bijou phillips Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The hot ticket at Sundance tonight was to the world premiere of Choke, based on one of my favorite Chuck Palahniuk books. The screening was packed with both fans and celebs, and while I -- as a fan who's read the book -- had some issues with the film, the audience seemed to devour it. I'll be posting a review tomorrow (seeing as it's hard to concentrate right now with four Cinematical writers eating Dominos and screaming), but I will say that Sam Rockwell was absolutely perfect in the role of Victor Mancini. Following the screening, Cinematical chatted with a bunch of folks, including Dave Matthews, William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman, Bijou Phillips and author Chuck Palahniuk.

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The Masterson brothers are teaming up for their first feature film together, and whether or not you're a big fan of Christopher's big stint on Malcolm in the Middle, or Danny's on That '70s Show, you might want to check this out. Variety is reporting that the brothers will co-star in a new indie comedy called Made for Each Other, which is currently shooting in Connecticut. The movie is the first feature script by Eric Lord, and is being directed by newcomer Daryl Goldberg, whose first feature Unholy, a direct-to-DVD horror flick starring Nicholas Brendon, will be released next month.

While this might not sound intriguing yet, check out the premise and who they cast for each role. Christopher stars (and is co-producing) as a man who is a mere 3 months into a sexless marriage -- a sexless marriage with Bijou Phillips that is. (Who happens to be Brother Danny's real-life partner.) But it gets better. In a moment of sexual desperation, he breaks down and has a one-night stand. Of course, the only way he thinks he can fix things is to get her to cheat on him. So, he gets his best friend, Samm Levine (Life is Short and Freaks and Geeks), to not sleep with her himself, but find the right man for the job. Now take a second to think of the possibilities. Was The Tick/Brock Sampson/Joe Swanson the guy you were thinking of? That's right -- believe it or not, they pick Patrick Warburton to bed Bijou. Somewhere in all this brouhaha is Danny, who is an attorney waiting to help out with what he figures is a couple destined for divorce. Or, are they Made for Each Other? After Warburton, I can't imagine they would be!

Although it opened pretty wide, on over 2,300 screens, Hostel: Part II failed to connect with audiences on its opening weekend, pulling in only $8.7 million for a sixth place finish, behind the box-office leader Ocean's 13, the second place finisher, Knocked Up, and three other films. There's no danger of the film not making its budget back, which was pretty small, but it seems that unless the film has some serious legs, it won't be considered a worthy follow-up to its predecessor when the final numbers are tallied. (The first Hostel raked in $47 million at the domestic box office, despite a budget of only $5 million.) If that proves to be the case, this will be the second film in two months -- the first being Grindhouse -- to be smacked down by a national audience in spite of seeming like a home run.

Whether or not Hostel: Part II underperforms, it probably won't affect Eli Roth's immediate plans -- he apparently has no interest in returning to the well for a third Hostel. Instead, he's going to be mounting an adaptation of Stephen King's Cell and putting out a movie made up entirely of trailers, called Trailer Trash. At a Q&A last week, he told the crowd he was even including Howard Stern in the trailer movie -- they're going to make a trailer for his never-made project, Fartman. Roth also said he didn't yet know which project he'd shoot first -- Trailer Trash or Cell. We'll be posting a full report on the talk soon.

The premise of Hostel: Part II is that life isn't cheap -- it's worth at least as much as a luxury vacation or a new sailboat. Early on, the film introduces us to two American men, both late 30s to early 40s with the look of wealthy dot.com entrepreneurs, and reveals that they are both clients of the sinister network we learned about in the first Hostel. That is to say, along with other successful sociopaths, they take part in secret online auctions where the prize is a captured holidaymaker that they can torture to death at a private facility in Slovakia. Once the credit card clears -- I wonder what it says on the billing statement? -- the client is invited to come to the facility and experience the thrill of unleashing their inner sadist on an innocent. Much like a brothel might try to sell you sex toys while you're there, the Hostel facility is fully stocked with a large array of torture instruments to choose from. You can imagine Aaron Eckhart's character from In the Company of Men loving this place.

The victims this time around are Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and Lorna (harlequin-faced actress Heather Matarazzo) all of them riding around on a Eurail pass for one reason or another. Although director Eli Roth is mature enough not to clog up the early portions of the film with pointless 'boo' moments, he does give us enough reaction shots from creepy-looking Europeans on the train and around the town square to make it seem like all of Slovakia is in on the scheme to capture these American babes and pack them off to the slaughterhouse. By the time they are finally betrayed by the one person who was nice to them -- a Slovak beauty played by Vera Jordanova -- it's hardly a surprise. Still, the early scenes of Hostel: Part II are sufficiently atmospheric and tense, and there's never a question that you're in the hands of a capable director. Even the slobbering gore-hounds in the first row should be entertained enough during the lengthy set-up to not be checking their watches.

Considering the problems surrounding marketing for horror films, the latest and supposedly final poster for Eli Roth's Hostel: Part II seems downright tame. Until now, there have been close-ups of viscera, a headless Bijou Phillips, and a poster that was a combination of the two. Then we got another close-up of a woman bound and gagged in the nude hanging upside down. Considering the strange combination of violence and sex in the previous posters, I'm kind of surprised that this was the choice for the final poster. On the other hand, though, I know that uninspiring poster or not, fans of Roth will still run to the theater in droves to watch half-naked girls beg for their life for two hours -- not to mention some truly stomach churning special F/X.

The eagerly awaited sequel to Roth's 2005 horror has been providing plenty of different teasers and promotional clips over the past months, and Roth himself has been making the rounds in the media, being vocal about his lack of self-censorship when it comes to violence. But, in light of all the hoopla surrounding the posters for films like Captivity and debates about violence against women, maybe that's why Lionsgate finally went with a poster that could be put up on a billboard without causing public outcry. As most of us probably know by now, the story follows three American art students in Rome, who head to a remote location for a relaxing vacation with horrifying results. Considering this is a Roth film after all, I can only guess as to just how horrifying it is going to get.

