Don't forget to check out our 2012 Movie Preview, where we take a closer look at over 50 of our most anticipated albums in the coming year.

Wes Anderson is back! (and so are we)

Well this is a great way to kick off Film Friday in 2012. The latest film from director Wes Anderson—and his first live-action film since 2007’s The Darjeeling Limited 67—tells the story of young Sam and Suzy (newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward), who run away together, sending a small New England island community into a panic. Anderson wrote the film with Roman Coppola, who hopes to have his own directorial effort, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, out this year as well. The all-star cast includes Anderson regulars Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, as well as Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Harvey Keitel. “What kind of bird are you?” The double meaning of that line is quite a great beginning and the trailer (filled with Anderson’s signature style) only gets better from there. Moonrise Kingdom is due in theaters May 25.

A first look at Friends with Kids

Writer/actress Jennifer Westfeldt (Kissing Jessica Stein 72, Ira & Abby 62) makes her feature directing debut with a romantic comedy about two best friends (played by Westfeldt and Adam Scott) who decide to have a baby together while maintaining a platonic relationship. Their relationship is reflected by those of two other couples—the Bridesmaids 75 pairings of Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig, and Chris O’Dowd and Maya Rudolph. Megan Fox and Edward Burns act as temptation for the friendly couple post-baby. Friends with Kids comes to theaters March 9.

Greg Kinnear is on Thin Ice

Previously known as The Convincer when it premiered at Sundance last year, this indie thriller might remind some of The Ice Harvest 62 with its snowy landscapes and dark humor. Greg Kinnear stars as an in debt insurance man whose scheme involving a rare violin goes awry when a locksmith, played by Billy Crudup, gets involved. Director Jill Sprecher (Thirteen Conversations about One Thing 74) co-wrote the script with her sister. The supporting cast includes Alan Arkin, Lea Thompson, and Bob Balaban. Thin Ice comes to theaters February 17.

George Clooney’s next film

The Wrap revealed this week that George Clooney’s next project will be The Monuments Men, the story of a group of art experts selected to find artwork stolen by the Nazis during World War II. The film will be based on Robert M. Edsel’s book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, and Clooney plans on producing, writing, directing and starring in the film. Speaking about the project at the Palm Springs Film Festival, Clooney said, “I’m not opposed to doing a commercial film, I’m just opposed to doing a commercial film that doesn’t feel organic to me. So if we’re going to do a commercial film we thought, 'Let’s do something that seems fun and actually have something to say.’” Clooney is currently on the awards tour for The Ides of March 67 and The Descendants 84.

The first trailer for ATM

Alice Eve, Josh Peck, and Brian Geraghty play three coworkers in this thriller from director David Brooks and the writer of Buried 65, Chris Sparling. It’s another stuck-in-one-place thriller, but instead of a phone booth or a coffin, this time it’s the most isolated ATM in the history of ATMs, where some guy in a parka has some serious issues to work out. Catch it on demand beginning March 2 or in theaters April 6.

LOL might have you crying on the inside

Miley Cyrus, who enjoys pot and thinks things are pretty cool, stars in LOL, a remake of a 2008 French comedy by the same name, written and directed by the original French writer-director Lisa Azuelos. The story revolves around Miley’s Lola and her relationship with her mom, played by Demi Moore. Ashley Greene, Douglas Booth, Thomas Jane, Gina Gershon, and Nora Dunn also make appearances. No release date has been set.

Girl in Progress

This coming of age story stars Eva Mendes as a single mom struggling to raise her daughter (Cierra Ramirez) while holding down multiple jobs and carrying on an affair with a married doctor played by Matthew Modine. Patricia Riggen (Under the Same Moon 59) directs from a script by Hiram Martinez. Patricia Arquette plays the young girl’s teacher. Girl in Progress comes to theaters April 27.

Soderbergh shows the first five minutes of Haywire and plans his next

Steven Soderbergh's action thriller Haywire, starring Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, and Antonio Banderas, opens next Friday, and you can check out the first five minutes via Hulu below. In other Soderbergh news, The Playlist revealed that Blake Lively will star in his next project, The Side Effects, about a woman who begins taking medication to deal with her husband’s impending release from prison. Her husband will be played by Channing Tatum (making it his third Soderbergh film in a row), and Jude Law will play Lively’s psychiatrist. The script is by Scott Z. Burns, Soderbergh’s collaborator on The Informant! 66 and last year’s Contagion 70.

A Star Trek 2 update

While we were away Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 85) snagged a major villainous role from the clutches of Edgar Ramirez and Jordi Molla in the upcoming Star Trek sequel which began shooting this week. His role still hasn’t been divulged to the public, but two more actors did join the cast prior to cameras rolling. EW revealed the casting of Nazneen Contractor (24). She will play the wife of the recently added Noel Clarke (Doctor Who). They join previously announced newcomers Peter Weller and Alice Eve as well as returning players Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho and Anton Yelchin. Director J.J. Abrams also spoke to Collider about the 3D post conversion process, “I did not fight for the 3D. It was something that the studio wanted to do, and I didn’t want to do it. And then, when I saw the first movie converted in sections, I thought that it actually looked really cool. So, I was okay with their doing it, as long as I could shoot the movie the way I wanted to, in anamorphic film, and then let them convert it. So, those who want to see it in 3D, which looked pretty cool, can do it, and those that want to see it in 2D can do that too.”

