What is Casting Couch? It’s back to give you another healthy dose of casting news. If you don’t like spoilers, then don’t continue forward, because we’ve got some big time spoilers concerning a couple of Anchorman 2 cameos. Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry, and Clark Duke are all ready to don their swimsuits to go for another soak in the Hot Tub Time Machine, but they have a problem. It turns out that the star of the first film, John Cusack, doesn’t want to join them. Never fear though, because The Wrap is reporting that Party Down and Parks and Recreation star Adam Scott has agreed to step into the role of the straight man for Hot Tub Time Machine 2, and he’s generally way more likable than Cusack these days anyway. What will this sequel have in store for Scott and the original crew? Will they perhaps, this time, go back in time to the 90s, so that we can get a host of jokes about slap bracelets and Zubaz pants? The head spins with possibilities.

Mark L. Mann‘s narrative feature debut, Generation Um…, shows the fun and terror that evolves out of someone getting his first camera. In the movie, John (Keanu Reeves) steals a video camera, turning him into a guy who enjoys filming squirrels and his two friends falling apart. Basically, he’s the worst indie filmmaker walking the streets of New York, which is saying a lot. It’s a movie that relies more on mood, a feeling that Mann created on 16mm running around New York streets and a claustrophobic apartment. He wasn’t the only one in control of the camera, though. Within the film we John’s own footage, which Reeves shot himself. According to Mann, that footage allows the introverted John to express himself. We spoke with Reeves and Mann about the character’s internalization, filming on 16mm and more:

When used properly, Keanu Reeves can be quite effective. Perhaps his California slacker-voiced persona doesn’t fly in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but it certainly works in Point Break or Speed. Unfortunately, in Mark L. Mann’s Generation Um…, nary a thing is “used properly.” Reeves is perhaps marginally the best thing in this film, since he merely exists in front of the camera. Though he is amidst a sea of overacting, a preponderance of static, boring footage, and bad attempts at non-linear storytelling. In fact, it’s almost difficult to pinpoint a plot in this film at all. John (Reeves) is a Lower East Side-based driver for two young callgirls, Violet (Bojana Novakovic) and Mia (Adelaide Clemens), though he seems to hang out with them recreationally as well. It’s John’s birthday, and after stealing a large handheld camera from a group of hula hooping cowboys (yes, you read that correctly), he starts filming everything, from the water coming out of a drinking fountain, to Violet and Mia snorting coke, drinking red wine, and spilling the details of their sexual histories.

More like Generation Uh, What? In Mark L. Mann‘s Generation Um…, Keanu Reeves apparently reaches the nexus of his career as he plays John, a shiftless New Yorker who spends his time as a driver for an escort service. Perhaps all you need to know about John’s career is that he drives his “party girls” around in an old station wagon; you see, things aren’t going so well for either John or his main hangs, Violet (Bojana Novakovic) and Mia (Adelaide Clemens), but everything takes a sharp left turn when John steals a camcorder and sets about recording his dismal life. It looks depressing as hell. Check out the first ennui- and crime-filled trailer for Generation Um… after the break.

“90 seconds Johnny. That’s all I ask for, just 90 seconds of your life, Johnny, that’s it. This is our tactic, is we strike fear. Once you get them peeing down their leg, they submit. Also about fear, fear causes hesitation, and hesitation causes your worst fears to come true.” – Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) As Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty is about to be released (limited opening this Wednesday) and is already getting lauded as a masterpiece, it is difficult not to take pause and think of her past works. Sure, The Hurt Locker won a Best Picture Oscar, but, it is hard to argue that any of her films have struck such a resonant chord in the hearts of film nerds and pop culture at large as Point Break. The movie features Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves at the peak of their physical beauty. It has dozens of quotable quotes, ranging from “Vaya con dios, brah” to “Little hand says it’s time to rock ‘n roll.” There are also not one, but TWO skydiving sequences. More important than anything else, though, Point Break is a legitimately great film. Bigelow’s action sequences are shot to perfection and the grandiosity of testosterone-infused bromance and is downright awe-inspiring. Also, poor Keanu Reeves gets a lot of flack for being a bad actor, yet as Point Break more than proves, when used properly, Keanu can be very effective. His Johnny Utah can emote with the best of them, perform the hell out of any action

