Here's the set up: Folks have been a bit puzzled over the alarming rise in teen pregnancies at North Shore High School in Gloucester, Massachusetts. In the past year alone, 17 girls have tested positive for a little bun in the oven, and officials (as well as school administrators) were baffled as to why, all of a sudden, the girls in Gloucester were all sorts of knocked up. Crazy, right? And weird. I'll fully admit that to wind up with 17 girls pregnant in one high school at the same time seems a bit strange, especially when it's four times the level from the year before. Four times!

Completely baffled, officials turned to the only feasible explanation: Blame the movies. And when they looked around at popular movies within the past year -- whaddya know -- there was an Oscar winner with teen pregnancy scribbled all over it. Juno ... written by that teen pregnancy supporter Diablo Cody, and directed by a pregnant teen himself, Jason Reitman. Of course! The ridiculous rise in pregnancies had to do with Juno -- a film that made teen pregnancy look about as comfortable and enjoyable as stuffing yourself in a piece of old luggage and rolling down a mountain. There's the answer!

But should we talk to the girls? Maybe see if there's another explanation for all this? Nah. Leave it all on Juno ... after all, Fox Searchlight didn't hand out condoms outside movie theaters screening Juno (I sure as heck never got any condoms!), so, really, it's their fault for not paying closer attention. Right?

Ahem, and that's when the twist comes in ...

Ever since director Jason Reitman knocked one out of the ballpark with Juno, folks have been itching to see what the man takes on next. Yes, he's taken to producing a few things (like the Diablo Cody-penned Jennifer's Body), but what, exactly, will be his next directorial project. Well, according to Latino Review, they've heard from a source that the younger Reitman will direct an adaptation of the novel Up in the Air, written by Thumbsucker author Walter Kirn. Apparently, some digging reveals that Jason's dad Ivan Reitman is already executive producing the film after picking up a script from Sheldon Turner back in 2003.

Recently, Reitman told MTV that he was "writing something" and would "direct it at the end of the year." When pushed to reveal something, anything, Reitman said "it's a comedy and a drama [book adaptation]. Think Thank You For Smoking, but instead of political it's corporate." And if you look at the synopsis for Up in the Air over on Amazon (I've never read the book personally), it fits right into the above description.

Here's a taste: "Officially, Bingham is a management consultant, specializing in the lugubrious field of career transition counseling (i.e., he fires people for a living). But what Kirn's airborne protagonist is really doing is pursuing his own private passion, his great white whale: accumulating one million miles in his frequent-flyer account. As Up in the Air opens, Bingham has set out on a final, epic traveling jag. He intends to visit eight cities in six days, thereby achieving his own vision of Nirvana somewhere over Sioux Falls, South Dakota."

No official word on this one yet, but the pieces definitely seem to be coming together. Anyone read the book? Is it a good fit for Reitman?

UPDATE: LR provides the following update: I just got off the horn with Jason Reitman's publicist. She did in fact confirm that Jason is adapting the book but that no deal is YET in place for him to direct.

Here's a little something to take with you into the weekend: While on Howard Stern recently, Jason Reitman spilled a few beans on the upcoming horror/comedy he's producing called Jennifer's Body. Now, one would expect that with a film called Jennifer's Body, at some point we'd actually get to see, well, Jennifer's body. Good news everyone (if everyone included horny males between the ages of, say, 13 and 84) -- Reitman says Jennifer (played by Transformers hottie Megan Fox) will be going topless for a scene in the film; one that calls for her character to lure an unsuspecting teen male into the woods.

Unfortunately, you guys -- and some girls, I imagine -- won't be able to see her two friends because her hair will be covering those areas. As the Diablo Cody-penned script probably reads, "Totally unfair, square chair!" Starring Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody, J.K. Simmons and Johnny Simmons, Jennifer's Body centers on a possessed cheerleader (Fox) who specializes in killing her male classmates (specifically, those who follow her naked body into the woods). As things spiral out of control, her best friend Needy (Really? Needy?) steps up to try to save the day.

Jennifer's Body arrives in theaters next year.