A first look at Shut Up and Play the Hits

James Murphy closed the door on LCD Soundsystem last year with a huge four-hour final show at Madison Square Garden. Shut Up and Play the Hits, which will premiere at Sundance later this month, follows Murphy during those final days. Directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace combine concert footage with an intimate look at Murphy as he transitions to life after LCD Soundsystem. If you like what you see, look for a concert DVD later this year.

James Franco needs more projects

It was a slow week in the life of James Franco: He was only connected to two starring roles in upcoming pictures. THR was the first to announce Franco’s possible participation in The Game, an adaptation of Neil Strauss’s book about training to be a pick-up artist. Franco would play Mystery, Strauss’s mentor in the book. Mystery already spun his fame into the VH1 reality series The Pick-up Artist, which ran for two seasons. Episodes are online if you want to check out what could be next for Franco. That project will join his turns as Oz in Sam Raimi’s Oz: The Great and Powerful, Hugh Hefner in the currently filming Lovelace with Amanda Seyfried, his role as himself in The Apocalypse, which will be written and directed by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, and finally the just announced Mapplethorpe in which he’ll play controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who died of AIDS in 1989. Ondi Timoner, the director of the documentaries, We Live in Public 69 and Cool It 61 will make her feature narrative debut with the latter film. In addition, Franco’s The Broken Tower, which he wrote, directed, and stars in with Michael Shannon, got its first trailer this week after playing the L.A. Film Festival last June. That film is a meditative biopic on the writer Hart Crane and based on Paul Mariani’s book of the same name. See it on demand now or when it comes out on DVD March 27.

Quick notes: Rumors, release dates, casting news and more

• Gus Van Sant will take over directing duties from Matt Damon on what was supposed to be Damon’s directorial debut. Damon will still star in the untitled drama, along with John Krasinski, with whom he co-wrote the script. - Deadline
• Even though he won’t go in front of cameras until 2013 (after he plays Mad Max), Tom Hardy is already preparing to play Al Capone in Cicero, a planned trilogy to be directed by David Yates. - Daily Mail
• The hilarious TV show Party Down will become a movie because that’s what Megan Mullally says. It could film as soon as this summer. - THR
• The mostly hilarious UK TV show The Inbetweeners already became a movie (in its native U.K., where the film was a big hit last year), and that movie will finally get a U.S. release this spring. – The Playlist
• For his next project, Michel Hazanavicius, the director of The Artist, will take inspiration from Fred Zinneman’s 1948 film The Search which looks at a mother’s search for her son in the aftermath of WWII. The story will now be set in contemporary Chechnya and star his wife (and co-star of The Artist) Berenice Bejo. - Variety
• Mike Patton of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle will score The Place Beyond the Pines, Derek Cianfrance's follow-up to Blue Valentine starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Rose Byrne and Eva Mendes. - The Playlist
• Tim Burton wants Robert Downey Jr. to play Geppetto in his live-action version of Pinocchio. - Heat Vision
• Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) has signed on to direct The Better Woman, a romantic-comedy about a young woman whose life falls apart after her fiancé leaves her for an older woman. - Variety
• Katee Sackhoff (aka Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica) and Jordi Molla (Colombiana) have joined Vin Diesel in Riddick, David Twohy’s third installment in the Chronicles of Riddick series. - Deadline and Variety
• Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, will be delayed almost a full year, until January 11, 2013. (That's generally not a good sign.)
• The Duplass brothers’ Jeff Who Lives at Home has moved to a March 16, 2012 release date.
• Playing the Field, the romantic-comedy starring Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman, Judy Greer, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Dennis Quaid, has been moved from March 9 all the way to December 25, 2012.
• Scott Zabielski (Tosh.0) will make his feature directing debut with a totally unnecessary remake of Police Academy. - Deadline
• Richard Schiff (The West Wing) will play Dr. Emil Hamilton in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. - Variety
• Rob Marshall, whose feature career began with the musical Chicago, has signed on to direct Into the Woods, a big-screen adaptation of the Broadway musical written by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. - THR
• Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy) has joined the cast of the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. - Variety
• The Thor 2 saga continues. First it was a revolving door of directors, then an upset star (Natalie Portman) and now it’s a rewrite. Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan) is the latest to get a crack at the script. - Deadline
• Kenneth Branagh, who directed the original Thor, has cast Kate Winslet in his adaptation of best-selling novel The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society. - Daily Mail
• John Logan (Hugo) is working on an adaptation of the hit musical Jersey Boys. - Variety
• Mark your calendar for July 12, 2013; that’s when Grown Ups 2 will hit theaters. – The Playlist

And finally ...

Here are a few exciting trailers you might have missed over the holidays while we were away...

Prometheus

The Dark Knight Rises

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey