"What Angelina Did Was Really Uncool"

I don't really keep up with celebrity gossip, so it was only just now, at the newsstand, that the Vogue cover line heralding an interview with puling nonentity Jennifer Aniston registered with me. "What Angelina Did Was Really Uncool." Jeez, lady, move on. It's like, three years ago. If I, or you, still nattered on  about the circumstances of a breakup that long in, we'd be looked at as potential stalkers, and told to get help.

Still. I like the way that sentence rolls off the tongue. It could make a good all-purpose rejonder. As in:

"I think Obama's cabinet choices are really undercutting his credibility as an agent for change."

"Maybe so, but what Angelina did was really uncool."

Probably sounds even more convincing coming off of a hit from a bong fashioned out of a used bear-shaped honey dispenser. Incidentally, it really gladdens my curdled heart to see Aniston's latest cinematic venture has her playing third fiddle to an unruly golden retriever.

Comments

[Tony Dayoub]

Ever meet Aniston? Cuz it sounds like you really don't like her.

[Glenn Kenny]

She killed my cat, Tony.

No, actually, never met her, but in every interview with her I've bothered to read she comes across as one of those paragons of vapidity who nonetheless consider themselves terribly fascinating and pertinent. Meh.

Also, she's presumptuous. Limited performers who've achieved some measure of success in television have no inherent right to try to foist themselves upon the cinema. I feel exactly the same way about Larry The Cable Guy.

[Fox]

I think the most telling thing about this is that Aniston used the word "uncool". Uncool!?! That kinda sums up her schoolgirl type of grudge holding, don't ya think?

Now, if she was to say "My boyfriends music is really uncool", I would let that pass, b/c uncool is pretty much the perfect description for what John Mayer is.

[Cadavra]

Considering that she's never even come close to opening a picture (THE BREAK-UP was Vaughn coming off WEDDING CRASHERS), I think her place in the cosmos has been determined. She's really a media star more than a movie star.

I did meet her once at a cinema, in the pre-FRIENDS days, when she was racking up flop sitcoms right and left, and she was quite nice. And since the movie in question was THE SEARCHERS, I'd say she isn't quite that vapid--or at least wasn't back then.

[Campaspe]

I subscribe to Vogue, although I shouldn't as I really pretty much hate it. (It was one of those impulse purchases.) Anyway, I read the full interview and Aniston didn't bring up Angelina, interviewer Jonathan van Meter did. Considering that AJ has been flapping her gums all over the place about how she and Brad fell in love on set, when Brad was still quite married, I think Aniston's entitled to her chagrin. She was married five years. Three years of being pissed off doesn't make her Miss Havisham.

As an actress, to me Aniston is irretrievably small-screen. She no more translates to film than did Maureen McCormick. But AJ does not impress me much more. I saw her Oscar'd performance in Girl, Interrupted, and thought what I think every time I see her in anything: She saves her interesting choices for her life, not her acting.

[Glenn Kenny]

@Campaspe: Hey, I've got nothing against Vogue. John Powers is one of my favorite writers (and people)!

Jonathan van Meter WOULD bring it up, wouldn't he? Of course Aniston could have entertained the notion of saying, "I'd rather not discuss it."

Whichever. Anyway, what Angelina did was really uncool.

[Campaspe]

Oh I like Powers too, he's one reason to read the thing. It's the relentless celebrity-worship that gets me. So why, you ask, with perfect legitimacy, was I reading about how Jen thinks Angelina is uncool? Because the dadgum train took half an hour to arrive last night, that's why. I ran out of Powers. It was either Aniston, or wondering how the rats know to avoid the third rail.

[Gareth]

So someone asks Aniston about a breakup and she's a potential stalker, because for once she answers instead of taking the high road as per her usual strategy? As you so wisely said, Glenn, there's no pleasing some people.

[Glenn Kenny]

I'm not calling Aniston a potential stalker. I'm talking about celebrity culture (albeit obliquely) and saying something about how non-celebrities who go on about exes can be perceived by friends and society in general.

And yes, I know that one looks like a jackass explaining oneself like this. But as you've been a civil commenter before, Gareth, I thought it would be a more appropriate response than deleting your comment, or questioning your reading comprehension.

And now I'm going to bite my tongue again.

[B.W.]

Speaking of phrases that roll off the tongue, "puling nonentity" is quite a doozy. I'm going to have to remember to steal it in the future.

I will say that Aniston was hilarious in her guest spot on "30 Rock" the other week. One of the fascinating things about that show is how it affords previously useless, dull entertainers (including her Friends costar David Schwimmer) the opportunity to work with, for perhaps the first time in their celebrity careers, some truly excellent writing. Aniston's work in that episode made me think she could credibly pull off a screwball dame type of character, if she was ever called upon, and if the writing was good enough. It's really true that even very limited performers can hit it out of the park with the right material.

