to earn respect and salvage my career and not only didn’t I get nominated but I STILL get crap for Gigli? Fuck this noise! I’m going home to bang my duck-beaked wife and greenlight Surviving Christmas 2: Attack of the Hanukkah.

Jodie Foster: Wait a second, why does everyone look so pretty and heterosexual? I thought the theme was “Gay Chic”? I wore my Tuesday clothes! So embarrassing…

Jack Nicholson: My head looks like a Trader Joes AA-size egg and I’m still getting the best tang tonight! Who wants to bet me I can nail Helen Mirren without taking my pants off?

Reese Witherspoon: And the “Eat It, Ryan Phillippe! I Look HOT!” Tour keeps rolling on.

The Jay: As does the “Shut UP, Squirrel Chin!” Tour. See you in Woodstock!

Peter O’Toole: Where am I? Who are all you people? Wot’s all dis, then? Are we shooting King Ralph 2? … I am old.

Sherry Lansing: Now, I, Skeletor Sherry, am Master of the Universe! Kneel before your master, Tom Cruise! KNEEL BEFORE ME!!!

Tom Cruise: I will never kneel to you! By the Power of L. Ron, I have the power!

Will Smith: Just keep smiling and laughing and no one will see your pain. It’s ok Will, one day we’ll convince them. One day. Oh HA HA HA! That’s a funny joke, Mr. Scorsese. … love me.

Gwyneth Paltrow: As long I keep putting the attention on the girls, no one will remember that I’ve been a vapid suck whole of talent for the last eight years. Yes, that’s it people, stare at my ugly boobs. STARE!

Samuel L. Jackson: Muthafuckin’ Academy not nominated me for Snakes on a Muthafuckin’ Plane! Shiiiitt. We’ll see how they like it when I toss around a half-naked white woman. Fucking Christina Ricci gets you places in this town, just look at Charlize Theron. … muthafucka!

Helen Mirren: I am a right hot bitch. Who wants to bet me I can nail George Clooney during my acceptance speech and still look classy?

Martin Scorsese: Oy! I got schpielkis in my genectikizoid! Look at Clint over there, looking all smug. I hate him. I HATE HIM! I swear to God, if he beats me again I’m dialing Dakota during the commercial break.

Cameron Diaz: I really can’t be mad at Justin. I mean look at me. Even I know I’m a wreck. Jessica Biel, even with her manly arms and overwhelming aura of butch dykeyness, is still hotter than me. Hell, he’d probably bang bald Britney again before me. I must stop letting myself look like the bad end of a three day coke bender. If Robert Downey Jr. can do it, so can I!

Eddie Murphy: No matter what, at least I look better in a fat suit than Martin Lawrence.

Abigail Breslin: OMG! Was that Dakota? Is she here? Oh no! Oh no! Steven Spielberg’s coming up to me. What if she’s reprogrammed him to be her own personal ninja assassin? I’m young and ever so adorable. I don’t want to die.

Dakota Fanning: Don’t fuck with the Fanning.

Steven Spielberg: Just do what she says and everything will be just fine. … I hope.

Bangarang!

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According to media reports, famed question mark-sexual / crazy person / sometime actress, Anne Heche, has left Coley Lafoon, her husband of five years, and begun shacking up with her Men in Trees co-star James Tupper. Notice something: there’s a lot going on in that sentence.

1. Anne Heche, in her non-infinite non-wisdom broke up her family to bone a fourth billed TV star, adding another to an already long list of reasons her child will need extensive psychotherapy.

2. She continues her crazy streak by leaving her baby daddy to hook up with a co-star who will inevitably drop her on her nutball head the moment ABC gets bored of their show and the cast moves on to other projects.

3. The non-brilliant co-star, James Tupper, knowing all that he must about his new paramour, agreed to this decision. She must be crazy good in bed (pun totally intended), or he’s hoping for some lesbian relapse threesome action for him to feel confident in breaking up a family, even one as potentially nuts as the Heche-Lafoon home.

4. The producers of Men in Trees are doing nothing to stop this eight-car pile up. They have a confirmed crazy person as their star and they’re letting her fuck up her personal life to bone her professional life co-star. Man alive, they need some producing lessons. You don’t let alcoholics go to a bar. You don’t let diabetics go to the jelly bean factory. And you don’t let Anne Heche near the crazy pills.

Am I surprised by any of this? Absolutely not. It’s Anne Heche, after all; she of the sudden lesbianism, and more-sudden heterosexuality sequel. She of the alter ego “Celestia”, the autobiography “Call Me Crazy” (hello!), and the claims of being descended from extraterrestrials. Also, she was in that shitty Harrison Ford island movie.

