Due to her Oscar-winning role in Black Swan and her pregnancy-imposed break from acting, Natalie Portman has been the subject of much talk in the movie world. When will she come back to work? What will her first post-Oscar role be? There have been reports of filmmakers as big as the Wachowskis actively recruiting her to come on board their projects, but still no word of an official signing. That is until now. Sorry, Hollywood directors, but Terrence Malick has beaten you to the punch. And, just to smear some dirt in your wounds, he’s done it twice. Deadline Ottawa is reporting that Portman has signed on to be in not one, but two of Malick’s upcoming projects, both shooting in 2012, which will mark her much anticipated return to acting. The first film is the Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett-starring Knight of the Cups, which is scheduled to start shooting this summer. The second is a film called Lawless, which sees Portman teamed again with Bale and Blanchett, in addition to other notable names like Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara. This film is scheduled to shoot in the fall.

There’s not much one can really say about this first trailer for the much-anticipated The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. As with Peter Jackson‘s three previous Lord of the Rings films, the project looks gorgeous, meticulous, epic, stirring, just plain wonderful, and true to its classic J.R.R. Tolkien source material. So, yeah, I love it. With The Hobbit, we again return to Middle-earth and the Shire, and to a much younger Bilbo Baggins (a very well-cast Martin Freeman), to learn (the first half of) the epic tale that started all this ring business to begin with. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey comes complete with an all-star cast, including Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, Evangeline Lilly, Andy Serkis, and Richard Armitage. It’s a testament to the world that director and co-writer Peter Jackson has created that so many of his Lord of the Rings cast came pack for this next go-round, journeying back in time to recapture some of that old magic. After the break, check out the first trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Terrence Malick has long been thought of as a difficult-to-work-with perfectionist. He once went a stretch of twenty years without making any movies at all, and when he is actively making them, they usually only come out once every five years or so. But lately he’s been filming things at a pace completely new to his career. After finishing his 2011 release The Tree of Life, he jumped pretty directly into making a still-untitled romantic film starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams. Also, there have been rumblings that even before that film was finished, Malick had already lined up another movie that would star Christian Bale. It turns out that wasn’t all of the story, though. In somewhat shocking news, Variety is reporting that Malick already has plans to make two more movies, which will shoot back to back in 2012. The common thread between both films is that they will star Bale and Cate Blanchett in featured roles, but this isn’t some kind of series. Both films are separate stories, completely independent of one another. The first is said to be called Lawless, and in addition to Bale and Blanchett, Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, and Haley Bennett will also star. The second project will be called Knight of Cups, and will see actress Isabel Lucas join the duo.

The last time I reported on Noah Baumbach’s next project, While We’re Young, it was with the unfortunate news that James Franco and Cate Blanchett had been forced to drop out of the film. At the time I held out hopes that Baumbach might be able to easily replace the actors with Jesse Eisenberg and Greta Gerwig, and it’s looking like at least half of my hopes and dreams are probably going to come true. While We’re Young is about a couple in their forties who are feeling alienated by their normal set of friends because they haven’t had any children, so they befriend a younger couple who kind of teaches them to rekindle their youth. Now that I know more about the plot of the film, having Gerwig replace Blanchett’s character wouldn’t make much sense age wise, but they seem to have found a different, equally awesome choice to fill her role that does work.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr spends a long day in the multiplex, checking out a variety of films from alcoholic romantic comedies to nature documentaries with elephants and orangutans. He drinks himself silly and hits on Greta Gerwig in Arthur, narrowly escapes being killed by ass-kicking teen assassin Hanna, narrowly escapes getting his arm bitten off by a tiger shark in Soul Surfer and peeps in on Natalie Portman undressing for a swim in Your Highness. Too bad she’s pregnant now, ‘cause Kevin just ain’t into that scene.

