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DirectorG Praises The "Inspired" Michael Cera In Miguel Arteta's YOUTH IN REVOLT!
Beaks here...
Michael Cera doubters, take note! Though DirectorG thinks YOUTH IN REVOLT is ultimately a mixed bag (echoing many of the concerns voiced by "Atticus Finch" last October), he's got nothing but love for Cera, who plays both a awkward teenager and his troublemaking French alter ego, Francois in Miguel Arteta's adaptation of C.D. Payne's popular novel. Hopefully, this will placate those of you who misguidedly think Cera can't pull off Scott Pilgrim. Just because you haven't seen the kid's range doesn't mean it's not there. (And why are you second-guessing Edgar Wright's casting instincts in the first place!?!?)
Unfortunately, DirectorG's praise for Arteta's picture is pretty much limited to Cera. Here's hoping some of his caveats can be addressed between now and the film's October 2009 release. (Though I can't speak to its use in YOUTH IN REVOLT, I do share his distaste for lazy deployment of the RED camera.)
I wasn't aware of the novel written by C.D. Payne nor the film itself prior to the screening. What compelled me to attend the advance screening at all was the star of the picture, Michael Cera. Despite being incapable of distinguishing himself from film to film, I think he's a good comedic actor. Maybe you can make the case for most comedic actors today, but it's extremely difficult to watch a film Michael Cera's in and believe him to be anyone else other than himself. And in that sense, this film is refreshing.
"Youth In Revolt" centers around Nick Twisp (Michael Cera), a pessimistic, hormonal-driven teenager, who reluctantly escapes to a trailer park with his mother (Jean Smart) and her hick boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis) for an unexpected "vacation", where he encounters the irresistible Jeeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday). Inevitably, Twisp falls head-over-heels for Jeeni and when he's forced to finally leave the trailer park, he does everything he can to get back to her.
In order to get back to Twisp's love, he has to commit mischief and rebel against his parents, which develops Twisp's alter-ego, Francois (also played by Michael Cera). For the first time in anything I've seen Michael Cera in, he plays a character. This alter-ego sports a mustache, a french accent and constantly has a cigarette wedged between his lips. Michael Cera successfully carries this film on his shoulders and almost always hits the mark when him and his alter-ego share a scene together. Cera is the only reason to see this film, which says a lot, seeing as how it co-stars Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi and Justin Long.
The only reason the film kept me entertained at all was Cera. The character is relatable as is and Cera's typical awkward approach makes it that much more identifiable. However, most of the performances in this film fall flat, aside from Cera's classmate, Vijay Joshi (Adhir Kalyan), who isn't in the film long enough but scores some of the biggest laughs. Ray Liotta shows up midway through as uniform police officer and is absolutely terrible. I couldn't believe he was in this film. Definitely miscast. Steve Buscemi, whom I'm a huge fan of, does what he can with an extremely thankless role. And probably my biggest disappointment was Justin Long. I think Long's a terrific comedic actor. His cameo in Zack and Miri had me rolling, but he's completely wasted here. Literally. He plays Sheeni's pothead older brother and never once scores a laugh. As a matter of fact, there's a scene between him and Buscemi later in the film that irritated me to no end. I truly HATED that scene. If they don't cut the scene, you'll know what I mean.
The only supporting actor that I wasn't disappointed with was Fred Willard. He's terrifically funny and any joke he's associated with succeeds.
But part of the failure of this film is Portia Doubleday, playing Michael Cera's love interest. She's inconsistent. I was never entirely certain about her and that's purely to blame on the performance. It felt fake. I never believed her and as a result, I never entirely rooted for Cera to succeed with his plans of getting back to her. Her performance was key for the film to work and her performance falls flat. She's cute but instantly forgettable.
