The Warm and Fuzzies

I'm indifferent about Jennifer Aniston as a person. I appreciate her grace and poise in handling all the personal stuff that's been dragged through the public eye- her mom being cray cray and that divorce from what's-his-name. But she doesn't really do much to stretch her acting chops and her projects strike me as safe. I mean, she seems nice enough. Just kind of vanilla. That being said, she's made two of my most favorite movies.

The first one is Picture Perfect. It was done in 1996 back when Jay Mohr wasn't all bloated and still had potential, Kevin Bacon's face didn't look like a caricature of itself and Jennifer Aniston still ate carbs. I would put it on when I was falling asleep in my old Fredericksburg apartment. I watched it over and over again. I'm surprised my VHS still works. Aniston plays a working gal who wants to move up in her company. Unfortunately her boss thinks her life is too uncommitted to promote her so she makes up a fiance and hires Jay Mohr to be him. Meanwhile Kevin Bacon is her love interest. Confusion and reconciliation abounds. It's all very cute. Oh, throw in Olivia Dukakis and I love it.

The other is 2009's Management. I watched it because the movie blog I used to read all the time gave it a pretty solid review so I gave it a shot. It's a little crazy- Steve Zahn meets her at the hotel his family runs, he falls for her and proceeds to follow her around the country trying to convince her to fall in love with him. Yeah, crazy. But they have lovely chemistry, the characters challenge each other to be better versions of themselves and the New Pornographers did the music. It's just a lovely little movie. I always watch it when I have the chance. You should too.

Both movies just let me get all happy without getting all mushy. They are sweet and endearing. That's probably what she's like in person. The characters could easily be each other a few years apart, there's no range between the two. But I don't care. The movies do what movies are supposed to do- take me out of my life and take me for a journey into another. And I appreciate that.