Brad Pitt's New Orleans beer-toss to Matthew McConaughey is disappointingly meh

Brad Pitt&#039;s New Orleans beer-toss to Matthew McConaughey is disappointingly meh

(Image credit: Twitter)

last updated 8 January 2015

The setup is great: Two of the world's biggest movie stars, Matthew McConaughey and Brad Pitt, discover they are in balconied New Orleans hotel rooms on opposite sides of a gawker-filled street. Pitt throws a beer across the street, and McConaughey catches it and pops it open, all with camera-toting tourists and paparazzi snapping away below. It looks pretty serendipitously awesome in still photos, curated BuzzFeed-style.

But then watch the video. Maybe it's the street commentary, or the fact that Pitt is pretty clearly playing to the crowd, or maybe just that we expect these guys to be closely edited and professionally filmed — or at least carefully curated, BuzzFeed-style — but the moment looks decidedly less "epic" in the garish light of smartphone video. Swap any two non-famous men for McConaughey and Pitt and it's less a "special moment" between "two of the most handsome men to grace the cover of People magazine," as The Times-Picayune says, and more what goes on every weekend in the French Quarter. --Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.