And I was the only audience member during the Q & A that had an enormous problem with the Cinematography. They did announce before the film started that not everything was fully color c orrected, which I understand but the Cinematography sucked the energy right out of the film. It was shot on the RED, which is a digital technology that Soderbergh and Pete Jackson utilize, and it's a brilliant camera. But the problem with this camera is that it's causing some people to neglect Cinematography as an art form. Yes, it shoots beautiful footage but "the camera is 25% of the battle". I, personally, found the cinematography distracting because it felt depressing and phony. Instead of lighting the actors, it felt as if they just pointed, shot and said, "Beautiful! Leave the lights in the truck!" I'll probably be the only one who complains about this, but it made it extremely difficult for me to shake the straight-to-DVD vibe.
As far as pacing is concerned, the film moved quickly at the beginning but once the second and third act kicked in, the film noticeably slowed in comparison. It admittedly had me wondering what the time was mid-way through.
On a side note, there were some creative animated sequences that I would've liked to see more of in the film but it only ever occurs twice.
So, despite Cera's inspired performance, I can't whole-heartedly recommend the film. I did laugh occasionally, but ultimately the film just doesn't completely work. Hopefully they can tighten it up before it's October release date but as it stands, it's mediocre.
-- DirectorG
"Youth In Revolt" centers around Nick Twisp (Michael Cera), a pessimistic, hormonal-driven teenager, who reluctantly escapes to a trailer park with his mother (Jean Smart) and her hick boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis) for an unexpected "vacation", where he encounters the irresistible Jeeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday). Inevitably, Twisp falls head-over-heels for Jeeni and when he's forced to finally leave the trailer park, he does everything he can to get back to her.
In order to get back to Twisp's love, he has to commit mischief and rebel against his parents, which develops Twisp's alter-ego, Francois (also played by Michael Cera). For the first time in anything I've seen Michael Cera in, he plays a character. This alter-ego sports a mustache, a french accent and constantly has a cigarette wedged between his lips. Michael Cera successfully carries this film on his shoulders and almost always hits the mark when him and his alter-ego share a scene together. Cera is the only reason to see this film, which says a lot, seeing as how it co-stars Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi and Justin Long.
The only reason the film kept me entertained at all was Cera. The character is relatable as is and Cera's typical awkward approach makes it that much more identifiable. However, most of the performances in this film fall flat, aside from Cera's classmate, Vijay Joshi (Adhir Kalyan), who isn't in the film long enough but scores some of the biggest laughs. Ray Liotta shows up midway through as uniform police officer and is absolutely terrible. I couldn't believe he was in this film. Definitely miscast. Steve Buscemi, whom I'm a huge fan of, does what he can with an extremely thankless role. And probably my biggest disappointment was Justin Long. I think Long's a terrific comedic actor. His cameo in Zack and Miri had me rolling, but he's completely wasted here. Literally. He plays Sheeni's pothead older brother and never once scores a laugh. As a matter of fact, there's a scene between him and Buscemi later in the film that irritated me to no end. I truly HATED that scene. If they don't cut the scene, you'll know what I mean.
The only supporting actor that I wasn't disappointed with was Fred Willard. He's terrifically funny and any joke he's associated with succeeds.
But part of the failure of this film is Portia Doubleday, playing Michael Cera's love interest. She's inconsistent. I was never entirely certain about her and that's purely to blame on the performance. It felt fake. I never believed her and as a result, I never entirely rooted for Cera to succeed with his plans of getting back to her. Her performance was key for the film to work and her performance falls flat. She's cute but instantly forgettable.
And I was the only audience member during the Q & A that had an enormous problem with the Cinematography. They did announce before the film started that not everything was fully color c orrected, which I understand but the Cinematography sucked the energy right out of the film. It was shot on the RED, which is a digital technology that Soderbergh and Pete Jackson utilize, and it's a brilliant camera. But the problem with this camera is that it's causing some people to neglect Cinematography as an art form. Yes, it shoots beautiful footage but "the camera is 25% of the battle". I, personally, found the cinematography distracting because it felt depressing and phony. Instead of lighting the actors, it felt as if they just pointed, shot and said, "Beautiful! Leave the lights in the truck!" I'll probably be the only one who complains about this, but it made it extremely difficult for me to shake the straight-to-DVD vibe.
