Cds Films recently had one if its first feature flicks Natural Born Pranksters picked up for distribution by Lionsgate. Now, the film division of the multi-channel network Collective Digital Studio is adding another title to its roster of original movies. Cds Films has started production on its newest feature starring Vine celebrity Matthew Espinosa.
Directed by Joshua Caldwell (Layover, South Beach), the untitled comedy-drama from tells the story of Jordan Jay (played by Espinosa), a teen pop star who just wants to lead a normal life. Jordan abandons his sold-out tour and runs away to a small town where he meets Emily, a girl described in a release as “a rebellious street artist who wants nothing to do with [Jordan].” Cds Films’ upcoming title also co-stars Sarah Jeffery (Shades of Blue), Tava Smiley (General Hospital), Caitlin Keats (Kill Bill: Vol 2), Lamonica Garrett (Sons of Anarchy), and Allison Paige (The Lizzie Bennet Diaries...
Directed by Joshua Caldwell (Layover, South Beach), the untitled comedy-drama from tells the story of Jordan Jay (played by Espinosa), a teen pop star who just wants to lead a normal life. Jordan abandons his sold-out tour and runs away to a small town where he meets Emily, a girl described in a release as “a rebellious street artist who wants nothing to do with [Jordan].” Cds Films’ upcoming title also co-stars Sarah Jeffery (Shades of Blue), Tava Smiley (General Hospital), Caitlin Keats (Kill Bill: Vol 2), Lamonica Garrett (Sons of Anarchy), and Allison Paige (The Lizzie Bennet Diaries...
- 12/10/2015
- by Bree Brouwer
- Tubefilter.com
Sneak Peek new key art supporting the comedy-drama TV series "Bunheads", created by Amy Sherman-Palladino ("Gilmore Girls") and Lamar Damon, starring Sutton Foster, following a Las Vegas showgirl who gets married on a whim and winds up teaching alongside her new mother-in-law at her ballet school :
"...'Michelle Simms', a former ballerina 'bunhead' winds up in a Las Vegas showgirl. Seeing her life and career at a dead end, she impulsively takes up the offer of marriage from her persistent admirer, 'Hubbell Flowers' (Alan Ruck), and moves to his sleepy coastal town, 'Paradise'.
"Once there, Hubbell is killed in a car accident and Michelle struggles to adjust to life in a small town and teaching alongside her mother-in-law, 'Fanny' at her ballet school, the 'Paradise Dance Academy'..."
Cast also includes Kaitlyn Jenkins as 'Boo Jordan', Julia Goldani Telles as 'Sasha Torres', Bailey Buntain as 'Ginny Thompson' and Emma Dumont as 'Melanie Segal'.
"...'Michelle Simms', a former ballerina 'bunhead' winds up in a Las Vegas showgirl. Seeing her life and career at a dead end, she impulsively takes up the offer of marriage from her persistent admirer, 'Hubbell Flowers' (Alan Ruck), and moves to his sleepy coastal town, 'Paradise'.
"Once there, Hubbell is killed in a car accident and Michelle struggles to adjust to life in a small town and teaching alongside her mother-in-law, 'Fanny' at her ballet school, the 'Paradise Dance Academy'..."
Cast also includes Kaitlyn Jenkins as 'Boo Jordan', Julia Goldani Telles as 'Sasha Torres', Bailey Buntain as 'Ginny Thompson' and Emma Dumont as 'Melanie Segal'.
- 11/19/2012
- by M. Stevens
- SneakPeek
Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino left that still-in-syndication WB/CW show (along with husband/frequent creative partner Daniel Palladino) in 2006 when contract negotiations ended unsuccessfully. Since then, she has developed several series scripts and/or pilots but none has been a success. Now she has found a home at ABC Family with Bunheads, a summer series about a ballerina-turned-Vegas showgirl (Tony-winner Sutton Foster) who unexpectedly finds herself teaching at her mother-in-law’s small-town dance school. (ABC Family is part of the Disney-abc Television Group cocktail party at TCA this evening.) After its June 11th premiere, Bunheads immediately ignited controversy when mega-producer Shonda Rhimes, who is black, tweeted: “Hey@abcfbunheads: really? You couldn’t cast even One young dancer of color so I could feel good about my kids watching this show? Not One?” The outspoken Bunheads co-creator (with Lamar Damon) and executive producer talks to Deadline TV contributors Diane Haithman...
