At the heart of Joshua Oppenheimer’s new documentary, The Act of Killing, is an interesting experiment. The general conceit is that he’s contacting mass murderers who are living in a culture that celebrates rather than vilifies their crimes against humanity, and he’s challenging them to film reenactments of the murders they’ve carried out in their real lives, but in the dramatic film genre of their choice. As you can see in the new trailer for the doc, some of their short films end up looking like crime films, some experimental art films, and some gaudy Bollywood musicals, but the tie that binds them all together is that they’re really disturbing to watch, and they just may leave you examining how you react to the murder you see so frequently projected up on the big screen, and why it is you react the way you do.

What is Casting Couch? Today it’s the last bits of casting news coming in for the week. That’s it, it’s the weekend, it’s time to see movies that are out, not read about movies that haven’t been made yet. Before we go though, let’s cap things off with news about Bond Girl Rosamund Pike. As sad as everyone is over Jon Stewart taking a 12 week hiatus from The Daily Show, the silver lining in the story is that he’s taking the time off to try his hand at directing movies, so at least we’ll get to see what a Jon Stewart-directed movie looks like. So far what we know is that it looks like a dramatization of the life of Maziar Bahari, a journalist who was imprisoned and tortured in Iran for 118 days, and that it’s going to be called Rosewater, because that’s what the guy doing the torturing smelled of. The new news here is that we now also know what Stewart’s version of Bahari is going to look like, because The Wrap is reporting that he just cast Gael Garcia Bernal in the role. Who he’ll cast as Jon Stewart in the scene where Bahari goes on The Daily Show is anybody’s guess, but I vote Jason Momoa.

In celebration for its newly-acquired U.S. distribution rights, the first official look at Naomi Watts as Princess Diana in Oliver Hirschbiegel‘s biopic, Diana (previously known as Caught in Flight), has just hit the web. And…she looks suitably blond and hair-helmeted! She also looks dead serious, and considering the film follows the end of the princess’ life and her love affair with Dr. Hasnat Khan, such calm focus is to be expected. It’s not the first time Watts has changed up her look to play a famous blonde – remember that “first look” at her as Marilyn Monroe from (seemingly) a million years ago? Yeah, still holding out on that one, Andrew Dominik. Diana will be released in time for Oscar season, so get ready to see plenty more of those hair wings in the coming months. [Deadline Hollywood, via /Film]

Want to drop a major piece of casting news? Let it loose on the Friday before the season’s first holiday weekend. Deadline Hollywood reports the genuinely surprising news that Tom Cruise has quit the already-beleaguered The Man from U.N.C.L.E. feature he has been attached to since March. The film has already been through a few incarnations, most notably when it was set to be directed by Steven Soderbergh with George Clooney starring, but it looked to finally be on track with Guy Ritchie directing and Armie Hammer co-starring as one half of an agent duo from the United Network Command for Law Enforcement. Cruise has reportedly stepped aside because of good old-fashioned scheduling conflicts, as he is now turning his attention to producing and starring in that upcoming Mission: Impossible sequel (the fifth film in the franchise). With U.N.C.L.E. still set to film this fall, Cruise seemingly had way too much on his plate to do both.

We’ve been hearing about director Franck Khalfoun’s remake of Maniac for quite a while now. Heck, it was a full year ago when its first red band trailer was released and we got to see our first glimpse of Elijah Wood playing a psycho mannequin shop owner who stalks women and cuts them up. One thing we haven’t gotten to see though, at least here in the United States, is the entire movie. That’s about to change, because the film is finally set to roll out a limited theatrical release here in the US starting on June 21, and IFC Films has decided to release a brand new poster and trailer combo [originally via Apple] in order to mark the occasion. Click through to check out the studio’s last ditch efforts at enticing you to pay money to watch Frodo getting creepy.

What is Casting Couch? It’s a tireless wanderer that scours the Internet in search for news of actors getting hired to appear in movies. Today it’s found more, including new roles for Rhys Ifans and Monica Bellucci. With his latest film, Frances Ha, just getting ready to expand beyond New York and LA this weekend, director Noah Baumbach now turns his attention to his next project, a story about an older couple striking up a friendship with a younger couple called While We’re Young. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts have been on board to play the older couple, and Girls star Adam Driver is official for the younger male, but the search for the female half of the younger couple has been an ongoing process. It’s an ongoing process that’s likely to soon come to an end though, because The Wrap is reporting that Amanda Seyfried has emerged as the potential candidate to play the free-spirited young lass, and she’s even cleared some room in her schedule to make it happen. Sounds like it’s nearly a done deal.

Call it the Fast and Furious effect, but this new trailer for Ron Howard‘s Rush certainly seems far sexier and speedier than the last look we got at the fact-based racing tale. Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl face off in the film as Formula 1 drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda, talented and celebrated drivers who became mired in one of sport’s greatest rivalries back in the seventies. While the first trailer made no bones about the drama of the film – Lauda was the victim of a horrific race crash that nearly claimed his life, burnt his body, and sent him into a coma, and he still came back to race Hunt – this new look is all fast cars, fast cuts, and even a glimpse of a couple of stars getting it on in the shower. The film also stars Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara, Stephen Mangan, Christian McKay, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Jamie de Courcey, Pierfrancesco Favino, and Natalie Dormer so, like we said, sexy. After the break, check out the pulse-pounding new trailer for Rush.

