When I write up these casting bites, I can't help but wonder who might be tomorrow's next star... Maybe it will be one of these people, all courtesy of Variety:

• Garret Dillahunt seems to be on fire these days. He popped up with solid roles in two of last year's best films -- No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Topping that off, he's been the uber-creepy machine after John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Continuing his good actor fortune, he's going to star in the remake of Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left as Krug, the convict who tortures an innocent family. Production begins on that remake next month, in South Africa of all places.
  
• Really, it would be hard to improve on your first feature if its Mexican Werewolf in Texas, but Sara Erikson continues to try. After a lot of brief parts in shows from Boston Legal to Hannah Montana, the actress has nabbed a lead role in Soul Men, the Bernie Mac/Samuel L. Jackson music movie. She will play someone named Chastity, but there's no word on her role. Is she a singer? A hanger-on? A lover? Or, is she just chaste?
• Last, but certainly not least, Mousa Kraish, is continuing to build up his resume. He just wrapped You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and has had gigs in Munich, King of California, and Superbad. Now, he's signed on for the role of Yusef in 20th Century Fox's remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. The remake of the sci-fi flick about alien visitors and giant robots already stars Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly.

No Country for Old Men, the new film from Joel and Ethan Coen, is an unquestionable return to form. It is scary, funny, moving, violent, and meaningful, in pretty much equal measure. The Coens' take on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name is a pairing as successful, as seamless, as delicious as that of chocolate and peanut butter.

Josh Brolin gives the finest of his four excellent performances this year as Llewelyn Moss. Moss is a struggling everyman who stumbles upon a circle of trucks and dead Mexicans in the desert -- a heroin deal gone bad. Real bad. The lone survivor asks Moss for some agua, and Moss ignores the request. He surveys the scene and eventually comes upon a suitcase filled with $2 million dollars. Moss' response upon finding the money? A simple "Yeah." It's a perfect moment in a movie packed with them. Moss takes the money and returns home to his trailer and his wife Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald). Soon, his conscience begins to nag at him, and he decides to head back to the scene of the crime to give the dying man a drink. A compassionate decision, but not, as you can probably imagine, an intelligent one.

Javier Bardem plays Anton Chigurh (start to say Chicago and then growl and you're close to the pronunciation). I'll leave his specific involvement in the proceedings up to you to figure out, but just know that he really wants that $2 million. Moss will come to refer to Chigurh as "the ultimate badass," and that's about right. Chigurh is a classic screen villain, the kind we haven't seen in far too long. Every time he appears on screen, cattle stunner in tow, it just makes your heart sink -- somebody is going down. Much like Hannibal Lecter, the guy is a vicious, remorseless killer, but he has a strangely sensible logic and one can't help but be seduced by him. Bardem, sporting a Prince Valiant haircut, gives a flawless performance here, one that will likely be noticed come Oscar time. He completely disappears into Chigurh.