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At the 12th annual Hollywood Film Festival awards, popular culture impresario Diablo Cody decided to celebrate Halloween a few days earlier, doing her best zombie walk down the red carpet. Cody described herself as a fresh zombie, just a couple of hours old, but also felt she could go another way with her outfit. Cody said, “It’s a tad Stepfordy too. Like if Pris from Blade Runner was somebody’s wife.”

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

In each case, the real and fictional teens come from supportive, financially stable families, and seemed to be on track to have an array of future opportunities that a more typical teen mom might lack.

"It's been glorified all over the place," said Evelyn Rodriguez, 34, a New Yorker from a low-income background who gave birth to a son at 15 and now, after more than a decade of juggling jobs and classes, is on the verge of earning a college degree.

"People who don't have the money and great support, they say, 'Oh, wow, they're doing it — it's cool,'" said Rodriguez, referring to Spears and Palin. "But it's not cool. I've been through it. It's a job. I don't appreciate what's going on out there making it seem so beautiful, when it's not."

The panelists went on to agree that the Spears/Palin stories remain missed opportunities for a "serious national discussion of teen motherhood" — and that's not even counting the steep cultural cost of Diablo Cody winning an Oscar and maintaining a blog. We have seen the Third World, and it is us.

• Teen motherhood: Celebrity buzz belies its cost [AP]

"I was getting contacted by so many people regarding the plight of young pregnancy that I was beginning to think I was the leading obstetrician in this country or something," Diablo said at the MTV Networks Election Effect Panel Discussion in NYC.

She laughed off questions about her teen comedy "glamorizing teen pregnancy."

"If I would have know that I wielded that kind of power, I would have written a movie called Don't Vote for McCain," Diablo joked.

Later, Cody opined on Sarah Palin:

"I think Sarah Palin is creepy actually," Diablo says. "Creepier than McCain. But you know I think my beliefs have been very liberal my entire life, so naturally I'm voting for Obama. I used to think that McCain wouldn't make a bad President to be honest, but I think this election has exposed so much ugliness that its just cemented my beliefs."

Perhaps if Sarah Palin traded in her rimless Kawasakis for a pair of pink, heart-shaped sunglasses, the Republican ticket could see eye-to-eyewear with the Oscar-winning writer, but until that day comes, it appears that Cody is firmly on Team Letterman. And John? Don't even attempt a rebuttal. Diablo is simply better at this than you.

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Diablo Cody: Influence Broker? [OK!]

Why do I hate it? How could I possibly hate a movie that features the lovable sameness of another Cera performance, a hip and faggy supporting cast (there's a dude from Spring Awakening in it!), and a whole senior year road trip to Six Flags' worth of jangly and twee pop rock thinkin' muziks? Well, actually, I hate it for those reasons and I hate it because it's all a big lie. And, also, I'm maybe getting older and no longer feel represented by movies about "young folks." It's like that movie Juno (also starring Cera!) which was so grating and cloying and icky-sticky about disaffected yoots and their homogenized, leafless, generic-brand environs—why am I watching an advertisement for something a sane person wouldn't want to buy? The banality of suburbia isn't relatable when it's stereotyped. It's only relatable when it's real, and in the real world, people don't put living room sets on people's front lawns. Plus, when at any point in high school did you want to hang out with the music kids? They were just as pretentious and stupid as anyone else—they didn't possess some wise, warm knowingness about the world that prompts adults to learn things about themselves. They were pimply and ugly and unwashed and gruff and annoying, just like the rest of us! They didn't drive charming little Yugo cars and say funny, stammery things. I mean, they said funny stammery things, but it was like only a joke to people three rings out of their circle.

I guess I just wish that kids could still be kids, and not slinking, faux-riot grrl ciphers or minnowy virgin boys with soft mushy hearts. Seventeen-year-olds just aren't that complex. The funny thing about a rebellious, anti-establishment man movie like this is that it's actually the exact same thing as Gossip Girl—silly, aspirational garbage about grownups in kid suits—only funked up and dragged downtown to appeal to arty teenagers that will be saddened by the film (because they'll never have that, never ever! I promise!) and to people in their 20's and 30's who will falsely remember high school as being just like that when, in fact, they had three friends (their names were John, George, and Judy) and on Saturdays they went to the movies and on Sundays they did their homework and they got drunk at Cindy Mitzner's party that one time and man oh man it was wild. Y'know? It's all one big lie, this movie I haven't seen yet and only know a little about.