Chad Hartigan‘s Sundance entry, This Is Martin Bonner, quietly snuck up on audiences this past January, with the character-driven tale eventually picking up the Audience Award for the Best of NEXT section. Starring Paul Eenhoorn as the eponymous character, the film centers on Martin’s late-in-life transition from a full (but complicated) life on the East coast to a quiet and unassuming one in Reno. Bankrupt, Martin takes on his first job in two years – a volunteer gig that sees him helping newly released inmates transition back into normal life. In the course of his work, Martin makes an unexpected new friend in former prisoner Travis (Richmond Arquette), a relationship that is soon put to the test. Get to know Martin, Travis, and their unexpectedly stirring collision in our exclusive first trailer for This Is Martin Bonner, after the break.

Can we all just agree that Jennifer Aniston has a great body? Not just for a 44 year old mind you, but a great body period? I think if she knew we were all in agreement she might stop relying on the need to expose it in movies and instead focus on finding smart scripts with interesting characters. Not that I’m making any kind of premature judgement on her latest film, We’re the Millers, based on the brand new red band trailer below. Jason Sudeikis stars as a drug dealer who agrees to smuggle a smidge of pot across the border from Mexico for a very wealthy man (Ed Helms). The plan is simple. Rent a wife, two children, and an RV, and then avoid border suspicion by looking like nothing more than a happy family on vacation. Aniston plays a stripper he hires as his wife, and Emma Roberts and Will Poulter play their lovable children. The rest of the cast includes Nick Offerman, Kathryn Hahn, Thomas Lennon and Tomer Sisley. Check out Aniston’s fleshy bits in the trailer below!

It’s clear what you’re thinking. “How could anyone as perfectly quaffed and frequently shirtless as Zac Efron be anything other than a totally trustworthy person?” It’s a valid question, but one that’s going to be put to the test as Fox asks him to tap into his traitorous side to star in a new project they’re putting together called Narc. To be penned by studio-employed scribe Grant Meyers, Narc is being described as a college-set Donnie Brasco, which essentially means that it’s taking the plot of Donnie Brasco and changing it so that the studio can exclusively cast attractive young people—which isn’t really a bad idea at all.

Hey, it certainly sounds better than Twixt. THR reports that Francis Ford Coppola is readying a new feature that should appeal to more of his traditional fanbase. The film is currently untitled, but the outlet reports that it “will chronicle an Italian-American family and span from the 1930s to the 1960s.” The project is also described as “a coming-of-age story that focuses on a boy and girl in their late teens.” While details are obviously slim as of now, The Wrap’s Jeff Snider also tweeted today that “Dance will be a key element in the new Francis Ford Coppola movie. That’s all, folks.” So that’s…something. Oh, is this going to be a new Dirty Dancing? Is that it? Coppola is currently writing the screenplay himself, and while the project has no firm studio commitments (despite having offices on the Paramount lot), a pair of casting directors have already been brought on (Courtney Bright and Nicole Daniels, who just cast daughter Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring). If the film does focus on a pair of teens, it will likely prove to be a big step forward for whomever they cast, as Coppola at least still has an eye for emerging young talent (see Twixt’s Elle Fanning and Tetro‘s Alden Ehrenreich for proof of that). 

If someone was to possibly say that they expected Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s directorial debut, a film about porn addiction that debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, to be a serious affair and that they maybe they laughed for five straight minutes when the film introduced Gordon-Levitt’s character, a Jersey Shore reject to top all Jersey Shore rejects and then probably had to quickly rearrange all their expectations in order to fully enjoy the funny, sharp, and insightful film that followed, you wouldn’t judge that person, would you? Question their credentials? No? Great! Yup, Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon (formerly known as Don Jon’s Addiction) centers on his Jon Martello’s addiction to internet porn, while also tracking the highs and lows of his new romantic relationship with Scarlett Johansson‘s sexy Barbara Sugarman (just call her B-Woww), but it’s not Shame for the porn set. Instead, it’s just very funny and very witty and it’s definitely got something to say about modern romance in a time of flimsy pop culture. Get some good vibrations and check out the first trailer for Don Jon after the break.