As far as pacing is concerned, the film moved quickly at the beginning but once the second and third act kicked in, the film noticeably slowed in comparison. It admittedly had me wondering what the time was mid-way through.
On a side note, there were some creative animated sequences that I would've liked to see more of in the film but it only ever occurs twice.
So, despite Cera's inspired performance, I can't whole-heartedly recommend the film. I did laugh occasionally, but ultimately the film just doesn't completely work. Hopefully they can tighten it up before it's October release date but as it stands, it's mediocre.
-- DirectorG
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+ Expand All
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I thought all actors sought inspiration.
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Is she as hot as De Rossi?
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Starring Michael Cera this time. Oh that Arteta...
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Cera better not fuck it up for everybody.
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it's the Final COUNTDOWN!!!!
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anywho, as long as he's going to be in the AD movie the rest of his movies can suck. It won't matter.
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Say what you want about the movies he's in, but he's always a delight to watch. The kid is relatable as hell, and he's got good comedic timing.
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So, the kid who can play the awkward teenager is showing his acting range by playing....an awkward teenager?
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Mar 17, 2009 12:50:23 AM CDT
Unless DirectorG is McG.....I'm not interested.
by dannyglovers_dickblood
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Mar 17, 2009 12:54:02 AM CDT
Beaks. You're an editor. You got pull. Help a brotha out.
by dannyglovers_dickblood
My work IP got fucking zapped. I can only log in at home, which is fucking ass. Anything you can do? Bale help us all.
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Shit's scary. Real fuckin scary. But I dig it.
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Mar 17, 2009 1:24:36 AM CDT
Imagine how much better Juno would be with Bale.....
by dannyglovers_dickblood
.....in the Cera role.
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Dads ma bad.
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Mar 17, 2009 1:39:06 AM CDT
I did mean McG. You know....the guy about to smear warm shit....
by dannyglovers_dickblood
...on Jimmy Cameron's face? Cameron is gonna be so fucking pissed he's gonna put not one but two of his ex-wives head's through walls.
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McG is a talentless slut, and so are you, my friend.
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Don't know what I can do, man. Always make friends with the IT guys.
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but seriously who the fuck cares about scott pilgrim? do you guys find some sort of insatiable drive to promote movies you guys are already promoting? surely there's something more interesting to relate him to.
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(And why are you second-guessing Edgar Wright's casting instincts in the first place!?!?)
I don't get all the Edgar Wright love. Yes, Shaun of the Dead is aweseome, and Spaced is pretty good, but this site treats him like a legend, and I really can't see why. -
I love the comics, but I can't imagine a movie of them ever being good, no matter who directs it. It's just not suited for cinema. But hey, I'd love to be proved wrong.
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The hilarious thing being we STILL haven't seen a God-damn thing from Avatar. Yet McG is actually showing Terminator footage. There's faith in a film, then there's mass hysteric delusion.
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Egg? Really?
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They truly are.
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ah well, whatever...
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Cera can't wait to taste those meaty parts in his mouth.
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That George Michael
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Mar 17, 2009 2:13:59 PM CDT
HOW RONALD REAGAN, RELIGION AND HOLLYWOOD KILLED CINEMA...