[Glenn Kenny]

@ b.w.—Well, whatever it is that she has, it works better on television than it ever has in film. And in fact, she herself has admitted to having more of an affinity for television than film, if I'm reading her recent interview with The New York Times Magazine correctly. It seems like her foray into film is a result of what's expected of her, or what some people (a cadre of managers and agents, likely) have convinced her she's entitled to. Whatever. I still think that as a public figure she's beyond useless. As she herself reportedly once said, "I guess we'd be living in a boring, perfect world if everybody wished everybody else well."

[B.W.]

Hey, no argument here that her film career (such as it is) has been a dead fish. I'm just saying she did a good job executing the role that the brilliant "30 Rock" writers handed to her, and extrapolating that she could be put to use in a similar fashion in the future, whether in TV or movies -- if she's to be around for the foreseeable future in the culture, that is, which it looks like she will be.

[B.W.]

(My hidden agenda, Glenn, is to get you to watch 30 Rock, assuming you aren't already a fan)

[Gareth]

We agree about celebrity culture, but I sincerely - however snarkily I may have expressed it - don't understand what the issue is with Aniston's comments; they were brief, they were in response to someone else's question, and I guess I don't agree with you that mentioning the circumstances of a very public break-up three years on qualifies you for professional assistance. Man, in comparison to the wall-to-wall Angelina show,those few sentences from Aniston seem pretty limited; on some level, it's really pretty funny to me - albeit queasily funny - that we (and by we I mean me too) are discussing this at all. Since you mentioned reading comprehension, perhaps I misread your "If I, or you" to mean you, or Aniston, since you had just admonished her in the previous sentence, but you probably mean you or the dear reader.

[don lewis]

I could give 2 shits about Jolie or Aniston....but put yourself in Rach...err...Anistons shoes. Some crazy bitch who was last linked to Billy Bob Thornton and before that, her own brother, steals your man. Your man just so happens to be the sexiest man alive. Then they proceed to act like fucking king and queen of the world. Adopting all these kids, having their own, donating money, trying to save New Orleans. And it's all on the front cover of a magazine EVERY week.

I mean, seriously. I cannot remember a time in the last 3 years when I was in line at the market and Jolies gigantic, holier (and crazier than thou) grin was on some mag cover. It's fuckin g nut and it's gotta sting a Aniston more than a little.

Plus, she's keeping time with John Mayer who's either 1/2 chromosome away from retardation or has the worst "O" face ever. "O...O...O...I'm doing a guitar solo...ahhhh..."

[Aaron Aradillas]

Aniston is best when in intimate indies like The Good Girl.

And David Schwimmer is a vastly underrated actor. Anyone who dismisses him must've not seen him in the slightly overrated Band of Brothers and the underrated Duane Hopwood.

[Owain Wilson]

In Aniston's defence, she has apparently never discussed her divorce or Jolie in public until the interview in question. Given that every squalid corner of a celebrity's life is for sale these days, I think her silence is quite nice. I'd take that over Jolie's front cover breast-feeding and detailed description of Brad's love for her body any day.

For the record, I think Aniston is an extremely gifted comic actress.

[MaxPower]

Seeing the internet-wide tizzy over what is, after all, a single sentence quote, made me think of Chuck Klosterman's observation that there's really no upside to celebrities giving interviews (e.g., here: http://www.wpr.org/book/081116a.cfm). Basically, his point was that profile writers are so desperate to find any semi-fresh angle on their subject that if a celebrity happens to say ONE interesting and/or unusual thing, it will inevitably become the focus of the story and be blown out of all proportion. So of course Aniston's quote finds its way to the cover.

[Brian]

I agree with everything Campaspe said about the Anniston-Jolie-Pitt triangle, and Jolie in general. I would only add that I'm equally unimpressed by Pitt as an actor-- he always seems either vacant or wildly overdone (his turn in 12 MONKEYS always reminded me of Jon Lovitz's Master Thespian character on SNL). I still think the best media commentary on Pitt is the Chad Palomino character in LIVING IN OBLIVION.

I know what Glenn posted was tongue-in-cheek, and I take it in that spirit, but maybe Anniston's quote should have been "What Brad Did Was Really Uncool." Which, from what I've read, it really kinda was.

[Tess]

I think Glenn has the hots for Jennifer.

[Glenn Kenny]

Tess, you've read my psychology exactly. If I were to categorize it myself, I'd say my jibes at Aniston are equivalent to pulling the pigtails of the girl you "like" in third grade.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go pick up the new issue of GQ.

[Celebrity Gossip]

I don't know what is the exact word that I want to tell to Jennifer, I agree of what you said that She should move on..Pass is pass. Just focus the present and give more importance for the future.