[via Shock]

Here's something for you Justice League fans to chew on, and wonder what might have been. Jason Reitman revealed on Howard Stern that he was offered the director's chair for Justice League Is Mortal, and turned it down. Let's hear from the man himself, thanks to Slashfilm:

"I had to sign something, they send me the script and it comes on this spy paper which cant be xeroxed. They have a time when I have to have the script back to them and the script is fine and I could be spending ... What am I going to do with Justice League of America? So, basically I'll make a movie that is not as good as X-Men, then I'll be the guy who made a movie not as good as X-Men." Later in the show, he revealed that he would have been given a budget of $150 million.

No, this isn't an acting gig for the two directors, nor is it a new collaborative effort to come after a little Zack and Miri porno. It is actual, real-life sports blogging. Yahoo/AP reports that both Jason Reitman and Kevin Smith will join The Hills' Lauren Conrad, and country music star Dierks Bentley to write blogs professing their love of hockey for the National Hockey League's website. This is cool and all, but where's Mike Myers?

Well, at least there's the Juno director and a man who loves watching kids say "aboot." Reitman says: "I'd come to really love the game and I was just a little upset because I felt there was more of an opportunity, for particularly Americans, to know about the game and follow the game." For the director, who is a fan of two teams that didn't make the playoffs (the Canucks and the Kings), he plans to "write a kind of mythical blog about what the Canucks and Kings would be doing had they still been in. In my version, for the first time in NHL history, the Canucks and the Kings will be the first two Western conference teams to actually meet in the Stanley Cup finals." There is no word on what Smith's plans for the blog are, but considering the fact that the filmmaker is an old-school blogger, it should be fun.

Now that the girls are all lined up to star in Jennifer's Body, it's time to bring in some of those hottie boys to populate the flick. The Hollywood Reporter tells us Adam Brody has hopped onboard the dark comedy/horror (written by everyone's favorite stripper-turned-Oscar winner, Diablo Cody), where he'll play Nikolai, "a hot lead singer of an up-and-coming band with a penchant for evil." Jeepers! Also joining the cast is Juno's dad, J.K. Simmons, who'll play Mr. Wroblewski, a high school science teacher.

Jennifer's Body marks a reunion for Juno's Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody, the former of which will produce, not direct. That job has gone to Karyn Kusama. Already starring in the film is Transformer's Megan Fox; she'll play a cheerleader who becomes possessed by a demon and starts feeding off the boys in her town ... while still finding time to shovel out a good amount of pop culture references, one imagines. Amanda Seyfried will play Jennifer's best friend, and the one who's placed in charge of protecting the community. I'm looking forward to a badass teen horror/comedy with females in the lead. It's about damn time we get a female-centric scary movie that doesn't involve half-nekked females being tortured (though with Megan Fox in the lead, I wouldn't mind one scene ... or several ... but I didn't just say that). Jennifer's Body is due out next year.

It's a familiar tale: Hitch a falling star to a rising talent ... and see what happens. This week's iteration comes in the form of a Variety story that sees Juno director Jason Reitman teaming with Jim Carrey on a new comedy titled Pierre Pierre. The film -- budgeted at a fairly-modest $13 million -- is pitched as the tale of a "self-indulgent French nihilist who transports a stolen painting from Paris to London." In his heyday -- Ace Ventura, The Truman Show, Liar, Liar -- Carrey's salary alone would have exceeded the proposed budget of Pierre Pierre; however, as any viewer of The Majestic, The Number 23 or Fun with Dick and Jane can tell you, those bright days are far in the past.

Pierre, Pierre is going to be released under the Fox Atomic specialty banner, and also features a script from first-time writers Edwin Cannistraci and Frederick Seton. I guess the question I'm pondering is which Jim Carrey will show up -- the tired, makeup-coated hack of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events or the more interested, more invested Carrey of The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? And does new talent Reitman have the skills, and vision, to coax the latter kind of performance out of an actor many consider a fading funnyman?

Before the rain pooed on my parade and the poo rained on my parade at the Independent Spirit Awards Saturday, I had a pretty great time. The highlight for me was being "on set" for a series of interviews between Martin Short's Jiminy Glick and various celebs. I was just tipped off by the good folks at Netflix that those conversations have hit youtube, and if you're a fan of the character, you may want to check them out. Here's Jiminy with Matt Dillon, with a never foxier Illeana Douglas, with the always youthful Dennis Hopper (an interview that opens with a depantsing), with Ed Begley, Jr, with Juno director Jason Reitman and his father Ivan, with Aaron Eckhart, with John Waters, and with Allison Janney. They could all stand to be edited down a bit, but there's a lot of good stuff in there. If I had to direct you to the funniest couple of discussions, I'd recommend the Illeana Douglas and the Ed Begley, Jr, which contains graphic mouth-to-mouth.

I intended to run a live blog from the show, but the internet connection went out -- one of the dangers of doing a live show from a tent in the rain! I did get to see some cool people up close and personal. Philip Seymour Hoffman (a winner for Best Male Lead) charmed the little press room in a fun Q & A with Savages writer/director Tamara Jenkins (a winner for Best Screenplay) and it was a thrill to meet Scott Frank, a screenwriter I truly admire. He won Best First Feature for The Lookout, one of my favorite 2007 films. I always question what they deem "independent," but I do appreciate that the Indie Spirits have special honors -- like the John Cassavetes Award -- to honor the truly independent and low-budget films each year. Did anyone watch the broadcast? I know it's not the biggest awards show of the year (or even the weekend), but the show was really entertaining. Have favorite moments or disagreements with the winners?

Cinematical is live at the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards! Our own Patrick Walsh will report back throughout the afternoon.

I'm coming to you live from the Independent Spirit Awards on the beach in Santa Monica, California. It's been raining here in the Los Angeles area for days, but the sun is out this afternoon, and so are the stars! The awards don't start for a few hours, but I just saw the hilarious Whitest Kids U Know gang, who have a sketch show on the Independent Film Channel you should really be watching. Jason Reitman -- a nominee for Juno, though I just overheard him say he thinks the award will go to Julian Schnabel -- is making the handshake rounds. And one of my favorite comedy characters, Jiminy Glick (Martin Short), just brutally mocked me.

Mr. Glick told me that were this 28 years ago, my jacket would have been very fashionable. He told me "blogging" is contributing to the decline of culture and I should be ashamed of myself. He told me I looked like all of the character actors from the old Preston Sturges movies rolled into one. And I loved every minute of it. Being insulted by Jiminy Glick is something everyone should experience. He's currently interviewing the head of content at Netflix and is asking him if you can get pornography on the site. Jiminy's favorite films? Something Liquid This Way Comes and Bang the Bum Slowly. I'll be hanging here just off the red carpet, doing some snooping and snapping some photos. More to come...

Check out the gallery below for our pics from the Netflix tent. More coming ...

It didn't win any Golden Globes, but Juno still reigns supreme. Jason Reitman's likable teen comedy made another $10.25 million for distributor Fox Searchlight, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. That works out to a per-screen average of $5,197 at 2,915 engagements. The box office take is down 24.7% from the previous week, which indicates continued good word of mouth; the film's cumulative gross in seven weeks of release now stands at more than $85 million.

Forget about 27 Dresses; the real perpetual bridesmaid is Joe Wright's Atonement. The period romantic drama expanded by more than 300 theaters and maintained its solid performance for Focus Features. The film's weekend gross swung upward by 12.7%, resulting in a per-screen average of $3,686 and a cumulative total of $31.8 million.

Demonstrating that nobody in the general moviegoing public really cares about the Academy's best foreign film shortlist, audiences still flocked to Persepolis, giving it the highest per-screen average of the weekend: $9,366, in 30 theaters.

Paramount Vantage expanded Paul Thomas Anderson's magnificent There Will Be Blood from 129 to 389 locations with good results; the film demonstrated surprising strength, averaging $8,023 per screen for a four-week total of $8.1 million. I say "surprising" only because of its subject matter and the length of its running time.

Poor Woody Allen. I generally agree with Jeffrey M. Anderson that Cassandra's Dream is better than you might have heard, though I think it nearly falls apart completely at one point. There were barely 20 people at the 10:00 pm screening I attended on Friday night at its only Dallas engagement, but in other cities the reaction must have been better, as the film pulled in $4,682 per screen at 107 theaters in key cities nationwide for The Weinstein Co.