You haven’t lived until you’ve seen drunk Morgan Freeman. The actor has been having a lot of fun lately with his roles, but none of them compare to whatever is going on in Last Vegas. In fact, as Old Dogs Meets The Hangover as it sounds, the trailer for this movie starring Michael Douglas, Kevin Kline, Robert De Niro and Freeman actually makes it look like a bit of harmless fun. Probably not a lot of fun, but fun. Of course, it also looks like a vacation for wealthy actors and director Jon Turtletaub. This is what retirement looks like for living legends. Broad humor, twenty-something eye candy and fruity drinks. Oh, and they probably made a movie somewhere in there. Check out the trailer for yourself:

What is Casting Couch? Your daily dose of casting news. Today we’ve got a new job for Viola Davis as well as word on who the next actor to mutate for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past will be. According to Heat Vision, Robert De Niro and Shia LaBeouf are both in negotiations to take the starring roles in an upcoming espionage thriller called Spy’s Kid. That’s, Spy’s Kid, not Spy Kids, which is something totally different. What’s this one about? It’s based on the true story of a CIA operative named Jim Nicholson who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 23 years in prison, but who kept the family business alive by teaching his son how to ply his trade from jail. Shady deals with Russian operatives followed. Alongside De Niro and LaBeouf negotiating to star, LaBeouf’s Disturbia director DJ Caruso is also negotiating to direct, and whether the whole package comes together or not is said to hinge largely on if the script that eventually gets written is any good. No writer has yet been hired.

What is Casting Couch? News about actors finding ways to get paid. Today we’ve got word about a new job for that girl who cut up her face in Evil Dead as well as a possible comeback for Mischa Barton. Perhaps you’ve heard of an actor named Robert De Niro. He’s the funny old guy in all of those Meet the Fockers movies. Ring a bell? Well, Deadline is reporting that he’s just signed on to appear in a boxing biopic called Hands of Stone that will focus on Roberto Duran and his rivalry with Sugar Ray Leonard as well as his relationship with his trainer, Ray Arcel (De Niro). Édgar Ramirez (Wrath of the Titans) is also on board the film in the Duran role, but there has yet to be any word on who might end up playing Sugar Ray Leonard. Didn’t I just read the Wesley Snipes got out of jail a couple of days ago? Is he old now?

The supporting actor. He’s not the guy, he’s the guy behind the guy. That’s not always a bad thing though. The lead actor generally has to be the guy the audience is relating to, so those sort of roles can end up being kind of vanilla. The supporting roles though, that’s where the memorable weirdos come from. Getting a great supporting role can afford an actor the opportunity to go completely off the wall with their performance, or at least take some calculated risks that aren’t likely to sink the whole film if they don’t pay off. As a result, the best supporting roles of the year can be more interesting than the best leads, and this year definitely has a colorful cast of characters. Here are the ones that the Academy liked in 2012 with my predicted winner in red:

What is Casting Couch? It’s a column that has a lot of new casting news today, so settle in. Even after only two movies, the number of aged action stars who have yet to appear in Sylvester Stallone’s Expendables series has dwindled down to a select few. So, given his age, his lengthy resume, and the way he’s linked almost exclusively to the action genre, Jackie Chan has to be seen as one of the biggest fish out there that Stallone has yet to catch. It looks like that’s going to change in The Expendables 3, however, as Chan has told Cinema Online [via Coming Soon] that Stallone has invited him to join the cast of the film, and he has agreed to appear as long as it’s in a featured part and not just a cameo. Looks like we might finally get our chance to see Dolph Lundgren get beat up with a ladder.

Editor’s Note: Allison’s spot-on review originally ran way back at the beginning of the month, but the film is opening wide today so we’re sharing it once again. Sharing is good. Maybe we are all a bit crazy – whether we are lying to ourselves about the relationships we are in or why we believe holding a handkerchief or having the remote at a certain angle will determine the outcome of a game. But unlike most of us, Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper), has been deemed mentally unstable by both the court and his doctors at the mental institution we find him in at the start of Silver Linings Playbook. Pat may seem fairly sane, albeit unflinchingly honest, but as we learn why he ended up in such a facility and watch him unravel at the sound of a certain song, it becomes clear that Pat is dealing with issues he may not be able to easily control with simple positive thinking. Pat is released to the care of his big-hearted mother, Dolores (Jacki Weaver), and his hot-headed father, Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro), and while their family dynamic is slightly dysfunctional, it is clear that they all truly care about one another.

