Tonight's guest on The Daily Show is Jennifer Aniston. The panelists on The Nightly Show are Soledad O'Brien, John Leguizamo, Mike Yard, and Mauricio Claver-Carone.
Jennifer Aniston is an actress best know as Rachel on Friends, Joanna in Office Space, and she also played Jeannie Bueller in the Ferris Bueller TV series (I bet you did not even know that existed!) Tonight she is on for her role as Claire Bennett in the movie Cake.
Claire becomes fascinated by the suicide of a woman in her chronic pain support group while grappling with her own, very raw personal tragedy.
In “Cake,” Jennifer Aniston takes on 15 extra pounds and takes off the makeup, and what the audience ends up seeing is a normal-looking person, not a movie star. It’s not a radical transition like the one Charlize Theron made in “Monster” (from beautiful to ugly), but something a little more complicated and less from out of nowhere. Usually the Platonic ideal of average, Aniston in “Cake” is simply an average woman.
What makes Aniston, of all actresses, especially right for “Cake” is that her comedy has always had a certain ruefulness underlying it, an understanding of life’s limits, a kind of glum acceptance. So the transition into sadness and desolation is a natural step for her. There’s a sex scene in this film that is so loveless, so bleak, so without tenderness or even lust that it’s haunting, an emblem of how, with just a little bad luck, a life can go off the rails. But with Aniston, there’s no sense of shock at life’s reversals, but rather the impression that she knew all along how things might go for her, and time has just confirmed her worst suspicions.
Of course, she should have been nominated for a best actress Oscar, especially this year, with such a weak field. Unfortunately, the studio arranged for few screenings and sent links when they should have sent DVDs. Even then, with one hand and four fingers tied behind her back, she was nominated for a Golden Globe.
But the awards matter less than what “Cake” shows. This is a real actress. (Perhaps now, finally, critics can retire their obligatory references to “Rachel” every time they review one of Aniston’s movies.) Beyond that, if it wasn’t already apparent before, this is someone for the long haul.
'Cake’ review: A dramatic turn for Jennifer Aniston
This looks like a very good movie. I had a family member who suffered with chronic pain. Our system assumes the person is "drug seeking" or worse and they get mistreated and misdiagnosed.
Rotten Tomatoes has the movie at 37%
Critics Consensus: Cake finds Jennifer Aniston making the most of an overdue opportunity to test her dramatic chops, but it lacks sufficient depth or warmth to recommend for all but her most ardent fans.
I still think it looks promising.
Tonight's topic on The Nightly Show is Cuba.
Soledad O'Brien is a journalist and producer.
O'Brien’s parents, both immigrants, met at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
My parents were both immigrants—my mother from Cuba, my father from Australia. Both attended daily Mass at the church near campus. Every day my father would offer my mother a ride. Every day, she declined. Finally she said yes. One year later, the day after Christmas, the two of them were married.
John Leguizamo is an actor.
John Leguizamo was born in Bogotá, Colombia, to Alberto and Luz Leguizamo. According to Leguizamo, his paternal grandfather was of Puerto Rican and Italian descent and his maternal grandfather was Lebanese. Leguizamo has also described himself as being of Amerindian/Mestizo heritage. Leguizamo's father was once an aspiring film director and studied at Cinecittà, but eventually dropped out due to lack of finances. When Leguizamo was four years old, his family immigrated to the United States and lived in various neighborhoods of Queens in New York City, including Jackson Heights.
He later credited growing up as one of the first Latino children in his Jackson Heights neighborhood as formative in his acting ability: "It was tough. There were lots of fights. I would walk through a park and be attacked, and I had to defend myself all the time. But this helped me to become funny so that I wouldn't get hit.
Mike Yard is a regular contributor to the Nightly Show.
Originally from St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mike Yard is a New York City based stand-up comedian who regularly headlines at clubs across the country. Yard was also the stand-up winner of Comedy Central's "Get Up Stand Up" online competition and performed with Greg Giraldo in Jamaica. His television appearances include Comedy Central's "Inside Amy Schumer" and "Live at Gotham," HBO's "Def Comedy Jam" produced by Russell Simmons, "The Apollo Comedy Hour" and BET's "Comic View."
Mauricio Claver-Carone is Executive Director of Cuba Democracy Public Advocacy
an American advocate in support of the policy positions that the United States has taken against the Cuban government.
Claver-Carone was born in Florida and raised in Madrid, Spain. Before going into political advocacy, he was an attorney-advisor for the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He also served as a Clinical Assistant Professor at the Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law and as an Adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School.
This should be a good show tonight.
Next Week's Guests
THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART
Mo 1/26: Julian Castro
Tu 1/27: Jill Leovy
We 1/28: Oscar Isaac
Th 1/29: Sarah Chayes