It is possible that James Franco has out-Franco-ed himself. Adding “street artist” to his absurdly lengthy resume (ever heard of a vacation, bro? Just reading about all the things you do makes me sleepy), Franco has now painted a mural on a Brooklyn building. Gakwer acquired some photos of Franco tagging a Williamsburg wall with the likenesses of himself and his “This Is the End” co-stars Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson on Saturday. Stay tuned for subsequent photos of the mural being graffiti-ed by disgruntled hipsters. We’re not pawns in your game of capitalistic self-promotion masked in art, man. Also, go take a nap.

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Not many are seeing Spring Breakers — and those that are are not always happy (NSFW) — but that didn’t stop James Franco from grilling David Letterman for a good story about its notorious maker, Harmony Korine. At 19, Korine’s script for Kids was directed by Larry Clark. He went on Letterman, and was so odd that he was asked on again (to promote Gummo). And again (to promote the delightful-sounding novel A Crack Up at the Race Riots). And apparently a fourth time, which never happened: he was booted from the show before airing, legend has it, because he pushed around Meryl Streep.

When on Letterman, Franco — who plays Breakers‘ grilled-out, cornrowed, “This is my sh—”-spouting rapper-cum-gangsta Alien — asked for a confirmation of this urban legend. And Letterman proved unexpectedly forthright: he claimed that he caught Korine, now 40, in Streep’s green room, rifling through her purse. He then threw him out. Franco postulates that Korine was probably “on something,” though he swears Korine is these days together.

Letterman says (after the events chronicled in this video) he would be glad to have Korine back on the Late Show. At the very least he should bring Korine on with his good friend, Werner Herzog, who memorably co-starred in his Julien Donkey-boy.

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‘Spring Breakers’
Director: Harmony Korine
Stars: Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens
Rating: R
2 (out of 5) Globes

The Spring Breakers of the title — religious Faith (Selena Gomez) plus bad girl friends-since-kindergarten Brit (Ashley Benson), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) — are bored at the start of Harmony Korine’s super-stylized exploitation drama. Despondent with their flat-looking campus and wanting to see “something new,” the three evil girls rob a Chicken Shack restaurant, then collar Faith and head to Florida for drugs and demonstrative hedonism.

Party montages ensue, and during a cocaine-heavy afternoon the cops show up. Up to this point, “Spring Breakers” keeps a straight face, giving sex-minded viewers what they came for: copious anonymous toplessness and young women giving porn-minded frat boys what they expect. From Gaspar Noe, an equally provocation-minded director, Korine borrows both cinematographer Benoit Debie and a modified unnerving sound effect. In Noe’s feature debut “I Stand Alone,” gunshots go off on the soundtrack for no reason and with little warning, scaring audiences with random noise alone. Here, Korine similarly jacks up the sound of a gun being cocked, an audio link with dubstep terror Skrillex’s bass thumping. Violent rhythms presage actual violence, with random kids destroying rooms as a partying highlight.

When the MTV-plus-boobs good times end, Faith et al. are bailed out by aspiring rapper/drug lord/freelance ruffian Alien (James Franco). Reveling in his money, his platinum grille and a TV with a constant loop of “Scarface,” he’s a self-proclaimed “gangsta” with enough guns for his own final Pacino-esque shootout. He’s a goofy, inspired comic creation burdened with the responsibility of spelling out Korine’s themes. “This is America,” Alien explains. “This is the American dream.”

That dream has to inevitably reveal itself a nightmare, presumably darkening and curdling the earlier T&A. The girls and Alien share a communal narration track, an unabashed nod to Terrence Malick, whose 1974 debut “Badlands” similarly gives Sissy Spacek an uncomprehending, flat voiceover over a murderous summer spree. The girls are vapid, bad commenters on their own story, manically fixated on partying and singing Britney Spears.