What is Casting Couch? Today it’s proof that if you star in something about sexy young vampires, you will continue to get more work. Warner Bros.’ Lego movie already had names like Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, and Morgan Freeman signed for its voice cast, thus making a stupid-sounding idea suddenly seem promising, but now they’ve really gone and made Lego into a movie that you can start looking forward to. Deadline reports that the film has just added Will Ferrell to its cast as the bad guy, President Business, Liam Neeson as the bad guy’s main henchman, Bad Cop, Parks and Rec’s mustachioed Nick Offerman as a revenge-obsessed pirate, and Community’s cheery-voiced Disney Princess Alison Brie as a member of the protagonist’s team who holds a powerful secret. That may just be the weirdest/most fun cast ever assembled, and it almost makes up for the fact that the movie is going to be in 3D.

What is Casting Couch? It’s where you go to make sure Elijah Wood is adding another new job to his calendar every day. Turns out, today he kept the streak alive, read on… Colin Firth and Michael Fassbender are two of the best actors on the planet Earth; objectively, inarguably. What a coup, then, that director Michael Grandage has landed both of them for his upcoming project, Genius. Based on a book by A. Scott Berg, Genius is a biopic that explores the relationship between Thomas Wolfe (Fassbender) and his editor Max Perkins (Firth). Turns out Wolfe and Perkins were great friends, but the kind who butted heads over everything. Sure, listening to two guys argue over word choice wouldn’t normally sound like a very exciting idea for a movie, but with these two actors on board it absolutely does. Add this one to your to-do list. [Variety]

What is Casting Couch? It’s where Hollywood moms come every day to find out if their actor kids have gotten a job. Remember that movie about the day JFK got shot that Tom Hanks was putting together because these days he’s such a history loving, lame dad? It’s called Parkland, and it just put together an awesome cast. According to Collider, director Vincent Bugliosi has signed the terrific trio of Paul Giamatti, Jackie Weaver, and Billy Boy Thornton to headline the cast. There’s no word on what characters they’ll be playing, but my guess is Giamatti will be JFK, Thornton will be Jackie O, and Weaver will be Lee Harvey Oswald. Makes sense, no?

Jon Turteltaub‘s “geriatric Hangover” buddy comedy, Last Vegas, has finally locked in its final member of its wolf pack (geriatric wolf pack?). Deadline Henderson reports that Kevin Kline will join Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Douglas in the Dan Fogelman-scripted comedy. The film centers on “old friends who decide to throw a Las Vegas bachelor party for the only one of them who has remained single.” Hilarity (and broken hips?) ensues! Previous articles on the film also refer to a love triangle element to the story, with the bachelor in question (a known playboy) falling for a lounge singer that another one of his pallies (a widower) also has his eye on. There’s no word on who will play who as of yet, but let’s just go for the obvious here – De Niro as the playboy and Freeman as the widower? That sound about right?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – Robert De Niro is going to play a mob boss in a movie. You’re shocked, aren’t you? The star of such mob classics as The Godfather: Part II, The Untouchables, and Goodfellas is now officially signed on for another mob movie – but this one comes with a comedic twist that could suit De Niro’s recent sensibilities (the sort that have steered him to such schlock as Little Fockers). De Niro will lead the cast of Luc Besson‘s Malavita, in which he will play a “notorious” mob boss who, along with his family, is sent to France as part of the witness protection program (France? Really? My Blue Heaven, this is not). Despite their best attempts at a normal life, the family reverts to old habits (or, as the official press release on this project puts it, ” they soon find themselves handling things the ‘family’ way). You know, like killing people and stuff. De Niro will be joined by Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife, Dianna Agron as their daughter, John D’Leo as their son, and Tommy Lee Jones as the poor FBI agent tasked with keeping watch on them.

