• Clint Eastwood will direct a Peter Morgan-scripted supernatural thriller titled Hereafter, which has been likened to The Sixth Sense. But with Steven Spielberg producing, wouldn’t it be better to make comparisons to Poltergeist, Always or even Casper (in which Eastwood appears)? Or is the plot more concerned with a lame twist than it is with ghosts?
• Meanwhile Spielberg’s directorial replacement on The Trial of the Chicago 7 might be Ben Stiller?
• The children’s book adaptation Measle and the Wrathmonk sounds like Honey I Shrunk the Kids meets parts of Beetlejuice, which could be good except that it’s going to be yet another creepy motion-capture animation from producer Robert Zemeckis.
• Anticipating huge numbers for Twilight, Summit has gone ahead and assigned adaptations of the second and third books (New Moon and Eclipse) to Melissa Rosenberg, who also wrote the first installment.
• Now that Hope is upon us, does DreamWorks really need to make a fearful terrorist-attacks-the-president movie like Motorcade?
• And now that he’s made a disappointing 007 film, will Marc Forster also ruin the popular zombie novel World War Z?
• Speaking of that new 007 installment, Quantum of Solace is expected to have the biggest opening for a Bond film ever.

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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It’s been more than 100 years since the Philadelphia Quakers changed their name to the Philadelphia Philadelphians, which was thankfully shortened to “Phillies” very quickly, probably by printers who were afraid of using up all of their ‘P’s in the printing press. Since being founded in 1883, they’ve been one of the most tenacious teams in baseball, winning six pennants, and the World Series in 1980. In fact, in all of American sports (not just baseball), the Phillies are the team that’s been in one city with one name for the longest time. They’re one game away from another World Series win tonight, despite being the Major League team with the most losses in history. We celebrate their scrappiness with a list of quintessential Philadelphia movies. Check them out after the break.

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If you took one look at the existence of the new movie Ghost Town and dismissed it on account of its familiarity, you’re ignoring the potential of one of the most valuable plot devices available to fiction. Sure, the employment of ghosts in a narrative may also be evidence of laziness, as the device is just as much a convenience as it is a useful tool for storytellers. Not everyone can be Shakespeare, and of course there is a lot of redundancy and (excuse the pun) lifelessness in the majority of movies involving ghosts.

However, ghosts can also be highly representative and/or serve a film on a deeper level than the surface story. To use another pun, ghost movies are not always so transparent. Like zombies, their plot-device sibling, ghosts have a way of signifying greater ideas, subjects and themes, and aren’t always merely about scares and talking-to-thin-air gags. In a conversation with Cinematical’s Erik Davis, Ghost Town director/co-writer David Koepp had this to say about the significance of ghost stories:

Part of the reason they’re so enduring is because, well, first off all they give hope — because if they are ghosts, then it means we don’t die when we die. But also because they work really well in a number of genres. Ya know, in a drama like Ghost, or a horror movie, suspense or comedy in our case — I just think they offer so many dramatic possibilities; to have someone that’s dead, but still around to talk about it really suggests a lot of great situations.

Okay, so that bit of promotional fluff is actually more about the literal dramatic qualities of the ghost device than the figurative and subtextual, but the quote at least jumpstarted my thinking. Initially I had thought about simply outlining how ghosts have been applied to different film genres, but then I fortunately switched my goal to seek out ten specific ghost films (from the seemingly thousands out there) that utilize the device for more meaningful purpose.

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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.