Repetitively nihilistic, it’s a movie making predictable visual poetry — jacked-up neon lights at night, drugged-out partiers reaching transcendence through exhaustion — out of girls whose only viable aspirations for transcendence go no further than the worst week in Florida. That’s sad, but Korine’s beautiful losers are interchangeable, and his shockingly clunky third-act exposition punctures any ambitions for a death-charged dream reverie.

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Though actually set closer to the turn of the (last) century, the classic-movie-nerd opening of “Oz the Great and Powerful” recreates the look of 1939: the box-shaped frame, the artificial sets, the mannered acting. It’s the era of not the first “Wizard of Oz” film — several were made prior, including a 1925 feature with Oliver Hardy as the Tin Man — but the most beloved, and director Sam Raimi makes sure to get everything right. His only mistake is James Franco, cast as the 30-something Oscar Diggs, aka the actual Wizard of Oz — because when you think of the 1930s, you obviously think of mumbling stoners.

Perhaps realizing this is a classier gig than hosting the Oscars, the amusingly miscast Franco tries hard. Robert Downey Jr. was originally slated to lead this, Disney’s second attempt to piggyback off a mega-classic. (The 1985 film “Return to Oz” tanked, on account of it being as awesomely scary and demented as L. Frank Baum’s books.) But Downey Jr. would have only done Downey Jr., whereas Franco lends an unpolished, excitable and unique presence to a script that’s overly safe and which has clearly been exec-noted to death.

The plot uses little directly from Baum’s 14 “Oz” books, hitting us with yet another origin story: Franco’s Diggs is a magician/conman whisked away by a twister (original!) to the magical land of loud colors and anthropomorphized animals. There, he befriends a flying monkey (voiced by Zach Braff) and a porcelain china doll (Joey King), while running afoul of the younger (and hotter) versions of the three witches: nice Glinda (Michelle Williams), drolly evil Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and her sister, the gullible and sweet Theodora (Mila Kunis).

Raimi dutifully plods through the thin plot while encouraging his actors and effects team to spice things up. Weisz is reliably arch, and the director of three “Evil Dead” movies uses the third dimension to have beasts and pointy objects leaping in our faces. His most lasting effect on this product is more reserved and loving: His is a movie about the relationship between science and magic, producing the most trenchant mainstream picture on the subject since Christopher Nolan’s “The Prestige.” And though the overall effect is lightly likable, at least it’s not cluttered, narratively or visually, like another Joe Roth production with a Danny Elfman score: Tim Burton’s grotesque violation of “Alice in Wonderland.” (3 out of 5 Globes)

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Though it tends to pull in a fifth of the audience that tunes in to the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards are still considered a television bohemoth. Some of you have even seen some of the nominated films. And though the snubs were nastier than usual this year — sorry, Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow and “Amour”’s Jean-Louis Trintignant — at least you get to see Seth MacFarlane in the flesh, not as a cartoon (though perhaps for longer than you’d like.) We look at the forthcoming ceremony from a number of fresh angles:

Rating the hosts

The choice of “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane may seem like yet another attempt by the older-skewing Oscars to appeal to the kids. The thing is, he actually has a surprising tendency toward Old Hollywood style. At parties thrown at his house, MacFarlane is even known to sing standards backed by a big band. While the jury’s still out on MacFarlane’s performance, we thought we’d see what he has to measure up to from the past few years’ shows:

2009: Hugh Jackman
Grade: 4 Globes
The Australian charmer — who happens to be a Best Actor nominee this year, for “Les Miserables” — turned in the hosting performance to beat the year “Slumdog Millionaire” won. His opening song-and-dance number was the standout, but Broadway veteran Jackman proved he’s an all-around talent.

2010: Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin
Grade: 2 Globes
The likeable comic actors relied heavily on their own charm, but it wasn’t enough to save the show. With stale jokes and awkward delivery, their performance felt too much like an ad for their equally disappointing 2009 film, “It’s Complicated.”