There's a reason we keep writing so many stories about horror flicks in general and Eli Roth in particular: They're among our most visited pages! So obviously a whole lot of you have some serious interest in seeing what Hostel: Part ii is going to look like -- and now there's a full-bore theatrical trailer to sink your bloody teeth into! Continuing with the "German is creepy" vibe that was doled out in the teaser trailer, the new clip explains just a little more about the plot of the sequel. Apparently we're not just going to visit with three ill-fated American girls; we're also going to get a peek behind the curtain to meet and greet the killers clients who line up to commit murder.

The trailer is available only at the rather unwieldy MTV website, but I was able to track it down and watch the thing just fine. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to see what Madman Roth has cooked up this time. The flick doesn't open until June 8, but we don't usually get a lot of hardcore horror movies during the summer, so it should make for quite the gore-soaked treat. The sequel stars Heather Matarazzo, Lauren German and Bijou Phillips (as the chicks in danger), as well as Richard Burgi as one of the "normal Joes" who decide to temporarily take up manslaughter for a vacation trip. Icky. Expect lots of stern finger-wagging from the horror-haters once this sequel starts getting a little closer.

A new teaser poster for the upcoming Hostel: Part II has been dropped to IGN, and it's so bizarre that my first impression is that it must be some kind of fan creation, although it's hard to imagine that the IGN folks would be fooled. The poster is almost a complete melding of the first two teaser posters -- the one that shows a churn of raw meat and the one that shows a naked Bijou Phillips holding a dismembered head. Imagine if the two images were put in a blender, and you'd get a good idea of what this one is. It almost has a kind of Hellraiser quality to it, with the meat serving as a kind of body-muscle for the female figure.

The last big blast of Hostel: Part II information came during NYComicCon, some of which Erik brought you. A few clips of the film were shown, including one with Bijou Phillips and two friends bathing themselves in a hot spring, whild discussing where to find a missing friend, or something like that. Another clip showed Heather Matarazzo, gagged and looking very upset, before the camera pulls back and shows her hanging upside down, and about to be tortured. The release of the film was originally scheduled for as early as January, but (presumably) due to the insane hype surrounding it, the studio has decided to push it directly into the summer box-office brawl -- June 8.

After a tarty start with roles like band-aid Estrella Starr and a saucy teen suburbanite in Havoc, Bijou Phillips is moving step by step into Scream Queen status. We've got Venom and an appearance on CSI in her past, and The Wizard of Gore and Hostel: Part 2 in her near future. For the latter, she even disrobed and carried a dismembered head for a promotional poster. I would say that move shows dedication to her new genre, but the young woman isn't entirely particular about her naked work. Now TOMB is reporting that she's started work this week on It's Alive -- yes, another remake -- with James Murray and Raphaël Coleman. (The site lists a dead Murray, so unless they've got ghost or zombie roles, I think it is safe to say that the Murray in question is this one.)

The film, which is currently shooting in Bulgaria, is a sweet family film about "a monstrous homicidal vampire baby." In the original, the baby's murderous tendencies came from its being frightened, but we can't really rely on the original. Director Josef Rusnak (The Thirteenth Floor) is quoted as saying: "Some character elements and situations have been updated to reflect certain changes in society, but the script still preys on the genre's ability to explode the foundation of today's bourgeoisie." Umm, yeah. So, the bad, murdering baby is coming back to the screen to take a stab at the middle class? How political of the little tyke!

We recently brought you news of a shocking new poster for Hostel: Part II that would be unveiled at NYComicCon over the weekend. Since Hostel-activities weren't my beat, I didn't have a chance to see the poster and wasn't exactly looking for it, and quite frankly, forgot all about it until it started turning up on websites over the weekend. It's pretty much what we were told to expect -- it shows star Bijou Phillips standing nude and carrying the dismembered head like it's a football or something. It's an appropriately creepy poster and churns the stomach a little -- both explicitly sexual and gore-tastic at the same time.

If you're a Hostel fanatic and you want to know absolutely everything that is going on inside director Eli Roth's head at the moment, be sure to check out Erik's roundtable discussion with Roth, posted yesterday -- it's one of our many on-the-scene reports from NYComicCon this year. In it, Roth talks about why he wanted to return to the Hostel series and whether or not there will be a Hostel III in our future. Okay, I'll go ahead and spoil that one for you -- he says that if this one makes money, then there could be another one. Big surprise.

The gang over at Bloodydisgusting.com just got a heads up -- I swear, there is no 'head' pun being dumped on you here -- about a new poster for Hostel: Part II that will be unveiled at New York ComicCon this weekend. The poster will apparently show star Bijou Phillips nude and beheaded, and no, BD doesn't have a sneak preview, so don't even ask. They are also reporting back details of the photo shoot for the poster, which took place at the El Royale apartment complex in Hollywood. "The neighbors got an eyeful," is how their spies put it.

To answer your next question, yes, Cinematical will be out in full force for NYComicCon this weekend. Tomorrow we will be bringing you coverage of a panel with horror maestro Stephen King, a panel with Eli Roth, as well as a special feature on a private breakfast event that is being thrown by the folks behind The Hills Have Eyes 2. The man himself, Wes Craven, has sent in his RSVP and is apparently bringing unseen footage with him. There will be a ton of other stuff we'll be reporting on, once we actually get ourselves down to the Javits center and see what's going down. NYComicCon isn't as big as its big brother, but our sources say there will be a few surprises in store. Stay tuned.