Sure John Hughes lied and Richard Linklater lied and Amy Heckerling lied, but they did so with style and without that sort of savvy young hipshit wearing jeans and a skinny tie in a sprawling loft office on lower Broadway making a coy marketing pitch kind of thing. Do I make any sense here? Am I just pissing into the wind? Probably not and probably yes, respectively.

Either way, I'm totes seeing it on Sunday.

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 two main reasons are (a) he's already repeating himself and (b) his aversion to being famous, hard to swallow from a guy who's been acting since he was 10 or 11 years old, is profoundly tiresome. Nobody has time for that sensitive "poor me because I'm rich and famous" shit.

As much as we hate to say it, we fear for Cera, too. We can't put up with this innocent guy shtick for too much longer. Dude: if you're gonna shine, you need some charm - and we think you may be lacking in the department. In fact, we read that you sat "rod straight" and said "I don't know" 48 times in one hour when a New York Times writer was profiling you recently.

Cera's upcoming flicks aren't lookin' like total winners either. This winter, from the creator of Not Another Teen Movie comes Extreme Movie, a film that will explore the joys of teen sex and co-stars Jamie Kennedy and Frankie Muniz. Niiice. And next year's Youth in Revolt, in which he plays a 14-year-old whose parents are divorcing and seeks his dream girl to take his mind off of things along with his virginity - screams typecast.

Plus, he upset fans with the recent news that he may be one of the key players vetoing the greenlighting of an Arrested Development flick.

Sigh. We're sure it's just all of the pressure to be the Next Big Thing weighing those little bony shoulders of his down.

• On The Brink [Hollywood Elsewhere]

I may have won 19 awards that you don't feel I earned, but it's neither original nor relevant to slag on Juno. Really. And you're not some bold, singular voice of dissent, You are exactly like everyone else in your zeitgeisty-demo-lifestyle pod. You are even like me. (I, too, loved Arrested Development! Aren't we a pretty pair of cultural mavericks? Hey, let's go bitch about how Black Kids are overrated!)

Much, much more, after the jump:

I'm sorry that while you were shooting your failed opus at Tisch, I was jamming toxic silicon toys up my ass for money. I get why you're bitter. I took exactly one film class in college and— with the curious exception of the Douglas Sirk unit—it bored the shit out of me. I also once got busted for loudly crinkling a bag of Jujubes during a classroom screening of Vivre Sa Vie. I don't deserve to be here. We've established that. But I'm here. Five million 12-year-olds think I'm Buck Henry. Accept it.

(Incidentally, if you were me for one day you'd crumble like fucking Stilton. I am better at this than you. You're not strong enough, Film_Fan78. Trust me.)

I'm sorry to all those violent, semi-literate fanboys who hate me for befriending their heroes. I can't help it if your favorite writer, actor, director, or talk show host likes me. Maybe you would too, if we actually met.

I know my name is fake and that it annoys you. What, do you hate Queen Latifah and Rip Torn, too? Writers and entertainers have been using pseudonyms for years. Chances are, you're spewing bile under an assumed screen name yourself. I'm sorry if you think I'm like some inked-up quasi-Suicide Girl derby cunt from 2002, but I like my fake name. It's engraved on an Oscar. Yours isn't.

...In summation: you try it.

Having finally bitten the heads off her skeptics like a possessed, near-nude Megan Fox, Cody was content, though her example inspired backlashed Garden State auteur Zach Braff to make his own go of it. Resuscitating his long-dormant Xanga with a post entitled, "Hey Ya! (Outkast)," Braff went after the legion of Garden State lovers who had turned on him like a manic pixie dream girl gone fickle. "Does your People's Choice Award nomination say Zach Braff on it?" he wrote. "I don't think so. Laterzzz! (mood: ebullient)"

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Hello Again! (Starring Shelly Long) [Myspace]

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Pregnant Juno star Jennifer Garner asked if the snappers surrounding her could take about ten big steps back before she entered a medical building. As a woman with child, Garner needs all the space that she can get. Garner added, "I'm showing, not like Minnie Driver showing, but us pregnant women can explode at any moment. And in the best interest of me, you, and your sneakers, let's take a couple of steps back and let move on by."

