Did you know that the beautiful city of San Diego has mean streets? City Lights Pictures announced in Cannes today that it has picked up North American rights to Damian Harris' Gardens of the Night, a drama about two young people struggling to exist hand to mouth on the streets of San Diego. City Lights plans a fall theatrical release, according to a statement released by the company.

Gillian Jacobs (pictured) stars as Leslie, a 17-year-old girl who is still dealing with the trauma she experienced when she and her childhood friend Donnie (Evan Ross) were abducted and held captive by two men nine years earlier. The abductors are played by Tom Arnold (!) and Kevin Zegers.

It sounded a bit creepy when news about the black comedy Driving Lessons first hit. The film was said to focus on "a troubled family who gets a second chance at happiness when the mother (Davis) suffers a memory loss and can't recall the last 15 years of her life." Now, as more cast sign on, it's sounding entirely different. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Max Thieriot (Nancy Drew), Bow Wow (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift), Evan Ross (Life Support), Chi McBride (Boston Public), Gabrielle Anwar (The Tudors), Madeline Zima (Californiacation), Brittany Robertson (Dan in Real Life), Jermaine Williams (Stomp the Yard), and John Patrick Amedori (Stick It) have already signed on for parts, and that Selma Blair is in final negotiations.

As it's being described now, Bunnie (Hope Davis' mother character) is "given a second chance at her unhappy marriage to Jack (Dermot Mulroney) after losing her memory. It conveniently helps her to forget an interracial affair with her burly next-door neighbor Simon (McBride)." Go, Chi! Then, things get more weird -- Thieriot will play her "religious, right-wing teenage son," Robertson is the "sexually adventurous daughter," and Blair is finally beyond playing super-young girls and instead, she'll be "a sarcastic lesbian high school teacher having an affair with a student (Zima)." Anwar, meanwhile, will be "Jack's sexy, power-crazed co-worker," while Ross plays McBride's son, and Bow Wow and Williams will be meddlesome thugs. There's no word on Amedori's role. It's definitely a strange selection of random bits, and whether it'll all work together -- we'll have to wait and see. Production gears up next month in LA.

For fans of old-school hip-hop, Marley Marl's Juice Crew is the stuff of legends. So it really is about time that they got their very own musical biopic. In an interview with VH1 blog, Marl sat down to talk about the upcoming film titled Vapors (presumably taken from the Biz Markie song of the same name) that is set to start shooting this month in Queens, NY. For the uninitiated, Juice Crew were a hip-collective formed by Marl and its members included Roxanne Shante, MC Shan, Biz Markie, and Big Daddy Kane. The group was a way for Marl to highlight his skills as a producer and the group gained notoriety for their high-profile feuds with Boogie Down Productions and UTFO. Marl says that the film is going to be, "--basically me, Big Daddy Kane and Biz's life story leading up to 1988. How we got there. How we made the golden era pop. ... A lot of ups and downs, a lot of personal sh--. It is what it is." Marl, Roxanne Shante and Big Daddy Kane will all serve as executive producers on the film which is being made with Indiefilmx.com

According to Marl, Furqaan Clover has already signed to direct, but it turns out that some of the casting news released back in December might have been a little premature. BlackFilm.com had reported that Cuba Gooding Jr. had already been cast as Marley Marl, rapper-actor David Banner would play the part of Biz Markie, Evan Ross was playing MC Shan, and Jackie Long would appear as Big Daddy Kane. Now Marl tells VH1 that no decisions have been reached yet, and that they will choose, "The best actor possible, --- We gonna tally it up at the end and see who it could be. We need the movie 'Vapors' to make its point, and a lot of the young kids to know what birthed the golden era" -- Amen to that. Vapors is aiming for a 2008 release so start dusting off your Cazals and door-knocker earrings now.

It's not like I think Hillary Duff is a bad actress (although I think the NYT might have something to say about that particular statement), it's just that she's hasn't had the chance yet to break out of the 'Lizzie McGuire mode' -- unless you consider the mountains of gossip surrounding her over the last two years...very "un-Disney". Duff will get her first shot at a slightly more serious role in Greta. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Duff will star in Nancy Bardawil's drama about "a waitress who falls for an ambitious cook at the restaurant where they work. But as their summer romance heats up, she has to overcome the concerns of her grandparents about her boyfriend's criminal past". Joining Duff are Ellen Burstyn and Michael Murphy as Duff's overprotective grandparents and ATL star Evan Ross will play the cook with a shady past.

The film was written by Michael Gilvary, who is making his feature debut along with director Nancy Bardawil. A music video director by trade, Bardawil has made videos for The Goo Goo Dolls, Dixie Chicks, and Hole -- but no Duff appears on the list, so at least Bardawil wasn't playing favorites when choosing her lead. Duff is still working on being one of the voice talents in the CGI family flick Foodfight! But, along with her debut in War Inc. (a sequel of sorts to Grosse Point Blank with John Cusack) she has already signed to star in Safety Glass, yet another drama that surrounds the Challenger disaster. Aww, our little starlet is finally growing up.

Safe from the dog comedy of Disney's upcoming South of the Border, Kevin Bray is gearing up to direct an indie film called Linewatch -- a drama about a border agent with a troubled past. You might know Bray from the saucy Whitney Houston and J-Lo videos he has directed, the many television episodes he's helmed from shows like Veronica Mars and Heroes or as the man behind The Rock's Walking Tall. The feature, which is currently in production, now has its stars -- Diana Ross' son, Evan Ross and Cuba Gooding Jr. Could this be Cuba's shining light out of crappy movie hell? The movie is currently shooting in New Mexico, so we should know fairly soon.

The drama is about a man named Michael Dixon (Gooding Jr.), a well-respected border agent with a wife and daughter in New Mexico. His security crumbles when his troubled past as an L.A. gang member finds its way back to him. In order to protect his family, he has to help the "psychotic gang leader" smuggled drugs across the border. Now Ross is playing Little Boy, Dixon's nephew, who was close to his uncle before the man left Dodge. Deserted, Little Boy joined the gang and sought out "a psychotic member" (presumably the leader) as his surrogate dad. I'm sure there will be all the requisite angst and guilt, but hopefully it will be done in a way that looks believable, and not one of those films where the man loses all common sense and digs a deeper and deeper hole for himself.