Pitt-y party

This isn't Gawker Stalker, but it is an excuse for a quick post. Brad Pitt is currently one floor above me, in the office of my former editor, presumably having a little chat with a real-world journalist to prepare for his role in State of Play (Robert Redford loses his crown as the glitziest student of The Washington Post's cinema school; he spent weeks in the newsroom in 1976 for All the President's Men). If you ever want to send a bunch of hard-nosed journalists into a tizzy, circulate a rumor that Brangelina's on the premises. The whole fourth floor cleared and pretended to have business on the fifth. People have been circling the office like vultures. A nonchalant stroll through the area revealed Pitt inside, in a gray cap, taking notes.

One of the managing editors just sent this notice out to everyone via the internal messaging system: Would anyone disagree with me that in the last 30 minutes, the entire newsroom has forfeited its right to ever high-hat pop culture again?

This, of course, has prompted a global dialogue as staffers lob statements of pith across the whole system:

As many a child has said to their parents, You guys are embarrassing me!

Says the woman who passed the office and then double backed on her way to her desk.

I'm not in the building, and yet even I am suffused with the glow of His presence via receipt of minute-by-minute accounts from various parties, attesting to the magnificent wonderfulness of the Coming, and the degree of their propinquity thereto.

no fair for all far-flung bureau reporters!!

i wouldn't say that. I'm in kabul and I feel like i'm there...

he's ugly, you ain't missing nuthin'

Mr. Pitt! Can I call you Brad? The Post's Alexandria bureau is really really nice....and so very welcoming!

Yeah, well, Clive Owen just showed up at the MoCo bureau, with ELEPHANTS!

Everybody hide your babies!!!

Pity the Pitt

David Thomson in The Guardian: ...all Brad Pitt has offered in 2006 has been Babel, a singularly monotonous and pretentious picture [...] in which Pitt spends most of his screen time bending over Cate Blanchett, waiting for her to recover consciousness or die. [...] The way he's fading at 43, he could be an actress. (Jan. 5)

Caryn James in The New York Times: In Babel Mr. Pitt delivers the most mature, complex performance of his career as a distraught husband whose wife has been shot on a tour bus near an isolated Moroccan village. With little more than half an hour on screen he restores seriousness to a career that started off like a dream combination of stardom and artistry, only to veer into the realm of the truly silly. (Jan. 7)

With whom do you agree? I'm more with Thomson. Of late, Pitt's been in the shitter (Mr. and Mrs. Smith was his last release). But his participation in Babel was well-intentioned, which is a step in the right direction, and he's one of the credited producers on The Departed. So even though he'll miss out on an acting Oscar nomination for Babel, I'd say he has a 90 percent chance to win a statuette for The Departed. What Academy voter wouldn't go for the chance to put both Pitt and Scorsese (for the second time in one night) up on the stage? Next post: Inland Empire. I swear.