by 1978creepythinman
In the 1980's the Reagan Administration ushered in the widespread de-regulation and removal of anti-trust laws that were put in place after the Great Depression to prevent companies from monopolizing various industries and creating the type of TOO BIG TO FAIL companies that have now created the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression itself. In regards to the decline of North American cinema it’s like this. With the HUGE success of movies like Jaws and Star Wars various money grubbing Wall Street types moved into the Hollywood system and reshaped the major studio’s into Corporate entities where the goal was no longer to just make movies and inspire friendly competition the way that proper capitalism is supposed to work. No, Wall Street style capitalism is about increasing market share by buying out or killing off the competition so that a few people/companies control everything which is closer to communism if you think about it. So, how did they go about this? By buying off politicians they were able to first get rid of the tax shelters that allowed low budget independent filmmakers and studio’s to raise money from private investors. Without these tax shelters people like George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead/Dawn of the Dead), Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist), Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead and Spider-man Triologies), Brain DePalma (Carrie, Scarface, The Untouchables), Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver/Raging Bull/Goodfellas), Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather 1 & 2, Apocalypse Now) etc.. wouldn’t have been able to raise the money to make their first features. Canada offered a 100% tax shelter system for investment in movie production in the 70’s and that lasted until the 80’s. Without that Ivan Reitman (Meatballs/Stripes/Ghostbuster s) and David Cronenberg (The Fly/Naked Lunch/Crash) wouldn’t have been able to make their first films Cannibal Girls and Shivers respectively. Also, in the USA, before the deregulation and removal of the anti-trust laws, studios weren’t allowed to by up movie theatres or chains to create a monopoly. So what you had were thousands of theatres and theatre chains across North America and all those companies cared about was their box office revenue. So they would book anything that made money. If you made a low budget movie you could book it into a theatre and since the Motion Picture Association of America - MPAA was a joke back in those days you could show just about anything in theatres as in evidence of Deep Throat playing not just in porn houses but even in respectable theatres all across the country not to mention the grindhouses that played an endless stream of Horror and exploitation flicks day and night. If your movie was good and made money you could use that money to make more prints and advertise across the city, state or even the whole country if your movie was a hit. This is how AIP, Roger Corman and later New Line Cinema and Troma operated for decades, that is, until the 80’s. Now the deregulation/anti-trust laws removal (from here on in referred to as DR/ARL) wasn’t the only reason for the decline of audience attendance in the 80’s. VCR’s made it possible to rent movies and watch them from the comfort of your own home. As a result thousands of theatres and a few chains went under. Mostly these were the single venue style theatres with one screen where they would play double and triple bills and alternatively use the theatres for rock shows, stage productions etc… But the second thing was that after the DR/ARL, the major studios were allowed to buy up theatre chains and individual mom and pop theatres with the intent of shutting them down. The 1980’s saw the rise of the multi-plex, most of which were built by the major studios and a few other companies that operated such as Famous Players or Odeon Cinemas as an example up here in Canada. They were built with maximum comfort and convenience but had as much personality as your average McDonalds in comparison to a family operated restaurant. Now because these chains were all owned by corporations they would only do business with each other and book only each others movies as well as their own, effectively shutting out any independent studio’s or producers. By the late 80’s most of the independents had been killed off so now it was mostly the majors with the exception of a few studios that survived because they had highly profitable franchises (New Line and the Nightmare on Elm Street series) or they distributed some low budget independent, art-house and European films (Miramax with The Crying Game, El Mariachi, Resevoir Dogs etc…) to the single art-house theatres scattered across the country and because those movies made soo much money and received soo much national critical attention from Siskel & Ebert etc.. even the corporate owned theatre chains started booking them because money is still money. So how does the MPAA tie into this and the decline of balls out American Cinema? It’s because Hollywood is always the target of right wing mouthpiece’s and various religious organizations across the country as witnessed by the ridiculous uproar by the moral majority over movies such as Dogma, Kids, Natural Born Killers etc…. in the 90’s or if you really want to go back in time you could find examples of this with almost every single successful film made during the entire history of cinema that features any sort of violent or sexual content. Look