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Folks looking for this summer's Little Miss Sunshine might find similarities in Introducing the Dwights (previously known as Clubland when it premiered at Sundance earlier this year). Like Sunshine, Dwights revolves around a somewhat eccentric family whose members all aspire to be bigger than they are. While there's no physical road trip in Dwights, each character embarks on an inner journey -- one of physical exploration and, eventually, transformation. It's sweet, quirky, sincere, and provides a perfect escape from the hustle and bustle of those big-budgeted extravaganzas currently invading your local theater.

Told from a few different perspectives, this Aussie coming-of-age tale is, essentially, about growing up and giving in to the forces that control our own personal universe. Jean (Brenda Blethyn), a UK-born comedienne and stage performer nearing middle age, works tirelessly to keep her family and career on track. She's up at the crack of dawn for the morning shift at the canteen, and in between giving music lessons to the neighborhood kids, she's practicing for her own shows later that night. Somewhere amidst the hectic schedule, she needs to find time to be a mother to her two teenage boys; one of which suffers from brain damage, while the other is being wooed into his first mature, sexual relationship with the opposite sex. And the more Jean fights for control, the harder it becomes for her to just let go.

The Dylan Thomas romance feature, The Best Time of Our Lives, hasn't even begun shooting yet and Cillian Murphy and new co-star Sienna Miller have already signed on for another film together, along with Max Minghella and Emma Booth. Instead of jealous husbands and romantic rivalries, they'll be doing the Hippie Hippie Shake. Sounds like saccharine sixties sock hop, doesn't it? Well, it makes more sense when you hear the full title of the memoir it's coming from -- Richard Neville's Hippie Hippie Shake: The Dreams, the Trips, the Trials, the Love-ins, the Screw Ups: The Sixties.

Neville (Murphy) was the co-founder of Oz, a sixties re-plant from Australia that stretched artistic technique in magazines just as much as it stretched the limits of content. Just like Lenny Bruce was pestered stateside, Oz and its creators found themselves part of the longest obscenity trial of its time. In 1970, in an attempt to get back in touch with youth, they had a bunch of school kids edit an issue. Between the young help and the "obscene" content, they finally pissed off the Obscene Publications Squad enough and found themselves in court. Neville and the other defendants were first found guilty, but an appeal was successful -- as long as they stopped publishing Oz.

The film will be directed by Beeban Kidron, whose past films don't prove that exciting. She helmed To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. That being said, she also won a BAFTA award for a television adaptation of a Jeanette Winterson novel, so maybe she can make something better than her more bland cinema forays. On the other hand, Lee Hall, who wrote Billy Elliot, is adapting the memoir, so that should mean good things. The film gears up this fall.