Michael Cera, in the inevitable hoodie, on left. Shia LaBeouf, in corporate neckwear, on right.

Social networking sites are atwitter in anticipation of the upcoming book, The Accidental Billionaires (to be published Tuesday) and David Fincher film, The Social Network (screenplay by Aaron Sorkin) about Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg. (Hat tip: A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago).

The two names bruited about to play the shaggy and shifty Zuckerberg, the socially-challenged guy sued by his partners, are Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Juno, Year One) and Shia LaBeouf (Transformers, Disturbia, Indiana Jones XXXVI). These gifted young actors share offbeat timing and self-deprecating humor but little else. Cera is an Indieworld darling (see Juno, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, the upcoming Paper Heart) while LaBeouf  has been anointed Bankable Hollywood Youngling. I like them both, but if I was casting this movie I'd go with Cera, who would be a bigger surprise as the guy who sells out his partners, than LaBeouf, so eager for bigtime success that it would not be a surprise if he elbowed the competition to get to the finish line. (Not that it matters, but Cera more resembles Zuckerberg.) In other words, Cera plays loveable losers, LaBeouf eyes-on-the-prize winners. It's like the difference between Matt Dillon and Tom Cruise.

Your thoughts? Favorite Cera and LaBeouf roles.

Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow in "The Wiz."

Wasn't going to watch the Michael Jackson memorial. Was torn between feeling that the event was a cross between Nathanael West's apocalytpic Hollywood novel, Day of the Locust, and the bizarre scene in The Wiz, where MJ as the Scarecrow, is crucified by Evellina's naughty monkeys. Now I find myself wiping away a tear as Queen Latifah reads a poem written for the occasion by Maya Angelou, that reads, in part, "Sing our songs across the stars and walk our dances across the moon." Then I remembered the Scarecrow's line in The Wiz, something Jackson recited to co-star Diana Ross as Dorothy, that gave me chills 30 years ago: "Success, fame, fortune -- they're only illusions. All there is that is real is the friendship two can share." Ease on down the road, Scarecrow.

Mr. Penn Goes to Washington

According to Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, today is the first day on the job for actor Kal Penn (better known as Kumar in the Harold and Kumar films, Gogol in The Namesake and as a U Penn professor of Asian cinema) at the White House. He's working for Valerie Jarrett in the Office of Public Engagement. Every time I picture him at his new post, I think of the scene in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay where he has a tete-a-tete with Dubya and I hyperventilate with laughter. If you are the president, with which tasks do you charge Penn? If you are Penn, what's on your agenda? Apart from Helen Gahagan Douglas, George Murphy and Ronald Reagan, any other actors who went to Washington?

I was certain that veteran actor Karl Malden was immortal. I am sad to be wrong. One of the most reliable and versatile of performers -- the bulb-nosed actor persuasively played the idealistic priest in On the Waterfront and the domineering baseball Dad in Fear Strikes Out -- made his movie debut nearly 70 years ago in They Knew What They Wanted.

The Oscar-winning actor (A Streetcar Named Desire) was an axiom of stage (Golden Boy) screen (Baby Doll) and television (Streets of San Francisco). Incredibly, he co-starred with Vivien Leigh and Michael Douglas. 

The Broadway-trained performer of Serbian descent did his most memorable work on stage and screen for Elia Kazan, acting the role of Blanche DuBois' skittish suitor both in the stage and screen versions  Streetcar, holding his own and then some against the macho muscle of Marlon Brando and the petal-like fragility of Vivien Leigh. I never liked him so much as I did as Rosalind Russell's faithful suitor in Gypsy, exuding patience, humor and resourcefulness, likewise as Gen. Omar Bradley in Patton. About few actors can one say he could do anything -- and did.

Your favorite Malden? 

Michael Bay and Bumblebee, laughing all the way to the bank.

Around our house we call Transformers 2 " The Revenge of the Box Office." In just a week Michael Bay's critically-drubbed sequel to his diverting 2007 machine dream has already grossed $419 million worldwide. The steaming pile of steel is on track to be the most popular film of the year.

Transformers 2 is a textbook example of the critic-proof flick, one that draws on audience goodwill generated by its first installment. Other examples: the  Back to the Future,  Pirates of the Caribbean  and Matrix sequels and also the Star Wars prequels.

Other titles? This list from filmmisery is a good place to start, although it does not include groaners such as The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo, live-action films based on the beloved TV cartoons. Your nominations? Are critics are out of touch with pop tastes? Is the critic-proof flick the product of what happens when good marketing happens to bad movies? Your theory?