up the Hays Code and watch some pre-code movies made in the 20’s and early 30’s and you’ll notice how much more violent, sexual and lurid movies like the original Scarface and Mystery of the Wax Museum were for the time and how North American cinema went through a period of melodramatic puritanism that lasted from the 30’s (with the exception of a few underground films) and only ended with the collapse of the studio system in the late 60’s which ushered in the most fertile era in American cinema history as a result of filmmakers being allowed to realistically and unrealistically portray sex, violence and real or not-so real life like never before. During this period the political and religious freaks bitched about all the sex and violence but their complaints didn’t catch any traction especially with all the political turmoil of the era and the fact that Government violence against it’s citizens (the Kent State shootings) and the global imperialism/war mongering (Vietnam) made Government criticisms of Hollywood on behalf of religious furor a moot point. After Jimmy Carter lost the presidency because he inherited the dismal economy of the post-Vietnam era and dared to tell America the truth, the American public stuck their heads up their collective asses and voted in an ex-actor who was the straight man to a chimp as President of the United States. But Ronald Reagan only got into power because the Republican Party aligned themselves with various snake oil salesmen such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart and their mindless followers creating the Moral Majority movement of the 80’s of which it’s existence was to paper over all of the ugliness going on in the USA and promoted the fantasy that America was a land of rainbows, puppies and sold their bullshit with all the tenacity of a used car salesman selling a rusted out shitbox with a fresh paint job. This gave the religious right more power then they had in decades and made politicians live in fear for their political lives. Once again the religious freaks put their attention onto Hollywood because all of that sex and violence was polluting their Good Christian country. So they put the screws to politicians, mostly those from the Redneck States, who then came down on Hollywood and threatened to dismantle the major studio’s monopoly by reinstating those tax shelters and the DR/ATL. It’s at this point that the religious right gained almost complete control over what got shown in theatres across North America but they couldn’t implement their control in the style of the Hays code for fear of being labeled as CENSORS so they operated in virtual anonymity under the MPAA. It’s under this system that the MPAA and the major studio’s were able to kill off independents. The scam worked like this, you’re a low budget independent Director, Producer or Studio. You make money by making the type of movies that the majors don’t such as Horror and exploitation with outrageous sex and violence. The major studios are only interested in the only two types of movies they know how and want to make, glossy big budget extravaganzas and worthy Oscar winners. They think it’s beneath them to make Horror and exploitation films with gratuitous gore and sex except for when it’s being done by a major Hollywood actor, producer or director in which case the MPAA seems to have no problem with slapping the film with a family seal of approval R-rating. They used to distribute the occasional low budget shocker or sex flick, such as the Friday the 13th series which was distributed by Paramount or Porky’s which 20th Century Fox put out, but the ire of so called “respected” critics like Siskel & Ebert along with the political pressure from the religious right forced studio’s like Paramount/Fox to stop distributing low budget gore and sex flicks which is why they sold the F13th series to New Line while Fox eventually gave up on sex comedies. Anyway, you’re an independent Director, Producer, Studio who’s made “Teenage Lesbian Orgy in the Girls Locker Room of Gore” and you’re looking to distribute it. In the 70’s if the moves was good, or at the very least had plenty of entertaining sex and violence, you could put it out on a small scale and expand statewide and nationally if the movie is successful as I previously mentioned. The problem is that because the Reagan administration removed the DR/ANL, the studio’s now own 90% of the theatres across the country and won’t distribute your movie because it doesn’t have the Siskel & Ebert types across the country slobbering over it and they don’t want the headache of enraging the religious right. So what are your options? Well, there might be some small chains, mom and pop theatres that you could distribute to but there are issues when it comes to the rating of your movie and how that effects your ability to promote your epic. The situation is this, you take your magnum opus to the MPAA to get an R-Rating, now an R-Rating in the USA and the system itself is designed to censor without the appearance of censorship. An R-Rating means that no one under the age of eighteen can enter a particular movie without someone over the age of eighteen, BUT, the catch is that if you’re over eighteen you can bring anyone of any age into the theatre with you. That means that some dipshit eighteen year old, which DO exist and they are many, can bring a ten year old child into the theatre to see “Nudist Amazonian Warrior Interracial Dyke Cannibals of Sodomy” which will no doubt turn the impressionable ten year old into a