I'm not sure what it is about sunshine and cleaning, but the two have been all over movie titles as of late. Last year we had Little Miss Sunshine and Code Name: The Cleaner, and in 2007 we're looking at a film called Sunshine from Danny Boyle, another simply called Cleaner (which stars Samuel L. Jackson) and one that combines both, Sunshine Cleaning, starring Emily Blunt, Amy Adams and the newly casted Mary Lynn Rajskub (best known for her role as Chloe O'Brian on Fox's hit show 24.) Both Cleaner and Sunshine Cleaning focus on characters who clean up crime scenes, though the latter seems a bit more interesting ... to this guy, at least.

In Sunshine Cleaning, Adams and Blunt play sisters who clean crime scenes for a living and, in the process, somehow learn the meaning of life. Sounds sort of cheesy until I tell you that Rajskub will play a blood bank technician who's the object of Blunt's sexual obsession. (Yeah, that little plot point completely caught me off guard too.) I should also note that Alan Arkin snagged a role, which makes this his second Sunshine-related indie comedy in two years; pic was written by Megan Holley and will be directed by Christine Jeffs. No word on a release date, but Sunshine Cleaning is currently sweeping up the streets of Albuqerque, New Mexico.

News bites for Tuesday:

• Sony Pictures Classics grabbed the rights to the Chinese war drama, The Children of Huang Shi, which Chris Ullrich told us about in October. Based on actual events, the film centers on a British reporter (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who is in China when it was invaded by Japan in 1937. The man rescues 60 war orphans and leads them a feet-aching 1,000 miles to a village near the great wall. Chow Yun-Fat plays a political leader, Michelle Yeoh is an aristocrat and Radha Mitchell plays a nurse he falls for. The film should be released later this year.
• Another name has been added to the upcoming comedy, Sunshine Cleaning. Earlier this month, I shared news that Alan Arkin had joined Amy Adams and Emily Blunt in the movie about sisters who start a new business cleaning up crime scenes. Now Steve Zahn is a part of the cast, playing a married cop who is getting a little of Adams' character on the side. Now the question becomes: will this be a goofy cop, or will Zahn wow us with a little depth?
• Ms. Keira Knightley, the young, tough, sex symbol from Pirates of the Caribbean is baring all for her new film, Silk. According to MSN entertainment, her nudity is used to chastise her. A source is quoted as saying that during one of her two nude scenes, "she leans over her husband with her gown gaping open and he remarks that her breasts are small and like a little girl's." In the film, she plays the wife of a silkworm smuggler (Michael Pitt) from the 1800's who becomes obsessed with a concubine of a baron in Japan. Obviously, he's all sorts of charming and respectful.

What do you do when a role gets you your first Oscar nod in 38 years? If you're the scene-stealing Alan Arkin, you follow it up with another similarly-titled movie. After the success of Little Miss Sunshine, he has just signed on to co-star in another sun-filled indie film -- the upcoming Sunshine Cleaning. In October, Kevin Kelly brought us word of Amy Adams' involvement in the film, which tells the story of Rose Lorkowski, a woman sick of cleaning other people's homes for little cash. Wanting to send her son, Oscar, to a private school and make more money, she starts a biohazard/crime scene clean-up business with her unreliable sister, Norah.

Since that post, Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) has officially signed on to co-star, along with Clifton Collins Jr. (the crazy drug dealer from Rules of Attraction). There is no word yet on who Arkin will play in the Christine Jeffs feature, but hopefully it won't be a repetitive role where Grandpa Arkin sits down with Oscar and counsels his grandson about the joys of having lots of young sex -- the kid is supposed to be an 8-year-old. Maybe Arkin will be a Gil Grissom-type crime scene investigator that the cleaning sisters always run into. We shouldn't have too long to find out. The flick will start shooting in Albuquerque next week.