How to Cast: George Clooney

As a guy who stares at goats. Seriously, I kid you not  — Clooney is starring in a movie called The Men Who Stare at Goats. Variety reports it’s about a journalist (Ewan MacGregor) who stumbles upon an ex-member (Clooney) of a secret U.S. Army unit that used paranormal tactics. So am I to presume goats have the special powers? I mean, that’s some title. It’s right up there with The Captain and the Shark, the title to a movie I once heard was being made about the U.S.S. Indianapolis. Towards the end of WWII, they delivered the bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima but was then sunk by a Japanese torpedo, leaving hundreds of men in the water for sharks to feed on. You know, the story Quint tells in Jaws. But The Men Who Stare at Goats is better – I’d go see that movie even if I didn’t know the plot.

In other casting news: Steven Spielberg is going to tackle a biopic on Martin Luther King Jr. He got the rights from King’s estate and is putting the deal together, Variety reports. I’m smelling Oscars already. But who to play the iconic slain leader of the Civil Rights movement? Denzel Washington is too old – and he already played Malcolm X. Hmmm, maybe Chiwetel Ejofor, the fabulous British character actor from Children of Men, Inside Man, American Gangster. Just a thought.

We have ourselves a new Thor, the Viking God of thunder – and it’s the dude who played Kirk’s father in Star Trek, Chris Hemsworth. According to the blogosphere, this relative unknown might be risky choice for Marvel’s big-budgeted, live-action film. But then again, sometimes unknowns work (Christopher Reeve as Superman perhaps?) Hey, Robert Downey Jr. can’t play ALL the comic-book heroes.

And finally we have Rinko Kikuchi, so hilarious in Brothers Bloom, going back to playing devastating in Norwegian Wood, a film based on the novel named after the Beatles song. Set in 1960s Japan, it centers on a man who falls in love with his best friend’s girlfriend (Kikuchi) after the friend kills himself. But when the girl has to go to the psych ward to work through the pain, the guy falls for another girl who is far more upbeat and is then torn between the two. Sounds sad and poetic – and if they keep the camera on Kikuchi’s exquisite face, the film will work. I’ll never forget her as the deaf girl in Babel.