As Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist approaches this weekend, everyone's clamoring to see if Michael Cera has what it takes to push past Ellen Page's preggo belly and Jonah Hill's girth to finally take center stage in a film. But things are looking tenuous for Cera and his "blank Pez-dispenser face," as he seems primed to reprise the dopey-but-endearing role in the new romcom. So will George Michael ever be a star?When Superbad was released, everyone was stoked on Cera and his skinny, off-beat quiet wit. He was ranked No. 1 on Entertainment Weekly's 30 Under 30 actors list. He had garnered comedic street cred from his stint on Arrested Development. And shucks, how could you forget those dimples? He was one of those cool, John Cusask-esque unlikely sex symbols! And yet now, film critic Jeffrey Wells says Cera is a mere "two or three steps from being over." His logic?

The Toronto Film Festival is right about at its midway point — an essential milestone from which to take stock of noteworthy developments and drama that we couldn't help but watch smolder from Defamer HQ. And while some of our principal plotlines either have yet to unwind (Paris and her doc show up tomorrow) or were resolved to our satisfaction (The Wrestler wins the fest's distribution sweepstakes), there remains a bundle of loose ends requiring maintenance and attention from a distance. That's Canada for you! · A National Post writer went to the party for Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, where Michael Cera bumped around wearing his backpack and Kat Dennings, ahem, "gave off the unpretentious dewiness that is a visa of sorts to the country of bigger fame for starlets-on-the-climb." And if that fails, there's always Robert Rodriguez's hot tub.· Tired of his besties at Warner Bros., Patrick Goldstein upgraded in Toronto with newfound documentary sensation LeBron James. The NBA star is featured in Hoop Dreams-ish coming-of-age saga More Than a Game, which tracks five kids — including James (it was only six years ago!) — from their "decrepit inner-city gym" to their contention for a national high school basketball championship. It apparently made James cry and made producer/music mogul Jimmy Iovine call Goldstein, who pimps it lovingly, noting that Lionsgate might be at the front of the line to pick it up. · At last night's Sony Pictures Classics dinner, Anne Hathaway's shoes deflected attention from Charlie Kaufman's public awkwardness. That was nice of them! · Which reminds us: Celebrities! Starlets! Ptooey! Canada for the Canadians! [Via David Poland] · Does anyone up there has a spare camera he or she can lend to Jeffrey Wells? "Three young apes" stole his — and his iPhone. And he missed The Wrestler. At least buy the guy a drink or something if you see him. · Jesus — first The Wrestler, now Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Todd McCarthy is turning into Harry Knowles. · Tasting a hint of assent from critics and the public alike, Guy Ritchie OD'd on confidence and announced an entire Rocknrolla franchise. Last we heard, Joel Silver was still shopping the first one.

· Oh. Ma. Ga. Ladies and gentlemen: Britney Spears, lean, mean, and executing complicated choreography. Is she actually going to perform at the VMAs? You'll just have to tune in to our liveblog—from the actual theater, all live-like!—to find out. [MSN Video] · "The item in today's 'Drudge Report' is categorically untrue," Winfrey wrote. "There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show...I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over." Translation: That lipstick-wearing pitbull gets this lipstick-wearing pitbull ratings, not the other way around. [ABC News] · Because we can never get enough, here's an entire gallery of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist star Michael Cera looking adorable next to someone else. [Getty Images] · Let Mary Hart take you on a tour of ET's all-new, state-of-the-art, super-duper hi-def set! Yup, that oughta hold 'er for another 50 years. [ET Online] · And finally, we'd like you to meet John Travis, the indestructible singing delivery guy. We just hope it's never on the road. [YouTube]

Why, it seems like it was only yesterday (or 2003) that actor Michael Cera was just an unassuming Bluth, content to run the family banana stand and do whatever was asked of him by Jason Bateman with a minimum of protest. Today, however, Cera is a fledgling movie star, with two big hits on his resume (Superbad and Juno) and a romantic comedy (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) yet to come. It's while he was promoting the latter that he broke ranks with Bateman for the first time, shooting down the idea that the Arrested Development movie would film next year and stating that he wouldn't want to be a part of it anyway. Says the National Post:

Aaron Sorkin is indeed working on a Facebook movie — which Valleywag readers think should star Superbad's Michael Cera — but not with Facebook's permission, says a company flack. "We are routinely approached by writers and filmmakers interested in telling the Facebook story. We are certainly flattered by the attention and interest, but at this point, have not agreed to cooperate with any film project." Probably the main reason Facebook wants no part of Sorkin's movie is because he's basing his screenplay on author Ben Mezrich's forthcoming book, which according to published excerpts, seems to be about as sympathetic to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as Thunderball was to Adolpho Celi. (Photo by Getty Images)

"West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin is still in the research phase of his Facebook: The Movie project, but we thought Valleywag's readers could help cast the lead role. Take your pick from our list, below.

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our millions of Defamer operatives. We'd like to remind you that this feature is powered by you, so if you want to see more installments of PrivacyWatch, then all you've got to do is to send us your sightings. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you saw Pauly Shore awkwardly engage Francis Ford Coppola in conversation at a Vegas nightclub.

Oh cruel fate, to learn today that Ellen Page was one deleted musical scene away from certain Oscar victory. Thankfully, the kind people at Amazon have righted the sitch (man, we're getting Diablo'd just thinking about it), offering the Cafe Triste "Jub Jub" (not to be confused with the Ewok's "Yub Nub") song as a sneak peek at Juno's DVD special content.

In a moment so genuinely awkward that adorably awkward Michael Cera looks almost uncomfortably awkward living it, our knocked-up heroine sings the grrl power anthem about baby batter, dances, and tic tacs to an empty coffeehouse. Watch and we think you'll agree: had the Academy gotten their hands on this one, we would have been treated to a deadpan Page acceptance speech (did she mean there are truly angels in this city, or was that ironic?) and an unearthed interview on her refusal to believe in the Teapot Dome scandal.

· Clint Eastwood will direct and star in Gran Torino for Warner Bros. While details "are being kept under tantalizingly tight wraps," muscle car enthusiasts are hoping the grizzled star of Dirty Harry will be voicing the Laser Striped title vehicle. [Variety]
· Juno-seeder Michael Cera in talks to star in Universal's Scott Pilgrim's Little Life, an adrom (adventure romance) about "a young slacker (Cera) who meets the woman of his dreams but finds that he can only win her heart by battling and defeating her seven evil ex-boyfriends." [THR]
· Anton Yelchin is in talks to play the Michael Biehn role of Kyle Reese: Post-Apocalyptic Warrior in McG's meaninglessly titled Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. [THR]

Every TV nut (well, isn't that all of us here?) has, at one point or another, spent a little time fantasizing about certain fictional characters on their favorite shows. These fantasies tend to be either soft-focus daydreams (say, dreaming up elaborate schemes in which they "bump" into you at a party) or something a bit more hard-core (picturing them while giving your significant other the old in-out). On that note, the clever list-makers over at EW decided to compile a Top 30 reader's choice collection of the small-screen boys and girls who most frequently make cameos in those illicit fantasies. But, with no offense to the site's readers, we have some serious vetoes to charge. After the jump, our picks for who falls under Strongly Agree (the predictable Jim Halpert) and those we brand as a Vehemently Disagree (four words: Bree. Van. De. Camp), as well as the most erroneous, mind-boggling oversight missing from the group:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you saw Edward Norton looking so motherfucking gangsta at a RZA concert.

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you secretly wished you had the balls of that creepy dude at The Grove Apple Store hitting on Gabrielle Anwar:

The date: November 4, 2007

The place: Greenwich Ave between 13th and Jane

Sighted: This adorable Michael Cera walking down Greenwich Ave... wearing a somewhat geeky dark-green wool toggle coat. Taller than I expected, slim.....my 41-year-old ass wanted to tackle him to ground and give him a raspberry. Oh yeah, he was with some guy, taller, probably older, but who cares.