- 7/27/2012
- by THE DEADLINE TEAM
- Deadline TV
Gilmore Girls’ quirky and brilliant executive producer Amy Sherman-Palladino has climbed on board the Las Vegas show girl’s project entitled ‘Strut’. Per Variety, Palladino was asked to join the TV venture with Anna Mastro (Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious), Charlie Stratton (Dirty Dancing TV series), and Norman Buckley (The O.C.), in order to spruce up the pilot after heads at the ABC Family weren’t satisfied. Now happy with the results, ABC Family has officially picked up Strut. The show comes from Lamar Damon (Glam God with Vivica A. Fox), who penned the spec, with Buckley and Mastro. The premise follows a Las Vegas showgirl who ties the knot with a Texan...
- 9/17/2011
- by sluoma
- ShockYa
ABC Family is finalizing deals to give pilot orders to several hourlong projects, including Strut and Intercept. Strut, which was originally given a cast-contingent pilot order last fall, is a drama about a former showgirl who works with a struggling Texas high school drill team. Lamar Damon wrote the original script and was set to executive produce with Anna Mastro, Karey Burke, Charlie Stratton and Norman Buckley. The project has now been reworked by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino who is executive producing with Burke, Stratton, Mastro and Buckley. Intercept, written by Ray Wright, is about college hackers.
- 9/15/2011
- by NELLIE ANDREEVA
- Deadline TV
Exclusive: New ABC Family president Michael Riley is making his first development move a month after he took over the cable network following nm2712251 autoPaul Lee[/link]'s move to ABC. ABC Family has greenlighted 3 pilots, Strut, Nine Lives and Switched at Birth. I hear the pickup of a fourth pilot, The Lying Game, is imminent. Two of the pilots, Nine Lives and The Lying Game, hail from Alloy Entertainment, the company behind ABC Family's freshman hit Pretty Little Liars. Strut, whose order is cast-contingent, centers on a Las Vegas showgirl who unwittingly gets married to a stranger after a wild night and becomes a high school instructor for a misfit drill team in a small Texas town. Lamar Damon wrote the script and is executive producing with Anna Mastro, Karey Burke, Charlie Stratton and Norman Buckley. Nine Lives is based on Alloy's Nine Lives of Chloe King series of 3 young-adult novels by Celia Thomson.
- 9/28/2010
- by NELLIE ANDREEVA
- Deadline TV
Slap Her ... She's French scribe Lamar Damon has closed a deal with Beacon Pictures to adapt the novel Confessions of a Back-Up Dancer for a mid-six-figure sum. The project, which will likely fall under Beacon's new distribution deal with the Walt Disney Co., is a coming-of-age story set in the American pop music scene. It follows a 17-year-old girl who has her dream fulfilled by landing a summer job as a backup dancer for a Britney Spears-like teen pop sensation. Scott Faye and Dick Rudolph are producing Dancer, with executive Suzann Ellis overseeing for Beacon. Damon, whose other credits include the Endless Love remake Age of Consent at Universal Pictures, is one of the producers on the WB Network's The Surreal Life. He's repped by Paradigm, Handprint Entertainment and attorney Warren Dern.
It's quite apparent -- right down to the hot pink lettering in the advertising -- that the distributor of "Slap Her ... She's French" would very much like it to be mistaken for another "Legally Blonde".
The only problem is, the Reese Witherspoon picture wasn't a gratingly unfunny groaner littered with zero-dimensional, unlikable characters and hackneyed, threadbare comic setups.
Fortunately, few -- aside from those who might mistake this German-financed production for a breezy foreign-language art house import -- will take the bait, ensuring that "Slap Her" beats a hasty retreat to the video store.
Wasting a potentially workable "All About Eve" premise, the film concerns the seemingly charmed life of one Starla Grady (Jane McGregor), the most popular student at Splendona High School, located somewhere deep in the heart of Texas.
That is, until one fateful day when, needing to amp up a little audience sympathy during another beauty pageant (Sending up pageants? How novel!), she announces her family will be taking in an exchange student from Paris in yet another gesture of her unfailing goodwill.
Enter the mousy, bespectacled Genevieve LePlouff (Piper Perabo), who seemingly worships the ground Starla struts upon. The beret and really bad French accent might fool some people, but it's clear from the get-go that Genevieve, or whatever her name really is, has major plans to dethrone her not-so-gracious hostess.
Naturally, Starla doesn't take kindly to people attempting to appropriate her life, and with a little detecting assistance from her bookish kid brother (Jesse James) and the nice-guy school photographer (Trent Ford), she exposes Genevieve as a vengeance-crazed wannabe.
But Genevieve isn't the real culprit here -- it's writers Lamar Damon and Robert Lee King and director Melanie Mayron who are truly deserving of a group smack.
Rather than striving for anything resembling sharply observed satire, the filmmakers have instead opted to mine lazy laughs from tired targets, and the bottom-feeding results leave behind an irritating, slimy residue.
While King, who directed the appropriately campy "Psycho Beach Party", and Damon seem to be biding their time until the next cat fight, actress-turned-director Mayron allows all the squandered comic opportunities to fall with an awkward thud, as if anticipating a laugh track to bail her out.