Hanna opens on the blinding white tundra of Finland like a blank page before the beginning of a fairy tale, and that’s fitting for what the film ultimately delivers. It’s a coming of age story about a young heroine forced to grow up amidst the harsh outside world, and while it’s missing a bag of breadcrumbs it does feature several other elements of the genre including a literal entrance into the maw of a big, bad wolf and even an evil step-mother of sorts. It’s the Brothers Grimm set to the beats of The Chemical Brothers and is as sublime an entertainment as you’d hope to find in a pre-summer action movie. Young Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) has lived in rural seclusion with a father Erik (Eric Bana) who’s been her sole source of knowledge. He’s trained her to be self sufficient, aware, and deadly with everything from guns to her bony white hands, and now that she’s turned sixteen the time has come for her to enter the real world. She’s not venturing out aimlessly though as her father has prepared her for a very specific mission. That quest will put her life in danger as well as those she meets along the way, but completing it is her only way to freedom. If only good old dad had thought to show his daughter a picture of her target…

Because of his luck, Rob Hunter has already seen Hanna, and he had some positive things to say which he’ll expand on in review form as soon as the embargo on reviews gets lifted. It’s no surprise though. The film is about a teenage girl who is trained from childhood to be a killer, and to kill one specific person. The talent here is tremendous from Saoirse Ronan to Cate Blanchett to Eric Bana to director Joe Wright. Now, this featurette digs deeper into what Blanchett called “the most terrifying script [she'd] ever read in her life” by looking briefly at the action, the actors, and the motivations behind a young killer.

The last year or so has seen James Franco stacking up as many projects as he can on top of one other, and many people have been waiting for the tower to fall. Well down it comes, and it’s landing on Noah Baumbach’s head. Franco was scheduled to star in the upcoming Baumbach project While We’re Young, but has now been pulled from the film due to commitments to Sam Raimi’s Oz: The Great and Powerful. It seems that one man can’t earn a PHD, host awards shows, appear in soap operas, star in big budget films, AND star in independent movies. He can only do four of the five. Oh, and direct a bunch of stuff on the side. He’s not Superman, people. Why does the Oz movie take precedence over Baumbach’s next naval gazer? Probably because it’s made by Disney. You don’t cross those people.

As the only literate Reject, it’s my duty to find the latest, the greatest and the untouched classics that would make great source material for film adaptations. I read so you don’t have to. There is a noticeable lack of the kind of imaginative children’s movies that echo the tone and style of Labyrinth, The NeverEnding Story or even The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. There are great family films out there these days, but many that set sail for the boundaries of imagination to meet fantastical characters along the way to a lesson. The Narnia movies come to mind, but they really fell flat. It’s time that we all went on another adventure together. I’m proposing that someone readies the Basset to set a course for somewhere we’ve never been before.

Damn. It’s been a tough world for movie marketers lately. Stars aren’t selling as strongly, companies are forced to crib from other designs if a movie is ultra popular, and there just aren’t that many pre-pubescent assassins out there to brag about. Hanna, the story of a young girl (Saoirse Ronan) trained to kill by her CIA father (Eric Bana), looks incredible. Now it’s got an incredible poster. Check it out for yourself:

It’s best to go into this trailer with no expectations which explains the absence of an introduction. Also, I didn’t write one. But back to the trailer…

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr isn’t a very merry man, taking a look at Robin Hood, Letters to Juliet and Just Wright.

If Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood suffers from any one thing — and it suffers from many — it suffers from being disconnected from the classic nature of the character. Even Kevin Costner’s Robin of Locksley, through the terrible accent, had a bit of joie de vivre. Even he had a bit of fun.

Universal Pictures has released one final trailer for Robin Hood, once again emphasizing the larger scale of the Russell Crowe-led affair. As you can clearly see, they want you to know that director Ridley Scott is taking the action back to his Gladiator days.

If Ridley Scott is doing one thing with his upcoming period action film Robin Hood, it is historical accuracy. Because in those days — I say “those days” because I don’t have time to Wikipedia the particular time period that Robin Hood may have lived like other movie bloggers — everyone was, in fact, a total badass.

Universal Pictures has released the Superbowl TV spot for their upcoming action tentpole Robin Hood, from director Ridley Scott. The film stars Russell Crowe in the title role, as a crusader from the people who steals from the rich, gives to the poor and sword fights to some kick-ass heavy metal music.

The first trailer for Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood — which stars Russell Crowe as the bow-wielding outlaw of Sherwood Forest — has hit the web via YouTube this evening, and man does it rock. Literally.

Ridley Scott is back in the past, working on yet another epic period action film with Russell Crowe. This time, instead of going all the way back to the time of the Gladiator, Scott is taking on the story of Robin Hood.

This week, Forbes released a rather bitch-ily worded article naming the top ten actresses that provided the best return on investment (ROI) for studios…

Earlier today we were talking about how fat Russell Crowe was in State of Play. This evening we get a first look at Crowe as Robin Hood, in which he doesn’t look fat at all. Curious.