EPA, Getty Images

Reese Witherspoon and Tom Hanks.

A bold claim sits in the midst of a lengthy new piece in The New Yorker about Ben Stiller, "Funny is Money: Ben Stiller and the dilemma of modern stardom." The author, Tad Friend, contends that "plenty of people who were big stars 10 years ago now are not." Fair enough on the surface, right? Well, take a look at the list Friend posits: Keanu Reeves, Mel Gibson, Demi Moore, Tom Hanks, Reese Witherspoon, Russell Crowe, Nicolas Cage, John Travolta.

Someone deigns to suggest that Tom Hanks is no longer a star? What? And why are we counting down the days until Witherspoon has her third baby if she's not a star? Friend's proclamation seems to exist where two main tenets -- the definition of a star and the perception of who is a star -- intersect. "A star, to the industry, is someone who can dependably get a film to 'open,'" Friend wrote. "A star to the rest of us, is the person our eyes are always drawn to on screen."

To that end, some of the names on the list do make sense. Demi Moore, sure. Her last big film, "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" was definitely a disappointment, and she hasn't had top billing on anything substantial since "G.I. Jane."

Reeves is almost 10 years removed from "Matrix Revolutions" and "Matrix Reloaded," which both opened in 2003 and made a combined $420 million domestically. But, "Revolutions" made only $48 million its opening weekend, perhaps an indicator that he wasn't carrying films like he once was.

Crowe is a slightly more complicated case: "3:10 to Yuma" in 2007 definitely didn't light the box office on fire (it grossed only $70 million worldwide) but doesn't the film's two Academy Award nominations count for something? (On a side note, Crowe does have nearly half a million Twitter followers. If Crowe and the studios he's working with can harness this following for any of the five films he's got coming up between now and 2014, maybe his star rises somewhat?)

Mel Gibson, with all his ancillary controversies might be in a category all his own, but even if you set his temper aside and look at the numbers, Gibson hasn't had a film open at the No. 1 spot since "Signs" in 2002. It seems certain that Gibson has become more spectacle than star and once the scales tip in that direction, it's tough to get them back.

The names on the list that maybe deserve some special dispensation are Witherspoon, Cage and Hanks. As Witherspoon's pregnancy tracking proves, you can still have star quality without a massive box office hit. Her most recent film, "Water for Elephants"  "This Means War" made $54 million domestically, but if you look at her last 10 years' worth of films, even the biggest hit, "Sweet Home Alabama," was only a $127 million movie. We aren't talking about a leading actress who was opening billion-dollar franchises and suddenly isn't covering the budget. Witherspoon is just a solid, steady star (with an Oscar under her belt) which will likely give her career serious longevity.

As for Cage: his "Saturday Night Live" persona might be the most interesting thing he's got going right now, but that's just here in the United States, where his films don't do nearly as well as they do internationally. Did you see "Season of the Witch"? Me neither, but enough people saw it in foreign markets that it earned $66 million there, while the film only made $24 million at home.

And then there's Tom Hanks. The man who made "Big" big, and led "Toy Story" to hold the title of most successful animation franchise, ever -- he will always be a star, even if "Larry Crowne" was unwatchable for vast, vast swaths of the population. And maybe that's the thing about stardom: once yours shines brightly enough, it never totally fizzles out. If you are able to remain "the person our eyes are always drawn to on screen," what's on the screen isn't always of paramount importance.

What do you think? Have you scratched Hanks off your star list, or is there someone who deserves to be on the list who isn't? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

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Columbia Pictures

"Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" isn't likely to light a fire under moviegoers.

REVIEW: A water-treading sequel offering just enough kooky color to keep less-discerning funnybook fans occupied, "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" nudges its obscure hero's mythology forward a bit without seeming to care much how it gets there. Its modest box office prospects are helped by the absence of other superhero competitors over the next couple of weeks.

Returning as the eponymous not-quite-hero, Nicolas Cage spends stretches of the film on autopilot while waiting for scenes he deems worthy of his particular brand of crazy. They're not frequent enough to please the Cage aficionado, but sequences in which the twitchy, inappropriately giddy actor tries to choke back transformations into a bloodthirsty skeleton-on-fire are welcome in a film where often-charismatic costars Ciarán Hinds and Idris Elba are singing off-key.

Cage's Johnny Blaze hates being saddled with his super-powered alter ego, and "Spirit of Vengeance" gives him a chance, á la "Superman II," to unburden himself: A French motorcycle-riding monk (Elba, wearing unfortunate green contact lenses) offers to lift the curse if only Blaze will rescue a boy being pursued by the devil. It seems the boy, Danny (Fergus Riordan), is actually the spawn of the dark lord's Earthly incarnation (Hinds's Roarke, the trickster responsible for Blaze's curse), and is now meant to be possessed by Daddy for good.

Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor enjoy some of the oddball moments in Ghost Rider's battles with various generic villains -- they can't bring the flaming skeleton head to life, but shots of its gaping maw taunting evildoers have a quirky funhouse quality, and somebody in a digital FX house should get a bonus for the bubbling tar on Ghost Rider's motorcycle jacket. But the actual action surrounding these moments is sometimes incoherent, especially an extravagantly murky showdown involving a mammoth piece of construction equipment, and the plot tying one confrontation to the next is anything but on fire.

If the screenplay is stale and contrived (Elba's monk knows everything about everything, but can't guess the one twist no viewer will fail to foresee), the picture benefits from some eye-candy settings in Turkey and Romania -- which is not to say that this scenery is well served by Brandon Trost's photography or the limp 3D effects.

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@Zekasta

No word on whether kidnapping babies if you can't conceive is covered in this 1998 Serbian biology textbook.

Yes, that's Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, and Little Nathan Junior from the 1987 comedy "Raising Arizona" on the cover of this Serbian eighth-grade biology book.

According to Belgraded, Viktor Markovic's site about Belgrade, Serbia and the Balkans, the book is from 1998, and the movie photo wasn't on the cover when he used the same book in 1993. Apparently it was added later, with the graphic designer thinking it was just a generic happy family shot.

Happy family indeed. Could any family have been more messed up than that of poor Hi and Edwina McDunnough? After all, they kidnapped baby Nathan after learning that Ed's "insides were a rocky place where (Hi's) seed could find no purchase."

Also, was the designer not bothered by Cage's character's hair? I feel like I want to reach through the photo and smooth it out.

Markovic notes on Belgraded that he spoke to the book's designer, who calls use of the photo an honest mistake and says the books were yanked from circulation early, but obviously, some got out.

But really, if the book helped spread word of "Raising Arizona" among kids in Serbia, more power to them. It's got to be one of the most quotable, hilarious films out there.

"I'll be taking these Huggies and whatever cash you got."

"Son, you got a panty on your head."

"These (balloons) blow up into funny shapes and all?" "Well, no, unless round is funny."

Any biology class can benefit from a little Coen Brothers humor.

(Textbook photo used by permission of Twitter user Zekasta.)

"Raising Arizona" -- hilarious, or overrated? Tell us in the comments.

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