peace-loving- gay-commie-pinko-liberal-Marxi st-serial killing-rapist-transexual-who- wants-Communist-socialist-Free -Health-Care-and-less-money-sp ent-on-the-military-to-finance -better-education-and-alleviat e-poverty-to-bring-about-a-new -age-of-Universal-utopia-which -will-allow-the-human-race-to- look-towards-the-stars-and-exp and-our-spieces-across-the-gal axy-for-eternity-untill-the-en d-of-creation….and that’s bad. So in order to Protect The Children™ and receive an R-rating the MPAA tells you to cut your film BUT they wont tell you what to cut because then they could be accused of censorship. They’ll just let you know when they see it. So you cut a few frames and trip a scene here or there and they tell you to keep cutting. You go back and forth until you scream in frustration about what else you need to fucking cut and they tell you that it’s not the footage as per say but the “tone” of it and how it’s this or that. The point is to get you to water down your movie until all its commercial elements (i.e. The Fucking and Killing) no longer exist and you have a movie that has an R-rating but won’t make a penny in theaters because your flick wasn’t that good to begin with and all you had was the nudity and gore. Now you could try to release it unrated which a lot of movies did up until the 80’s and many were highly successful such as Dawn of the Dead but that was when you had those independently owned theatre chains and mom & pop theatres that would play your movie even without a rating and you could still mount an advertising campaign to let the public know about your flick. Even in the 80’s there were still a few theatres left that would play un-rated movies the only problem is that with media consolidation all of the newspapers, TV stations and magazines were controlled by a few corporations and those corporations had political ties to the religious right etc, etc… so they would refuse to run advertisements of your un-rated movie and in those pre-internet days that meant that you were shit out of luck and no one would know about your masterpiece. The only other option was to tell the MPAA to fuck off and refuse to cut your movie in which case it would be given an X-Rating which effectively put it into the category of Pornography and no theatres would play it apart from porn houses and even those were being killed off by the VRC revolution of the 80’s. So without a means of finance, distribution or publicity this is how most of the independents went out of business in the 1980’s which is why North American cinema has been sliding into the shitter for the last quarter of a century as a result of corporate greed, religious fanaticism and political scumfuckery. Today not much has changed and it seems like a miracle when a good movie gets made and released in North America but they are few and far between. The great hope is the internet, on-line distribution and digital downloading but there are two main issues. The first is that without financing most independent movies today are shot on video cheapies that offer very little in the way quality scripts, production value or even competence although occasionally you get a good cheesy film like Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, The Janitor and Blood Car. The second problem is how do you make money off something that people can get on-line for free from torrent sites? The answer is to make a good movie against the odds and hope that people like your movie enough to want to buy the DVD but those odds are against you and as long as Hollywood maintains its corporate monopoly on national theatrical distribution, North American cinema will never recover.
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does us a favour and fuck off yeah?!
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Seriously.
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...prior to Terminator, McG was a talentless slut with stupid name. Come 5/21/09 the world will be eating Frosted Flakes from his gaping asshole. Look deep into Bale's eyes....you know this to be true.
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Mar 17, 2009 6:17:11 PM CDT
Michael Cera should have hire Robert Blake to blast Shia.
by dannyglovers_dickblood
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Mar 17, 2009 6:55:35 PM CDT
That guy Zak from Ghost Adventures is an older, pumped up Cera
by thebearovingian
Seriously. They ought to have Cera cameo on that show. It would be hilarious to have him talking shit to the ghosts.
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My girl got me to read the book years ago. It's a good book. We were both jazzed that it was going to be made into film and that Cera was playing Twisp. They better tighten that shit up.
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do a google video search of "Youth in Revolt" and you get to see him flipping his shit on the set in an apparent homage to Christian Bale...
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Mar 17, 2009 10:11:01 PM CDT
He's afraid to do A.D. movie cause thats' where his bit is from
by tallboy66
Very funny as George Michael Bluth, but he's totally one note unoriginal. Do something different!!
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http://tinyurl.com/cctq32
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Just sayin'.
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I can't decide if that's genius or terrible. Well, he could wisecrack without sounding like an overconfident jackass for sure.
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