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Cinematical has just received three exclusive images from the Michael Cera-starring Youth in Revolt, the film coming at us from Chuck & Buck director Miguel Arteta. Cera plays Nick Twisp, a too-smart-for-his-own-good teen virgin whose trashy parents take him on a "vacation" to a trailer park in Ukiah. Nick isn't entirely thrilled with the trip until he meets his neighbor, Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday). He falls hard, and when he has to head back home to Oakland, he creates a French counterpart named Francois Dillinger to help him win over the girl of his dreams. As Erik Davis described in his review, "together, Nick and Francois embark on a dangerous journey where laws will be broken, French will be spoken, drugs will be taken and nerves will be shaken -- all in the hopes of winning over the heart and soul of one Sheeni Saunders." And in case that's not enticing enough, Erik says Cera's performance is "easily the best of his career."

Aside from three great images of Nick with his love and alter ego (in the gallery below), a red band trailer just hit Funny or Die, and you can check it out after the jump. This is red band which means all of Nick's lascivious musings, inopportune arousal, and sexual preparation makes this trailer NSFW. But it's well worth the time.

Should everything go as planned this time around, we should finally see the comedy greatness for ourselves on January 8, 2010. Definitely make sure to catch this one -- it's most certainly an unexpected treat.

Fair warning right out of the gate: the below video is A) Not Safe for Work, unless you conduct business in a place in which no one has ears, and B) targeted for a very specific group of people.

If you've been eagerly anticipating James Cameron's Avatar for years, if you think the man who delivered to the world Terminator, Aliens, and True Lies can do no wrong, and if the backlash to the unveiling of Avatar's colorful aesthetics baffles you, you may want to stay clear of Landline TV's spoof on Cameron's addiction to big budget special effects, which portrays the famous director as little more than a CGI crackhead. It's too silly to call mean spirited, yet it's also too acute to call playful ribbing, but those movie geeks among us who are growing tired of a Hollywood that makes grandiose promises but only ever delivers familiar campaigns of supersaturated digital shock-and-awe might get a kick out of what it takes for Cameron to get his motion-capture fix.

However, even if you're a big supporter of Cameron and the bold approach he's taken to bringing us a new, original science fiction property (as I will readily admit I am), a special little cameo by Michael Bay should put a smile on your face. It's crude, but it's short; and what day isn't complete without a little bit of YouTube fun, anyway?

You've read all the reviews and interviews, and watched all the spoof videos. Most of you reading this have probably already watched the film, too. Today, as The Twilight Saga: New Moon finally reaches theaters, it sorta feels like the day after Christmas -- all this hype, work and constant coverage building up to the release of just one film ... and then it's over. Now the "real" fans will begin their endless geeked-out debates on their own fansites, and the rest of us will talk about the film's boffo box office while preparing for three weeks worth of nonstop promo for JAMES F*CKING CAMERON'S AVATAR! ROAR!

So while you drink the last of your blood energy drink, and begin breaking down the Bella and Edward Nativity Scene that's currently on your front lawn, why not let our good buddy Kevin Smith have the last word on all things Twilight. During his panel at this past San Diego Comic-Con, Smith went off for about four minutes on the Twilight Phenomenon, and took us through the experience of watching a clip from New Moon while thousands of young girls screamed their silly little heads off. It's a very amusing clip (that's homemade, so excuse the jerky camera movements), and if it's the last thing you watch before folks begin ramping up their Eclipse coverage, you'll find yourself a happier and more well-adjusted human being because of it.

Watch the clip after the jump, though be warned that it comes with plenty of foul language.

You couldn't turn a corner in Telluride this year without hearing a festival manager or volunteer gushing thanks to the festival's many sponsors for continuing to support Telluride despite, to quote Charlie Kaufman, today's wintry economic climate. Telluride, a posh film industry mainstay, appeared to weather the storm: the $680 "Festival Passes" -- the most common, middle-of-the-road choice for Telluride pass-holders (passes run from around $300 to over $3000) -- didn't sell out for the first time in recent memory, but the festival was well-attended, the movies plentiful, and apart from the speech-making, the only sign of trouble was that Omaha Steaks provided flatiron instead of sirloin for the event's annual Labor Day picnic.

Some of the less entrenched film events apparently are not so lucky. The increasingly popular CineVegas, for example, recently announced a hiatus for 2010, so that regular attendees -- of whom Cinematical is one (or more) -- had better make other plans for next June. Part of the problem, as The Hollywood Reporter notes, is that unlike Telluride and a great many other film festivals, CineVegas is not a non-profit, which makes sponsorships harder to come by.

