Cross-overs, an old television standard, have been slowly making their way through the world of cinema. But forget the geek crossovers that popped up this summer because there might be a more comedic twist on the way. While talking with MTV, James Franco says there has been discussion about a crossover sequel for Superbad and The Pineapple Express. But it wouldn't be a normal intermingling of characters.

Franco noted that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg weren't very interested in the idea of a Superbad sequel, "And so, an answer to that was to do a Superbad/Pineapple Express crossover, an unprecedented crossover movie with two directors, Greg Motolla and David Gordon Green, each directing half of the movie and somehow these characters get together, which doesn't make sense at all, but could work."

I could see a scenario where Seth gets too into Saul's weed after feeling shunned at the burgeoning friendship between McLovin and Evan, gets into trouble, and Evan has to save him ... maybe with help from the flying-through-the-air Dale and information from Saul. What I don't see is how it would work to do a half-and-half movie.

But what do you think? Should all the kids meet? If so, how should it be done?

Although I'd seen it twice already, I went ahead and accompanied my father to a showing of Pineapple Express last night, only to be greeted with a surprisingly packed 8:10 showing in the theater's largest auditorium. When we exited, the immediate lobby was fairly lined up with those waiting to catch the next showtime, and when I dashed across the hall to peek in on the 9:30 showing that some of my friends had caught, it was in an auditorium half the size and equally packed, down to people actually sitting on the floor space typically reserved for those in wheelchairs (fire hazard, schmire hazard).

I only say this because, if I hadn't gone last night, I would've been truly taken aback with the film's record-breaking $12.5 million opening yesterday. (In comparison, Superbad opened to $12.3 million last year, but on a Friday.) This bodes better for Pineapple than I had expected in general, what with it only having a week to itself before Tropic Thunder does its best to snatch away its overlapping audience.

Oh, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 also raked in almost $6 million itself, so, um, yay for that.

At least once every month -- and especially during the recent Apatow craze -- my friend and I briefly discuss the heartbreaking awesomeness that is The Last American Virgin (1982). Not only does this film feature one of the greatest soundtracks in movie history, but also included is this vicious tonal shift that sticks with you (in my case, for years and years ...). The flick came up once again in a conversation the other day, and only two hours later we received an email from a dude who wrote up a solid piece on the history of the Israeli teen sex comedy series Last American Virgin is based on, beginning with the one and only Lemon Popsicle (or Eskimo Limon) as it celebrates its 30th anniversary.

Consisting of nine different films, the Lemon Popsicle series is kinda like the American Pie series here in the states, except the former always focused on the same three guys and whatever horny misadventure they found themselves in at the time. Some suggest Lemon Popsicle inspired Porky's (released the same year as LP's American remake, Last American Virgin) -- which, of course, helped inspire the teen sex comedy genre going forward -- and there's no denying its influence on the future of the teen sex comedy; the pop-centric soundtrack, the awkward set of friends (fat guy, cool guy, nerd formula), the story beats (losing of virginity) and so on.

If you're a fan of the genre (and a lot of us are), definitely check out Oren's article, How To Stuff A Lemon Popsicle, over at Films in Review. What do you think? Without Lemon Popsicle, do you think we'd have films like Superbad?

I think that everyone who loves Michael Cera's comedy – and that should be practically everyone – is a little worried about Michael Cera. Because even as Arrested Development becomes legend, Superbad wins over every twentysomething in sight, and Juno charms the pants off the entire nation, the hushed, often unspoken question is: how long can he milk this? Cera's shtick is killer, but it's also ultra-specific – he's the shy, unprepossessing, painfully awkward adolescent, a nice guy who's self-aware enough to get embarrassed but not confident enough to avoid it.

Cera is so good at playing this part in a way that's both touching and hysterical that it's propelled him to stardom. For me to say that I haven't enjoyed any of the incarnations of George Michael Bluth that he's given us over the past couple years would be a bald-faced lie. Indeed, I think the character he's crafted is one of the most impressive comic achievements of my adult lifetime. But even as I relish it, I start to fidget, because I can sense exasperation and annoyance threatening from just around the bend. Oh, maybe not mine – I could watch Cera do this forever, I tell myself – but certainly other people will soon lose patience and turn on the guy. One-trick pony, they'll yell. Do something else.

We've been hearing about a possible 21 Jump Street movie for awhile now, and if Entertainment Weekly is to be believed, it looks like that film might be happening with Apatow love child Jonah Hill, who's in negotiations to work on the screenplay and executive produce. We assume Hill would also star in one of the lead roles, though that probably depends on whether they go the strict comedic route with this. 21 Jump Street, the TV show, was a pretty big hit during the '80s, and it starred Johnny Depp as one of a group of young cops who went undercover in high schools to help troubled kids.

I dig it. Something like this would only work today if it was done with a sense of humor, I think, and so bringing in Hill to sprinkle on some Superbad-ish jokes might work well for the film ... even though all the raunchy stuff would make it a completely different monster, and when it was all said and done, would probably have nothing whatsoever to do with the original TV show (besides the name and the premise). Could you see 21 Jump Street: The Movie working as an Apatow-esque comedy? Does it work better as a drama? And who would you like to see joining Hill as a fellow undercover officer?

