James Franco Lookalike Is the Toast of Toronto

Today in celebrity gossip: Someone who looks like James Franco is delighting people at the Toronto International Film Festival, Justin Bieber's friends want a reality show, and Oprah is scared of balloons.

All the beautiful folks of glittery Hollywood have made their way up to plain old Toronto, Canada's great pride, its flared jean, its pointy boot, its thumping fusion restaurant full of plates drizzled with balsamic reductions. The people of Hollywood are there for a festival, dazzling the locals with all of their films, the things they made this year and last that are now coming to market. So there are screenings to be held and then of course parties. And the toast of some of those parties is a guy who looks like James Franco. It's true, and as far as we know this isn't some sort of Franco performance piece either. There's just a guy roaming around the Toronto International Film Festival who showed up to a party for Franco's film Palo Alto (our ears perk up in suspicion) and was spotted by one of its producers. The producer was astonished and invited the lookalike to a party for another Franco film. There he met the real Franco and everyone had a good laugh. Is this what the Francoganger was expecting? Or is this all some strange whirlwind accident? And who is this double? Is he good or bad? Spirit or daemon? Someone should get to the bottom of this story. But for now what we know is that this film producer was tickled by a funny thing, brought him around to parties as a little amusement, showed him off and laughed and pretty soon will throw him in the toy bin with the rest of them, all those other people who stumbled into the warm synthetic glow of the inner sanctum only to be tossed out when that glow moved on to someone, something else. And then he'll just be in Toronto, a guy who looks like James Franco, wondering what to do. Wandering around Cabbagetown, stumbling down Yonge Street, gazing dazed at the lights tinkling on Centre Island. Just a guy in Canada, passersby pointing and saying, "He looks familiar" and then moving on. [Page Six]

Oh lord. You know Justin Bieber's friends? I mean, you don't know them probably, unless you are Kendall Jenner or someone, in which case why are you reading this website Kendall Jenner. I just mean you are aware of them, yes? These little leeches hanging on to their famous friend, staying in his house and driving his cars, often recklessly (though no more recklessly than Justin himself). Everyone in Calabasas hates them, as they're the kind of people who cheer along and film while JB prickishly pees into a janitor's bucket. So they're not great kids. And, like all not great kids, they want a reality show. Apparently one of Justin's friends, the one called Lil' Twist, is pitching a reality show to MTV about the Bieber gang. Justin would make occasional appearances, but mostly it would be about his entourage, as they say in France. This is according to fellow Bieberite Lil' Za, who talked to TMZ. He's confident that MTV will buy the show, saying "it's quite entertaining." Which, sigh, he's probably not wrong, in some ways. I don't know. This feels inevitable. We should probably just let it happen, right? [TMZ]

Please make sure you are sitting before you read this. If you're walking around town with your cellphone, find a bench. If you're in your kitchen eating peanut butter with a knife, put the knife in the sink and go sit in the dining room. If you work at one of those standing desks, go to the break room. Well actually quit your job and go home because standing desks, forget about it, but then sit down when you're home. OK, are you all safely seated? Good, I can now share the following headline with you: "Oprah Winfrey Is Afraid of Balloons." !!!!!! This is from People magazine, and they would know. I mean they read the most recent O: The Oprah Magazine issue in which Oprah Winfrey confesses that she is terrified of balloons. And not hot air balloons. It is completely reasonable to be scared about launching yourself into the air propelled by fire and gas. That's fine. But Oprah, you see, is scared of regular blow-'em-up balloons. Well, it's more that she hates the sound of them popping, "reminds me of gunfire," she says, so the presence of balloons makes her very nervous because she's scared they will pop. Which, fine, OK. That makes some sense. We all have strange fears. Right? I need to sit on the aisle at movie theaters. Does that count? Maybe Oprah should go on Maury and confront her balloon fear. Whatever she does with it, it's very brave of her, big powerful Oprah, to admit that she has a crippling — crippling! — fear of balloons. Of potential popping. Of bursting. Of breaking. Of sudden, terrible change. Of the world's capacity to occasionally explode into chaos. Really, though, aren't we all afraid of that? [People]

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher took an airplane together. Everyone thought they hated each other after their contentious divorce, and all signs indicated that they did, but now they've taken an airplane together and were seen talking if not warmly, certainly amiably. Civilly, at least. So that's good. I mean, that there's potentially a little less anger, less animosity in the world. Probably not too many of us had much emotional investment in this particular relationship, but in a general sense, it's nice to hear that two people can be rent apart but then slowly come back together, just in a different configuration. That's good. That's always good news. [TMZ]

This is from yesterday, but it's still important: Gwyneth Paltrow, a golem of sparrow's bones and mineral dust, was picking her daughter up from school on her Vespa scooter and was caught on video swerving very closely in front of a school bus. The school bus lurched to a halt and Paltrow puttered on. Some say Paltrow was nearly hit, and it does kind of look like that. Which is scary, and she should be more careful in the future. You know where a good place to start is, carefulness-wise? Don't drive your children home from school on scooters in Los Angeles! That is a dangerous place to drive in a car, for heaven's sake. On a scooter there is nothing between you and the road or a car but your clothes and maybe a piece of plastic and foam around your head. That's not much. That makes me nervous. I don't want to see kids hanging off the back of scooters in Los Angeles. Or New York. Or, really, anywhere but a slow, empty country road. And even then. Even then. [Daily Mail]