Production has completed on the neo noir caper Hotel Noir, and the first image from the film has been released.  Snakes on a Plane screenwriter Sebastián Gutiérrez tries his hand as a director at the noir genre in the 1950s-set film that centers on a detective holed up in a downtown hotel waiting for assassins to kill him.  We follow the detective through the night as he meets and converses with various characters who have haunted pasts of their own.  This being a Gutiérrez film, it’s described as a “sexually charged” crime film.  The cast is fairly impressive and includes Rufus Sewell, Carla Gugino, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson, Malin Akerman, and Robert Forster.  The pic is currently without distribution, but it will be shopped to international buyers in Cannes.

Hit the jump to read the press release and to check out the first image from the film.

Elektra Luxx follows its title character, first introduced by writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez in 2009′s Women in Trouble, who is now a retired porn superstar, trying to cope with impending motherhood while coming to terms with the death of the baby’s father and her split from the porn world. Even though Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino) is trying to live a quieter life, reinventing herself as a sex education instructor at her local community center, she quickly ends up entangled with a flight attendant (Marley Shelton) looking to have her fiancé seduced, an attractive private detective (Timothy Olyphant) who proves to be quite appealing, an over-eager sex blogger (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who’s obsessed with her, a best-selling author (Kathleen Quinlan) looking to turn her life into a novel, and even the Virgin Mary (Julianne Moore) herself.

During the film’s press day, actress Carla Gugino did this exclusive interview with Collider and talked about the appeal of this rather unusual character, how much she enjoyed getting to revisit Elektra Luxx, and the challenge of shooting a film in 15 days. She also talked about how getting to see the final visuals of Sucker Punch (in theaters on March 25^th) was like seeing the story brought to life for the first time, being part of the ensemble of the Garry Marshall film New Year’s Eve, and playing really strong women on both Entourage and Californication. Check out what she had to say after the jump.

The trailer for Girl Walks into a Bar has gone online.  The film has an impressive cast that includes Carla Gugino, Zachary Quinto, Danny DeVito, Josh Hartnett, Rosario Dawson, Alexis Bledel, and Robert Forster.  Based solely on the trailer, I have no idea was to what the movie’s about.  But Girl‘s hook doesn’t seem to be it’s cast or its story, but rather its distribution method.  Girl Walks into a Bar will be presented by Lexus and YouTube for free, exclusively on YouTube.  The money quote in the press release comes from Lexus VP of Marketing Dave Nordstrom:

“It seems fitting to support this initiative as we launch our most unconfined vehicle yet—the CT 200h hybrid —in a space that we know will reach an unconventional, sophisticated audience.” (emphasis mine)

Clearly, Mr. Nordstrom has never been on YouTube.  Hit the jump to check out the trailer, four images from the film, and the full press release.  Girl Walks into a Bar goes online March 11th.

It’s been sitting on the shelf for a little while, but Elektra Luxx, the sequel to director Sebastian Gutierrez’s 2009 film Women in Trouble, finally has a trailer.  The film stars Carla Gugino as a former porn star who agrees to seduce a woman’s fiancée but ends up getting drawn into a world of wacky intrigue.  In addition to Gugino, the film’s got a great cast which includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Timothy Olyphant, Adrianne Palicki, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Marley Shelton, and Malin Akerman.  But the real reason to see it is Gugino in skimpy clothing.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  Elektra Luxx is due out March 11th.