Editor’s note: Red Lights hits limited release this Friday, so please take this re-run of our Sundance review (originally posted on January 23, 2012) as a green light to give it a read. Rodrigo Cortés returns to Sundance after 2010′s Buried with another film about confinement and restriction – but one that turns those attentions to the human mind and its limits, instead of the body and its own absolutes. In Red Lights, Cortés sets his sights on the world of paranormal investigations, but in a way wholly different than we’ve come to expect from horror flicks that mine similar territory. Red Lights centers on Drs. Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and Buckley (Cillian Murphy), who work to disprove paranormal activity. The pair split their time between teaching at a university (to packs of eager students) and traveling to presumed paranormal occurrences (to debunk them). Both Matheson and Buckley maintain that they’ve never seen true paranormal activity that cannot be explained in one way or another (most often due to simple lies and farce), but they’re about to be challenged by an old foe of Matheson’s who appears to break all the boundaries the pair set. Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) was once a famous blind psychic, who retired amidst whispers of behavior that led to the death of his greatest critic – and now, he’s returned.

Red Lights is a film filled with divisive questions. After the film’s Sundance premiere, many were either wrapping their heads around the grounded supernatural thriller’s final moments or completely scoffing at it. Whether one’s reaction is good or bad towards the questions writer/director Rodrigo Cortés is posing, he still gets a reaction out of you, as shown by the film’s early reviews. For most of its running time, Cortés is not afraid of playing with audience’s expectations and perceptions of the events as they play out on screen. Unlike his previous film, Buried, most of Red Lights can’t be taken literally. The difference between ambiguity and having no answers for your film’s questions can get blurred easily, but, as Cortés told us, he wrote and crafted the film with all of his own answers in mind. Here’s what Rodrigo Cortés had to say about the story’s exploration of duality, his flawed protagonists, and how to question everything we see in Red Lights:

We haven’t reported much on the progress of Raging Bull II, mostly because making a sequel to something as beloved as Raging Bull thirty-some years after the release of the original and without the involvement of any of the iconic names who made the first so beloved is a dumb idea unworthy of much attention; but let’s do a quick rundown of the particulars anyway. The subject of the first film, Jake LaMotta, sold the rights to the sequel of his life story to a company called RB II Productions. This has led to co-writer/director Martin Guigui putting a film together that’s going to work as part prequel and part sequel to Martin Scorsese’s 1980 film, Raging Bull. This new film, which stars William Forsythe as LaMotta, will focus on the period of the boxer’s life before Raging Bull took place, as well as on what happened to him after. It’s currently filming in Los Angeles. For now. The interesting news about this ill-advised and sure-to-be-reviled project is that the studio behind the original film, MGM, is trying to get it shut down. A report from Deadline Coventry says that the studio has filed a complaint against LaMotta and RB II Productions stating that, due to an agreement drawn up in 1976, MGM still has the rights to the boxer’s original memoirs as well as right of first refusal to any “owner-written sequel.” Seeing as LaMotta never took the idea of a sequel to MGM, and RB II Productions has

It’s an understandable expectation that when one sees “new David O. Russell trailer,” they automatically ready themselves to see Mark Wahlberg’s face pop up once they hit “play.” But, oops, the Funky One was traded out as the lead of Silver Linings Playbook by Russell himself last summer in favor of someone else apparently willing to work for less pay (and less fuss) – Bradley Cooper. And while that’s the sort of casting might-have-been trivia we could all still be talking about years from now, hopefully the film’s first trailer will silence that, because it’s hard to imagine that Wahlberg could infuse the part of bonkers old Pat Solitano with as much desperation and joy as Cooper appears to do in just two minutes. Wow. Based on Matthew Quick‘s novel of the same name (sans a “the,” apparently), Cooper stars as a former teacher who attempts to reintegrate into normal life after four years in a mental institution. For Pat, “normal life” apparently means staying up till 4AM reading Hemingway, bugging his probably loopy parents (Jacki Weaver and Robert De Niro), running around with a trash bag on his body (sweat it out, Pat!), and just possibly falling in love with the equally-as-off-the-wall-nutty Jennifer Lawrence. Even better? The whole thing absolutely feels like a Russell film.