Gabriele Muccino is one of Italy’s few exports, and his mainstream US work is a toss up between the tearful Pursuit of Happyness and the equally-tearful-but-for-different-reasons Seven Pounds. One further cemented Will Smith as a serious acting talent, and the other one called it into question. We’ll see Muccino’s latest mainstream attempt when Playing For Keeps – starring Gerard Butler as a former soccer star trying to get his family life together – hits theaters on December 7th. It could be a chance at redemption for Butler’s character and for Muccino. After that, he’s got a few Italian productions lined up, including the thriller Il Colpo (The Blow), he’ll be directing a segment for the anthology Shanghai, I Love You, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, he’s prepping a science fiction movie that he’d like Keanu Reeves to star in. This is really interesting, considering that in 2010, he was set up with Reeves for the sci-fi Passengers, where Reeves would play an astronaut who wakes up way too early from hyper-sleep and wakes up a female astronaut so he doesn’t go crazy. However, screenwriter Jon Spaihts recently told us Muccino was out and a new director was in the hot seat. Could Muccino be back on board just a few months after that statement? It sounds likely. The other option, of course, is that Muccino has a different sci-fi project in mind and still wants to work with Reeves. Either way, it seems plausible that we’ll see a genre

So far all of the news we’ve gotten about the development of a third Bill & Ted film has come from the franchise’s Bill S. Preston, Esquire, Alex Winter, so it’s about time that the other half of the equation, its Ted Theodore Logan, Keanu Reeves, got into the beans spilling game. The last we heard about the potential project, Galaxy Quest director Dean Parisot had been attached to helm, but the film, which was written on spec, still hadn’t found funding. Well, that’s still where we’re at as far as development goes, but recently Reeves talked to GQ (via Movies.com) about the project, and he managed to give us a better idea of what the script Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson wrote is all about. We already knew that the film would involve an aging Bill and Ted who are still trying to get their Wyld Stallyns thing together, but Reeves explains exactly where the duo is at as far as their music career is concerned: “One of the plot points is that these two people have been crushed by the responsibility of having to write the greatest song ever written and to change the world. And they haven’t done it. So everybody is kind of like: ‘Where is the song?’ The guys have just drifted off into esoterica and lost their rock. And we go on this expedition, go into the future to find out if we wrote the song, and one future ‘us’ refuses to tell us,

The last time we checked in on the progress of Bill & Ted 3, the screen’s Bill S. Preston, Esq., Alex Winter, informed us that both he and the actor who portrayed “Ted” Theodore Logan, Keanu Reeves, were very much on board to make another sequel, a script for the film had been completed, and everybody was very happy with how it read. Unfortunately, the movie still wasn’t officially green lit by anyone, and wasn’t guaranteed to ever actually happen. Happily, there’s some new movement regarding the project that suggests we may be one step closer to the glorious fantasy of Bill & Ted 3 getting financed becoming a reality. Vulture is reporting that Bill & Ted creators Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson (who wrote this third Bill & Ted movie on spec) have attached director Dean Parisot to their script, joining both principal actors in a tidy little package that’s likely to look fairly attractive to studios. Parisot mostly busies himself with TV work, but he did also direct the well-liked satire Galaxy Quest back in 1999, so he’s no stranger to big screen comedy.

If one were to conduct a scientific study meant to determine what the most successful action movie of the 90s was, chances are pretty dang good that Speed would be near the top of the candidates for consideration. A success both financially and critically, this high-octane tale of a bomb on a perpetually moving bus solidified Keanu Reeves as one of Hollywood’s go-to leading men, launched the gigantic career of Sandra Bullock, and even gave its director, Jan de Bont, a success to add to his resume. All of that should be enough to solidify Speed’s place as one of the most important 90s action movies already, and we haven’t even factored in how it also managed to introduce the phrase, “Pop quiz, hotshot,” into the cultural lexicon. So, pop quiz, hotshot: Die Hard was the greatest action movie ever made, but its sequel, Die Hard 2, was a derivative bore churned out by one of the most prolific manufacturers of schlock of the last few decades, Renny Harlin. What do you do? You get the director of the original, the inimitable John McTiernan, to come back for the third film, Die Hard With a Vengeance. DHWAV, from what I can tell, isn’t hated. It’s widely considered to be the second-best entry in the Die Hard franchise, it certainly made its makers some money, and it doesn’t get derided as the death of the franchise like the belated fourth sequel, Live Free or Die Hard, does. But it doesn’t get

Kathryn Bigelow is the sort of director who’s been defying perceived gender limitations her entire career. The biggest of those accomplishments came when she became the first woman in history to win the Oscar for Best Director. Her Oscar-winning film, The Hurt Locker, was a tense look at military bomb defusers that created more movie chills than 99% of the horror films that get released in any given year. And it showcased a strong performance from Jeremy Renner that essentially made his career and catapulted him toward being one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Before she ever won her Oscar, however, she was already defying expectations by shattering the myth that a woman couldn’t direct kick-ass action movies. Her 1991 film Point Break is probably one of the most manly movies ever made. It’s about extreme sports-loving adrenaline junky bank robbers, and it stars Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze as the cops and robbers. But, despite the fact that Point Break has a cult audience, it’s viewed by most as being a guilty pleasure, a relic of the early ’90s when cheesy action movies ruled the day. Maybe it’s because Keanu is milking his dense, surfer persona for all it’s worth, or because the movie is so unapologetically an action film, but people just don’t take Point Break seriously these days. And that sucks, because it’s really well-made.

This past spring marked the thirteenth year since the release of the groundbreaking cyberpunk actioner The Matrix. This seems a bit arbitrary, but if American Pie can have a reunion of sorts thirteen years down the line, why not take this opportunity to revisit one of the true game-changers in cinema history? If you’re brave enough, follow this white rabbit of a drinking game through all three films, though we don’t recommend you do them in quick succession. It’s going to be tough to get through that first Agent Smith playground battle in The Matrix Reloaded as it is. Still, it’s a great time to pull out your VHS, DVD or Blu-ray of the original The Matrix and enjoy watching it from the desert of the real. You just might start to believe that you are not in Los Angeles in 1999.

Over a year ago it was announced that director Gabriele Muccino (Pursuit of Happiness) was going to helm Passengers, a long-in-development sci-fi love story. The film has been at Keanu Reeves‘s own Company Films, with Reeves also intending to star in the project. Now we know Muccino will not be making Passengers, as he was never officially set to direct the film to begin with (though he was once attached to the project), according to writer Jon Spaihts. For those of you who are unaware of Passengers, our Cole Abauis so eloquently described it as being “focused on a poor astronaut who wakes up almost a century before everyone else in hyper-sleep, so he also dooms a beautiful woman to loneliness so that he doesn’t have to grow a beard and slowly go crazy. Or so he can woo her with his flowery prose and energetic line delivery.” Earlier today I spoke with Prometheus co-writer Jon Spaihts, who gave us an update on the project. For starters, Spaihts says the film has gotten a financier and may not be too far off, ”We are well into development. We have a marvelous director, a financier that stepped up very generously, and we’re making final tweaks and polishes. I suspect you’ll hear announcements sooner rather than later.”

The Mayans, the wise race of ancients who created hot cocoa, set December 21st, 2012 as the end date of their Calendar, which the intelligent and logical amongst us know signifies the day the world will end, presumably at 12:21:12am, Mountain Time. From now until zero date, we will explore the 50 films you need to watch before the entire world perishes. We don’t have much time, so be content, be prepared, be entertained. The Film: The Matrix (1999) The Plot: At the tail end of hacking being considered cool, a cool hacker is approached by other cool, smartly dressed hackers about fighting the man. But seriously now, Neo, a whipsmart hacker, is recruited by an underground movement only to realize his entire existence has been lived inside of a machine. Foreseen to be “The One” who will free humanity, Neo must master himself within the virtual world to topple the evil computer overlords.

Woody Allen is a legendary filmmaker, to be certain. But he’s also a filmmaker who is perceived to have had a golden age, a period where the movies he made were head and shoulders above the things that he makes now. That’s not such a great place for an artist to be, but Woody managed to shut up a lot of his critics with Midnight in Paris. It’s not only one of Allen’s most financially successful films, it’s also one of his most critically acclaimed, and it’s been held up as proof that we might be in the midst of a Woody comeback. Is it really worthy of all the hype though? Lots of people love this movie—like me—but it’s also a film that has glaring flaws. What is it about Midnight in Paris that makes our Internet culture, that is so quick to tear everything down with snark, give it such an easy pass? Back in 1989 Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was also a huge success. It made so much money that it spawned not only a sequel, but also an animated series, video games, and who knows how many other kinds of merchandise that time forgot. Yet, despite this success, it’s not a film that many people take seriously. There’s a love for it still, but one that seems more ironic than anything else. Why is that so, when there’s so much respect for the other big genre hits of the 80s? Why doesn’t this film get

Ever since Keanu Reeves intimated that he was into the idea of doing a third Bill & Ted movie, it’s been pretty hard to focus on anything other than how awesome it would be to see him and Alex Winter get back together to play the adult versions of their dim-bulb, metalhead characters. So, we should all thank Coming Soon for compiling a couple of reassuring quotes that point to the fact that Bill & Ted 3 might be entering production sooner rather than later. First, Reeves mentioned the prospective project once again while doing an interview with The Independent. When asked about the long-rumored third film he replied, “Yeah, we have a script. We’re trying to put it together. It’s a good script too.” That’s encouraging, but not too different from things we’ve heard about this one before. The second uncovered quote points to the fact that a third excellent adventure is one step closer to becoming a reality, however. When asked about the movie on Twitter, Alex Winter responded to a fan and former Bill & Ted extra by saying, “Script done? Check. -We love it? Check. -Green light? Working on it!”

How news of remakes continues to shock me, I’ll never know. There’s been buzz about a Point Break remake for a while now, but Warner Bros. and Alcon Entertainment have finally decided to just get totally radical and announce their planned remake of the 1991 Kathryn Bigelow  film that remains a cinematic classic for surfers, stoners, Angelenos, adrenaline junkies, idiots, and Keanu Reeves fan everywhere (hey, back up, I count myself as one of those idiots). Alcon snatched up the rights for the film on the eve of its twentieth anniversary, with co-founders and co-CEO’s Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove set to produce the new project, along with Michael DeLuca, John Baldecchi, Chris Taylor, and Kurt Wimmer. As previously rumored, Wimmer penned the screenplay for the remake (hat tip to our pals over Twitch for reporting on this way back in June). The film is without a director as of yet, but it’s being “fast tracked” with a helmer search launching soon. The new Point Break will, in both completely inexplicable and totally expected news, not necessarily take place in the world of surfing, but “in the world of international extreme sports.” What, like street luge? Parkour? Say it’s parkour, please say it’s parkour. But the remake will still focus on “an undercover FBI agent infiltrating a criminal ring.” That’s all we’ve got for now. Wait, isn’t that The Fast and the Furious? Just tell me said FBI agent has a Johnny Utah-esque name, and all will be forgiven. Frankie New

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column and link collector that is tired of explaining itself to you, quite frankly. Drew McWeeney at HitFix got the scoop this evening on a big story, in which Harry Potter director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves will be re-teaming to do a multi-film version of Stephen King’s epic The Stand. The hope here is that Yates can give it that Deathly Hallows scope, something the work of Stephen King has long deserved, but never really received. With The Dark Tower on the ropes, this could become a new fixation for King fans.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; lords of the gridiron…or at least the waffle iron. Strap on your helmet and conceal any benefits you received from agents during college because you have just been drafted to the NFL; the Nefarious Film Lovers…League. Ok, so it’s the NFLL, shut up! Every week we tackle a bad movie to the roaring delight of over eight people. And we don’t just tackle the movie, we tackle it like we’re Ray Lewis with a playoff game on the line and the ref’s just been stricken with blindness. But then, just before the internet starts throwing penalty flags at us, we enter free agency, join up with the film, and use our unabashed love for it to help this underdog win a championship of warped film appreciation. Finally, after months of heated debate that ultimately muddied the issue and pushed us closer to the edge of complete anarchy…the NFL lockout is over. We can finally stop troubling ourselves with petty nuisances like defaulting on our national debts and get back to what really matters: overpaid sweaty guys knocking the snot out of each other. In honor of this jubilant occasion, I decided to run an all-out blitz on a film from  2000 whose premise eerily mirrors recent events. This week’s play: The Replacements

Ever fired your gun in the air and yelled, “Aaaaaaah?” Former college quarterback Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) is a rookie FBI agent in the 98th percentile of his class at Quantico. On his first assignment, he’s sent to L.A. County – bank robbery capital of the world – to bust the notorious Ex-Presidents. This unstoppable gang of thieves has hit 27 banks in three years, working with speed and surgical precision. Pappas (Gary Busey), Utah’s veteran partner, suspects they’re surfers. Obviously, Utah is going to have to learn how to surf so he can go undercover, get the girl, and bring the bad guys to justice. Whoa.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly column dedicated to things happening in the world of entertainment. It’s also deathly afraid of Kevin Bacon. It would like to reassess it’s number of degrees and somehow increase from its usual 2 to at least 8. That way Mr. Bacon and his X-Men character can’t clamp its nether regions in the contraption above. At least we think that’s what that thing is. We begin our night with X-Men: First Class and a massive dump of images over at Gamma Squad. From high-res shots of the meticulously crafted costumes to high-res shots of cool CGI mutants to a high-res shot of whatever the hell Kevin Bacon is doing in the photo above. I almost don’t want to know. But I do, because this movie continues to look better and better with every little marketing bit.