When a movie calls for a CGI animal or grotesque troll, there's only one man to call: Andy Serkis, who's gained notoriety as the best motion capture actor around. It's not always easy to understand how deep his method acting goes, but this clip from Rise of the Planet of the Apes should make it a little more obvious. In the movie, Serkis plays Caesar, the ape who eventually gains sentience and leads a simian revolution. The clip contrasts two takes on the same scene -- one with CGI and one without -- so you can see how eerily realistic Serkis is as a monkey. He slaps his paws against the glass, grunts and howls in frustration, and does everything so effectively that it seems like all the CGI artists have to do is lay the monkey skin right over him in post-production.

After years of gestation, the Eliza Dushku-produced biopic of Robert Mapplethorpe is getting off the ground, with James Franco is attached to star as the racy photographer. If you squint your eyes, they're artistic kin: Mapplethorpe famously challenged art world standards by experimenting with religion and eroticism in his Polaroids, while Franco famously challenged E! anchors by trolling the Oscars to no one's understanding. Mapplethorpe's received a mild surge of attention after the acclaim for Patti Smith's Just Kids, the memoir which discusses their impoverished days in the '70s New York art scene.

● In the grandest of gestures, Angelina Jolie bought Brad Pitt a whole waterfall in California as a combined 48th birthday/Christmas present. "Brad has dreamed of a home with the sound of a waterfall cascading under the house," Us Weekly reports. "He wants to pull all aspects of nature, light, glass and varying levels into the concept." [Us]

● Nearly ten years since the first movie rocked theaters, Peter Jackson takes us back to Middle Earth in this first The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey trailer. [Huff Post]

James Franco might be the world's most famous university student, perpetually enrolled in some program or another. Usually it's the kids who are adamant about avoiding the real world and jobs and responsibilities who manage to stay in school forever, but Franco has balanced his heavy academic load with a substantial film career in the last few years. But do we think Franco is really so brilliant that he can make straight As while shooting several movies? It looks like his class attendance suffered, and one of his professors is now alleging that he was fired for giving Franco a D. 

● The Kardashian-Jenner clan really went for it with their icy, 3D Christmas card. Kourtney, for one, really loves "everyone's matching bow ties." [Celebuzz]

It's a big week for us common folk who lust after male celebrities. While People could hardly be considered highbrow, leaving the literary types who find themselves thinking dirty things about famous hunks unsatisfied, Portland-based writer and artist Sean Joseph Patrick Carney has come up with a brilliant solution: a collection of sexual fan fiction dedicated to James Franco. 

● A California woman has filed a paternity suit against Justin Bieber alleging that she took the pop star's virginity in a backstage hook-up and ended up pregnant. Bieber and co. are saying, of course, that the baby ain't so. [Radar] ● E! plans to continue airing the now obsolete Kim's Fairytale Wedding because, as one exec explains, “The program model of television doesn’t exactly keep up with the life model of real people... if Kim gets to keep her gifts, why can't E!? [NYT] ● Speaking of lost innocence: still mostly precious teen queens Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, and Emma Roberts are allegedly in talks to join James Franco in Harmony Korine's upcoming film, Spring Breakers, about a spring break gone terribly wrong. [EW]

By now you have have probably seen the cover of Flaunt magazine featuring James Franco's bare tramp stamped ass. Inside, writer Marc-Edoard Leon was able to go on set to the actor's Rebel project, which is loosely based "around a real-life behind-the-scenes drama involving Dennis Hopper, director Nicholas Ray, and Natalie Wood." Sex dolls, dildos, and fake blood are included.

Movie lovers often retrace the steps of their favorite characters in order to have a shared experience away from the theater. The Philadelphia Art Museum’s steps are always clogged with Rocky buffs jogging to their way to the summit and some Star Wars fanatics even make their way to Tunisia to walk on the dunes that filled in for Luke’s home planet of Tatooine. Wayne Richards, however, chose to recreate the steps of Aron Ralston, the inspiration for the James Franco film 127 Hours. Not only did Richards recreate Ralson’s solo hike through Canyonlands National Park in Utah earlier this month, he also suffered a similar fall and became stranded for days.