Director Sidney Lumet turned 83 this year, and his debut feature, 12 Angry Men (1957) turned 50. Most film buffs count that film among the great debut films in history, and Lumet has certainly gone on to make many more classic films: Serpico (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976), The Verdict (1982) and Running on Empty (1988), among others. However, most film buffs also agree that, despite his notable debut, Lumet is more of a superior craftsman than an artist and that his long filmography -- more than 50 movies and TV shows -- contains just as many clunkers as it does hits. But here's the good news about a craftsman: he usually learns from his mistakes and gets better and better. And Lumet's two most recent films, last year's Find Me Guilty and the new Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, are among his best.

The bad news is that when Hollywood people and moviegoers hear the thing about Lumet being 83 years old, they'll probably stay away from the new film, as they stayed away from Find Me Guilty a year ago. Lumet has also made the commercial mistake of telling a jewel heist story and telling it straight, without any of the jokey, self-referential stuff that drives most post-Tarantino crime movies. Lumet's movie is about people rather than jewels or guns. And, at 83, he knows a thing or two about people.

Cinematical was invited to Sony Pictures on Saturday for a top-secret screening of several scenes from Spider-Man 3. Needless to say, they didn't have to ask me twice. I would have spent several days after I'd gotten the invitation building web-shooters if I needed to. Although Peter now uses organic webbing in the movies, so I'd have to try and genetically splice spider-DNA onto my own, which would have been too time-consuming. Thankfully, they weren't that demanding. OK, before we proceed any further, I should wave the giant spoiler alert flag. If you don't want to know anything about the plot of Spider-Man 3, then you should read no further. You especially don't want to find out from me that Aunt May is actually Galactus. Whoops. Sorry, but you've been warned. Just wait until you see a 300-foot tall May stomping on New York. It's not pretty. Although imagine the size of the cookies she could bake.

Anyhow, onto the screening and into the swanky Cary Grant theater. Sony, if you're not using that theater all the time, mind if we use it for movie watching and playing video games? OK -- here's what happened. Sam Raimi himself (dressed in his ever-present suit) came out and introduced the footage to us and called it a "super ... sneak .... preview ... scenelet." He told us the footage was brand-new, hadn't been seen outside of Sony, had a temporary score, and that some things had been shortened a bit for this preview. He then had to run off to do some audio recording with Stan Lee, who was next door, so we begrudgingly let him go. I mean, no one makes Stan "The Man" Lee wait, even if he does have yet another scene in this Spidey flick.

I'm going to tell you right up front to take the following information as NOTHING more than crazy Internet rumor for now because the only source we've got is the dubious IMDB. IMDB is a fantastic site for what it is, but it certainly isn't a dependable source for movie information pre-launch. Typically we don't even publish IMDB rumor until we've got something else to substantiate it, but this one is just too wacky to let slip under our radar. If nothing else, it's worth sharing just to get your reactions to it. Ready for this? If you check the Spider-Man 3 page, you'll note that actress Rosemary Harris, who has given life to the much beloved Aunt May, is listed for a second role in the web-shooting sequel. Care to guess who the second character is?

You're probably wrong. But if you guessed Spider-Man arch villain Carnage you are absolutely right. Weird? Yes. Inaccurate? Almost certainly. But it is certainly one of the craziest rumors that has passed my virtual desk in several months now, and thus I share it with you. Let's pretend to make this a legitimate post by offering up actors we'd like to see actually portray Cletus Kasady/Carnage in the future. Ideas?