When you’re dealing with Anne Heche you know what you’re gonna get, and in some respects, that’s kinda nice. You know you’re getting a very pretty, (in a slightly mousy way) above-average actress who at any time may decide to go walking in the desert for a week, speak all of her dialogue in a space language, or bang the script girl or best boy depending on what she had for lunch that day. Basically, you wager all of her talent against the risk of the crazy. A lot of people take that bet and do well. I thought she was great in Wag the Dog, Birth, Donnie Brasco, Volcano, Return to Paradise and Volcano (suck it, Dante’s Peak). But whomever puts their chips down on the Heche line has got to keep in mind what they may potentially lose, should they win (This contradiction is much like the Rosie Perez theory of winning and losing from White Men Can’t Jump, except Anne is infinitely less annoying.).

And this why I have no sympathy for Coley Lafoon.

I mean he married her; it’s like he was asking for it! He married her less than a year after she stopped rug-munching America’s favorite gay day time talk show hostess. He married her after watching her be interviewed by Barbara Walters, where it came out that she had been mentally ill for the first 31 years of her life. He married her after he had met Celestia. With all that knowledge in his head, you have to assume (or hope) that he figured something bad might happen down the road.

This story is just a microcosm for the way we must all treat famous/crazy people. You take all the knowledge gained from seeing their work, their social life and their behavior in the media and you make the conscious decision to accept their bullshit and allow them into your life, or you tell them to sell their crazy someplace else. Coley Lafoon had to expect that Anne Heche would screw him over somehow, at some point. He just had to. I remind you, this was not a stable person. Not even by Robert Downey Jr. standards.

That got me thinking about other people who have no right to complain about their problems. For example, does Jennifer Aniston really have a reason to complain about her marriage falling apart? She married the sexiest man alive and then let him make a movie with the hottest creature on earth. What did she expect was gonna happen? That their respective hotnesses would be repelled like the plus sides of two magnets? She brought this on her self the moment she became Brad Pitt’s lady.

While Anne Heche continues to entertain us with her total psycho-crazery (and not entertain us with her wannabe Northern Exposure dramedy), let’s take a look at some other people with no right to complain (after the jump).

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It’s not surprising that of the 120 columns I’ve posted on TheJay.com, “Keanu Reeves Does NOT Suck, And I Can Prove It” and “Just How Bland Is Orlando Bloom, Really?” have the most number of comments. The central figures of each post, the unintentionally awesome Keanu Reeves and the (hopefully for his sake) unintentionally bland Orlando Bloom, inspire fierce passion in their fans. On any given day I receive comments calling me all manor of awful things for my lambasting of the man who was Legolas, and an equal number of ego-boosting boot lickings for my loyal defense of the Wyld Stallyn himself, Ted “Theodore” Logan. What it comes down to, I think, is the disparity in how I view each of the actor’s respective talents, and my reader’s contrasting views on the subject.

In my mind, every actor has an innate “watchability” factor. They are either fun to watch, or they aren’t. For my money, Keanu Reeves very much is, while Orlando Bloom very much is not. This “watchability” factor comes from many elements, including but not limited to: looks, attitude, charisma, chemistry with other actors, ability to pick the right roles, behavior towards the press, representation in the press and general overall likeability. You can have a few of these elements, or all of them, but whatever the number, your presence on-screen equals a good time, all the time. Deep down, Orlando Bloom fans know that while he is as he calls himself on Ricky Gervais’s show Extras “objectively really good-looking”, he has zero chemistry, negative charisma, could cool down a horny Angelina Jolie, and is seen in the press as a sleazy, preening bohunk. This is why so many housewives send me 600 word opuses on the merits of Elizabethtown. If Orlando Bloom were so good in that movie I would have seen it. He wasn’t and I haven’t.

I always give second chances to actors I don’t like. Renée Zellweger won me back after several great talk show appearances and a subtle turn as Russell Crowe’s wife in Cinderella Man. Josh Lucas received a stay of execution for keeping me awake through Glory Road. Even Ashton Kutcher got a second look after I found myself guiltily charmed by A Lot Like Love. I’m always hoping that unwatchable actors will one day figure things out and make a movie I like. It’s always better to have more reasons to see a movie, than not to. Unfortunately, more often than not I find my first impression was the right one.

And that is why I will never enjoy watching Orlando Bloom. You can’t gain watchability, you can only lose it. It is far easier for watchable actors to become unwatchable (hello, John Travolta), than it is for unwatchable actors to become suddenly charismatic on the silver screen (the only recent example I can come up with is Ben Affleck, except I’ve always liked the Gigli. After all, he was the bomb in Phantoms, yo!).

I’ve already documented the actor’s I’ll always pay money to see, as well as the ones I refuse to pay for (in my piece “The $10 Buck List“), but I haven’t looked at unwatchable actors in a while (you can see my last pass on it HERE). So here now is another edition of “The 10 Most Unwatchable Actors In Hollywood”.

Whenever I make a list like this I usually have several criterion for making said list. Not here. The sole criterion is that at one time each actor was a guaranteed good time at the movies. And now, they are automatic visual insta-hurl.

The 10 Most Unwatchable Actors In Hollywood

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