Scott Porter

Will Burton (Gaelan Connell) is a music enthusiast and a David Bowie fan with a hint of rock and roll. Will writes journal-like e-mails to Bowie seeking approval of his music, although Bowie never answers. Will's mother Karen (Lisa Kudrow) finds a new job out of Cincinnati and Will could not be happier to leave his old school life behind. The new job is in Jersey, pays more money and has flexible hours. Will switches to a new school, which he is eager to do since he was bullied (and was called "Dewey") at his previous one. Will likes to categorize groups of students at school depending on the music they like. This includes groups like Hip-Hop lite, Trustafarians, rich suburban white kids with knit caps and $2000 dread-lock extensions, Indie Rock clique which includes Will and one other kid whom he refuses to meet until he bathes and stops flattening his hair with his hands and so on. Will is worried that his new school (Martin Van Buren High School) might be the same as his old one, but Karen explains that he is a terrific kid, and he has a chance at a new beginning. During lunch one day at his new school, he meets a girl who says her name is written Sa5m, but pronounced Sam (Vanessa Hudgens), the 5 is silent. She tells him about Bandslam, an annual music competition in which the winning band gets a recording contract. Ben Wheatly (Scott Porter) and his band "Ben Wheatly's The Glory Dogs" are the top contenders for the upcoming Bandslam. The whole school, including the faculty, loves The Glory Dogs and expect them to bring home the Gold. The previous year they tied for second place. Sa5m and Will are in the Human Studies class together. In their class they are asked to buddy up and create a presentation on who their buddy really is. The students are allowed to use any media such as photos, videos or even poetry to get their presentation across. The project counts for half their grade. Will and Sa5m quickly become friends, but shortly after, he is sought after by another girl named Charlotte Barnes (Alyson Michalka). One afternoon, Charlotte asks Will to join her in an after-school day-care center. Charlotte had been observing Will and chose him as he is a good Samaritan, and she believes that all good Samaritans like kids. Charlotte asks Will to accompany her every week, but it is not clear why Charlotte does this in the first place. Will agrees as Charlotte is the coolest person who had ever spoken to him. Charlotte refuses to respond why she is hanging out with Will, even though she is a senior. Charlotte used to be in Ben's band and then quit. Impressed by his eclectic knowledge of music, Charlotte, who is a gifted singer-songwriter, asks Will to manage her rock band. Her goal is to take revenge on her egocentric musician ex-boyfriend Ben Wheatley during Bandslam. Charlotte plans to enter her own band in competition against Ben's band and aims to defeat him. Charlotte learns that Will's father toured with the famous band "The Who", but Will says that it only meant that his dad was never around, and this is why his mother divorced him. Sa5m warns Will and says that cheerleaders hardly ever change and believes that Charlotte might just be using Will. Unsure of what he is getting himself into, Will agrees to help Charlotte's band (later called "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On") which includes Bug (Charlie Saxton) and Omar (Tim Jo). The band itself is dysfunctional as the members fight more than they play. Bug says that Ben named the band after himself, so he could fire whoever he wants and the name of the band would still remain the same. Will eventually expands it with more like-minded outcasts. Will says that the band needs a drummer and gives suggestions on the types of songs the band can play based on their skills and the quality of their equipment. Charlotte inducts drummer Basher Martin (Ryan Donowho), who first hesitates because he has anger management issues and dislikes the idea of Bandslam, because he believes people don't appreciate the art. Basher decides to join after Will tells him that he has an older sister who is often around (in fact this is Karen). Against all odds, the group's sound starts to come together and their prospects for success look bright. Even more surprising, Will starts losing his "loser-status". Once he gets committed in Charlotte's band, however, he is unable to complete a project he was assigned to do with Sa5m. After spending a day with Sa5m, Charlotte teaches Will how to properly kiss a girl by showing him one night in the car. Will takes Sa5m to the Overlook, where, after knocking off her hat and ripping her book out of her hand, he kisses her. She asks him to come see a movie with her, but he stands her up after Charlotte gives him tickets to a band called Burning Hotels. After that, Sa5m starts ignoring Will at school. He visits her house, hoping to apologize. Her mom then shows him a video of a younger Sa5m performing "Everything I Own", but when Sa5m walks in, she is outraged and orders Will to leave. As an apology, he makes a short yet touching documentary about her for his Human Studies project and she eventually forgives him. After Will accidentally ruins Ben's attempt to reconcile with Charlotte, Ben decides to do a little research on him, in order to ruin his image. He finds out that Will's father was sent to prison years ago when he accidentally killed a child while driving drunk. Ben then starts to call Will "Dewey" (just as other students did at his old school), which stands for "DWI", Driving While Intoxicated. Will detests this nickname because it reminds him of his father, whom he is ashamed of. Charlotte's father dies and she decides to quit the band. As she explains to Will, her father hated how she acted when she was with her ex-boyfriend Ben, so after he got sick, she decided to change her image and be nicer to outcasts, hoping that this good behavior would cause her dad to get well. The band members are hurt by this discovery, as it means she did not genuinely like them, but they decide to go on nonetheless, with Sa5m taking over as lead singer. On the night of Bandslam, Charlotte comes backstage in order to apologize to the band, and after a moment of hesitation, Will accepts her apology. Right before going on stage, however, they discover that Ben's band (the "Glory Dogs") have decided to play the song that their own band were originally to perform, forcing them to change their act at the last minute. Will suddenly remembers the video Sa5m's mother showed him earlier and suggests that they perform "Everything I Own", since it is the only song Sa5m knows. To buy some time, Will comes out first onstage, but at first, he is embarrassingly silent. The students begin to chant "Dewey". He starts to walk off the stage but then comes back and decides to chant with them instead. After carrying the chant for a while, he finally changes it to, "Do we want to ROCK?!". The band then takes the stage and performs "Everything I Own". Although they fail to win the competition, a YouTube video of their performance gains the band popularity at school. David Bowie sees the video and sends an e-mail to Will, explaining that he is starting an indie music label and is interested in having the band as one of their first artists. Will is so excited and overwhelmed that he falls down in the middle of the school hallway. Will and Sa5m, happily together, attend Charlotte's graduation ceremony.