In the grand tradition of Freddy vs. Jason and Aliens vs. Predator comes Grudge Match, which pits boxing legends Rocky Balboa and Jake La Motta against each other in an epic battle to the death. Or, probably not. But Grudge Match is an upcoming boxing comedy coming from Tommy Boy and Anger Management director Peter Segal. It tells the story of two retired boxers who step into the ring one last time in order to finally settle an old score. It’s kind of like that episode of The Cosby Show where Combustible Huxtable races Tailwind Turner one final time, but with punching instead of running. The real exciting news about this project isn’t that it’s a boxing comedy about old dudes, though, it’s the names that are being looked at to play the two leads. The Wrap is reporting that Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro are currently in negotiations. These two are, of course, the two stars of probably the greatest boxing movies ever made, Rocky and Raging Bull, so there’s a whole meta component to their casting that adds to the fact that watching Stallone and De Niro clown around together already sounds kind of fun in a dumb way.

Last month it was reported that Dan Fogelman’s long-gestating script Last Vegas was finally going to be put into production. After several stops and starts, the story of four aged friends going to Vegas for one last crazy bachelor’s party was said to be going forward with Jon Turteltaub set to direct and Michael Douglas signed on to star. That was what we knew for sure – who would be signed to fill out the rest of the film’s wrinkly but still rocking quartet was up in the air. Early reports had Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken rumored as being likely candidates for two of the characters, and since that time De Niro has indeed become confirmed, but nothing further has been said about Walken’s involvement. Today Deadline Greenwood has some new info regarding the film’s casting process, and how their scouring of Tinsel Town’s old folks homes is going. Apparently veteran actor and all around suave fellow Morgan Freeman is currently in negotiations to join the cast. This can only be seen as a terrific choice, because not only is Freeman a recognizable name who can pull off anything that’s asked of him, but he’s also already got experience being in an old-guys-doing-stuff movie because of his work in The Bucket List.

Last Vegas is one of those movies that’s been in the works for quite some time, with several years of actors almost becoming attached to it and the movie almost getting put into production already under its belt. Written by Dan Fogelman (Crazy, Stupid, Love), Last Vegas tells the story of a bunch of old guys who are probably too old to be having a bachelor’s party in Las Vegas having a bachelor’s party in Las Vegas anyway. Think of it as the mash-up of The Bucket List and The Hangover that everyone’s been clamoring for. While the initial buzz from The Hangover that was palpable when this project was first being talked about has been significantly lessened over the past year or so, the success of a movie like Bridesmaids has to mean that there have been movie execs out there somewhere looking for a project that could do for old men what that movie did for women; so now a new series of deals has been made that sees Last Vegas moving full speed ahead. Yesterday THR reported that the film is scheduled to start shooting this fall under the watch of CBS Films, and in order to bring the printed word to the big screen they’ve hired director Jon Turteltaub (who made Cool Runnings and 3 Ninjas back to back!) to helm, and a returning-from-a-medical-leave-of-absence Michael Douglas to star. That’s a heaping truckload of Hollywood clout right there, but the parade of news involving Last Vegas isn’t

Vincent Albert “Buddy” Cianci, Jr. has an awesome name and a fascinating history. The two-time mayor of Providence, Rhode Island was convicted of felonies twice while in office – which pushed him out twice – and his absurd career was chronicled in “Politics and Pasta: How I Prosecuted Mobsters, Rebuilt a Dying City, Advised a President, Dined With Sinatra, Spent Five Years in a Federally Funded Gated Community and Lived to Tell the Tale.” They may have to squeeze that title into something more slimming because a movie is in development. David O. Russell (The Fighter) wants to stick with the biopic world and live to tell this tale. According to the LA Times, he’s officially signing up with the project being produced by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal. A colorful character from the northeast? Sounds like a Russell repeat with political ambitions. It also looks like a soap opera covered in marinara. Does anyone know if Burt Young is available? And if they can get that title under control?

Back in 2010, Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés got the attention of U.S. audiences by putting Ryan Reynolds in a box for Buried. Now he’s back with an ensemble number that looks at the world of celebrity psychics. The first trailer for Red Lights doesn’t let us in on the secret of whether psychic powers really exist in its world or not, but it raises the question. And what it does reveal to us along the way is that it has an impressive cast that makes it look more than worth checking out. If you want to know more about the film, you can also check out Kate’s review from Sundance – or just check out the trailer below.