I think that everyone who loves Michael Cera's comedy – and that should be practically everyone – is a little worried about Michael Cera. Because even as Arrested Development becomes legend, Superbad wins over every twentysomething in sight, and Juno charms the pants off the entire nation, the hushed, often unspoken question is: how long can he milk this? Cera's shtick is killer, but it's also ultra-specific – he's the shy, unprepossessing, painfully awkward adolescent, a nice guy who's self-aware enough to get embarrassed but not confident enough to avoid it.

Cera is so good at playing this part in a way that's both touching and hysterical that it's propelled him to stardom. For me to say that I haven't enjoyed any of the incarnations of George Michael Bluth that he's given us over the past couple years would be a bald-faced lie. Indeed, I think the character he's crafted is one of the most impressive comic achievements of my adult lifetime. But even as I relish it, I start to fidget, because I can sense exasperation and annoyance threatening from just around the bend. Oh, maybe not mine – I could watch Cera do this forever, I tell myself – but certainly other people will soon lose patience and turn on the guy. One-trick pony, they'll yell. Do something else.

It's been fun getting just about a superhero movie a week for the past couple of months; really, it has. And of course, everything has been building to The Dark Knight, which we'll finally get to see at various points next week. I dig it, but I'd be lying if I wasn't looking forward to the fall. Specifically the Toronto Film Festival. And more specifically still, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, Michael Cera's follow-up to last year's overwhelmingly successful one-two of Superbad and Juno. (It's also director Peter Sollett's follow-up to the underseen Raising Victor Vargas). It looks fantastic, and perfect for Cera, who continues to transplant his schtick into different genres and contexts.

MTV Movies has Nick & Norah's new poster, which is perfect, and sweet, and makes me want to give the movie a hug. It's pitched as a love story set in the cinematically underrepresented hipster music scene, and the poster encapsulates that to a T. (It also, for better or worse, just takes a still from the film that was released back in January). I wouldn't dare call myself a hipster, but I've dipped my toes in that world, and I'd love to see a smart movie about it. Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist premieres at Toronto in preparation for an October 3rd release.

Come to think of it, I think I'll take on the novel by Rachel Cohn and David Leviathan in my From Page to Screen column next week. Hope you'll check it out.

I would like to punch Variety in the face for writing "preem" instead of "premiere," as in "Spike Lee's WWII pic Miracle at St. Anna will world preem at the Toronto Film Festival." Yeah, I know, they use this sort of cutesy Hollywood "inside baseball" terminology left and right -- I find all of it irritating, but preem? Seriously? That is nothing if not horrible. And it's all of three letters shorter than the whole word.

Anyway, the unnecessary slang obfuscates what I want to write about: Miracle at St. Anna will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in early September. The other big get Toronto announced yesterday is the world premiere of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, the indie kid romantic comedy starring Michael Cera. I'm much more excited about that one, to be honest. Prestige war movies are a dime a dozen; Michael Cera playing "a member of the queercore band 'The Jerk Offs'" is something special.

Also announced: Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq actioner The Hurt Locker, a drama called Disgrace with John Malkovich, and a few others. This is in addition to the 27 films announced last week.

This will be my first year attending Toronto (back-to-back with Telluride, where I've gone four times now), so needless to say I am aquiver with anticipation.

While promoting Hancock over in the UK, Jason Bateman spoke a bit more about that planned Arrested Development movie. Not much has been said about the film in the past couple of months; last we heard, both Michael Cera and David Cross knew nothing about it. But Bateman (who's pretty damn good in Hancock) still seems confident it will happen -- and with the success of Sex and the City on the big screen, why wouldn't he be?

In an interview with The Times (who claim "a big-screen version of Arrested Development is planned for next year"), Bateman says of the transition from small to big screen: "When it was on TV, if you missed one word the whole third act could be blown for you. And TV is a different experience. You come home and you've got to finish a call so you miss the first ten minutes or you get snacky and you go to the fridge and you miss another two minutes, so it's a different experience to film." Bateman is currently making the press rounds, so hopefully someone will nail down something a bit more concrete. I mean, if a movie is planned for next year, don't ya think we'd know about it?