A Myrna Loy sandwich between the moustachioed Clark Gable and William Powell.

According to Michael Mann's Public Enemies (opening Wednesday), it was FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) who set the trap that caught notorious bankrobber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp). It was starlet Myrna Loy who was the bait. Dillinger had a crush on the sleepy-eyed lovely, whose movie Manhattan Melodrama (1934) tempted the robber out of hiding months before she became a star in The Thin Man films. There are those who would argue that Dillinger's cause of death was the love of Loy. Those interested in the 1930s milieu of Purvis and Dillinger could do worse than take a look at this snappy film about childhood buddies William Powell and Clark Gable who pursue the same dame (Loy, natch) but different careers.

In the ripping story that established the "opposite sides of the law" motif,  Powell plays the district attorney who prosecutes the lawless Gable. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, who would reunite Loy and Powell for The Thin Man series, the film boasts atmospheric cinematography by the peerless James Wong Howe and is a glorious setting for the sparkling jewel that was Loy. Buoyed by this movie and her notoriety as the Venus flytrap who caught Dillinger, Loy deservedly soared to stardom.

I love Loy in just about everything, from the slinky siren in The Mask of Fu Manchu, to "perfect wife" Nora Charles in The Thin Man films to Cary Grant's teasing spouse in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. But my favorite role of hers is as the cheerful nymphomaniac, second fiddle to Jeanette McDonald in Love Me Tonight (1932). "Could you go for a doctor?" McDonald asks. "And how!" replies Loy with the enthusiastic sexuality that may have appealed to Dillinger. Your favorite Myrna?

If there are 10 Oscar nominees, will it dilute the importance of a nomination, enrich the coffers of the producers, or both?

Update:

With today's news that in February, the Oscars will field 10 best-picture nominees, the horserace that is the Academy Awards promises to look a lot more like - a horserace.

"This year [when Slumdog Millionaire emerged victorious], five formidable films were nominated, but The Dark Knight, Iron Man and WALL.e were not," Academy president Sid Ganis said yesterday by phone. "We've felt for a while that we should widen the net of nominees."

In truth, it's a back-to-the-future move. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Oscars boasted 10 best-picture nominees. But it's been 65 years - when Casablanca took the top prize - since 10 films were in contention.

Read more.

As I previously reported:

This just in from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: Next year there will be 10 nominees for best picture. Have a call into AMPAS and don't  know yet whether those 10 nominees will include animated pictures or not. In recent years I don't think there have been that many nominatable pics, do you? What I do know is that Oscar nominees get to use the Oscar logo on DVD and advertising merchandising and it's proven that a nomination boosts box office and ancillary revenues. I think this move is likely to dilute the honor of a nominee while enriching the coffers of the producer.

Your thoughts?

Dave Eggers would like to move to Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven."

What movies do you want to live in?  Here are Dave Eggers' answers. The author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What is the What and the screenplay (with wife Vendela Vida) of Away We Go (currently in theaters), a low-key comedy film about a couple deciding where to live, inspired thoughts of other move-in ready films.

What does it say that the movies I'd like to live in are (in no particular order) Terrence Malick's The New World (with its glistening images of English adventurer John Smith landing in pristine Pocahontas country), James Ivory's Howards End  (an English country home surrounded by fields of bluebells) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (with its cityscapes of Spain's loveliest place)?

Which movie real (or surreal) estate inspires you?

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Via e-mail and voicemail and watercooler, the pressure is on. The (predominantly) male friends of Flickgrrl want to talk Megan Fox, fetching co-star of Transformers II. What can I say but that in Transformers and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen she struck me as very pretty? What can I say but that in the tabloids, she gives saucy quote? What can I say but that her right shoulderblade is inscribed with a quote from King Lear (Act V, Scene III): "We will all laugh at gilded butterflies" -- a line from Cordelia's soliloquy?

I can say that green-eyed brunette possesses coloring that is a distinct asset. As legendary cinematographer Nestor Almendros observed, actors with dark hair and light eyes -- or the reverse -- are uniquely cinegenic. Almendros called this his "Theory of complementary contrasts" and his proofs were brown-eyed blonde Catherine Deneuve and blue-eyed brunet Mel Gibson.  Vanessa Williams is another excellent example. Consider this an open thread to discuss Fox, cinegenic coloring and stars with names that describe their personalities.