The Pot Calling the Kettle Bleech, or Hypocritical Cinema

Hello all! My name is Nick McCathy, and I’ve been a reader—and unfortunately infrequent commenter—of The Film Experience for roughly six years. Nathaniel recently introduced me here, and it's a pleasure to meet you all as well. I’ve written for The L Magazine, Boston Phoenix, Moviefone, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center Blog, and now I’m glad to find an occasional home here. I hope you find my credentials worthy, my spirit playful, and my addition to this palace of cinema and actressexuality that Nathaniel has built to be inspired.

In direct contrast to my introduction, I would like to start by celebrating a few celebrity birthdays, and congratulate them for continuing the tradition of living (well, except one of them).

Today, July 23^rd, Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, turns 22. Potbellied, Oscar-winning master of schlub Phillip Seymour Hoffman turns 44. Potboiler-cum-masterpiece noir author (The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, and screenwriter (Oscar nominated for co-writing Double Indemnity and writing The Blue Dahlia), Raymond Chandler would have turned 123 today.

 And, most significantly, everyone’s favorite Hollywood pothead and two-time Oscar nominee, Woody Harrelson (you heard me right, Matthew McConaughey), turns the big 50 today. 

What’s your favorite performance by Mr. Woodrow Tracy Harrelson?

He has had, and continues to have, such a strange career; I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone had different answers. He's unsurprisingly awarded more for his dramatic work, which is very good, but I find his best comedic performance to be his gleefully sleazy, broken, and banged-up Roy Munson in Kingpin.

You can see two of these birthday boys in the movie theater this week: Radcliffe in a little film called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Deux and Woody Harrelson in Friends with Benefits (although I would proceed with caution since it's only an ugly gay-panic stereotype).

Click to read more ...

Links: Slayers, Ringers, Tomatoes, Beavers

The blogging police have informed me that if I don't post the "first look" at Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) from Hunger Games I shall be banished forever from the Billion Kingdoms of the Internet. Satisfied? I guess I should read this book. But how to join the rest of the world in loving teenage killers? It's a gene that skipped me by. Except Buffy. But her victims were vampires so that was always kinda fun.

Tom Shone "An Argument Not Worth Having" via the topic of comedy via Bridesmaids.
Acidemic has a wonderfully fluid train of thought piece on Angelina Jolie's career trajectory and Demi Moore's apocalyptic 80s drama The Seventh Sign.
Go Fug Yourself is happy to see Jodie Foster out and about at Cannes with The Beaver. Except for that one accessory that's always attached to her hand.
The Advocate  enjoyable interview with Rashida Jones (Parks and Recreation and Our Idiot Brother)
Awards Daily Sasha says goodbye to another Cannes

Gallery of the Absurd has a 100% accurate portrait of Stephen King when a new novel idea hits him.
Movie|Line It's true. The Dark Knight Rises has begun filming. Commence endless disposable blogging about what it might be like. Oh wait, that startedback in summer 2008.
Zap2It Buffy or rather Sarah Michelle Gellar is back to series TV on the CW. Ringer, about identical twin sisters and mob targets, has been picked up. First photos follow.

Sarah Michelle Gellar stars in RINGER

Throwing Tomatoes...
Serious Film does not much love Thor. It's one of the more scathing reviews you'll read.

Cheering these movies is beginning to feel like cheering a PowerPoint presentation at a meeting of Marvel stockholders.

Ouch!
Slant Magazine is even more vicious to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides