What is Casting Couch? It’s a casting news column that has a theory casting agents are kind of just coasting going into the Thanksgiving holiday. Bryan Cranston. For a long time he was viewed as being an under appreciated character actor, or even “the dad from Malcolm in the Middle,” but these days he’s basically the most universally beloved actor in the business. It’s amazing what cooking meth in your tighty-whities can do for your career. What a coup for the upcoming crime drama, Eye of Winter, then, that it’s landed Cranston as its lead. He’ll be playing a blind criminal who takes a struggling motel owner (Alive Eve) and her daughter hostage so that they can be his eyes while he attempts to retrieve a package from a crooked cop (Logan Marshall Green). Tze Chun (Children of Invention) will direct and has co-written alongside Osgood Perkins and Nick Simon. [Variety]

Sometimes, it’s hard to avoid longing for the good old days, when movies about historic figures were about those historic figures and not the slapdash way they might be jammed into a straightforward genre piece. That’s clearly a passé way of thinking in the age of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, but sometimes old-school is the way to go. The life of Edgar Allan Poe was fascinating and mysterious enough to warrant a new movie about it, to be sure. You could call it The Raven and cast John Cusack as your lead. Amusingly enough, there is indeed a movie opening in theaters this weekend called The Raven and it does star Cusack as Poe. Unfortunately, it’s basically a waste of time, forgoing the opportunity to tell the poet’s extraordinary story for a mundane detective narrative that recasts him as Sherlock Holmes (the one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created, not Guy Ritchie).

There’s some action going on over at J.J. Abrams’ super secret lair where he makes all of his super secret movies, and Variety has the scoop. Apparently his upcoming Star Trek sequel calls for even more attractive young actors than his original go around with the franchise did, because he’s been testing actresses like Theresa Palmer, Hayley Atwell, and Alice Eve to play a character new to Star Trek canon. And after all the tests were tested and the deliberations were deliberated, it’s looking like Eve is the first choice of Abrams and crew to become the newest member of the Star Trek universe. She hasn’t officially signed yet, but sources expect it to happen soon. Eve is kind of a wild card casting in my eyes. Mostly she’s done a bunch of TV series and the Sex and the City sequel, so I don’t have much of a basis to form an opinion on her as an actress. I did see her starring turn in She’s Out of My League though, and I remember that not only was I presently surprised by how palatable that film was as a whole, but I kind of walked out of the theater having a crush on Eve as well. She’s pretty and charming, so high five Star Trek 2!

“I will send you to hell!” You know, I’m not quite sure The Raven is going to be an accurate bio pic of Edgar Allan Poe. The Se7en-esque murder mystery aside, why isn’t Poe acting like a big alcoholic in this portrait of his final days? Where’s the binge drinking? Where’s a mean drunk? Sadly, an intoxicated John Cusack is nowhere to be found.

In 2004, the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, Facebook was founded, and the United States finally lifted their decades-old travel ban against Libya. Perhaps more importantly, at Comic-Con that year, Michael Chiklis, Jessica Alba, and Ioan Gruffudd took to the stage to discuss filming their upcoming feature Fantastic Four and to present the partial cast to rabid fans who had been sifting through rumors months and months before. Now, friends, it’s time to start that process all over again. Because 2004 is such a vague memory.

It had previously been reported that She’s Out of My League object of affection Alice Eve was due to play Emma Frost in Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming (and quickly casting) X-Men: First Class. But that has changed today, as its been announced that Mad Men star January Jones will shed her Betty Draper garb and get down with some early onset mutations. She is joined by Zoe Kravitz, who will play Angel (this according to Deadline Knoxville). Speculation is rampant as to whether this is misinformation (Kravitz feels more like a young Storm to me), or just a misprint that Nikki Finke will never cop to. Either way, Kravitz is in alongside Mrs. Draper, Morgan Lily (who will play a 10-year old Mystique) and Bill Milner, who will play the younger version of Michael Fassbender’s Magneto. All of this is new in the last 24 hours. We look forward to more rampant casting to continue as the film speeds toward its upcoming start date. For those who missed it earlier in the week, Winter’s Bone breakout star Jennifer Lawrence also signed on to star as Mystique (the older, but not that much older version). That’s good stuff. I feel a breakdown article coming… [Deadline]

As the only literate Reject, it’s my duty to find the latest, the greatest and the untouched classics that would make great source material for film adaptations. I read so you don’t have to. This week, Print to Projector presents: American Virgin by Steven T. Seagle Art by Becky Cloonan and Frank Quitely “I’m a virgin.” Synopsis Young Christian author and evangelist Adam Chamberlain extols the beauty of abstinence on speaking tours but has his faith and humanity tested when he learns that his girlfriend Cassie has been beheaded while doing missionary work in Africa. He joins up with his sexually liberal step-sister to go find out what happened, leaving his Neocon mother and delinquent brother behind to spin further down a rabbit hole of cross-dressing, pornography and God.

She’s Out of My League object of affection Alice Eve is in talks with Fox to play Emma Frost in Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class, a project that is ramping up casting with the quickness. Several weeks back, rumors emerged that Fox and Vaughn were looking at Rosamund Pike for the role of young Emma, but at the time even we thought it out of place. Pike is lovely, but she was a bit out of the age range for this young mutant saga. Eve is right in the sweet spot, if you know what I mean.

Late last week, as rumored swirled about who would play the damsel to the hero Captain America, many pundits seemed fixated on Alice Eve, the star of the recent Paramount release She’s Out of My League. She was the bigger name of the candidates remaining after the likes of Emily Blunt and Keira Knightley dropped out. But she wasn’t alone — there was one other name on that list: Hayley Atwell.

Last week our secret phone line upon which we receive news tips and order pizza was ringing off the hook about Captain America. This week we’re hearing not about Chris Evans, or Sebastian Stan, but about the lady who may join them on-screen.

Kevin Carr sits his chubbiness down weighs in on Green Zone, Remember Me and She’s Out of My League.

About a week ago now, I had a chance to sit down and screen She’s Out of My League, the latest sex comedy from the folks at Paramount. It was quite funny, filled with several hilarious moments. Such as this one…

If you’ve ever wanted to see one man shave another man’s bathroom places, this is the video for you.

Paramount Pictures has released the first trailer for She’s Out of My League, starring comedic star-of-tomorrow Jay Baruchel and newcomer Alice Eve. Get this, the film is about a lovable loser who dates a hot girl.

This highfalutin, silly immigration drama from writer-director Wayne Kramer wastes a lot of terrific actors.