Michael Cera

Anna Kendrick, nominated for Best Support Actress at this Sunday's Oscars, says the statuette belongs to another.

Courtesy Fox Searchlight Pictures

Anna Kendrick doesn’t expect to win an Oscar for her ferociously perky supporting turn as a corporate terminator in Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air. That, she says, is an honor earmarked for another actress, though she coyly declines to reveal the mystery winner’s identity.

Michael Cera, top, and Portia Doubleday in 'Youth in Revolt.'

Courtesy Dimension Films

I feel Michael Cera's pain.

Michael Cera leaves the Bay Area ablaze in the long-awaited 'Youth in Revolt.'

Courtesy Dimension Films

Michael Cera has established himself as the sensitive, self-effacing symbol of geek chic, whose trademark monotone seems at once unassuming and laden with irony. In Miguel Arteta’s Youth in Revolt, he cuts loose. Nobody will confuse Francois, his chain-smoking, mustachioed wild-man, with the sort of characters played by Jack Black, a master at embodying the untamed id. But it’s a refreshing change of pace.

George Clooney plays a high-flying exec who specializes in giving corporate lackeys their pink slips in Jason Reitman's 'Up in the Air.'

Courtesy Paramount Pictures

After an open weekend highlighted by the regional premieres of Lone Scherfig’s An Education and Katherine Dieckmann’s Motherhood, which helped earn star Uma Thurman a festival award, Mill Valley’s annual celebration of cinema from all corners of the globe continues through next weekend.

Blonde Ambition: Penélope Cruz plays an aspiring movie star in 'Broken Embraces.'

Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics

Thanks to Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, the vicious political satire In the Loop and provocative documentaries like The Cove and Food, Inc., it's already been a terrific year for dedicated moviegoers. Based on the impressively strong selection of films on display at the 34th annual Toronto Film Festival, which drew to a close Sept. 19, there's plenty to look forward to in the months to come.

Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi explore true romance in Nicholas Jasenovec's Paper Heart.

Courtesy Anchor Bay Entertainment

Charlyne Yi (Knocked Up) does not believe in love, or so she says. At the very least, she doesn’t believe in fairy-tale love or the Hollywood mythology of romance, and her own experiences have turned her into yet a skeptic. Paper Heart, the new comedy from first-time feature director Nicholas Jasenovec, follows Yi as she embarks on a quest across America to make a documentary about the one subject she doesn’t fully understand.

Michael Cera may star in the upcoming Facebook movie as CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Courtesy Paradigm

With Oscar nominee David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) reportedly in “advanced talks” to direct, and at least two of Hollywood’s hottest young actors – Superbad’s Michael Cera and the ubiquitous Shia LaBeouf – rumored as contenders to star, the upcoming movie about the creation of Facebook (working title: The Social Network) seems closer to becoming a reality.

Jack Black and Michael Cera have a blast in the brutal, Biblical past in 'Year One.'

Michael Cera is a geek poet and he knows it. He’s the stealthily saucy secret sauce - a cunning mixture of naivete, vulnerability, and nerdiness - that made Superbad, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Juno, Arrested Development and the online Clark and Michael shorts that much better, healing the wounds of 90-pound weaklings and cubicle-bound bookish waifs with his empathetic portraits of brainy goofballs with love in their hearts and stars in their eyes.