[Photo Credit: X17 ]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

The dollars aren't disclosed, but follow the jump for a depressing if fascinating array of blockbusters for sale, the brands that bought them and the ultimate recognition of their unholy unions:

Most Mouthwatering, placement most likely to prompt an immediate purchase: Louis Vuitton in Sex and the City

Perfect Fit, best chemistry between a brand and a film: Manolo Blahnik and Sex and the City

Welcome to Reality, fictional brand that you would most want in real life: Stark Industries in Iron Man

Scene Stealer, brand that stole the spotlight from its human co-stars: Ford Mustang in I Am Legend

Bomb, placement that ruined enjoyment of a scene: Nokia in Cloverfield

Odd Couple, most awkward and seemingly ineffective product placement: LG mobile phone in Iron Man

Film Whore, film that most “sold out” for product placement: Sex and the City

We were surprised to not see Transformers and its over-the-top GM endorsements singled out for anything other than the "E.T./Reese's Award for Achievement in Press Coverage," but there you have it. Other underrepresented films included Juno (Tic-Tacs, though no mention of Sunny Delight), Wall-E (Apple, plus a nod for its pseudo-chain Big 'N' Large), 21 (Planet Hollywood) and even Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fender guitars). As for 2009's early front-runners, your guess is as good as ours: We figure Tropic Thunder's doomed mock campaign for Simple Jack should at land somewhere, and let's face it — there has never been as craven a placement as a movie simply called Milk. Shame on you, Gus Van Sant!

• 2008 brandcameo Product Placement Awards [brandchannel]

• Jeni, Juno [IMDB]
• Jenny, Juno trailer [YouTube]

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE COME. I'll sign your DVD. I'll sign your nutsack!

Now before a line of beaming, tracksuit-pants-wearing gentlemen of all ages and sizes starts winding its way around Fairfax, we'd like to remind everyone that Diablo's generous, nutsack-autographing offer was not meant to titillate cheap-thrill seekers. Handlers will ensure that the line move swiftly as possible, and while she'll do her best to oblige any requests, demands that she scrawl, "Your balls are the cheese to my macaroni. Love, Diablo" with a fine-point Sharpie across one's low-hanging nether-regions will most likely not be obliged.

• MONDO DIABLO: Season of the Bitch! [Diablo Cody's MySpace]

“I don’t know the specifics, but I can speak about what sort of responsibility entertainment should hold for social behavior,” Bateman, who starred as one half of adoptive couple the Lorings in Juno, told Access Hollywood.

“Unfortunately, we’ve had these instances where guys kill people because of what they hear in rock ‘n roll lyrics or some garbage like that. Look, if you’re going to blame a movie or song for your actions, whether they be good or bad, I think you’re looking at the wrong things to influence your life.”

Bateman then went on to point a finger at Jamie Lynn Spears, saying, "Her fault!" before fleeing the room in a trail of giggles. Immature? Perhaps, but Jason has a point. How can anyone truly know if the Gloucester girls are emulating Juno until they start exercising right of refusal on all upcoming lesbian wolfwoman dramas?

• Jason Bateman Defends ‘Juno’ In Wake Of Massachusetts Teen Pregnancies [Access Hollywood]

"I mean, it's half-animated and nonlinear and Ellen's in a very high place right now and there's just too much focus on her and her career for her to be able to go off and do some super-experimental flick."

This is clearly a matter of dues-paying for both women — particularly for the non-conformist Page, whose "one for Ratner, one nonlinear girl-girl monster drama for me" is proving a tougher road to hoe than even her image-shaping, power-lesbian flack/Oscar date may have anticipated months ago. All we can recommend is for the ladies as the Jack and Diane window closes is to keep fighting the good fight; considering Thirlby's admitted luck with pot comedies, the film may be just one super-experimentally drug-dealing-werewolf subplot away from the green light they've so desperately awaited.

