Yes, No, Maybe So: "Hope Springs"

I'm such a ditz. Last week we learned that Meryl Streep really needed more potassium in her diet -- the marketing for her new comedy Hope Springs is obsessed with those bananas -- and perhaps because of my love-hate relationship with those yellow phallic symbols, I completely forgot to post this particular Yes No Maybe So edition after writing it up. 

Meryl's potassium deficiency.

Last week I also got a painful charley horse in my left calf and I ate bananas the rest of the week as penance. I think I have a super mild allergy because they always make my mouth feel weird.

PSA

YES

• Who doesn't love Meryl Streep in comedies?
• Am I crazy or does Steve Carell have one of the most soothing beautiful voices ever. I want him to talk at me and talk at me and tell me everything will be okay. I love how his big screen persona is so different than his small screen work.
• Last time David Frankel and Streep worked together they gave us Miranda Priestley so we kinda owe them.
• Meryl and the Signifying Banana.
• OMG. Hi, Elisabeth Shue and Mimi Rogers. Meet you in 1987!!!

Great 80s Ladies: Elisabeth Shue, Meryl Streep, Mimi Rogers

MAYBE SO

• The threesome joke that ends the trailer. I can't decide if it's hilarious in a dumb joke way or just groan-worthy. If all the jokes are cheeky ribbings this will be hard to swallow.

NO

• The trailer isn't particularly funny and seems a little "you go girl" Lifetime bland.
• Tommy Lee Jones? In this part?
• Meryl Streep? With that hair? Seriously why.

Remember when we all first heard about this project and it sounded like a nuanced marital drama and it was going to star Jeff Bridges and I was pissed that Michelle Pfeiffer didn't fight Meryl for the role? This is not at all what I was expecting!

the trailer in question...

• Are you a Yes No or Maybe So?
• Ever practiced on a banana?
• Is this way outside of your comfort zone?

Take Three: Michael Rooker

Craig here with this week's Take Three. Today: Michael Rooker

Take One: Slither (2007)
Rooker has a very bad time of it in Slither. For starters, he plays a brute and tyrant, and is almost pathologically cocksure of his local status as a small-town car dealer. He’s horrible and unfaithful to his wife and his name, Grant Grant, is doubly dumb. So when he’s “killed” by an alien parasite in a meteor which re-animates him as a mind-absorbed, ET-hosting slug-mutant, you don’t exactly sob over his lot in life. But things get worse: he has a future as the head of a fleshy multi-person blob – the kind of thing that Brian Yuzna or David Cronenberg might cook up after particularly eventful dreams – to look forward to. Before that, Rooker leaves a slime trail of extraterrestrial carnage. And it becomes clear at this point that it’s not “just a bee sting.”

For much of his screen time, all he does is slither (the title has it) about sporting gruesomely daft prosthetics that make him look like an exploded can of refried beans or a particularly nasty dental accident. Kudos to him for embracing his OTT part in so heartily; he goes with the giddy flow of all the comically gory sci-fi/horror trappings, playing up his macho onscreen persona to great effect. Grant gets a slippery comeuppance, but he gets some of the best lines too (“It’s just a bee sting!”) More actors ought to take Rooker’s lead and cake themselves in elaborate special effects to debase themselves in the name of cheerfully grisly supporting parts.

Cliff Hanging and Serial Killing after the jump

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The Fabulous Linker Boy

Forbes an awesomely nerdy calculation of Smaug's wealth from The Hobbit. It's from the "fictional fifteen" of the wealthiest characters from movies, books, and tv. 
Grantland looks at the end of the full frontal wang era, which peaked with Shame last year and will supposedly die with Magic Mike this summer.
Los Angeles Times Two of the stars of the Tribeca winning Una Noche have defected from Cuba and are seeking asylum in the US. They're a couple in real life and siblings on the screen.
Movie|Line asks everyone to calm down with their "best picture!" proclamations in April. Oopsie. We just completed all of our predictions. But at least The Film Experience has never been driven to "lock!" proclamations before movies are even finished.

