September is often used as a dumping ground for movies, but this year it also appears to be a dumping ground for once-great or once-promising talents who’ve lost their way. I’ve taken note of at least 10 individuals (actors, actresses and a couple filmmakers) who have new films out this month (I’m counting the Labor Day weekend, too) who are due for a visit from the Ghost of Movies Past.

More specifically, these people need to backtrack to the ‘90s, which is when most of them did their last truly great work. Perhaps they need to take a look at that earlier work and remember what it was they used to do. Or perhaps they just need to get advice from the Coen brothers, who similarly hit a slump in the new millennium, but who are now back on track with a few more Oscars in hand and a new comedy, Burn After Reading, which looks to be more in line with their ‘90s classic The Big Lebowski than their 2000s missteps Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers.

Nicolas Cage (guilty September 2008 release: Bangkok Dangerous)

It could be argued that Cage made just as many worthless movies in the ‘90s as he has in the ‘00s. Also, considering his box office success with Ghost Rider and the National Treasure movies, plus his excellent Oscar-nominated dual role in Adaptation, it’s debatable that he’s “lost his way.” But it’s clear to me, at least, that he currently lacks any concern for the quality of his work, as evidenced by this month’s Bangkok Dangerous, which makes even Con Air look well crafted by comparison. In the ‘90s, Cage was doing much greater work for Scorsese, Lynch and even Michael Bay, and he won an Oscar for Best Actor, too. Unless he starts caring about the roles he chooses, he’s more likely to one day receive lifetime recognition by the Razzies than a lifetime achievement award from the Academy. Who he needs to work with again to get it back: the Coens; Uncle Francis (Ford Coppola); Scorsese; even Michael Bay would be good.

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• Or is it technically Ghostbusters IV? Columbia Pictures has hired writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, both of TV’s The Office, to script a new installment of the Ghostbusters series, which was previously thought to be hitting a final note with an upcoming video game (which Dan Aykroyd led us to believe was pretty much “Ghostbusters III”). The Hollywood Reporter claims that while the new sequel may involve the original cast, the main focus will be with a rookie cast of Ghostbusters.
• Paul Bettany, who played a kind of precursor to Charles Darwin in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, will actually portray the famous evolution theorist in the biopic Creation (formerly titled Origin), scripted by Master and Commander’s John Collee and to be directed by Jon Amiel (The Core). Bettany’s real wife, Jennifer Connelly, will play Darwin’s wife/first cousin, Emma.
• Albert and Allen Hughes will finally follow-up their 2001 period-set From Hell with the post-apocalypse-set Book of Eli, which will star Denzel Washington as a man “who must fight across America to bring society the knowledge that could be the key to its redemption.”
• Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards script is pissing off the Germans.
• According to Variety, as long as male audiences aren’t too busy with the new football season or summer leftovers, Nic Cage and his latest crapfest, Bangkok Dangerous, should top the box office this weekend.

• The first trailer––really, the first bit of “official” marketing of any kind, because that sploogey Vanity Fair cover apparently doesn’t count––for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will premiere on Valentine’s Day, in front of prints of The Spiderwick Chronicles. Variety says it’s part of a trend of studios waiting until a quarter in advance to show glimpses of their summer tentpoles; it could also have something to do with the fact that Indy 4 just wrapped, like, last week.
• You know it’s an unremarkable weekend when both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter bury their Friday morning box offic predix (yay, slanguage!) stories under a handful of other headlines. Variety says it’s a draw between Fool’s Gold, and the “far harder to predict” Hannah Montana concert film. THR says the abysmally reviewed Kate Hudson comedy will “probably cop the weekend’s bragging rights.”
• Berlin deals: Lionsgate has purchased Bangkok Dangerous,  starring Nic Cage as “as an anonymous assassin who travels to Bangkok to handle four kills for an underworld crime boss, but whose conscience becomes his enemy when he meets a local Thai girl.”
• Blah blah blah strike story, blah blah blah “what does it all mean?!?!”