While watching Zack and Miri Make a Porno, it is possible to occasionally forget that you are watching a Kevin Smith movie. Mainly because he doesn’t show up in the film, a rare and appreciated move for the guy who has played “Silent Bob” in 6 out of the 8 theatrical releases he’s directed. Then there’s the cast that is involved, which makes Z&M seem like the offspring of Judd Apatow and John Waters. But there are a number of things that do make it clearly a Smith joint, such as the obligatory employment of Jason Mewes — in the role he was born to play, even moreso than “Jay” — and the potentially pitying use of Jeff Anderson, who may have been the only actor to agree to receiving that accidental Hot Carl.

And then there’s the most recognizable element: Smith’s inability let the poop jokes go in order to concentrate on his characters, and the relationships between them. It’s the filmmaker’s Achilles heel, and it’s one of five we at SpoutBlog have noticed are holding back the esteem of five would-be better directors.

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Though I first buzzed about an Academy Award nomination for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight more than a month before his death, I now want to take it all back. I feel all the talk of Ledger’s posthumous Oscar chances will cloud my mind when I finally do see it, and it will probably also cloud the Academy’s judgment, too. Six months from now, when the nominations are announced on January 22 (coincidentally the one-year anniversary of Ledger’s death), if Ledger is not recognized for his role as The Joker, there will surely be an uproar — actually, Hollywood might just up and self-implode.

I’m not the only one annoyed by all the Oscar buzz. Terry Gilliam, who directed Ledger in The Brothers Grimm and the upcoming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is calling “bullshit” on the whole thing, particularly against Warner Bros., which Gilliam accuses of exploiting Ledger’s death and chance of a posthumous Oscar for publicity purposes. Considering most Oscar campaigns for live actors are really just part of movie marketing, he has a good point.

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Will Smith’s new superhero movie, Hancock, may be receiving terrible reviews, but it’s sure to make a lot of money. It is a Will Smith movie, after all. The fact that it’s an original superhero title (meaning not adapted from a comic book or other source material), however, means that if it is a success, it will be the rare movie of its kind to be such. Superhero movies may be huge right now, but really only the pre-sold properties, those with a build-in audience, make the big bucks.

A number of original superhero movies are just as worthy of your attention as the Spider-Mans, the Iron Mans, the Batmans and the X-Mens. Sure, much of the time, non-adapted superheroes are lame, as in the cases of Blankman and My Super Ex-Girlfriend. But just check out any of the following ten titles and see why it sometimes pays off to put your trust in an unfamiliar hero.

1. The Incredibles - This one did it all: won an Oscar; received favorable reviews across the board; did blockbuster business in theaters and ancillaries (its the sole original superhero movie to break $100 million, domestically, a feat it far surpassed by actually grossing more than $260 million); and featured the single greatest superhero gag (above) ever seen. So there’s proof that a superhero movie can be good and do well without being based on another property. …Read more

• Why doesn’t anyone care about M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening? iO9’s Graeme McMillan has a theory: “The trailer gives you absolutely no idea what the movie is about, apart from people dying and Mark Wahlberg looking confused. People probably thought that it’s some kind of big-budget sequel to A&E’s turgid Andromeda Strain remake.”
• Paul Scheer’s first paid job as an actor was in The Onion: The Movie. “I shot it about 6 years ago, I’ve never seen it, nor did I ever see a script for the entire film (just my scene) but after reading this quote from the Washington Post, I’m intrigued…” We assume he was as “intrigued” as us by the part about the film co-starring “Kevin Federline, who — oh irony of ironies! — appears as a dancer in a music video that satirizes soon-to-be-wife Spears.”
• Jeff Wells takes a look at a piece by Gregg Goldstein on Charlie Kaufmann’s Synecdoche, New York. “The title of Goldstein’s piece is ‘Synecdoche could improve with edit’; the subhead is ‘Hypnotic film may undergo further cuts.’ The Hollywood Elsewhere response: ‘No shit?’”

I hate twist endings, especially those in the films of M. Night Shyamalan. Maybe it’s because I was told the twist of The Sixth Sense prior to seeing it and haven’t been able to appreciate the filmmaker ever since. It’s not so much that I believe films shouldn’t have twist endings, it’s that I believe films that have twist endings should be enjoyable even when you know the secret (Psycho is still great after a thousand viewings, for example). The only one of Shyamalan’s movies to hold up even with the spoilers revealed is Unbreakable.

So, I had no problem reading about the big secret of Shyamalan’s latest, The Happening. An early review of a rough cut of the thriller has shown up on Collider, and in addition to claiming the thing is “a terrible, terrible movie,” and that, “Mark Wahlberg might very well give the worst performance I’ve ever seen in anything,” the critic includes a complete plot synopsis, including the big revelation of what is causing people to suddenly kill themselves (surely you’ve seen the trailer).

I won’t write out the spoiler here (but here’s a hint: the film has something in common with both The Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter), but you’re welcome to head over to Collider (or Vulture blog) to ruin it for yourself.

Maybe I read too much Curbed, but it seems we’ve been having a lot of construction accidents in New York City lately (actually, the Daily News has also taken notice). So, while watching the new teaser trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, I couldn’t help but think about last Wednesday’s tragedy in Brooklyn involving a man falling 13 stories to his death. The trailer, which features construction workers throwing themselves off a site due to some strange “happening” that causes people to suddenly commit suicide, may hit too close to home for other people, too. A few blogs and forums have noted the similarity to the images of airborne jumpers/fallers from the World Trade Center on 9/11 (this wouldn’t be the first time Shyamalan made a 9/11 metaphor).

Now, I’m not the kind of guy to normally get sensitive about trailers unintentionally evoking tragedy (I thought it was unnecessary for trailers for The Core to be pulled following the Columbia disaster, but I guess I’m heartless). But this one hit me differently. Maybe it’s because these accidents are more of an ongoing/continuing problem, and certainly I’m also letting my bias against most NYC real estate developers get me heated up. However, I don’t think the trailer should be pulled — no, I’d rather it be seen by enough locals who might also relate the imagery to the tragedies.

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