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Every time I visit a convenience store I start looking around for those clear rounded plastic jars containing cheap black combs. I’m referring to ones made out of slim and bendable plastic with thin, malleable teeth that go for only 99 cents, and not the stiff and unyielding slightly heavier kind with overly dense teeth that drugstores sell for $3.50 or $4. Only down-at-the-heels liquor stores sell cheapo combs. I refer to them as James Dean combs. They slightly bend with your hair and slip nicely into your back jean pocket without a feeling of excessive rigidity.

(l.) The “good” James Dean comb; (r.) the “bad” KMart/CVS comb.

I’m obviously coming from a highly fickle place, but I’m always on the look for cheapo combs and they’re disappearing from the marketplace, i fear. Can’t find them anywhere. The next time I see a batch I’m buying the whole supply.

The latest obesity statistics (released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Trust for America’s Health) indicate that Americans are much heavier now than 15 years ago. There are now five states (Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee and Louisiana) in which nearly one in three people are obese. And the state with the lowest 2011 obesity levels — Colorado, with 19.8 percent of adults considered analogous to walking sea lions — would have had the highest rate in 1995, the report says.

(l. to r.) Patrick Knowles, Errol Flynn, Alan Hale, Sr. in The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Think of that — every fifth person in the healthiest state in the nation has the physique of John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

To get an idea of how things have changed over the last few decades, consider a light-hearted scene in Michael Curtiz‘s The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) in which Alan Hale, Sr. (i.e., “Little John”) is repeatedly ribbed by Errol Flynn and his Merry Band of Men for being too heavy. They surround Hale and laugh and nudge him and really let him have it — your body is rather laughable, good fellow!

Except Hale’s Little John isn’t close to being fat by today’s standards. He has the physique of Seth Rogen before he lost weight for The Green Hornet. He’s definitely more svelte than Jack Black. Don’t even mention him in the same breath with pre-weight-loss, Get Him To The Greek Jonah Hill.

Sony Classics’ new Restless trailer allows me to repost my initial Cannes impressions of Henry Hopper — the 19 year-old son of the late Dennis Hopper — who stars in Gus Van Sant‘s film: “The movie is somewhat precious and Harold and Maude-like, but I sense that Hopper has more in his quiver than what the material has asked of him. He seems to be holding back for some reason. Which, to me, feels interesting.

“Hopper projects interior currents that have been thought through, or at least don’t seem too acting-school instinctual or showoff nutso. He has a reasonably steady, patient, almost Montgomery Clift-like vibe, which I would describe as bothered and vulnerable but not childish, and connected to some kind of integrity or value system — there are lines he won’t cross.

“There’s a sense of intelligence and discernment in Hopper. He doesn’t seem to be handing the role of Enoch — a kid who’s survived a car crash that took his parents’ lives and thereby has a morbid curiosity about death and ghosts and whatnot — in a manner calculated to appeal to dim-bulb teenage girls. And he’s good looking in a Clift-like way (similar bone structure, narrow nose).

“I don’t want to overdo this but he has…well, a sharp but oblique quality that could grow into something.”

This isn’t a review (or even a mini-review) of The Help (Touchstone, 8.10), which I saw tonight. That’s for down the road. But I could sense from reactions at the screening that it’ll be a hit with over-25 educated femmes, and perhaps beyond that demo. A youngish woman sitting near me was teary-eyed when the lights came up.

Emma Stone is the bright and diligent writer who interviews African-American maids working in Jackson, Mississippi, for a book exposing small-town racism. Bryce Dallas Howard plays a racist wicked-witch wife. But the stars of the film are Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer as two of the maids who secretly help Stone. They both give knockout performances, and are now at or near the top of the 2011 Best Supporting Actress list.

Press screenings for The Undefeated, Stephen K. Bannon’s pro-Sarah Palin documentary, are happening tomorrow in New York and Los Angeles.

I too am planning on attending next week’s Dolby pressathon in San Francisco on 7.1 Surround Sound. Besides MCN’s David Poland, I mean. I’d been looking forward to a wholesome and stirring learning experience. “Uhhm, I don’t want to look in your direction…I’m looking through you…you’re not there…if I don’t maintain my Islamic jihad stance I won’t be a man,” etc.

