Officially Naming My New Cinematic Crush

It's not you, Sienna, it's me.

I think I knew it happened when I was typing up a post and made yet another reference to Sienna Miller and a bottle of red wine and it felt......forced. Like I didn't mean it. Like my heart was no longer in it. Like I was......cheating. Like I was cheating on the woman who had won my melodramatic heart some time ago. Why keep up the charade? Why lie to myself? Why blog in the pretense of a celebrity crush?

As those who have known me much longer than they probably would have ever cared to can attest, the title of my Official Cinematic Crush is an exceedingly short but exceptionally distinguished and absurdly un-important (read: extremely important) list. This is to say - two. There have only been two. Katie Holmes was first. The sweet, unassuming, non-scientologist Katie Holmes, that is, and then she met what's-his-name and I had to kick her off the throne. It hurt, but I had no choice. That much is obvious. I took my time in declaring her successor even though I think I knew well before I made the official announcement that the hipstery chic Sienna Miller had taken the title. She sat on the throne for a full four years. It was a wondrous reign, a reign I just kind of assumed was never going to end, and I must stress I'll always have fond memories of her cigarette smoking, skinny jean wearing, red wine swilling ways. I wasn't looking to replace her. Truly, I wasn't. But......it's like when Johnny Cash saw June Carter. You can't argue with the heart, dear reader. That's an argument you can't win. And so I decided not to even try.

My new Official Cinematic Crush is Malin Akerman.

Perhaps it's the work of the fates or perhaps it's merely fantastic irony that I truly saw her for the first time in "The Romantics", an, ahem, Katie Holmes, film, or perhaps not, but I think from the moment I saw her as the live-wire Tripler climb into her friend's car via the window that my heart was aflutter and I think that at the moment she recited the line "I was headed for greatness, now I'm headed for a breakdown" I knew full well the days of the kingdom of Sienna Miller were already numbered. When she said that line, I swooned like a college football fan drunk on a bowl win.

She isn't English, which may seem weird given my known affinity for English ladies (though as my friend Ashley always points out, "Uh, Nick, you do realize not all English women are exactly like Sienna Miller, right?"), but she is Swedish/Canadian, and, as we all (should) know, no one makes dance music like the Swedes and no one at present makes music in general like the Canadians.

But don't be alarmed just because she's not British. She has tattoos. She drinks and she smokes as evidenced by her interview in an Esquire article in which speaking of meeting her future husband she says they would "sit for hours with a bottle of wine, a pack of cigarettes." So we're good. It is the same article in which she also says, and I quote, "I'm a tooth person... I like quirky teeth. My husband has little teeth with spaces in between them. He hates them and I love them. I like people with buckteeth, and I like it when they crinkle a bit. It's very charming." If you didn't know, and most of you wouldn't, I have, uh, let's say, a couple slightly crooked teeth. I can't believe I'm saying this but you know Kirsten Dunst's "fangs"? Yeah, my teeth are pretty much exactly like hers. And it's why in pretty much any photo ever taken of me I have a closed-mouth smile. And it's why I hate it when people taking those photos say "Is that your best smile?" I want to throw things at them. I'm a little self-conscious, okay? Back off. I mean, really, to paraphrase George Costanza in regards to his own Cinematic Crush, do you know what the odds are of any woman finding my teeth charming? No woman has ever found my teeth charming. But apparently this Malin Akerman loves men with messed up teeth! (Now I have an in!)

She seems genuine and honest. She's open about being dyslexic. She's forthright about how even though she fronted a band with her husband she "can't sing" and that the band itself really wasn't that good (and they're not - they're really, really not). And yet fronting a band indicates she digs music. We also know she digs music because she attended Coachella this year, which means she attends outdoor music festivals which is just a whole super sized milkshake of awesome. And let me be blunt, if she saw Yelle while she was there, I'll pass out. Do you hear me? I'll pass out right now.

If we could just get Sienna in between them......

IMDB indicates her five favorite films are as follows: "Annie Hall", "No Country For Old Men", "Pan's Labyrinth", "Dirty Dancing", and "Betty Blue." That's a f---ed up list. Respect.

And while there are any number of reasons a person might remember her from "The Heartbreak Kid" as Ben Stiller's not-quite-right new wife (a bad movie in which she's actually pretty darn good), I will never forget her in the car singing along to "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)", my favorite Bruce Springsteen song. Prince defined the "look" as being something along the lines of a lady - to paraphrase - with a jamming face and a heck-a-slamming body. I define the "look" as a petite Swedish/Canadian blonde singing Springsteen in the car. That's really all I need.

So congratulations, Malin. And also, my utmost apologies. I'll do my best not to make this too awkward. Although that's probably precisely what I just did. But then it wouldn't be me if I wasn't making things awkward with a woman I liked.