In other words, it’s got red on it. Except it’s blue this time. But it’s still blood, so it totally counts. Plus, that’s exactly the kind of subtle, layered joke that fans should expect from Edgar Wright (along with several failed attempts at climbing fences), and The World’s End appears to deliver. In the film, a crew of friends (including Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) reunite to finally complete an epic pub crawl that went unfinished in their youth. As they attempt to get schmammered, they discover they’re in the middle of a giant robot invasion. The first teaser trailer was a delightful nudge, but this full trailer is a slice of fried gold:

It’s official. Supervillains breaking into our TV feeds to deliver sloppily edited messages to the masses is something we have to deal with in our summer comic book blockbusters now. We saw The Mandarin do it continually in Iron Man 3, and apparently he gave Zod the log-in codes, because the Superman baddie is interrupting your Sports Center rerun in this new trailer for Man of Steel. What to say at this point? By now we’ve all seen a half dozen trailers for the Zack Snyder movie coming June 14th, and you probably already know whether you’re buying a ticket for opening weekend or not. It’s doubtful that anything in this new look will convince the unconvinced or suddenly shock the true believers (no matter how many punches they line up with musical beats). On the other hand, it’s great to see a movie finally have a villain ransom a superhero’s identity/capture against the well-being of society at large. Check out Zod’s demands for yourself:

If you’re anywhere near being a vampire fanatic, then chances are pretty good you know who Neil Jordan is, because he’s the guy who directed Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in the adaptation of Anne Rice’s famous vampire story Interview with the Vampire. Well, it turns out Jordan must have developed a taste for those who have a taste for human blood, because his latest film, Byzantium, is also about undead bloodsuckers. Perhaps even more important than what it’s about though is the fact that Byzantium is a gorgeously shot epic that stars Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton. This is important because Ronan is clearly one of the strongest young actors working, and Arterton could possibly be as well, although I’ve only seen her in mostly terrible movies, but she sure is pretty though, and, oh—just go watch the trailer. It’s got vampires that kill people with coke nails.

What is Casting Couch? It’s a rundown of recent news about actors getting new jobs. Today it’s mostly focused on handsome young fellows like Gael Garcia Bernal, Hayden Christensen, and Dylan O’Brien. Due to the fact that they’ve both been constantly working, prolific actors for an unmentionable number of decades, it’s kind of hard to believe that Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman have never appeared in a movie together; but apparently that’s the case. There’s one for the trivia buffs out there. Now one for the news hounds: apparently that streak is about to be broken. Myriad Pictures has announced [via Coming Soon] that the duo are now set to co-star in a comedy called Life Itself, which will see them playing a married couple who decide to make a mint by putting the New York City apartment they’ve spent most of their lives in on the market, but who then end up having second thoughts about trading all of their memories for cold, hard cash.

If nothing else, a new trailer for James Mangold‘s The Wolverine serves one purpose – to remind us that the Hugh Jackman-starring film is coming out during the already-crammed summer blockbuster season. No knocks on the clawed one here, but am I the only one who can’t seem to remember that we’re getting a brand new X-Men tale within the next two months? That can’t be good, right? Especially when this one involves Logan going to Japan, getting all emo, and meeting up with a bunch of cool Marvel characters, including the Silver Samurai. Shouldn’t this be more on our radar? Wait, did we say an emo Wolverine? Oh, that might be the problem right there. Snooze. After the break, check out the newest trailer for The Wolverine, you know, if you’re still interested.

I knew I recognized Kings of Summer director Jordan Vogt-Roberts‘ name, and it took me a second, but then I realized that he’s the mind behind the incredibly funny short film Successful Alcoholics – a realization that instantly put this coming of age tale on my personal must-see list. Of course I’m late to the game because tons of people have been eagerly awaiting this one since it emerged from Sundance with a lot of love, showcased a fun trailer, and boasted a stellar cast that includes Nick Offerman, Alison Brie, Megan Mullally, Mary Lynn Rajskub and several newcomers. Now its red band trailer is here, and while there aren’t a ton of adult situations in it, it’s easy to see why the road to maturity detours through a phase of slicing fruit mid-air in your own personal paradise. Check it out for yourself:

Brimming with touches of a psilocybin-laced Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the trailer for Ben Wheatley‘s A Field in England promises a treasure hunt, screaming freakouts and total damnation. In its mysteriously simple synopsis, a band of deserters run from an English Civil War battle and becoming engaged in a search for buried loot. Somewhere along the way, mushrooms (or something psychedelic) gets involved. Most will want to see it based on Wheatley’s name alone, anyway. The director behind Kill List earned a lot of sharp acclaim for his vision and knack for upsetting, deeply trenchant storytelling. He then followed it with Sightseers and proved his chops with black comedy even further. And now, this:

If the Cannes Film Festival is good for anything, it’s letting a select few people see great movies that the rest of us are going to have to wait months to get our eyeballs on. In one respect it’s a tantalizing glimpse at our film future, and in the other it’s a torturous tease that only gives us whispers about unattainable pleasures. Every once in a while a film debuting at Cannes will at least release a trailer around the same time though, so those of us not at the festival can get a taste of what we’re missing, and this seems to be the case with Guillaume Canet’s first English-language film as a director, Blood Ties. You should be warned that there’s some naughty language in the clip that lies below, but if that isn’t the sort of thing that offends you, then you’re going to want to click through and watch, because Blood Ties is a 70s-set crime drama that stars Clive Owen, Mila Kunis, Billy Crudup, Marion Cotillard, Zoe Saldana, Matthias Schoenaerts, and James Caan, and if you’re not willing to admit that you have a crush on at least a handful of those people, then you’re just a liar. A stinking liar.