A lowbrow comedy that racks up a lower-than-15% Rotten Tomatoes average, as The Zookeeper (Sony, 7.8) has so far managed, has nothing to worry about as far as the family-viewing crowd is concerned. Kevin James‘ latest, produced by Adam Sandler‘s Happy Madison crew, is allegedly reprehensible, and it’ll do just fine this weekend with the millions who loved Night at the Museum, which The Zookeeper is basically aping.

Best slapdowns: (1) “Smells like the monkey house before cleaning time.” — Hollywood Reporter‘s Todd McCarthy. (2) “If a worse movie is released this year, I hope I don’t have to see it.” — MSN’s Glenn Kenny; (2) “Lock the cage and throw away the key.” — Boxoffice.com‘s Pete Hammond; “If we could talk to the animals, they’d probably hate it too.” — Associated Press critic Dave Germain.

Today a photo and a transcription of a 2.9.60 fan letter written by Stanley Kubrick to Ingmar Bergman (i.e., while Kubrick was working on Spartacus, as indicated by the Universal-International letterhead stationery) was posted.

Question: Can anyone imagine a reputable director today writing such a letter to Zack Snyder? If so, could they imaginatively compose such a letter themselves and send it along?

“Dear Mr. Snyder: I should like to offer my praise and gratitude as a fellow director for the unearthly and brilliant contribution you have made to the art of opening-credit sequences. The opening-title portions for Sucker Punch, 300, Watchmen and Dawn of the Dead were truly thrilling. Seriously — I’m not being facetious. Trust me when I say that I am literally breathless with anticipation for the Man of Steel credit sequence. Your vision of what credit sequences can be has moved me deeply, much more deeply than I have ever been moved by any films,” etc.

The names of the dwarf brothers from Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, opening on 12.14.12, are actually Snoopy, Gloopy and Picknose. No, seriously — Dori, Nori and Or. The players (l. to r.) are Jed Brophy, Adam Brown and Mark Hadlow .

That long-running News of the World phone-hacking scandal has finally torpedoed Rupert Murdoch‘s British tabloid. The 168-year-old publication (Dickens almost certainly read it) will close on Sunday, 7.10, in an attempt to flush out sewage backwash from the Murdoch empire.

“The good things the News of the World does…have been sullied by behavior that was wrong,” said James Murdoch, son of Rupert, in an official statement. “If recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company.” “If“?

“The move to close The News of the World was seen by media analysts as a potentially shrewd decision: jettisoning a troubled newspaper in order to preserve the more lucrative broadcasting deal and possibly expand the company’s other British tabloid, The Sun, to publish seven days a week.” — from Sarah Lyall and Brian Stelter‘s N.Y. Times story on the development.

Additionally: “British Metropolitan police have informed Andy Coulson, former media adviser to British Prime Minster David Cameron, that he will be arrested Friday in connection with the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. Coulson, who resigned as Cameron’s director of commuications in January, was contacted by detectives on Thursday and told to appear for formal questioning on Friday.”

Wells to Paramount publicity: About a week ago Variety‘s Jeff Sneider tweeted that Paramount has decided to change the title of Martin Scorsese‘s Hugo Cabret to Hugo. And now Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet has just gone with Hugo in a preview piece. Did I miss an official confirmation?

If Hugo Cabret‘s title has indeed been dumbed down, is it because Paramount marketing research indicated that your average rural American might be thrown and perhaps turned off by the word “Cabret”? As in: “Hmmm…sounds kinda French. How d’ya say it….CaBRETT? Hugo CaBRAY? Arty-farty…right? Later.”

This echoes last April’s decision by Sony Classics to simplify the title of Roman Polanski‘s adaptation of God of Carnage into just plain Carnage. With no explanation offered it was speculated in this corner that (a) “perhaps the Polanski name plus the God of Carnage title might turn off a certain segment of the audience, and so they’re playing it safe” and (b) Sony Classics “is [perhaps] afraid that God of Carnage sounds too much like a video game. And just plain Carnage doesn’t?

That little glimmer of pleasure in Meryl Streep‘s eyes and mouth as she explains what’s important, nay, essential in her presentation to the British electorate is so friggin’ Oscar-baity it’s not funny. Forget it, game over, she’s nominated. Like I said the other day, it’s Streep vs. Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs vs. Charlize Theron in Young Adult plus two others.

Deadline‘s Pete Hammond caught about ten minutes worth of Iron Lady footage at last May’s Cannes Film Festival. Here’s his report.