Clint Eastwood is in talks to direct Hereafter for DreamWorks, reports Variety. The movie, described as a "supernatural thriller", was one of the properties Steven Spielberg took with him as part of the divorce settlement from Paramount Pictures, and it could end up with all the right ingredients for something great. First, of course, there's Eastwood as a possible director. Then there's the spec script by Peter Morgan, who also penned the screenplay for Frost/Nixon, which is racking up the critical praise before it's even released. Finally there's the subject matter -- who doesn't love a good psychological thriller? Here's where it gets a little iffy, though: Although "[p]lot details are being kept under wraps," it's being compared to The Sixth Sense. What are they thinking?

Ah, there's nothing quite like the scent of a sequel on the morning breeze. Like the lingering aroma of yesterday's leftovers, mixed with the heady perfume of a flower about to open. Depending on the sequel, there might also be a whiff of something coming from the bottom of your shoe. Today, at least, it looks (and smells) like the crap is pretty minimal. There's been a lot of news in the last day or so about follow-up movies (Alvin & the Chipmunks 2, anyone?), but let's start with the most obvious and go from there.

I know that there were plenty of fans of last year's Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. I mean, there had to have been -- it made over $200 million at the box office. I, however, was not one of them. When the trailer came on in the theater I was sitting in, I remember actually willing one of the springs in the seat back to pop loose and stab me in the chest so I didn't have to watch the rest of it. Imagine my horror this morning when I happened across an MTV.com article where the producers announced there would be another film. And they're calling this one a "squeakuel." Kill me now.

No matter what your political leanings are, you can't deny that filmmaker Michael Moore generally always picks timely subjects on which to base his documentaries. His next film is no different, this time focusing on the global financial crises and the U.S. economy. Moore had originally been focusing on U.S. foreign policy in what was to be a follow-up to Fahrenheit 9/11, but switched tacks when Wall Street went and had themselves a meltdown. The movie is untitled, and according to those familiar with the project, will contain an end-of-the-empire tone, which is kind of scary when you think about it, particularly to a girl who just found out her inheritance is pretty much gone. Looks like I'll have to watch the movie to find out who to thank.

Oh my god, you guys. Did you know that there's a town in Turkey called Batman? If I'm ever in Turkey, I'm totally going to swing by and take my picture with the city limits sign if they have one. I'm sure everyone does. They probably have a statue in the town square of the Caped Crusader and sell T-shirts that say like, "I went to Batman and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." I bet they totally love the dark knight of Gotham! Wait a second... Huh. Turns out they don't. Turns out the mayor of Batman is suing Christopher Nolan and Warner Brothers for royalties from The Dark Knight. Damn. Now there's a different tack. I mean, come on, you don't see Metropolis, Illinois pulling that shit.

You know how there are those TV shows, where it seems like everywhere you turn, someone is talking about how brilliant it is and how if you don't watch it you should, and you think to yourself "Geez, I should really watch that," but you don't, because even though you have a DVR that you could program to start watching it, it's one of the crappy ones where you can only tape one thing at a time and you got sucked into The Biggest Loser again somehow, and then you think you should Netflix it but your boyfriend has finally agreed to watch Buffy, and your queue is totally full of that and you finally get fed up with it and say "God! Okay! I'll watch it eventually. Just, not right now." You know, shows like that? Well, Arrested Development was one of those shows for me. I'm sure it was brilliant. And I long ago determined that someday I will watch it, that I'll rent the whole damn series, and I know I'll probably love it. Turns out I'd better get my ass in gear, because according to series star Jeffrey Tambor, they're ready to go on the Arrested Development movie.

I have always liked Emma Thompson. No matter what role she's in, she always brings a real humanity to the character she's playing, and her comic timing has always been flawless. That, and sister can write! But I'm not going to lie. She's gone and kind of irritated me. She announced that she will not be returning to play Professor Trelawney in the final Harry Potter film(s), but will instead resurrect her role as the title character in a Nanny McPhee sequel. I mean, I can see wanting to work on something that you have a vested interest in (Thompson wrote and produced the original Nanny McPhee, and will do so again on the second), but Emma: This is Harry Effing Potter. You push back production on your nanny movie, lady.

When I found my seat at the advance screening for Quantum of Solace (well, relatively advance -- the Brits exercised their Queen-granted right to see it two weeks ago) I was warmly greeted by my neighbors, two New Yorkers who were fans of all things Bond. One had sat in Connery's original Aston Martin DB5 the week Goldfinger came out; the other had seen nearly half of the Bond title song musicians, including Tom Jones and Paul McCartney, perform their Bond songs live. Both were excited for the new film, although I was surprised at how little of the media blitz they had been subject to. The music lover was a fan of the White Stripes, but he hadn't heard the Jack White-Alicia Keys title track, "Another Way to Die." The other had loved the stunts he'd seen in the commercials, but he hadn't read anything about all the injuries Daniel Craig acquired doing them. Part of me wished I was going into it as spoiler-free as they were, but the rest of me didn't care -- after the wake-up call that was Casino Royale, I was just looking forward to more brutal violence, more Dame Judi Dench and more shots of Mr. Craig's dreamy blue eyes.

No, I don't mean that Ridley Scott is going to direct a movie so bad that it will make the sure-to-be-cheesy adaptation of the real estate board game Monopoly look like Blade Runner in comparison. I mean that Ridley Scott, the director of Blade Runner and Alien, who was on the verge of redeeming himself as a geek auteur with adaptations of Robin Hood and The Forever War, is now signed on to direct the Monopoly movie, and he wants to make it look like Blade Runner. Which makes sense, because you'd have to travel pretty far into the future to find a way to make the housing market exciting again. (Or maybe he's going for dystopic?)

As if to say "you must not know 'bout me and my love of superheroes," Beyoncé Knowles has declared that she would like to play Wonder Woman should a film version ever get off the ground, according to an interview with the L.A. Times. She's so serious about it, in fact, that she's already met with people at Warner Bros. and DC Comics to discuss the possibility. Now, I haven't seen many of Beyoncé's movies -- I intentionally missed Dreamgirls and Pink Panther -- but I have seen her in Austin Powers: Goldmember, and if that was all she'd been in, I would have to say that I don't think she's ready for the JLA. (The JLA, of course, being the Justice League of America, of which Wonder Woman is a charter memb-- oh, never mind.) But considering she's about to play a threatened wife in Obsessed and Etta James in Cadillac Records, she must be doing something right, right?