Before I even start, I just want to say that at no point am I going to take any cheap shots at Michelle Rodriguez about her driving habits -- and believe me, it isn't easy. Instead, lets just focus on what she does best, playing bad a** chicks. Coming Soon.net reports (via Rodriguez's web site) that she will be returning for the latest installment of The Fast and The Furious franchise.

For those of you out there who don't know your cheesy car flicks, Rodriguez starred in the first film back in 2001as Letty, the girlfriend to street racer Vin Diesel. Like most of the original cast, she was nowhere to be seen in the later sequels. But this time around, it looks like director Justin Lin is going back to the beginning and reuniting Diesel, Paul Walker, and Rodriguez.

The story will focus on Brian (Walker) and Dominic (Diesel) teaming up to stop a drug kingpin known as Braga. So where do the cars come in, you might ask? I mean, this is a Fast and Furious movie after all. Well, our two heroes vie for a spot on the criminal's team, in a snazzy Nissan, with a plan to catch the man red-handed. (Just a couple of weeks ago, we got our first look at Diesel and Walker on set.) Rodriguez is also still doing some post-production work on James Cameron's Avatar, so I would guess that it won't take long to wrap up her part as Letty before she heads back to finish up the sci-fi blockbuster. The Fast and the Furious 4 is scheduled for release summer, 2009.

While doing press for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer down under, Jessica Alba came into contact with a wiseguy reporter for The Age who decided to bring up the subject of Into the Blue, one of her biggest flops. Released in 2005, the ocean adventure movie, that also starred Paul Walker and Josh Brolin, pulled in only $18 million at the box-office and, some say, cast a bit of a pall over Alba's bankability. When asked about her "dud" by the paper, Alba immediately dives into a lengthy response. "Here's the thing, though. Into the Blue was made before I made Fantastic Four or Sin City, and MGM, who made Into the Blue, was bought by Sony. So Sony had to distribute all of the movies it had slated for the year as well as all of MGM's movies. So they just threw it away. There was no press, no anything." Seems like she's put a lot of thought into the subject, no? And she's not finished.

"And I wasn't the star of the movie," she continues. "I was barely in it! It was Paul Walker's movie. He was the lead and I thought it was unfair that anybody thought I should have been the only one to carry that movie, because frankly it wasn't mine." The article also brings up the subject of Alba's infamous no-nudity clause, although they don't really ask her to speak to that directly. Instead, she's asked a general question about sex and pop culture, and launches into a monologue about sexuality and violence. "You know, sexuality doesn't scare me as much as violence," she says. "We put kids through a month of training, give them automatic weapons and send them into the desert and expect them to go kill people and survive in an environment that's completely foreign to them, and when they come home they can't order a f**king beer. I think that's bullshit. I think that is much more destructive than nudity or sexuality or any of that." So ... the no-nudity clause is still in place?

These days, it seems Paul Walker cannot be in a film unless there's drugs, sex, violence ... or a group of adorable sled dogs. Variety reports the actor (who was once positioned to be the next Brad Pitt) has signed on to star in The Heaven Project, which -- and here's where you Walker fans can breathe a sigh of relief -- does not mean his career has died and gone to heaven. Instead, it's an independently financed thriller written by John Glenn -- who will also make his directorial debut.

Along with Variety's odd description of "a love story set in the framework of a psychological thriller" comes an equally odd plot synopsis; apparently, Walker will play a man who loses everything he loves and must piece his life back together by overcoming great obstacles. Um, can we be a little bit more vague? Glenn (as well as his ex-writing partner Travis Wright) recently wrote drafts for a bunch of remakes, including Clash of the Titans (Warner Bros.), Journey to the Center of the Earth (Fox) and The Warriors (Paramount). Pic also marks the first company credit for Walker's new production shingle Be Good (as in, "I just signed on to another edgy drama, please let it be good"). Walker can next be seen impersonating a deceased drug lord in The Death and Life of Bobby Z due out later this year.

• Running Scared: Despite New Line's clever attempted to distract the public via a porntastic promotion, most critics still noticed that Running Scared is pretty bad. In the negative reviews, there's a lot of talk about self-consciousness, and the pallid aping of Tarantino - oddly, the same things show up the handful of good reviews, except there those things are praise-worthy. It's confusing, and leads one to the inescapable conclusion that, even more than usual, your reaction to this one is going to depend almost entirely on your point of view.
  
  
• Tsotsi: Because it's currently playing in just six theaters, reviews of Tsotsi are few and far between. Critics who have seen it, however, found themselves vaguely disappointed, particularly given the film's lofty status as an Oscar nominee. Though most agree that the movie looks gorgeous, it's hard to find anyone who will grant that sort of praise to its storytelling - even those who like it are forced to admit that the film's story of redemption is disappointingly "conventional."