"I just don't want to be someone's sequel bitch"

The L.A. Times' Patrick Goldstein has a good thumbsucker today about sequels and their demands. He lays into the usual suspects -- the studios and their beancounters and all the lazy slobs in the audience -- but then he spanks a number of gifted filmmakers who, in his opinion (and, all right, mine), are wasting their time cranking out "Sausage #2," "Sausage #3," and so forth.

Steven Soderbergh ("Oceans Eleven"), Bryan Singer ("X-Men"), Christopher Nolan ("Batman Begins"), and of course Sam Raimi ("Spider-Man") are some of the visionary directors Goldstein calls out for making arrant product, after which he goes after the big fella himself: Steven Spielberg, who's just about to start shooting "Indiana Jones 4." On the other hand, Goldstein talks to Wayne Kramer, director of "The Cooler" and a guy who apparently has turned down a number of offers to make movies with numerals attached. He's the source of the quote up top. And you, very likely, are saying, "Wayne who?"

Scariest nugget of information in the whole article? Harrison Ford is about to turn 65.