The interview itself is worth a read, and Bateman seems like a fun guy to talk to. On the cult-like TV show, he adds: "Arrested Development played late at night in England, so I got a lot of coke addicts and meth freaks. Great. So you've seen me but you just don't remember me."

With most of the cast a lot more popular now, would Arrested Development work as a movie? Or would it lose some of its -- I dunno -- smaller, quieter charm?

P.S. I should also mention that Bateman will be at the Sony Store in NYC (550 Madison) tonight at 6PM for a Hancock Q&A, and to show off some clips from the film. It's a free event and first come, first served. Get there early!

I'm not at all familiar with Portia Doubleday (pictured right), so I was a little nervous to learn she had nabbed the part of one of my all time favorite female characters (from a novel): Sheeni Saunders. Those who've read Youth in Revolt know Sheeni quite well, but if you haven't picture every girl you've ever had a crush on combined into one, all-knowing, beautiful piece of work. That's Sheeni. And according to a press release, Doubleday will be joined by Justin Long, Fred Willard, Zach Galifinakis, Erik Knudsen and Mary Kate Place.

All of those people will join Michael Cera, Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi and Jean Smart, among others. Wow. Interesting cast, if I may say so myself. Youth in Revolt tells the simple (yet very complex) story of Nick Twisp, a teenage troublemaker (Cera) with a wacky, white-trashy family who falls desperately in love with the girl of his dreams and goes to great lengths to win her over. Out of the new cast additions, we know Knudsen is playing Twisp's best friend Lefty, Long will play Sheeni's older brother Paul, Willard will play Nick's communist neighbor Mr. Ferguson, Place will play Sheeni's mother and Zach G. will play Jerry, an early (and seedy) boyfriend of Nick's mother (Smart).

I'm a huge, nerdy fan of the original novel written by C.D. Payne, so expect to hear a lot about Youth in Revolt from Cinematical. My fingers are crossed and I wish everyone involved good luck. Production is now underway and I've been told the film will hit theaters this December. Yay!

I'm sure I've already told you how Youth in Revolt is one of my favorite books of all time. And I'm sure, since I last wrote about it, a bunch of you have gone out and picked it up. Right? Revolt tells the story of 14-year-old (though they've aged him up to 17 for the film) Nick Twisp; a story that follows him (through personal journals) going to the greatest lengths imaginable just to score his dream girl, Sheeni Saunders. Amidst the madness, Nick (who will be played by Michael Cera) jumps between his two divorced parents, one of which (the filthy, sex-obsessed father) will be played by the very awesome Steve Buscemi. Variety tells us Ray Liotta and Jean Smart have also joined the cast, and though they don't say, The Hollywood Reporter confirms that Liotta will play Nick's mother's psychotic boyfriend, while we assume Smart will play the poor kid's neurotic mom.

It's nice to see The Weinstein Co. have made this flick a priority; currently, they're at Cannes trying to secure foreign markets. Youth in Revolt is an incredibly hard book to adapt, and earlier this year I spoke to screenwriter Gustin Nash (Charlie Bartlett) a bit about the difficulties of adapting and trimming Youth in Revolt for the big screen. One thing we did touch upon was how the book's second greatest character was still yet to be cast: Sheeni Saunders. As Nick's love interest, Sheeni carries the combined traits of every girl you've ever had a crush on: she's pretty, she's smart, she's devilish and she knows just how to get what she wants, when she wants, how she wants it. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a good young actress for the role. You?

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is in talks to play opposite Michael Cera in the much-anticipated Scott Pilgrim vs the World.

Winstead will play Ramona Victoria Flowers, Pilgrim's dream girl. She's the one with those seven evil boyfriends, all of whom Pilgrim must defeat if he is to win her heart. Her past is shrouded in mystery, as might be expected when you have seven evil boyfriends.

