After TONY suggests that the official NPH comeback began not with his critically acclaimed role on HIMYM but with his druggie performance in the original H&K, Neil takes the bait and quips, "I never thought that snorting coke off the ass of a stripper would reinvent my career so well, no." And in case you were wondering, the fake NPH in the sequel has switched mindbenders: "It's mushrooms now." But speaking of strippers, it seems he's seen far more pole-straddlers in his day than you'd expect from a recently outed actor. As he puts it, "I've seen quite a few cans...I like calling them cans. It's fun. Although it's absolutely inappropriate in every way—wrong shape, wrong texture." Though we're not sure what part of that thought is "inappropriate" (the fact that breasts don't feel like beer cans, or that he thinks it's "fun" to call them that), we are delighted to learn that he's grabbed a few in the past. Imagining that is fun, indeed.

• THE HOT SEAT: NEIL PATRICK HARRIS [TONY]

"It's the Mary Poppins idea that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down," [Spurlock said]. In his latest nonfiction adventure, Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?, Spurlock recounts the U.S.'s long history of backing despots and dictators by showing an animated Uncle Sam drinking at a bar with "our S.O.B.s" like the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein. "If you put these things in a straight historical context," says Spurlock, "you would turn people off." ...

In our highly politicized climate, even Harold and Kumar have become divisive figures, with conservatives calling the new film "anti-war" and "left-wing pan-terrorist pap." But the filmmakers say their movie is ultimately patriotic, neither right-wing nor left-wing. As [H&K writer-director Hayden] Schlossberg says: "In what other country can you write dick jokes and shit jokes for a living?"

That hilarious sense of ironic detachment is definitely killing in Iraq, where at least 54 civilians died Tuesday in four car bombings around the country. We suspect civilian deaths are the next taboo to fall in mainstream American films, with wrenching docs like Taxi to the Dark Side, Iraq in Fragments and Blood of my Brother all supplying more than enough footage for a fake trailer spinning funeral processions and angry rallies as rabid international demand for John Cusack's upcoming imperialism send-up War, Inc. Wait — what? That's not funny, you say? Oh. Sorry. I guess we really are out of touch around here.

• Absurdistan: The New Iraq War Cinema [VV]