Gus Van Sant has never been my favorite director, but I respect him as a filmmaker and a humanitarian. Case in point: Last Friday, I attended a charity screening in Portland, Oregon (where Van Sant and I both live) of his latest movie, Milk. Tickets ranged from around $30 to $75. The print was donated, though, so all of the money went to Outside In, which helps homeless youths and others in Portland. According to the organization's director, who helped introduce the film, this is the fourth premiere Van Sant has donated to the organization. Pretty generous, and a great cause. This time, not only did Van Sant speak, but he also got James Franco to miss his classes at NYU to attend and speak at the function. It was a very cool event, and well worth the admission price. (Photographic evidence.) But I know what everyone is wondering: How was the movie?

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?

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.

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?)

Today's Round-Up is a mixed bag. Sometimes you reach in and pull out a nugget of gold, and sometimes you pull out a cow pie. Sometimes you end up with a little of both. Let's just start with what is potentially the biggest pile to come out of the bag: Brett Ratner (Rush Hour 3, X-Men: The Last Stand) is close to signing a deal to direct the half-anticipated, half-dreaded Conan update. On the plus side, the writers reportedly looked to Robert E. Howard's original pulp stories of the 1930s to create their version of the sword-wielding barbarian. On the minus side for Ratner detractors, they're now "doing a quick polish" to work in some of the would-be director's ideas. What those ideas might be is left to your imagination. Perhaps Ratner will work all the crap out of his system on Beverly Hills Cop 4, which he's likely to complete before starting any other project.

Apparently, Steven Spielberg has been dying to work with Will Smith, which makes me say out loud, "Steven Spielberg hasn't worked with Will Smith yet?" How did such a big-shot director and bankable movie star not team up and gross 500 billion dollars already? It seems like this should have happened long ago. Maybe if it had, they probably wouldn't be trying to get the rights to remake the South Korean film Oldboy right this very minute. If you've seen Oldboy, you may think this is blasphemy, since Smith is the posterboy for mainstream American pablum. Or, like me, you may think this has the possibility of being Will Smith's greatest role ever, the one that finally snags him the Academy Award, and the one that makes everyone look at him differently for the rest of his life... in a good way. Maybe.

Having learned the hard way on Halloween nights as a child, snarfing candy hand over fist, I've long been a big believer in the old adage that you can have too much of a good thing. One person that doesn't seem to feel that way is James Cameron, who has spent the last ten years working on bringing his next project, Avatar, to the big screen. And in a plane just off the big screen. And now in a plane just off the even bigger screen. Lost yet? What I'm referring to is today's announcement that not only will Avatar be released in 3D, but it will also be released in IMAX 3D.

If you didn't already know the trivia that the human head weighs eight pounds before you watched Jerry Maguire, then the cuteness seared into your brain by the adorable delivery of said fact by a kindergarten-bound Jonathan Lipnicki pretty much ensures that you do now. Hell, anyone who saw the trailer for the movie could easily answer the Jeopardy question. The fact that that clip alone will probably be akin to Lipnicki's epitaph no matter how successful he ever becomes makes me feel bad for the kid. That, and the fact that he looked like Cousin Oliver with spikey hair. The young actor has worked quite a bit since, but I for one can't remember a single part without having to think about it for several minutes, and then only because I happened to attend a screening of The Little Vampire at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2000 and got a free TLV T-shirt. (The movie name on the shirt was glow-in-the-dark. It was otherwise unremarkable.) But it turns out Lipnicki is still getting acting work, his latest part a starring turn in the upcoming psychological thriller The Other Side of Innocence.

Remember those poor Japanese kids who went into convulsions while watching the constant flashing on Pokémon? Their parents had better keep them away from the current crop of action movies. These films are being edited to within an inch of their lives as of late, making Tony Scott's hackwork look like slow motion by comparison. It's gotten so bad that it's nearly impossible to see who's doing what to whom and where they're doing it. Numerous people have complained about the Bourne series, but I think they're edited far better than most recent actioners. The Guardian feels my pain, complaining about Quantum of Solace's herky-jerky editing. That's the least of that lousy film's problems, however.

Michael Crichton, creator of ER and The Andromeda Strain, died yesterday. The 66-year-old multi-hyphenate's career spanned four decades and spawned numerous books and movies with which you are no doubt familiar. His books-turned-movies took us to Jurassic Park and The Lost World, made Demi Moore sexually harass Michael Douglas in Disclosure, put Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson in a Sphere and sent James Bond and Passenger 57 to the land of Rising Sun. His loss is a sad occasion for this writer-slash-science major who loved the way he mixed the two disciplines in his work. His books were so cinematic that they seemed ready to film straight from the bookstore. Here are a few examples of Crichton's lesser-known work onscreen.