Oliver Stone has directed Tommy Lee Jones three times: in JFK, Heaven & Earth, and Natural Born Killers. There is no reason to bring this up other than they are two of American cinema’s best, and each man is 70 today. (The two are seen together at top, many years ago.)

Both Stone and Jones are having busy starts to his 80th decade: Stone’s newest film, Snowden, opens in theaters tomorrow, and Jones is in an action film in theaters right now, Mechanic: Resurrection. (Jason Statham likes using punctuation marks in his titles almost as much as I seem to.)

Tommy Lee Jones is also quite busy shooting rather hilarious ads for Suntory “Boss” coffee in Japan (video collection after the jump):
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Charles Jennens delivered the script for a new work to his friend, George Frideric Handel, in July 1741. Handel started composing music for it on August 22 that year, which is known because Handel kept thorough records. Handel always worked quickly, and his composition of the music for the oratorio, which he titled Messiah, only took him a total of 24 days. He finished composing on September 12 and then, he noted, he cleaned it up and finished it 275 years ago today, September 14, 1741.

The original manuscript, with Handel’s scratch-outs and corrections and with empty bars that offer no musical notes at all, as if Handel had briefly entertained thoughts of adding music if he could, sits in the British Library. That great institution has made the manuscript available for virtual perusal, which I recommend visiting. One can see a page on which Handel must have tipped over his ink bottle and other pages in which he draws the staves to the end of the page so he can complete his musical thought on the same page.

The “Hallelujah Chorus” sung by the Royal Choral Society (after the jump):
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