‘Hot Frosty,’ Netflix’s Sexy Snowman Movie, Changed My Life

This Week

I have seen the greatest Christmas movie of all time.

The Sexiest Man Alive broke people’s brains.

I have also seen a terrible Christmas movie.

An iconic Real Housewives moment.

The Wicked may actually never end.

Christmas Movies Are Great Again

I can’t believe I lived life thinking I ever knew happiness, had experienced fulfillment, or felt stimulated at all before I watched Hot Frosty on Netflix.

The holiday film surged to the top of the streamer’s most-watched movies charts this, as it should have—though I am morally opposed to the Christmas season and its accompanying deluge of movies arriving this far before Thanksgiving.

I admit to being fairly new to the cheesy holiday rom-com genre, having been staunchly Grinch about their borderline cynical lack of quality or ambition. But having recently been in dire need of my heart growing three sizes, I’ve begun dabbling, and I have to say: I can’t believe so many of you watch like 40 of these a year, and, until now, not one has involved a sexy naked snowman.

Hot Frosty is absolutely absurd and awful, and I can’t recommend it enough.

The film stars Lacey Chabert, the world’s foremost expert in acting while mummified in a tangle of sweaters, scarves, and throw blankets. Her skin is one with crocheted wool. She plays Kathy, a widow who is neglecting her own life as she runs a diner, leaving her well-meaning neighbors to care for her. One of those neighbors thinks she needs to open herself up to love again, gifting her a magical scarf that she thinks will help Kathy meet the man of her dreams.

“Good things come to you when you’re out in the cold, Kathy,” she says. And yet when I was freezing my butt off while walking home last night, I saw a man s--t on the sidewalk. I digress.

Kathy passes a collection of snowmen that were built in the town square. Inexplicably, someone carved a naked, chiseled snowhunk alongside the traditional bulbous stacks. There is no explanation for this. Kathy is struck by this frozen Adonis, and notices that he, unlike his fatty friends, doesn’t have a scarf. So she wraps her new magical one around him.

You can pretty much guess what follows: He comes to life, now as Jack (Schitt’s Creek’s Dustin Milligan).

Turns out even snowmen are born in their birthday suits. Hot Frosty gives Austin Powers a run for its money in strategically obscured nudity, as Jack streaks through town wearing nothing but his new scarf. It may be my favorite holiday scene of all time. He’s hot! Milligan appears to have worked out 12 hours a day on a diet of one lentil per meal for this. You know how the song goes: “Frosty the snowman / Was a jolly, happy soul / With his vascular arms and no body fat / and a mouth of teeth too white.”

Jack lifts some clothes from a local store and finds Kathy, who quickly accepts at face value the fact that she brought a snowman to life and takes him in. He swiftly endears himself to her, learning how to do things like cook and make the house repairs she’s been neglecting. He also, inadvertently, helps her confront her emotional trauma from her husband’s death, owed to the greatest line of dialogue in this year of cinema: “Earlier today I was checking the house for vampires. I went downstairs. What’s cancer?”

The sheriff is after Jack because it turns out that streaking and stealing clothes is a crime. But while the search is on, Jack endears himself to everyone in the town. When it comes time for Kathy and Jack to come clean, nobody blinks. They are on board IMMEDIATELY. “It’s Christmas!” one person says, justifying why they believe it so quickly. A man that sweet has gotta be magic, don’t you think?” says another.

A 10/10 movie. No notes. I don’t know what’s in store for the rest of the holiday movie season, besides two (!!!) Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce-themed rom-coms, but the bar for glorious lunacy has been set high. And you better believe that all winter, whenever I see one of those weirdo men walking down the street in a t-shirt even though it’s freezing out, I’m gonna start chasing them with a scarf.

Jim Halpert Doesn’t Deserve This Hate!

One of America’s greatest traditions is freaking the f--- out over People magazine’s choice for Sexiest Man Alive. At a moment of such turmoil and alarming change in our country, it’s reassuring that, at the very least, we’re keeping that tradition alive.

John Krasinski was this year’s choice, and, by the reaction, you’d think People put a pimple from Alex Jones’ left buttcheek on its cover. Is Krasinski the Absolute Sexiest Man to Exist Right Now? No, not in a year when stars like Glen Powell, Jonathan Bailey, Pedro Pascal, or Manny Jacinto are right there. Is he, like, unsexy? Not at all! He’s a very attractive man. Yet that’s not the point of the outrage.

