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.

The Hottest State is one of the most inauthentic films I've seen in a long time. Written and directed by Ethan Hawke, and from his own novel no less, the film plays out like some version of hell where everyone is being forced to perform in an acting class skit that will never end. The story follows William (Mark Webber), a 20-year-old aspiring actor who is hanging around the Manhattan bar scene when he runs into Sarah, the girl of his dreams. The casting of Sarah is the movie's fatal flaw. As written, she's an aspiring singer who is gaga over William, but Catalina Sandino Moreno is an actress who, it's clear from the get-go, can't sing a note and worse, seems ready to climb the walls to get away from her co-star throughout the picture. I've seen more sexual chemistry from two doorknobs. Watching this mess, you have to believe that Ethan Hawke, as talented as he is, must have realized he was making a colossal turkey but was too far into the thing to back out.

And that's only the start of it. The Hottest State is structurally odd -- something that's sometimes a necessity in the case of book adaptations, but especially true in this case, since what begins as a romance ultimately takes on the trappings of a thriller in the third act. I won't go into specifics in case you plan to see it for yourself, but let's just say that if the entire movie were on the same wavelength as the third act, I think we'd actually have an interesting, tough little film here. I also think Hawke must have known this too on some level, because it's only in the third act that his personality as a director begins to shine through -- interesting and creative camera choices, powerful acting moments and an earned level of tension that are present only during this part of the movie. The first two-thirds of the film are a cloying, obnoxious romantic fable about two young people bouncing around in Manhattan and down in Mexico, lounging around and pretending, for our benefit, that they actually love each other.

Since Ethan Hawke seems to have better luck with movies than he does in the literary world, if anyone was going to make a film from his debut novel, it might as well have been him. ThinkFilm has just released the trailer for the film version of Hawke's book, The Hottest State. Hawke wrote and directed the story about a struggling actor in a tempestuous relationship with a singer -- throw in some parental abandonment issues and you have your typical Generation X love story. The film marks the third directorial effort for Hawke; the last time was back in 2001 with the ensemble piece Chelsea Walls. State stars Mark Webber, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Michelle Williams, Laura Linney, and Hawke even makes an appearance to play Webber's father in flashbacks.

The book was released back in 1996, and while reviews were somewhat harsh -- it doesn't get much worse than, "His callow cynicism about women and his flattened out, '90s rendition of Holden Caulfield grow wearisome". It's hard to say whether it was because critics had their knives out for an actor-turned-author, or maybe the book just wasn't that good. The film premiered at the 2006 Venice Film Festival, but much like the book, reviewers weren't exactly falling over themselves with praise. Hawke seems to be through with directing for now though, and the actor has since signed for double "vampire duty" in the horror flick Daybreakers, and The Countess with Before Sunrise co-star Julie Delpy. The Hottest State is set for a limited release on August 24.

Six more have signed on to star in some hot roles for Buddy Giovinazzo's Life is Hot in Cracktown. Based on Giovinazzo's own book of short stories, pic will show how the lives of several people intertwine within a crack-infested community. Lara Flynn Boyle, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Mark Webber, Shannyn Sossamon, Tony Plana and Vondie Curtis-Hall have joined Victor Rasuk, Evan Ross, Michael Rapaport, Ileana Douglas and Kerry Washington in the pic, which was written and will be directed by Giovinazzo. Back when we first reported on this film, there weren't many plot details or character descriptions available.

However, the Hollywood Reporter now shares with us a whole mess of crack-related coolness -- like, how Lara Flynn Boyle will play a "cruel whore," Mark Webber will give us his take on a transvestite prostitute and Kerry Washington (who already played a prostitute in her last film, The Dead Girl) gets to go all transgender on us. Oh, but there's more to life in Cracktown; Rasuk's character is in charge of running the drug-infested tenement building, while his wife (Sossamon) cares for their sick child. Also, Plana plays an alcoholic and Edoardo Ballerini will give us his best abusive boyfriend routine. Fear not residents of Cracktown, the cops are also on the case: Nicholas (best known from his days wooing Tara Reid in American Pie) will play the rookie, and Curtis-Hall takes on the role of tough veteran. No word on who Evan Ross (son of Diana Ross) will play; all we're currently missing is a hard-edged drug pusher to wrap this feel-good story up nicely.

Jason (Mark Webber), a moribund young man in his mid-20s, lives in one of those Nebraska towns where people pin their hopes and dreams on the success or failure of their local college football team. Jason's hometown is in a bit of a state of football frenzy as the film opens -- their team's charismatic new coach has led them to the Fiesta Bowl, and -- much like in Friday Night Lights, where a small town's high school football team was their main source of pride -- every man, woman and child living there is rabidly following their football team's chances of winning.

Everyone, that is, except Jason, who spends his days pumping gas at the town's only full service gas station. Jason's nights are his escape; he spends them helping his friend Gus (Harry Dean Stanton), an old man losing his memory, run a beat-up old movie theater where the pair show classic films to the locals because Gus can't afford to pay for new releases.

Writer/director Steve Berra has put together a cast sprinkled with recognizable names for his first feature, a "coming-of-age drama" called The Good Life. The film (which sounds for all the world like a period piece, but as far as I can tell actually takes place in the present day) is set in a small, football-obsessed town where the high school coach (Bruce McGill) is a god, and ex-players (Chris Klein, in particular) can be assholes and get away with it because they were once heroes. At the center of the story are a kid who doesn't quite fit in (Mark Webber), and a good-hearted girl (you knew one of those would be coming soon, didn't you?) who "encourages him to pursue his own path." And, since the girl is played by Zooey Deschanel, it's probably a safe bet that he does what she says. Also in the cast are Harry Dean Stanton and Bill Paxton whose character, apropos of nothing, is described as "A Judy Garland fan." Ha! Haaaa! Assuming that's a euphemism for "gay," I love it. And if it's not, I love it even more.

Production on Berra's film is already underway in Winnipeg, which was clearly cheaper than Nebraska, where the story takes place. Mmm ... Canadian dollars.