With five nominations, it looks like Superbad will be the star of the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, and its three jubilant male leads -- Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse -- deserve the kudos. But one major talent behind the whole affair has stayed relatively anonymous while these young up-and-comers bathe in the spotlight: Director Greg Mottola. The erstwhile independent filmmaker, responsible for some of the best installments of Arrested Developed and Undeclared, launched his career a solid decade before the rise of Judd Apatow with a charming little low budget comedy called The Daytrippers. Starring Stanley Tucci, Hope Davis, Liev Schreiber, Parker Posey and a host of other fantastic character actors, the film follows a wildly dysfunctional family over the course of a single day, as Davis, playing a worrisome housewife, tries to track down her unfaithful husband (Tucci).

Mixing warm humanity with pitch-perfect screwball timing, Daytrippers marked the sort of debut that told you a filmmaker had a big career ahead of him. After a modest premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival, it landed at Cannes, barely got a theatrical release and promptly vanished thereafter. Mottola turned to TV work, and slipped out of the film scene for a good ten years. These days, it's no easy task to track down Daytrippers on DVD -- you can nab second-hand copies on Amazon for decent rates, but not a single retail outlet carries it. Aside from the occasionally airings on cable, the movie has vanished.

Oh man -- I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall again over the weekend (I first saw it at SXSW back in March) and the laughs held up beautifully; it really is a comic treasure, even if it does suffer a bit from the typical Apatow bloat. So this is great news for me: director Nicholas Stoller is reteaming with Judd Apatow for Get Him to the Greek, a comedy starring Sarah Marshall's Jonah Hill and Russell Brand. Hill will play a young insurance adjuster assigned to get a wild rock star (Brand) from London to LA's Greek Theater for a gig. I don't dispense headline exclamation points willy-nilly, so you know I'm excited.

The idea was apparently hatched at a Sarah Marshall table read, where Hill and Brand exhibited a surprising chemistry. They only had a few scenes together in that film, and since I thought Hill's character was generally a weak spot, I spent most of those scenes being mildly annoyed. But I've seen Superbad, so I know that Hill has the funny, and Brand, whom I had never heard of before Sarah Marshall, has some of the movie's biggest laughs. So: more, please.

Stoller will write Get Him to the Greek in addition to getting back in the director's chair. He has some other projects in the works, including Five Year Engagement, which he will direct and co-write with Jason Segel. He's also working with Segel on his planned Muppet movie. And he co-wrote the screenplay for Jim Carrey's Yes Man, due in December. Busy guy; lucky, too.

Montreal's Just for Laughs Comedy Festival turns 25 this year, but the well-established mecca of merriment isn't afraid to try something new. Organizers announced Tuesday that July's edition will include a brand-new industry conference called Just Comedy, and that in conjunction with it they've named Judd Apatow Comedy Person of the Year.

This will presumably be an annual award given out during the conference, which is aimed at industry types and filled with panels, workshops, etc. (unlike the festival as a whole, which is aimed at regular comedy audiences). Apatow is certainly an industry type, having established himself as the go-to writer, producer, and director for successful comedies. Given that the Just for Laughs folks wanted to establish a "Comedy Person of the Year" award, I don't know who else they could have given it to right now.

Well, we knew it wouldn't be too long before writer/director's Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer tortured us with yet another one of their awful "spoof" movies. And I put the word 'spoof' in quotations because I don't believe they're making spoof films; they're making sh*tty films. It's a whole new genre. Moviehole tells us the two dudes behind such instant microwave classics as Meet the Spartans and Epic Movie will next give us Goodie Two Shoes. Apparently, the "film" will follow "a group of friends who go on a life-changing adventure."

MH tells us the main movie being "spoofed" here is Superbad, which means the "group of friends" in the description will probably resemble Jonah Hill, McLovin,' etc ... I wouldn't even be surprised if they threw in a few cracks at some other Apatow films like Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. What was that? The latter film hasn't even come out yet? Oh, I know -- but that won't stop these boys from spoofing it. In fact, MH says they'll also be going after Will Smith's Hancock, Sex and the City and The Love Guru. WTF? So now we're writing jokes about films that haven't even hit theaters, and won't for a couple months? I can't. I won't. Where's the gun?

Drillbit Taylor, a comedy about three youths who hire a "bodyguard" to protect them from school bullies, may be produced by Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin), but it doesn't really fit into the Apatow filmography of manic modern comedies. It feels like it belongs to a different continuum of film -- the lazy-yet-agreeable teen comedies of the '80s, where a simple hook gets festooned and garlanded with bits of business and digressions. That's not surprising, considering that one of the credited writers is that '80s comedy titan of teen John Hughes, shielded behind a pseudonym. It's not wholly retro -- the off-kilter, lazy charm of Owen Wilson in the lead role feels too modern for that -- but it also feels like a film we've seen many times before in form and flavor, and while it may not be consistently brilliant or laugh-out-loud funny all the way through, it is at the least consistently amusing.

Wade (Nate Hartley) and Ryan (Troy Gentile) are just entering high school; they're eager to move to the next phase of their lives. Wade is slight, bespectacled and intrinsically decent; Ryan is a beefy, big-boned boy, funny and outgoing. (Comparisons to Michael Cera and Jonah Hill in Superbad are not undeserved; Superbad co-writer Seth Rogen is credited here alongside Kristofor Brown, working from a story by John Hughes -- here credited as, in a shout-out to English majors nationwide, Edmond Dantes.) They're both looking forward to the opportunities for social re-invention their new environment offers: Ryan tells Wade "I don't want you to call me Ryan; call me T-Dog." But when minuscule, nervy, nerdy classmate Emmit (David Dorfman) is being shoved into a locker, Wade does the ethically right but tactically wrong thing of speaking up, and thereby places himself and Ryan on the radar of snake-eyed sociopathic school bully Filkins (Alex Frost) and his partner-in-thuggery Ronnie (Josh Peck).