Director Michael Vaughn (Kickass) is putting all the pieces in place for the upcoming film X-Men: First Class.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, actress Rose Byrne will play Moira Mactaggert, a scientist who specializes in genetic mutation. The X-Men will be younger than we have previously seen them on film.

Byrne has played opposite Glenn Close on the FX series Damages for three seasons. She earned two Emmy nominations for her work on that series.  She also took a comedic turn as a dim-witted British pop-singer  in Get Him To The Greek, with Russell Brand and Jonah Hill.

Byrne will play the love interest of Charles Xavier, played by James McAvoy.  Other cast members include Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon, and Michael Fassbender.

Shooting for X-Men: First Class will begin in late August.  It is tentatively scheduled to be released in the summer of 2011.

I will have to admit that I’ve not watched the FX series Damages very much. In truth, I’ve only seen the first few episodes. However, that hasn’t stopped the show from being a hit with many fans.

Unfortunately, that number of fans wasn’t enough for FX to keep the show on the air another season and it was officially canceled. But wait, there’s good news if you love the show. According to Deadline, the ratings-challenged show has been rescued by DirecTV. What does this mean? Well, count on Glenn Close, Rose Byrne and other major cast members being on board for two more seasons (20 episodes) of the Emmy-nominated show.

In addition, the satellite company is also picking up the rights to air seasons one through three so fans will get a chance to experience the series in its entirety all on one network. This deal will be different than DirecTV’s previous pickup of NBC’s canceled Friday Night Lights in that, unlike that show, Damages will only air on the satellite network and not on NBC as well.

Expect more episodes of Damages to being airing on DirecTV next year.

2010 is in full swing and some really great movies are hitting store shelves this week for the first time and for the first time on Blu-ray. This week’s releases include Gamer, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Che, Damages, the complete run of ABC’s canceled too soon Defying Gravity and the Blu-ray release of Whiteout with Kate Beckinsale (pictured above).

Check out this week’s releases:

Movies

According to Greta ~ Hilary Duff, Ellen Burstyn (DVD)

Boogie Nights ~ Mark Wahlberg, Heather Graham, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore (Blu-ray)

Bourne Supremacy (Single-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) ~ Matt Damon, Brian Cox, Karl Urban (Blu-ray)

Bourne Ultimatum (Single-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) ~ Matt Damon, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn (Blu-ray)

Che (Criterion Collection) ~ Benicio del Toro (Blu-ray)

Gamer ~ Gerard Butler, Amber Valetta, Michael C. Hall, Kyra Sedgwick (DVD and Blu-ray)

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The nominees for the 61st annual Primetime Emmy Awards were announced this morning in Los Angeles by Grey’s Anatomy star Chandra Wilson, Big Bang Theory‘s Jim Parsons and Television Academy chair John Shaffner. Among the nominees were some past winners, some past nominees and a few who’ve never had the feeling of “Its just a thrill to be nominated.”

The real surprises were the nominations of both Family Guy and Flight of the Conchords in the “Outstanding Comedy” category, the nomination for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog in the “Outstanding Special Class – Short-format Live-Action Entertainment Programs” category (Say that three times fast) as well as the 22 nominations for 30 Rock, which is an Emmy record.

A rules change expanded the number of comedy, drama and key acting category nominees from five to six for which intensified the competition for those extra slots. Ties in the voting actually yielded seven contenders in both series fields so the change in the rules ended up helping out more shows than originally intended. The 61st annual Primetime Emmy Awards will be broadcast on Sunday, September 20th at 8/7C on CBS and are hosted by Neil Patrick Harris.

Here’s the nominees in the major categories:

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