When a movie shows up and takes a clear political stance, I find it's easier to judge its successes and / or shortcomings than when a flick dips a toe into the pool of social commentary and just waggles it around for a few minutes -- which probably explains why I both enjoyed and respected Mark Webber's Explicit Ills, an Altman-esque indie drama that has something to say about poverty, health care, and the importance of basic human kindness.

Brief, honest, and admirably to-the-point, Explicit Ills follows a group of seemingly unrelated South Philadelphia folks who try to lead normal, happy, anonymous lives -- but their station on the lower rung of the income scale means that even the most basic requirements remain frustratingly out-of-reach. (In one key scene, an excellent Rosario Dawson is denied asthma medicine for her sick little boy -- because she cannot afford the $55 price tag.) Alternate plot threads involve a pair of young druggies in love, a mega-clean couple who aim to open a health food store, and a cocky adolescent who (slowly) learns how to treat a lady.

While she's getting ready to film Eagle Eye in November, and also has a series of webisodes on the way, the unstoppable workhorse otherwise known as Rosario Dawson is going to be in yet another new movie. She's spending September in Philadelphia to be in a new indie flick called explicit ills., according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. The movie will mark the directorial debut of actor Mark Webber, who recently starred in Ethan Hawke's The Hottest State -- and who happened to win the Rising Star award at the Philly Film Fest.

The film is about "the effects of drugs and poverty and the choices that people make," which sounds like anything but an upper, although Mike Lemon, who cast the feature, says "it's uplifting." It's also quite reminiscent of Webber's own life. He was raised in the slums of North Philly by his single mom, and spent part of his youth homeless after a welfare fiasco. Dawson will play a woman who has an asthmatic son, but no insurance. The cast is looking to be an indie smorgasbord -- there's also Paul Franklin Dano, the big, silent brother from Little Miss Sunshine, the Pirates of the Caribbean voodoorific Naomie Harris, the infamous indie Thumbsucker Lou Taylor Pucci, and Roots rapper Tariq Trotter (who has had stints in films like Bamboozled and Perfume). Production will continue through the month, and I imagine we'll get to see it some time in the next year.