riley smith Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Last year, John Sayles wonderfully took on the world of blues, guitars, and rock 'n' roll with Honeydripper. Now it looks like that was a warm-up for something even better. In a discussion with Collider, Charles S. Dutton revealed that he's working on an HBO miniseries about Louis Armstrong with Quincy Jones, and Sayles is writing the script. Dutton might play the older Louis, and might direct the first few hours of the 6-hour-long miniseries. "Quincy and I were trying to do it 15 years ago. The mistake we were making was that we were trying to do it as a 2 hour film. And Louie's life is just so huge you just can't..." Move over John Adams. I'm betting this wonder team can kick the founding father's butt.

Meanwhile, the cast continues to grow for James Keach's Waiting for Forever. The Hollywood Reporter posts that the film will star Tom Sturridge, with Jaime King, Nikki Blonsky, Scott Mechlowicz, Riley Smith, Blythe Danner, and Richard Jenkins also grabbing parts. While it initially seemed to be a stranger/stalker story, it's now being described as a film about "a wanderer who tries to reconnect with his childhood love, an actress in Hollywood." Sturridge will play the guy, and King will play his sister-in-law who helps him after he's spurned by his brother. The rest of the roles haven't been shared.

The Hollywood Reporter also posts that a Slate magazine article by David Plotz and Hanna Rosin is getting turned into a film. The pair "attempted to emulate a real-life pair of Buddhist teachers who vowed to never be more than 15 feet from each other" by tying themselves together with string for 24 hours. Ron Burch and David Kidd are penning the script. I wonder if they'll get into the groove by tying themselves together as well ... which begs the question: Which actor and actress would you like to see tied together for 24 hours?

Spring isn't just a time when things finally get sunny, warm, and bright, prying away the last grips of winter. It's also school crunch time and the countdown for graduation. For many, both in real life and on-screen, that means exams and then the final hurrah of drinking and teen shenanigans. For a select few, it means a time of crime in Mike Mayer's upcoming indie flick Graduation, which has been picked up by Truly Indie and Magnolia Pictures, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Although it may be a low-buzz indie film, there's one name that grabbed me immediately, and a few others that make this worthy of a little attention. The ever-awesome Huey Lewis plays one of the dads, along with Adam Arkin, and the young cast includes Shannon Lucio from The O.C., Riley Smith from Freaks and Geeks, Chris Marquette from The Education of Charlie Banks, Chris Lowell from Veronica Mars, and Aimee Garcia from Spanglish. Heck, I'm just happy to see Lowell in a role where he doesn't get called "Piz."

Is it time to start referring to the "Teen Dance Movie" as its own genre of film? It's alarming how many of these movies are being announced, never mind that they all have roughly the same plot. And now The Weinstein Company is interested in suckling the teen dance teat. They have just bought the North American rights to Make It Happen, which starts shooting next month. The film is described as "a dance movie set in the world of burlesque." I'll admit, my interest in the film went from zero to ten by the time I reached the end of that sentence. It's amazing how just one word can change my opinion of a movie. They're shrewd, these Hollywood types. It seems like a sure way to double the box office -- dancing and romance for the ladies, half naked women for the gentlemen.

As we told you earlier, Make It Happen will star the lovely Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Grindhouse) as "a small-town woman who moves to Chicago with dreams of entering the Chicago School of Dance but winds up working in a burlesque club." The club "proves to be a place of conflict and self-discovery." Sadly, I don't think the filmmakers and I are on the same page with the phrase "self-discovery." Winstead is currently in theaters playing John McClane's daughter in the surprisingly solid Live Free or Die Hard, and I have a feeling Mr. McClane wouldn't approve of her new role at all. Make It Happen co-stars Riley Smith and Tessa Thompson, who played Jackie Cook on Veronica Mars. Darren Grant (Diary of a Mad Black Woman) will direct the film. Duane Adler wrote the script -- he also wrote Save the Last Dance and Step Up so it's clear the guy can tackle any genre. Teen dance movies, movies about dancing teens, films involving people between the ages of thirteen and nineteen who move their feet rhythmically -- Adler can do it all.