2011: James Franco and Anne Hathaway
Grade: 1 Globe
As we remarked during this train wreck, “Apparently there is something James Franco can’t do.” This brazen attempt at pulling in younger viewers turned out to be a disaster, with current nominee Hathaway seemingly abandoned by Franco, who seemed to have given up on the endeavor before it began.

2012: Billy Crystal
Grade: 2 Globes
After the Franco/Hathaway disaster, the Academy went back to standby Crystal, hosting his ninth Oscars. But the funnyman’s schtick maybe went too old-fashioned, as his bits were generally panned as hokey and out of touch. Case in point: While many in that precious younger demographic might not necessarily know Crystal was dressing up as Sammy Davis Jr. in one bit, they do know what blackface looks like.

Daniel Day-Lewis may win his third Oscar for playing some president in “Lincoln.”
Credit: Reuters

The odds are …
With odds of 4 to 1, Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is still the favorite to win the big prize of Best Picture at the Academy Awards Sunday, according to Gold Derby, which tracks the chances for Oscar nominees. That’s despite the surge of support — and wins at other awards shows — for Ben Affleck’s “Argo.” The surge started when Affleck was left out of the Best Director race, which Spielberg is also most likely to take, with 12 to 5 odds.

In the acting categories, it’s no surprise to anyone that “Lincoln” star Daniel Day-Lewis is most likely on his way to becoming the first three-time Best Actor winner in Oscar history, with a 39 percent chance of victory. The only nominee with better odds of scoring a trophy is Anne Hathaway, nominated for Best Supporting Actress for “Les Miserables.” The Best Actress race is much more interesting, with “Silver Linings Playbook” star Jennifer Lawrence (33 percent) edging out “Zero Dark Thirty”’s Jessica Chastain (30 percent).

“Life of Pi” made the most money out of all the Best Picture nominees.

Best Picture nominees by box office

It’s no secret in Hollywood that awards season accolades and box office success don’t always go hand in hand — though a high-profile nomination or win will generally boost a film’s gross. So how do the nine Best Picture nominees rank as far as their global ticket sales?

1. Life of Pi: $576 million
2. Les Miserables: $378.9 million
3. Django Unchained: $365.9 million
4. Lincoln: $235 million
5. Argo: $204 million
6. Silver Linings Playbook: $140 million
7. Zero Dark Thirty: $101.5 million
8. Amour: $17 million
9. Beasts of the Southern Wild: $12 million

On the flip side, we take a look at how the highest grossing films of 2012 stack up when it comes to Oscar nominations:

1. The Avengers ($1.5 billion) — 1 nomination
2. Skyfall ($1.1 billion) — 5 nominations
3. The Dark Knight Rises ($1.08 billion) — 0 nominations
4. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ($959.8 million) — 3 nominations
5. Ice Age: Continental Drift ($875.3 million) — 0 nominations

Bryan Cranston, right, says his wife wants to go to the Oscars more than he does

Bryan Cranston on the joys of awards season
If you see “Breaking Bad” and “Argo” star Bryan Cranston at Sunday’s Academy Awards, know that he’s not there of his own volition. “First of all, I wouldn’t go. If I’m not nominated, why am I there?” he tells Metro. “They want me to go the Oscars. I’m not nominated, but ‘Argo’ is, and it’s like, ‘Go, go, go!’ My wife’s saying, ‘You’ve got to go! We’ve got to go!’ And it’s like, ‘Really? I don’t know. Another tuxedo?’ From the outside in, you’re like, ‘Wow! Look at that!’ But when you’re there, I’m telling you … I’ve got to be careful how I phrase this because I don’t want to sound like I’m not grateful. I’m grateful for the opportunities.”

It’s not sitting through the shows themselves that bug Cranston so much as working the red carpets. “I hate red carpet interviews, because you get as a deep into a conversation as you would in a loud bar,” he says. “It’s awful, it’s awful. The publicists, they tell me it’s important and you should do it, but any time I go, I ask, ‘Can I avoid the red carpet?’”

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