The cast, which also includes Julie White, Brandon Smith and Michael McKean as an improbable French teacher (maybe that's where Perabo learned the lame accent), doesn't fare much better, while the technical aspects, including the work of production design team Anne Stuhler and Roswell Hamrick ("Boiler Room", "Made"), are more proficient than the picture deserves.
SLAP HER ... SHE'S FRENCH
The Premiere Group
The Premiere Marketing & Distribution Group and Constantin Film present in association with Bandeira and Key Entertainment a Beau Flynn, Emcke/Augsberger and IMF 2 production
Credits:
Director: Melanie Mayron
Screenwriters: Lamar Damon, Robert Lee King
Producers: Beau Flynn, Jonathan King, Matthias Emcke
Executive producers: Bernd Eichinger, Thomas Augsberger, Stefan Simchowitz, Matthias Deyle, Volker Schauz
Director of photography: Charles Minsky
Production designers: Anne Stuhler, Roswell Hamrick
Editor: Marshall Harvey
Costume designer: Julia Caston
Music: David Michael Frank
Cast:
Genevieve LePlouff: Piper Perabo
Starla Grady: Jane McGregor
Ed Mitchell: Trent Ford
Monsieur Duke: Michael McKean
Bootsie Grady: Julie White
Arnie Grady: Brandon Smith
Randolph Grady: Jesse James
Running time -- 93 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
The only problem is, the Reese Witherspoon picture wasn't a gratingly unfunny groaner littered with zero-dimensional, unlikable characters and hackneyed, threadbare comic setups.
Fortunately, few -- aside from those who might mistake this German-financed production for a breezy foreign-language art house import -- will take the bait, ensuring that "Slap Her" beats a hasty retreat to the video store.
Wasting a potentially workable "All About Eve" premise, the film concerns the seemingly charmed life of one Starla Grady (Jane McGregor), the most popular student at Splendona High School, located somewhere deep in the heart of Texas.
That is, until one fateful day when, needing to amp up a little audience sympathy during another beauty pageant (Sending up pageants? How novel!), she announces her family will be taking in an exchange student from Paris in yet another gesture of her unfailing goodwill.
Enter the mousy, bespectacled Genevieve LePlouff (Piper Perabo), who seemingly worships the ground Starla struts upon. The beret and really bad French accent might fool some people, but it's clear from the get-go that Genevieve, or whatever her name really is, has major plans to dethrone her not-so-gracious hostess.
Naturally, Starla doesn't take kindly to people attempting to appropriate her life, and with a little detecting assistance from her bookish kid brother (Jesse James) and the nice-guy school photographer (Trent Ford), she exposes Genevieve as a vengeance-crazed wannabe.
But Genevieve isn't the real culprit here -- it's writers Lamar Damon and Robert Lee King and director Melanie Mayron who are truly deserving of a group smack.
Rather than striving for anything resembling sharply observed satire, the filmmakers have instead opted to mine lazy laughs from tired targets, and the bottom-feeding results leave behind an irritating, slimy residue.
While King, who directed the appropriately campy "Psycho Beach Party", and Damon seem to be biding their time until the next cat fight, actress-turned-director Mayron allows all the squandered comic opportunities to fall with an awkward thud, as if anticipating a laugh track to bail her out.
The cast, which also includes Julie White, Brandon Smith and Michael McKean as an improbable French teacher (maybe that's where Perabo learned the lame accent), doesn't fare much better, while the technical aspects, including the work of production design team Anne Stuhler and Roswell Hamrick ("Boiler Room", "Made"), are more proficient than the picture deserves.
SLAP HER ... SHE'S FRENCH
The Premiere Group
The Premiere Marketing & Distribution Group and Constantin Film present in association with Bandeira and Key Entertainment a Beau Flynn, Emcke/Augsberger and IMF 2 production
Credits:
Director: Melanie Mayron
Screenwriters: Lamar Damon, Robert Lee King
Producers: Beau Flynn, Jonathan King, Matthias Emcke
Executive producers: Bernd Eichinger, Thomas Augsberger, Stefan Simchowitz, Matthias Deyle, Volker Schauz
Director of photography: Charles Minsky
Production designers: Anne Stuhler, Roswell Hamrick
Editor: Marshall Harvey
Costume designer: Julia Caston
Music: David Michael Frank
Cast:
Genevieve LePlouff: Piper Perabo
Starla Grady: Jane McGregor
Ed Mitchell: Trent Ford
Monsieur Duke: Michael McKean
Bootsie Grady: Julie White
Arnie Grady: Brandon Smith
Randolph Grady: Jesse James
Running time -- 93 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 8/22/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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