Still, though CineVegas may have been minor compared to Toronto, Sundance, etc., it was certainly a major regional player. Several of the lower-profile events with which I'm familiar -- the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, the Philadelphia Film Festival -- have gone ahead as planned this year. (The latter was affected by a feud among two major Philly film scene heavyweights, but that's neither here nor there.) The Hollywood Reporter article linked above notes a number of other events that have felt the pinch, though it only cites one other one -- the Jackson Hole Film Festival -- that was canceled entirely for budgetary reasons. How have festivals, repertory venues, and indie art houses fared in your neck of the woods?

Attention, wannabe writers: Josh Olson won't read your f***ing script. Last week in the Village Voice, the History of Violence screenwriter posted an open diatribe against amateur writers who seek the counsel of professional scribes with script/outline/treatment in hand, an expletive-filled rant that caught on like wildfire on the interwebs. This week Olson's manifesto got an added boost from his friend, the notoriously cantankerous writer Harlan Ellison, who recorded a dramatic reading of the essay after it was adapted into Dr. Seuss-speak by writer Steve Jarrett:

"I will not read your f***ing script
I will not read it in a car
I will not read it in a bar
I will not have it in my house
I will not click it with my mouse
I will not read it here or there
I will not read it anywhere
I'd rather be tied up and whipped
Than have to read your f***ing script" – Excerpted from Steve Jarrett's "I Will Not Read Your F***ing Script"

[Above center, Olson and Ellison (along with Elvis Mitchell) at SXSW 2008. Photo by Jette Kernion.]

Yes, we all knew it would come to this (har har). In the darkest recesses of the Internet, people have been writing slash-fiction for years -- fantasies of what fans wished would happen between Sam and Frodo, Willow and Tara, and yes, even Kirk and Spock. A quick search for slash fic will give you more info on the hobby than you probably ever needed or wanted to know.

Of course, the adult industry picked up on this trend, offering up plenty of XXX take-offs of franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Trek, and the tongue-in-cheek horror-porn take on Re-Animator, cheekily called Re-Penetrator. Local NYC "cinema of transgression" filmmaker Nick Zedd even made a film that took its name from Lord of the Rings, in a play on words that I'm sure you can decipher or Google for your edification. Let's not even discuss the adult parody of Edward Scissorhands.

So now there's not only a sparkly Twilight sex toy, but two Twilight naughty knock-offs. First there was Twilight of Virginity (shot in the home of Nikki Sixx!), and now there's a new one called This Isn't Twilight: The XXX Parody coming your way October 15th, just over a month before Twilight: New Moon is unleashed on audiences.

The real question is, who are these marketed to? Even the grown-ups who enjoy the Twilight franchise say that the fun is because of the way it portrays high school crushes -- yearning, unconsummated, and most certainly virginal, especially in the case of this sex-phobic book series. And Twilight fans, don't spoil the plot for the rest of us if they do get it on. OK?

Someone check these out and report back. I want to know if the term "spider monkey" is used in any context. Thanks!

Unlike some people, I've always been a fan of Ben Affleck. Sure he went through his own Pitt-Jolie phase back when he was dating JLo, and because of that a lot of people began to despise Affleck, but I hung in there and admired the choices he's made later on in his career, not to mention really enjoyed his directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone. For me, though, Affleck has always been at his best when he plays villain or wise ass or bully. One of my favorite roles of his is when he played O'Bannion in Dazed and Confused, and he's also fantastic in a brief supporting appearance in Boiler Room.

In Boiler Room -- which follows a young college dropout (Giovanni Ribisi in one of his best roles) up through the ranks of a Chop Shop out on Long Island -- Affleck plays Jim Young, the firm's trainer of new recruits. He's the guy they bring in to give all these newbies a taste of success, of money, of power -- and in this classic scene, he works the room like a stripper at a bachelor party, teasing these kids with visions of being millionaires within three years from their first day on the job. Of course we soon learn the job is a lot less glamorous than Young makes it out to be, but that's why he's so good at what he does: he knows how to turn nothing into a whole bunch of something. Boiler Room is currently making the rounds on cable; it's a pretty solid movie with some great, seedy performances. Definitely check it out.

Watch the NSFW clip after the jump