[Photo: Getty Images]

• Olivia Thirlby Spurns Pot, Embraces the Munchies [NYM]

"I was really scared," he said. "I know how I felt about the children of famous filmmakers; that's how people would think of me. The perception is that you're talentless, you're a spoiled brat, and more often than not you have an alcohol or drug problem. So! That was the idea going in: 'This is what people are going to think, and they'll never think I deserved it.' Most people try to break from obscurity by going to film festivals; I was looking for obscurity. I wanted to be just another tape that got submitted."

He financed his first short, the kidney-theft comedy Operation, by selling advertising for dorm-room calendars at USC: "I thought, 'Could I ask my Pa for $8,000? I probably could, but if I do this calendar thing, then one day, if I'm at a panel on a film festival...' " Zing! Commercials followed, then Thank You For Smoking — the rest is twee history.

For the first time in years, though, Ivan topped his son: The producer/director spent 15 minutes elaborating about the development of Animal House, from its National Lampoon sketch roots to the script's first pass at Universal — which apparently could have gone better. "I remember we showed the first or second draft to the studio," he said. "They read it and said, 'This is the worst script we've ever read. This is horrible.' Nobody was interested in making this movie. We wrote about 15 drafts over a two-year period, and we kept saying, 'Look, you guys don't understand — this could be the funniest movie ever made.' Because what we thought in our young arrogance was that no one's speaking this language — the language of my generation. The Baby Boom generation had no comedic filmmakers; the closest thing we could sort of identify was M*A*S*H. ... It changed the way comedy was approached."

Reitman and company eventually wore the studio down with help from another comic. "There was some Richard Pryor movie that had a very good preview and that Universal also hated," he said. "So they said, 'Well, we hated that one, and it turned out OK; let's go make this Animal House thing."

"This is how the industry works," Jason replied. And we guess we can be thankful for that.

A day earlier on May 9, Page's other hibernating indie, The Tracey Fragments, arrives on-screen and under the radar in limited release. We're checking it out in the next few days, but we've heard mixed things about the story of a runaway (Page) looking for her brother — in split-screen! Really! It's amazing, then, that we should hear Page is now dialed in as the title character in the umpteenth adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's 1847 novel Jane Eyre, which Miramax is rumored to be hopping aboard alongside BBC Films. No director is yet attached. Meanwhile, the thriller Peacock — Page's first new film since Juno's Oscar run — starts shooting this month in Des Moines. From here on out, it's nothing but the best. Seriously. We think.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• BBC Films putting on 'Eyre' with Ellen Page [THR]

It's simpler than any of that; this whole thing comes down to a picture of a 15-year-old looking like she just got the shit fucked out of her. And if there's anything America loves more than a war, it's teenagers fucking.

And a culture war about teenagers fucking? Sign us (and Bill O'Reilly and Hilary Duff and the women of The View and...) up! We should have seen it coming last week when 14-year-old Taylor Momsen was seductively featured in her underwear on the cover of New York Magazine's Gossip Girl issue. Not to be outdone, the gang at VF — expert flesh-spotters from waaayyy back — coaxed their own peek at the bare back of a billion-dollar Disney franchise, adding signature flourishes of bedhead and smudged lipstick. To hear Cyrus tell it in VF, it was an "artful" touch by her photographer, and "you can't tell Annie Leibovitz no."

Subtle rape inferences aside, Disney can tell Annie Leibovitz no, and a few hundred million dollars' worth of Hannah Montana franchise decline will only illustrate how quickly the company would have interceded had it had the chance. The kicker, of course, is that the plunge is inversely proportionate to our interest in seeing Miley Cyrus (and Taylor Momsen, Hayden Panettiere, Lindsay Lohan and, years ago, Brooke Shields and God knows who else before her) appearing rode hard and put away wet. Is it right? Is it wrong? It doesn't matter, because teenagers fuck.

In fact, we were once teenagers fucking — underage, illegal, the whole thing — and we recall this being an issue then as well. The social critics who decried us fucking were helpless against our hormones and the mass-culture monolith that endorsed it all the way; the Miley Cyrus case reaffirms that dynamic more than a decade later. Except now, faced with the most mainstream "perversion" yet, a little more intellectually honest approach is required.

