Lindsay Miller is a 26-year old grad student living in Los Angeles, and she is currently living with pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer. You can read all about her struggles and inspiring thoughts on her blog, “I Am a Liver,” on which she made a particularly appealing post yesterday.

After recently seeing the comedy 50/50, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen, Miller had herself a “Why the f*ck not?” moment and she recorded a video asking Gordon-Levitt to meet her for a cup of coffee.

As you might recall, I saw the cancer comedy 50/50 recently and was impressed with it, though it was difficult emotionally for me to watch.

Also, I didn’t admit this in my first post about it, but after seeing Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance and seeing/reading some of his subsequent interviews about the film I thought, “This guy gets it. And he’s cute. I wonder if I could ever run into him somewhere.” But even though I live in LA, it seems impossible to find him.

Maybe YouTube can help…

Hell yeah, YouTube should help. I’m a total sucker for these kind of videos, especially when they have meaning to them. Like, I make about 20 or 30 videos each week asking Rachel Bilson to rub my feet, but people see that as “creepy” and “really f*cking creepy.” This video is sweet, though, and if Justin Timberlake can take a few hours out of his schedule to attend the Marine Corps Ball after a YouTube invite, then I think JGL should be able to spare a few minutes for a fan, too.

Then maybe Rachel Bilson can rub my feet.

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50/50 comes from writer Will Reiser, director Jonathan Levine (The Wackness) and producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.  Once called “I’m With Cancer,” the title refers to the protagonist’s odds of surviving his battle with cancer, based on Reiser’s real-life cancer scare.  So yes, it’s a film about a guy dying of cancer, but it’s also funny because JGL shaves his head with Seth Rogen’s pube clippers. Aw, I bet Seth Rogen’s pube hair is even more pubey than his hair hair.

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"It's true, Ben Affleck's mother was a whore."

Apologies for the cutesy pun headline, this is actually a bummer. Pete Postlethwaite, brilliant character actor and all-around weird-looking dude, died yesterday at the age of 64.  The cause of death is listed as cancer. Postlethewaite lost a testicle to testicular cancer in 1990, but the type of cancer that killed him hasn’t been reported.  All we know is that it was the A-hole kind that kills awesome actors.

Spielberg once called Postlethwaite “the best actor in the world.”  The Warrington, Cheshire-born actor’s most recent role was as The Florist in The Town (‘Oy’ll clip yer nots, just loike oy clipped yer faaather’s,’), but he also had memorable turns in The Usual Suspects (as the apparently-not-Japanese Kobayashi), Alien 3, Last of the Mohicans, and In the Name of the Father, for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (losing to Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive).  His career was a constant reminder that even though they’re super weird looking, British people can sometimes be good at stuff.

Postlethwaite was basically the offensive lineman of acting, the kind of actor who shows up on time, gets the job done, and makes everyone else’s job easier without the stardom that comes with being a leading man.  Perhaps now, in death, no one will stop him in the airport to yell, “Hey! You!  You’re that one guy! From that thing!”

[Pete Postlethwaite dead, Friends Remember Pete Postlethwaite]

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Mickey Rourke sets a fine example to all the young actors out there that you can be kind of a trainwreck, but still a helluva guy.  Rourke recently visited the oncology department of a Russian hospital promoting a charity event for children with cancer.  He brought with him a black Santa Claus (ballsy move in Russia) who may or may not have been Samuel L. Jackson (it’s not Jackson, though I don’t know why, that guy will show up anywhere).  I can report to you exclusively that Mickey Rourke visiting little Russian kids with cancer is almost as cute as Mickey Rourke and his tiny dogs (that picture melts my heart every damn time).

I know it’s a cliché move, but any celebrity who visits cancer kids is alright by me.  How awkward would that be?  “Hey kid, sorry about the cancer.  Have you seen The Wrestler?”

Meanwhile, in the EnglishRussia account of the visit, they’ve got a picture of Rourke holding some sort of topless prostitute.  What the hell is going on there?  Is Russia just that much better at this whole make-a-wish thing?  I think topless chicks might just be standard at any Russian event.

TRUE STORY ASIDE: I spent a weekend in St. Petersburg last summer, and on the first night, our guide took us to this clubby bar where really hot, model-y looking women kept climbing on top of the bar and taking their shirts off (like fully topless).  It wasn’t a strip club and no one was tipping them or anything or even paying them much attention.  I kept trying to figure out what was going on, so I tapped our guide on the shoulder and asked, “Do they work here?”  She just looked at me, shrugged, and said “I don’t know,” as if the question of why a hot girl would be dancing topless on the bar had never occurred to her.

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E! News today reports that Michael Douglas, next set to star as Shia LaBeouf’s father in law in Wall Street 2: Step Up to Tha $treetz (which opens next month), has been diagnosed with throat cancer.  It doesn’t sound life threatening, but then I’m not a doctor.  I use this stethoscope to amplify farts.

According to publicist Allen Burry, Douglas will undergo eight weeks of radiation and chemotherapy.
No word whether the lump in his throat is benign or malignant, but doctors have given Douglas an excellent prognosis and expect he’ll make a full recovery.

E! News naturally took this occasion as the perfect opportunity for a sh*tty pun. Their lead paragraph:

Michael Douglas’ most basic instinct right now is staying healthy.

Nicely done, E.  Stay classy.  We here at FilmDrunk also wish this Wonder Boy a speedy recovery.  We hope he gets to his treatments on time and that there isn’t Traffic, because this is cancer, it’s not The Game.  Full Disclosure: my uncle had a throat tumor, but the Solitary Man ended up Falling Down when the cancer became a Fatal Attraction.  But Don’t Say a Word.