“The conventional knowledge in Hollywood is that an unsympathetic female character can tank a movie. I’m hoping that’s not true. I’m knocking on wood really emphatically right now but honestly I have a lot of theories sometimes I wonder if it comes down to mommy issues. The idea of a cold, unlikeable woman or a woman who is not in control of herself is genuinely frightening to people because it threatens civilization itself or threatens the American family.

“But I don’t know why people are always willing to accept and even like flawed male characters. We’ve seen so many loveable anti-heroes who are curmudgeons or addicts or bad fathers and a lot of those characters have become beloved icons and I don’t see women allowed to play the same parts. So it was really important to me to try and turn that around.”

—Screenwriter Diablo Cody on writing Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) in Young Adult. The entire interview is over at Indiewire, and it is a blast.

“I don’t even want to tell people, ‘It gets better.’ I want to just go, ‘It’s over in four years.’ It’s, literally, the day after you graduate, you could run into people you went to high school with and you will literally both go, ‘What the f—k was that all about? Jesus Christ, I’m sorry, man.’ It literally ends like that, if you let it. Because you know what everyone is in high school, whether you’re gay or straight or male or female, you know what you are? You’re a f—king high schooler! And a high schooler is an unnatural state of existence, and it’s not humanity, and it’s not real life.”

—Nerd hero Patton Oswalt, who costars with Charlize Theron in Young Adult, on bullying. (It’s a really fascinating interview.)

I can appreciate where Oswalt is going with this idea, I think. I once played in a rock band at a junior high dance—no kidding—and afterward, three pre-teen girls who, uh, knew all the words to Cheap Trick’s “Surrender,” approached me. And these were the tough, cool outcasts (I was not a tough, cool outcast in junior high, just a dweeb), and one girl said to me, “It gets better, right? In high school? That’s what everyone says.”

And another girl piped up, “Yeah! In high school we’ll find our ‘niche.’”

Oh, boy. The only thing uglier than high school is junior high, maybe.

And I said to these kids something like, oh, man, there will always be people who suck. But you will eventually go away to college and finally form your all-girl punk band and you will never have to talk to those other people again, so start working on music right now.

And then the girls were really excited and wanted to tell me all these supercool band names they had already come up with in a spiral notebook they shared. (Which, as everyone knows, is the crucial first step in forming any band.)

In retrospect, and this might counter Oswalt’s very nice quote, I do think little pieces of junior high come back to haunt you (especially if you work in an office, which has its own ecosystem and its own BMOCs). But you already survived high school, which—as Oswalt says—is populated with high schoolers, yuck. And survivors are tough cookies. So get to work and forge, forge ahead, all ye beleaguered.

So it’s totally frightening how uncomfortable Charlize Theron made me during the whole entire forty-five seconds of this (NSFW due to language) new trailer. Seriously, like, I know people who act like this. Frequently.

But enough about that. I cannot wait to see this movie. We’ve talked it up here enough, and now the ball’s in your court, folks – are you going to spend the dough to see this in theaters, or wait ’til it’s in the bargain rental section at Blockbuster?

Oh man, oh man, oh man. This trailer looks so good, right?

Charlize Theron stars in Young Adult as Mavis Gary, an insufferable “young adult” fiction writer who returns to her Minnesota hometown hoping to make her old high school boyfriend fall in love with her (thanks, IMDb). And! It co-stars my dream man, Patrick Wilson, who plays the guy Mavis can’t have. And! Patton Oswalt plays the unwilling wingman, an acquaintance from high school who obviously puts up with Mavis’s ish because she’s so darn cute and catty.

I have totally high hopes for this one you guys—like, even higher hopes than I had for One for the Money. For one thing, anyone who’s watched Arrested Development or “Between Two Ferns” knows Charlize has done her career a major disservice, because she has mad comedic timing. Patton Oswalt I’m actually so-so on—I know it isn’t fair to hold King of Queens against him, but I just do—but since he is a Career Nerd, I have to stand with him in solidarity. Then there’s Patrick Wilson, whose filmography is a veritable Rosetta’s Stone of What? Hngh. Love him.

But most importantly, this flick is a Jason Reitman joint. It’s great to see him again paired with breakout screenwriter Diablo Cody (they made Juno together), and this movie could be infinitely more affable. Who wants to see a 15-year old act like she’s 35, anyway? I’d much rather see a 35-year old act like she’s 15. Now you’re speakin’ my language, Cody.