The optimism and excitement of the Sundance Film Festival was shattered yesterday by the news of Heath Ledger's passing. When I spoke with actresses Bijou Phillips and Gillian Flynn of "Choke," just bought by Fox Searchlight, emotions were clearly still raw for both women. Phillips whose lifelong friend Brad Renfro also died recently said simply of these tragic events, "It's got to stop."

The full report on how Sundance is reacting to Ledger's untimely death is here.

What do you do when you've already established the most substantial genre-movie career this side of Roger Corman, the studios are still calling, and your 70th birthday is staring you in the face? Well, if you're Larry Cohen, you start all over again.

"The next movie coming out will be 'It's Alive,' the remake of my 1974 movie that we just remade with Bijou Phillips," the writer/director/producer told us recently. "It's a 2008 version with a lot of updating - new stuff, new gags. We filmed it in Bulgaria."

The original "It's Alive" is a guilty masterpiece, starring the creepiest baby since Maggie Simpson's uni-browed arch-enemy. Cohen said that the new Davis offspring will be equally terrifying, but will be aided with some modern CGI techniques that will allow it to come out of the stroller more often. "It'll be a CGI baby; that's why we did it," Cohen said of the flick, which is directed by Josef Rusnak ("The Thirteenth Floor") and co-stars James Murray and Raphael Coleman ("Nanny McPhee"). Read more...

After nearly 15 years (!) of production, the long-awaited flick "What We Do Is Secret" got its world premiere Monday night at the Los Angeles Film Festival, followed by an intense concert by the Germs that made it feel like 1977 again.

With the legendary Darby Crash long deceased, however, you might wonder who was rocking the mic. The answer? Shane West!

Yes, that's right: This Shane West.

Skeptical as I was, however, West quickly won over those in the crowd who weren't already turned on to his recent transformation. The self-professed "lifelong punk rock fan" gives a solid performance in the coming-soon movie, and onstage he's nothing short of a force to be reckoned with.

The lights went down shortly after 11 p.m. at L.A. nightclub Element, and surviving Germs members Pat Smear, Lorna Doom and Don Bolles took their positions. Soon enough, West began belting out ear-punishing classics like "Circle One" and "We Must Bleed," most in 90-second outbursts of fury. The crowd was a mix of Hollywood royalty (Kristen Bell and "Secret" star Bijou Phillips) and black-leather-clad old-schoolers. Read more...

The world of "Hostel" is a dark, mysterious place. But with these horrifying new clips leaked to MTV, the story of next month's sequel is beginning to take shape.

"What is this place?" actress Lauren German asks in one of the "Hostel Part II" scenes, finding herself in the torture palace we came to know and fear last year. "This place," responds her friend. "People come here to kill people."

Despite previous rumors to the contrary, we see the three main actresses (Heather Matarazzo, Bijou Phillips and German) being led to Prague by a sexy female siren named Axelle (Vera Jordanova), who promises them "The best natural hot springs in the world." The day of beauty goes bad, however, in "Spa Escape," a second clip that has the white-robed German running for her life.

View the first clip below, and the second (as well as comments from the film's cast) after the jump.

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