Now, being a girl, I'm no expert on dream girlfriends. The guys I know said it was impossible to cast Ramona, as no actress could possibly match the perfection they had all imagined her as. So, what do you think? Is Winstead the right choice? Does she embody the sexiness that is Ramona? Or is this one of those things you will tell me is all about personality and acting chops rather than looks? Which I will believe, don't worry -- I know you guys aren't that shallow.

There hasn't been much buzz on this flick after Cera's and Edgar Wright jumped onboard, and so hopefully it will pick up with the two leads out of the way. As Wright is clearly casting lesser known actors (at least with on the female end), it's difficult to offer up a choice for the secondary roles -- but hey, do it anyway. I am ashamed to admit that I'm still way too behind on Scott Pilgrim to offer up my own.

With five nominations, it looks like Superbad will be the star of the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, and its three jubilant male leads -- Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse -- deserve the kudos. But one major talent behind the whole affair has stayed relatively anonymous while these young up-and-comers bathe in the spotlight: Director Greg Mottola. The erstwhile independent filmmaker, responsible for some of the best installments of Arrested Developed and Undeclared, launched his career a solid decade before the rise of Judd Apatow with a charming little low budget comedy called The Daytrippers. Starring Stanley Tucci, Hope Davis, Liev Schreiber, Parker Posey and a host of other fantastic character actors, the film follows a wildly dysfunctional family over the course of a single day, as Davis, playing a worrisome housewife, tries to track down her unfaithful husband (Tucci).

Mixing warm humanity with pitch-perfect screwball timing, Daytrippers marked the sort of debut that told you a filmmaker had a big career ahead of him. After a modest premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival, it landed at Cannes, barely got a theatrical release and promptly vanished thereafter. Mottola turned to TV work, and slipped out of the film scene for a good ten years. These days, it's no easy task to track down Daytrippers on DVD -- you can nab second-hand copies on Amazon for decent rates, but not a single retail outlet carries it. Aside from the occasionally airings on cable, the movie has vanished.

This one is a day late, but hopefully still new to you guys. Michael Cera gave his first interview about playing Scott Pilgrim to Empire and oh, how excited he is! He is a huge fan of the series and apparently even has the blessing from the series creator, Bryan Lee O'Malley. "I love the graphic novels, they're amazing. The first time I met Edgar, we hung out in Toronto, with Bryan Lee O'Malley, and he showed me pages from the fourth book that hadn't come out yet. It was awesome!" At least, I take that as a blessing -- O'Malley could have written them off, Alan Moore style. (No slam on Moore, by the way. He's earned that right.)

With the usual pre-production secrecy (or perhaps he truly doesn't know), Cera couldn't say too much about where director Edgar Wright plans to go with the movie. "Filming hopefully in the fall, that's when they're trying to go," said Cera. "Scott's a dreamer, I guess, so it's a bit of a change. I'm really excited to do it and work with Edgar – he's someone who's really funny and an awesome guy."

Of course, the threat of an actor's strike could quash filming plans -- battling evil exes is one thing, the SAG is something else altogether. I'm also a bit confused as to which Pilgrim novel they're adapting -- initially it was Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, now Empire is calling it Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Weird.

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Michael Cera will be taking the lead in Scott Pilgrim's Little Life, which will be directed by none other than Edgar Wright.
The movie will be based on the first volume of Brian Lee O'Malley's popular Scott Pilgrim series.

It is a long way from the usual graphic novels optioned -- which all seem to be post-apocalyptic or deconstructed superheroes of late. Pilgrim is a 23-year-old slacker, who meets the girl of his dreams. To win her heart, he must defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends. It's chock full of video game references, from evil bosses to power-ups, but manages to stay fairly grounded in reality. The first volume takes a very surprising twist, and it just gets better from there.

One of my friends, a man of impeccable taste and intelligence, calls it the best comic ever. Due to it being released in trades, I never seem to have quite enough money to buy it -- but I've really liked what I have read. You can enjoy an entire issue (posted as part of Free Comic book Day) over at Newsarama. Apparently, this is the most addicting comic book series to ever be published, so you have been warned. We'll see if the addiction carries through to the big screen -- but so far, I think it is off to a brilliant start.