· Jake Gyllenhaal joins director Doug Liman on DreamWorks' Untitled Moon Project, in which Gyllenhaal is dispatched to populate a lunar colony with a super-race of dreamy-eyed pioneers. [Variety]
· NBC Universal is acquiring Oxygen Media, including the Oprahcentric Oxygen network, for $925 million, a piddling sum Winfrey will merely toss on the cash pile occupying much of her 25-acre Santa Barbara backyard. [THR]
· Pablo Escobar is the new Harvey Milk: Oliver Stone is producing his own biopic on the life of Colombia's most lovable drug-cartel kingpin, a project that will try to race into production ahead of the recently announced, competing Killing Pablo feature. [Variety]
· Lisa Kudrow joins the cast of "let's just squeeze in one more job before the strike" flick Hotel for Dogs, joining fellow speedy-paycheck-chasers Don Cheadle and Emma Roberts. [THR]
· Apatow Comedy College alumni Michael Cera and Kat Dennings sign on to star in a film adaptation of the novel Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. [Variety]

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you saw Mike Tyson requesting earlobe-consistency mochi topping on his Pinkberry frozen dessert.

· These screenwriter people are so hot right now! Fox plans to offer the well-regarded members of the Writing Partners collective (including Ted "Pirates" Elliot and Terry "Of the Caribbean" Rossio, John "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" August, and others) a deal where they accept small upfront payments for their original specs in exchange for greater creative control and gross profit participation. It should be fun the first time Fox begs one the newly empowered writers to fire himself in favor of someone who can solve his third-act problems. [Variety]
· The Emancipation of Gigi continues apace: Gigi Levangie, the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Brian Grazer, will have her novel Maneater adapted into a Lifetime miniseries that the network hopes will put up numbers similar to the ones generated by her previous collaboration with USA on The Starter Wife. We hope we at least get another fun Wac-a-Mole-style game (Eat-a-Grazer?) out of it. [THR]
· The season three premiere of Weeds was the series' most-watched episode to date, boosting the fortunes of lead-out Californication, which became the highest-rated non-Kirstie-Alley comedy debut in Showtime's history. [Variety]
· Michael "George Michael" Cera, for whom we think virtually ever movie made should create at least a small role, will star in the adaptation of the C.D. Payne novel Youth in Revolt. [THR]
· Fox orders seven episodes of Nothing But the Truth, a gameshow in which contestants are hooked up to a lie detector and forced to answer humiliating personal questions as friends and family watch. Also, each detected lie will result in a Japanese man striking the unlucky dissembler in the genitals. [Variety]

· A reader asks us, "This is fake, right?" Considering how Will Ferrell and his merry, viral pranksters at Funny or Die have burned us before, we have to say it is. But it's still fun watching George-Michael getting mouthy, to say nothing of imagining him impregnating Katherine Heigl.
· We barely had time to get to the other drug-and-alchohol-related starlet hospitalization news. This truly was a Memorial Day weekend to remember.
· We don't know about you, but the sight of ripped, 60-year-old orange men in thongs never fails to awaken the beasts within us.
· Thank you, Odyssey! You're our one-stop destination for all our celebrity-sex-tape shopping needs—even the ones we forgot existed.
· Salma Hayek: Now more than ever, a series of massive, congruent orbs.
· And because today has been nothing but sadness, we leave you with a glimmer of hope: Elisabeth Hasselbeck is trying to patch things up with Rosie! We're going to climb into our inversion therapy Happy Bouncer™ and pray for their reconciliation.

DealBreaker points out an overlooked (by us) gem from the holiday season: Arrested Development's Michael Cera in a spot-on Aleksey Vayner parody clip, created for some well-intentioned McSweeney's/Dave Eggersian event. Complete with dancing, artistry, and extremely awkward singlets in a physical fitness context.