For starters, nobody was exploiting anybody — at least not any more than VF would have otherwise. A publicist probably blew it somewhere along the line, but Miley Cyrus is 15 — at least a year older than her target demo — and she knew what she was doing. She made a choice, and her apology was not for offending her fans but rather for acknowledging that, again, teenagers fuck. She is a teenager, and if she's not fucking yet, then she will be. This is not debatable. Naturally it would be criminal, but like millions of other law-breaking, fucking teens, she and her partner(s) will gleefully do it anyway. Hopefully they use protection.

Also, teenagers fucking is a billion-dollar industry. Juno, for example, would not have been a lucrative, laureled darling of both the Christian right and the hipster left had she and Paulie Bleeker not A) fucked and B) kept the baby they conceived. Superbad was a more pointed argument for the appeal of teenagers not only fucking, but fucking well. Then there's Gossip Girl and the cult of Britney, the latter of whose teen sexuality only spiked as a cultural commodity after she became a mother in her 20s. Crazy! But as the previous generation's iconic teenager fucking — with a partner like Justin Timberlake, natch (yes, guys are also teenagers fucking) — that's part of her brand.

Finally, while we respect the values and basic laws protecting minors from sexual abuse and exploitation, we do not think one photo or the tone of those around it compromises social order the way, say, a polygamist sect or a basement full of kids made with one's own daughter might. This is Miley Cyrus growing up in public like hundreds of teens before her and countless more to follow. She's a sexual creature at 15, just like the rest of us were, are or will be. Hannah Montana has its own universe, and if teenagers don't fuck there, great. Here, however, teenagers fuck, and love it or hate it, that's the world we crave. It hardly seems like news.

Other ruminations from the Desk of Diablo: "Fred 62 is so good," (now that we think about it, that's the first time we've ever heard anyone actually say that) "Universal is gonna break my kneecaps if I don't deliver soon," "WAHHHH," and "I want champagne, a cigarette, and someone looking directly into my eyes." If these all sound to you like T-shirt-worthy slogans, it's more than just coincidence: Look for them bedazzled upon her upcoming, all-leopard-print Diablowear label—a clothing line for "those who aspire to the stripping-screenwriter lifestyle."

• diablocody [Twitter]

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Actress Jessica Alba expressed her frustration about being pregnant to friends at dinner over the weekend. Alba thought that being pregnant was going to be cute and fun and maybe filled with clever one liners like Juno, but Alba compared her current situation to the movie No Country For Old Men. "At first, it's exciting and interesting, but you know once you get to that third trimester, it doesn't make any sense and you just want it to be over. I understand that it's the miracle of life and yadda yadda yadda, but I need this thing out of me, so I can knock that skinny bitch Megan Fox out of my rightful spot on those lists of sexiest actresses."

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

As someone who grew up on flicks like Desperately Seeking Susan and The Craft, I'm disappointed that, out of the 110 flicks counted, xkcd says, "There were over sixty movies in the sample with two male stars top-billed. The only movies with two top-billed female roles, on the other hand, were The Devil Wears Prada and Scary Movie 4." And sure, there's Juno and Little Miss Sunshine, but are they the norm? He continues:

My cousin has been working on tallying (by hand!) all movies with two top-billed female stars. She reports that there are staggeringly few of them, and the roles fall mainly in two genres: mother-daughter bonding movies and horror films.

Two Female Leads [xkcd]
Related: Whither Our Superheroines? An Outraged Culture Demands To Know [Defamer]
Earlier: The Future Of Female Comedies May Sit Squarely On Tina Fey's Shoulders
Where The Hell Are The Strong Women?
Women In Hollywood Speak Out On Women In Hollywood
"Cordial", "Charming" Studio Chief Explains Why Women Can't Sell Movies (Except Julia Roberts)

We will leave the decision up to you, the educated Defamer reader, to decide whether or not Page's brevity in conversation and pleasure in killing cows means she wants to hug another woman with her legs in friendship. Us, we're more disappointed in her too-cool-for-school attitude and reluctance play along when Jay lobbed a few "So! What kind of tourist-y things do you do here in LA!" jokes at her (mostly involving dinosaurs, tar pits, and dinosaurs in tar pits). Not to mention yet another wisecrack about how Kev was voted Sexiest Vegetarian a thousand years ago. No Tonight Show guest, no matter how above it all, can be forgiven for allowing Jay to speak or think on his own for that long.

• THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO [NBC]