So when people talk about how amazing Penn’s performance is in “This Must Be the Place” — where he plays an aging Robert Smith-type who decides to get all Roy Scheider in “Marathon Man” after his estranged father dies and goes on a cross-country trip to find his Nazi torturer — I believe them. Sean Penn is a really good actor! He is even good when he has to pretend to be happy, like in “Milk” (first half) or “I Am Sam.”

But Penn really shines when he gets to play a character who’s pretty much over it all: sarcastic, depressed and misanthropic (second half of “Milk,” all other Sean Penn vehicles).

Under all that Joker makeup, that’s basically how Sean Penn’s face naturally aligns itself anyway.

Point being: This movie looks pretty good. Though I’d really love it if Christoph Waltz made a cameo as the Nazi and we had a Jew-hunter-Nazi-hunter showdown between these two thespians. Barring that, I just hope it’s not “About Schmidt: Life’s a Drag.”

Though if Richard Simmons is participating, it actually makes the whole thing seem way more legit.

3. Kathy Lee and Hoda on “Pooper Snoopers”

“Today” show red alert: Big brother is watching your dog poop, via doggy DNA.

4. Trailer for “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”

Professor Moriarty is going to be played by Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) from “Mad Men”? I don’t know how Holmes would stack up against Don Draper, but that’s a fight I would pay to see.

5. Anderson Cooper reads from Snooki’s new book

For all his protests against the “Jersey Shore” cast member, Anderson sure gets a lot of leverage off her fame. Like last night, when he read out loud portions of her novel, “A Shore Thing.” Which came out in January? Timely!

See, for a while now the characters in “The Wizard of Oz” have been considered public domain, which is why there are so many strange adaptations  (“Return to Oz” being the most terrifying), since no one has to pay any royalties on the story. But the circuit is now clarifying that this doesn’t include the iconic imagery that was created for the Judy Garland film:

We agree with the district court’s conclusion that Dorothy, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, and Scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz” … exhibit “consistent, widely identifiable traits” in the films that are sufficiently distinctive to merit character protection under the respective film copyrights … Put more simply, there is no evidence that one would be able to visualize the distinctive details of, for example, Clark Gable’s performance before watching the movie “Gone with the Wind,” even if one had read the book beforehand. At the very least, the scope of the film copyrights covers all visual depictions of the film characters at issue.

Considering all the times a version of “Oz” has been remade for stage and screen (and I’m thinking particularly of “Wicked” here, which has Elphaba’s skin the same emerald hue as the witch in the Warner Bros. movie, not specified in the books), and the fact that there are several “Wizard of Oz” projects floating around Hollywood right now,  this ruling could have bigger implications outside the Raimi project.

Luckily, Oz interpreters have a little bit of wiggle room: There are at least 44 major changes in the Warner Bros. movie from the Frank Baum book, though it’s doubtful any of them will be iconic to viewers as “Oz” material, precisely because the famous film omitted or altered them. (Luckily for him, Raimi’s plot already sounds way different from anything we know of our beloved Wizard and his relationship to Oz.)

But even outside the Yellow Brick Road, this ruling could potentially affect any films that are based on other sources but have more famous movie predecessors. Luckily for directors like Tim Burton (who has remade both “Alice in Wonderland” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), there is usually enough original material left on the cutting room floor of the influential predecessors to create entirely new imagery from.

There are basically two camps of thought on an “Oldboy” remake: the people who think that adapting the story of Oh Dae-Su — a man locked in a hotel room for 15 years and then mysteriously freed in order to find his captors — from either its original Japanese manga or its cinematic counterpart is a terrible idea … and those who aren’t familiar with the story.

Because the truth is, nobody familiar with the themes and imagery in “Oldboy” would ever consider Spielberg or Smith a good fit for such a dark, violent and challenging film. Though the source material has some comedic moments, major plot developments revolve around (SPOILER ALERT) at least two counts of incest. There are also gory scenes in the film that could rival anything Eli Roth or those “Saw” guys could put out, including a climatic moment where a character cuts out his own tongue.

So, no, “Oldboy” just doesn’t scream “Spielberg” to me … or Smith, for that matter. Tarantino? Maybe. But not the guy who directed “E.T.” or the Fresh Prince. Considering the queasy live sushi scene below is one of the “lighter” moments in the movie, could you really see Wills pulling it off?

As of yesterday, however, Spike Lee’s name has been floating around as a new director for the film. (He is apparently “in talks” with Mandate.) Even though it’s only a rumor, it’s possibly a game-changing one: Lee’s style is far more gritty and violent than Spielberg’s, and if Smith is still attached to the project, we’ll be far more likely to see an “I am Legend” performance than a “The Pursuit of Happyness” one with Spike at the helm.

If this movie does happen, the most we can hope for is that it doesn’t try to replicate the brilliant weirdness of Park Chan-wook’s adaptation. Instead, it could start from scratch with the manga, with Lee creating his own stylized world for Oh Dae-Su to navigate. I don’t have much faith in an American “Oldboy,” but at least now there is a little more to hope for.

3. Celebrity karaoke of the day: Jason Segel, Alison Brie, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski crashed a bachelor party in Ann Arbor, Mich. Insanity and singing ensues.  (Please let this mean Segel is dating “Community’s” Brie!)

4. Former “Deadwood” cast member of the day: Ian McShane, last seen in “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” will be playing a dwarf named Ceasar in Universal’s ” Snow White and Huntsman.” That’s the one with Kristen Stewart as Snowie, and Charlize Theron as the wicked stepmother, not the adventure comedy “Snow White” project with Julia Roberts and Lily Collins.

5. Gay slur of the day: Chris Brown. Wait, really? Didn’t we already have to take Cee Lo to task today for his anti-gay tweet this morning?