Y is for Yes Man (#401)

Jim Carrey movies can usually be described either as Jim Carrey being a fairly weird individual to begin with (Ace Ventura, The Cable Guy, Man on the Moon), or a weird situation being forced on an otherwise fairly normal individual.  Surprisingly, there are a lot more of the latter than the former, and he's been able to sustain a career where he's been able to explore a lot of those scenarios.  Yes Man (2008) is one of those, where the weird situation is self-help guru Terence Stamp convincing Carrey that the answer to his problems is simply to start saying "yes" to everything so he'll stop feeling so inadequate.  So that's exactly what Carrey does.  Some fairly predictable zaniness ensues, but much of it leads to Zooey Deschanel (Carrey tends to have a lot of really awesome female co-stars, and she's probably the most awesome one).  This was one of my first exposures to her singing ability (before She & Him, and well before I'd seen Elf, which also makes it obvious, even though she does not yet have her trademark look, so you might not even know it's her), and that's another reason I enjoy this movie, that and there's Bradley Cooper right before he blew up in popularity thanks to The Hangover.  So you can either enjoy Yes Man as a fairly typical Jim Carrey movie, or how it points to a few other stars, much as, say, Bruce Almighty helped launch the popular career of Steve Carell.

Star Trek bonus!

Y is for Yar, Tasha
(from Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Stop me if you've heard this one.  Series regular begs to be released from what will in two years have been indisputably the biggest success of their career.  Isn't it ironic, doncha think?  It's true, Denise Crosby was miserable, after just a handful of episodes into the first season of Next Generation.  I don't mean to whitewash history, because the second Star Trek series was not a guaranteed success, and in fact took two seasons to really get a handle of itself, but not even in hindsight it seems rash for Crosby to have decided that she couldn't make it work as security officer Yar, no matter what her personal expectations were for the role.  Just as ironically, "Skin of Evil" is arguably the best episode to that point in the series, and that's the one that marks Yar's death in a random incident that gives Deanna Troi her first meaningful moment, and also elevates Worf to a position of significance.  Crosby did get the chance to make periodic visits, notably in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and the series finale, not to mention as Yar's Romulan daughter, but she basically threw away the role of a lifetime.  I personally wonder if she will ever admit to regretting it.

A-to-Z Challenge!