The Wrap Any Day Now, a gay adoption drama starring two fine actors (Garrett Dillahunt & Alan Cumming) won the audience award at Tribeca
My New Plaid Pants James Franco and Michael Shannon in compromising positions for The Broken Tower 
24 Frames Henry Selick still hush hush about his Coraline follow up, another spooky sweet stop motion film. It will probably be released in 2013. Scribble it down on your Oscar predictions for next next year. Then he's doing Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.
The Mary Sue eye makeup looks inspired by The Avengers. As colorful as any superhero comic.
Collider yes, they're still planning to reboot The Fantastic Four
Guardian Olivia Williams isn't one for "flamboyant self display". Perhaps she'll rethink that if she wants Oscar traction this year for Hyde Park on Hudson.

Finally...

if you follow the Oscar race religiously and have for at least a few years you've probably discovered that the craft categories are inherently like the acting categories in that some giants of the trade can't seem to win the gold man despite rich filmographies and stunning year-best work. The Oscars require some luck as well. So I'm very happy to congratulate Michael Ballhaus, pictured above, an amazing cinematographer for his lifetime achievement award at Germany's Lolas this past week. 

His Oscar nominations came for The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), Gangs of New York (2002), and Broadcast News (1987) but he also lit Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), The Age of Innocence (1993), and The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972)... and that's only a handful of the visual wonders he's produced. The Film Experience ♥s him and has ever since La Pfeiffer spun around on that piano and Made Whoopie. We congratulate him sincerely on this career honor.

Smash: "The Movie Star" & "Publicity"

So much to discuss to catch up. Smash is playing up the movie angles with Actors Studio & sequel jokes, Uma guest starring, Bollywood numbers, multiple Monroes, and the general lame practice of stunt casting when movie stars hit the stage. The show feels more than a little keyed up all of a sudden with the unstable presence of Rebecca Duvall (Uma Thurman) in the mix.

1.11 "The Movie Star" 
The episode begins as the dancers greet Karen (Katharine McPhee) who is uncharacteristically dressed up for a sweaty rehearsal to impress Rebecca (Uma Thurman)

Bobby: Oh you reallly bumped it up a notch, didn't you?
Jessica: Ah, she dressed up for the movie star."

This could also double as an introduction to a show that seems to be trying a little harder now that they've got some genuine starlight in the mix with Uma flouncing about being a pain in the ass. Of course the big problem with Smash is not that Uma's character can't sing (we know she'll eventually quit the show, don't we?) but that TV show itself still wants to convince us that Marilyn should be played by Karen within the show. But Katharine McPhee is such a poor excuse for a Marilyn when Megan Hilty is standing right there deserving the part. Argh. McPhee isn't even convincing as Marilyn when she's handed those full makeup fantasies because she feels and looks nothing like her in face, physique or temperament.

Her Day Will Come?Brando & Dean jokes,

Brando and Dean jokes and Bollywood strangeness after the jump... It's the biggest SMASH post ever.

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Hot Docs: Paolo's Opening Reactions

Paolo here. All world class cities have a lot going on in arts and cultures and this is especially true of Toronto for film lovers. So here I am apologizing that I missed the Kathleen Turner Mini-Film Festival because it happened during Hot Docs, the largest documentary film festival in North America. Taking us northern movie lovers from our post-Oscar hibernation, this festival also begins our new movie year.

I first started going to the festival in 2010, a year full of political films, although not as preachy as the word implies. 2011 had creatively-filmed spotlights on the bittersweet lives of its subjects. But this year's docs are more difficult to enjoy, if that's even an option. Let me explain. An example is The Invisible War, which had its international premiere last Friday.

It's...

the latest groundbreaking investigative documentary by award-winning director Kirby Dick, is about one of America’s most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape -

No! Although it has 'prestige doc' potential.

Then there's Outing, also having its international premiere last Friday, its synopsis reading

Since turning 15, a shy, sensitive youth has struggled with a growing awareness of his own unimaginable desire: his sexual attraction to children.

"Jeff"Oh come on now, really? (UPDATE: the screenings for this movie have sold out, leaving its availability status for those who dare join the rush lines). These movies are just the tip of a creepy ass iceberg. There's a selection called Sexy Baby for Christ's sakes, adding another title to the trend of Docs That Make Me Uncomfortable. Then again why am I avoiding these movies but have no qualms on signing up for 'Nightvision,' a package of midnight screenings, that include passes for the Jeffrey Dahmer doc called...Jeff (I blame Jeremy Renner).

[Slushy thoughts, less depressing stuff and James fucking Franco after the jump.]

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