The truth is Sexiest Man Alive is a carefully orchestrated negotiation between magazine executives and Hollywood publicists and agents. It’s not a pure designation of “he’s so fine!” earned in an idealist vacuum of horny people. Celebrities are offered the title and turn it down, for various reasons. Others are pushed hard for it for strategic reasons: They have something to promote, it could boost their career at an important juncture, etc. The magazine may have its own motives, like wanting more access to the star in the future or wanting to cater to a certain subscriber base.

So it’s funny to get worked up over it—yet it’s also fun to get worked up over it. While I maintain Krasinski’s extreme handsomeness and crush-worthiness, here are some of the funniest reactions I saw to his crowning:

The Most Important Part of Red One

Red One is a baffling movie. It’s a Christmas action comedy starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Chris Evans, the former part of Santa’s security detail and the latter a bounty hunter who team together to rescue Claus after he’s been kidnapped.

There are relentless action set pieces and fight scenes, all painted with garish CGI, which, honestly, for a silly Christmas movie would be fine. The script is riddled with schmaltzy clichés about the so-called “reason for the season,” which, again, for a silly Christmas movie would be fine.

It’s also jam-packed with so many curse words and references to sex and women’s bodies that it’s rated PG-13, sending it straight to the Naughty List: Who is the audience for this movie? It’s the kind of holiday comedy families would get a kick out of, or at least tolerate, but with a hard pivot towards a bro-y older audience whose stomachs would turn at its corny moral lessons about the holidays.

Well it turns out the audience is me, and for one reason: Bonnie Hunt is in it. She plays Mrs. Claus (codename: Partridge), and is a warm cup of cocoa every time she appears. Among gay millennials’ obsession with character actresses from the ’90s—it’s a thing; don’t ask me why—Hunt ranks near the top. That’s why it’s been frustrating that she’s appeared so rarely on screen over the past decade, instead focusing largely on voice acting and producing.

If a chaotically bad Christmas starring The Rock is what brings her back to acting, then we will celebrate it: Everyone go see Red One, which we are now rebranding as an epic Bonnie Hunt star vehicle.

A Reality TV Moment for the Ages

I know not everyone cares about the Real Housewives, but there is something beautiful that happens when a cast member does something that exactly aligns with what everyone’s stereotypical conceptions—haters and fans alike—are of what a Housewife is like.

That happened on this week’s The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City when cast member Lisa Barlow had a meltdown bordering on a panic attack when she discovered that, for the 47-minute flight from Palm Springs to Salt Lake City, she had been booked in coach.

“I’m in 17C!” she shrieked, as if learning that she was being sent to jail for a crime she didn’t commit. She hadn’t flown coach since she was a teenager, she moaned, flitting between all the other Housewives, assuming they’d commiserate with this inhumane fate that’s befallen her. (They are also flying coach, and couldn’t care less.)

Because the internet is the worst, some Housewives fans have criticized Barlow for being so out of touch and offensively elitist. Excuse me?! Let this woman’s delusion shine bright like a diamond; this is exactly the kind of TV we need Real Housewives to be. The episode ends before anyone boards the plane. Thoughts and prayers for Lisa Barlow. I hope you survived.

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The Endless Yellow Brick Road

We are still a week from Wicked hitting theaters, after what feels like the longest and most aggressive press tour and marketing campaign in cinema history. (Sidenote: I’ve seen it! Many thoughts to come.)

As more and more pictures flood my timeline from splashy premieres across the globe this week, more interview segments go viral, and more marketing stunts are announced, I can’t help but think just how much freakin’ money are they spending on all of this?!?!

More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed

All We Imagine as Light: One of the most touching movies of the year. (Now in theaters)

The Piano Lesson: August Wilson’s play is now a major Oscar contender that’s now on Netflix. (Now on Netflix)

The Sex Lives of College Girls: This is a sharply funny, binge-worthy show that has fallen under the radar. Catch up and watch the new season. (Thurs. on Max)

Red One: Lump of coal. Naughty list. You get the drift. (Now in theaters)

Silo: An unforgivable crime has been committed: squandering Rebecca Ferguson. (Now on Apple TV+)

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