Sure Shots: Green Lantern; Total Recall; Sean Penn

* After learning yesterday that Michael Clarke Duncan was in talks to voice Kilowog in the Green Lantern film, now today comes word that Geoffrey Rush(The King's Speech) is voicing Tomar-Re, the skinny bird-like alien featured prominently in the trailer. Deadline's story gives the impression that the work is already completed, which makes me a bit weary of the Duncan news.

* Bryan Cranston(Breaking Bad) has been cast as the bad guy in Len Wiseman's Total Recall remake starring Colin Farrell. But this isn't the same bad guy you're thinking of from the 1990 film. In fact, the revealed plot indicates something completely different. "The new story involves nation states Euromerica and New Shanghai, with Douglas Quaid (Farrell) a factory worker in the latter who begins to believe he is a spy, although he doesn’t know for which side. Cranston would play Vilos Cohaagen, the leader of Euromerica who, under the cover of protecting his people, is secretly readying an invasion of New Shanghai." That doesn't sound like the movie I know, or very much like the Philip K. Dick story. Either this is just a fraction of the whole story or we're looking at something new here.


* Remember Tales from the Gangster Squad? Warner Brothers' film based on LA Times articles about an elite squad of cops whose sole job was to stop the spread of the east coast mafia to the west? The directing gig passed a number of hands, but ultimately landed in the lap of Ruben Fleischer(Zombieland), and now a pair of top notch actors have been offered the lead roles. Deadline reports that Sean Penn has been offered the role of Mickey Cohen, the Brooklyn mobster and member of the Jewish Mafia. Ryan Gosling has been offered one of the two lead cop roles. Gosling's been in a slump lately, but broke out of it in a big way with Blue Valentine. Penn is always solid if not spectacular. Let's hope both sign on and make this flick as kick butt as it sounds.