Please stop casting X-Men First Class

Seriously, though, someone needs to stop casting X-Men First Class. No other movie can apparently be filmed between now and the end of the year, because this flick has all of the actors and several non-actors. Don't believe me? Battleship, which is shooting soon as well, has been forced to cast Brooklyn Decker (a swimsuit model) and Rhianna (a singer), presumably because every other human who can speak in the general direction of a camera is playing a mutie.

As near as I can figure, X-Men First Class will tell the tender, simple tale of two friends who grow apart when confronted by the problems faced by their people...it will also feature eleventy billion supporting cast members, each of whom is a famous mutant superhero. Professor X and Magneto are James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, respectively.
As you can see, McAvoy has no problem showing nipple, whereas Fassbender will hit you with his fist if you laugh about his Jude-Law-esque balding problem. We also know that they needed to sex things up a bit with the casting, so they employed a big ole pile of HOWYOUDOIN:
Yeah, we don't know who Oliver Platt will play, but my money is on "greasy senator," as that seems to be his part of choice these days. As if this weren't enough, we also know that Rose Byrne will be playing Moira McTaggert, Professor X's Scottish lady love.
In the comic she mostly just ran around being annoying and yelling "Ach" or "Och" or whatever they think Scottish people say in comic books. Did I mention that Kevin Bacon is in the movie?

Because he is. We don't know what he's doing either. I mean in the movie, here he's clearly about to have sex with that mascot. It's okay, there's nothing wrong with a man of Bacon's status deciding he can only copulate with grown people wearing fuzzy costumes. Maybe it's Kyra Sedgwick in there, you don't know.

Now today comes word that "Mad Men" actress January Jones has stepped in to the role of waste of life Emma Frost.
Also known as the White Queen, the picture of Jones above shows you what it is that Frost is best known for. And yes, she dresses EXACTLY like that, only the corset is white. This casting is probably good news for fans of "Mad Men," the show watched by people who think they're better than me for understanding and appreciating a show I think sucks. I would like to point out that I just read a big article about the ratings woes of "Mad Men," even though it appears to be cherished by everyone I know. I've said it before and I'll say it again: You can keep your "True Blood" and your "Mad Men." If they have a baby called "Mad Blood" or "True Men" I will hate those too.

There are like 1000 other casting bits about X-Men First Class, I just really hate covering them all. Just know that a bunch of Twilight actors have tiny parts as weird mutants, some model/actresses are going to be playing various scantily clad nubile heroines, and the whole thing is going to be too crowded and mad. Also, the script keeps getting rewritten. And yet, it's already better than Brett Ratner's take on the franchise, so there's that.

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I'm feeling woozy...

I was ambivalent when Steven Soderbergh announced he'd be making a La Femme Nikita-esque thriller starring MMA fighter Gina Carano (shown below in her former profession...which is sort of what worries me):

Don't get me wrong, over the years there have been COUNTLESS performances by American Gladiator-turned-actors (it's countless because the number is zero). Then I heard that the same bloke who wrote The Limey, one of the best revenge movies you've never seen (seriously, it makes Taken it's uber bitch), was going to be penning the script for Knockout (that name HAS to change). Then I heard the cast from Movieline and The Playlist...now I'm geeked. Ewan MacGregor, Michael Douglas, Dennis Quaid, and Michael Fassbender (who played the Brit in Inglorious Basterds) are joining the former foam-pad jouster. This whole thing hinges on whether Soderbergh can get the kind of performance from Carano that he gets from most of his actresses (and hookers...see The Girlfriend Experience). If he got Julia Roberts an Oscar, perhaps there's hope.