The Microlending Film Project tells the stories of citizens on four continents who are mothers, wives, daughters - and entrepreneurs. Armed with microloans invested in increments as small as $25, we follow these women as they start and maintain their own businesses, pulling themselves out of poverty, and sometimes finding that loans aren't enough. In doing so we explore how microborrowing can help women improve their standards of living as it offers an innovative, alternate investment and financing model, the implications when microlending fails - why did the suicides in India happen? - and how it may be used to help small businesses in the U.S. In an effort to tell a comprehensive story, we shot in Paraguay, India, Kenya, and Detroit, MI. —Anonymous

This movie shall send chills down your spine. A story based on a Killer who aims to kill Donna and her girlfriends to create their beautiful ever-awaited Prom Night into an experience of lifetime and death. Donnas senior prom is supposed to be the best night of her life, one of magic, beauty, and love. Surrounded by her best friends, she should be safe from the horrors of her past. But when the night turns from magic to murder there is only one man who could be responsible, the man she thought was gone forever. Now, Donna and her friends must find a way to escape the sadistic rampage of an obsessed killer, and survive their Prom Night.

Based on the classic series created by anime pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida, the live-action ''Speed Racer'' will showcase the kind of revolutionary visual effects and cutting-edge storytelling Speed Racer is born to race cars, Speed is aggressive, instinctive and, most of all, fearless. His only real competition is the memory of the brother he idolized-the legendary Rex Racer - whose death in a race has left behind a legacy that Speed is driven to fulfill. Speed is loyal to the family racing business, led by his father, Pops Racer; the designer of Speed's thundering Mach 5. The only way for Speed to save his family's business and the sport he loves is to beat Royalton at his own game. With the support of his family and his loyal girlfriend, Trixie, Speed teams with his one-time rival-the mysterious Racer X - to win the race that had taken his brother's life: the death-defying, cross-country rally known as The Crucible.

A washed up singer is given a couple days to compose a chart-topping hit for an aspiring teen sensation. Though he's never written a decent lyric in his life, he sparks with an offbeat younger woman with a flair for words. Cheery Alex Fletcher lives comfortably in Manhattan off the residuals from his 80's pop success and reprising his hits at school reunions, theme parks, and state fairs. But those gigs are declining, so he jumps at the chance to write a song and record it with reigning teen idol Cora Corman. Trouble is, he's good at melodies but needs a lyricist and has less than a week to finish. Enter Sophie Fisher, subbing for a friend who waters Alex's plants; she's a pretty good poet, quick witted, and could do it, if she'd agree. But there's some sort of shadow over her head that Alex may not be able to charm his way past. And what if they do get a song written, what then? —<jhailey@hotmail.com> In New York, the washed-up singer Alex Fletcher has a decadent career singing his old hits in amusement parks, school reunions or dinner parties to survive. In the 80's, he was a successful singer of the band POP with Collin Thompson, but when his partner split, his solo-career was a complete failure. His manager and friend Chris Riley schedules a meeting with the successful teen singer Cora Corman and Alex has a chance to be promoted in a show if he delivers a new song for Cora's concert in the end of the week. Alex has difficulties to put lyrics in his melody, but he accidentally discovers Sophie Fisher, who is temporarily watering his plants and proves to be a sensitive poet and efficient lyricist. Their song is approved by Cora, but they disagree about her interpretation, while they fall in love for each other. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Alex Fletcher was one half of the 1980's British pop duo, PoP. While his PoP partner Colin Thompson has gone onto further fame and fortune in the entertainment business which includes being knighted by the Queen, Alex has faded into oblivion, his only forays into the entertainment world being singing PoP songs at cheesy retrospective gigs. He has the opportunity to make it back into the popular music world when current singing sensation Cora Corman, a huge PoP fan, commissions him to write a duet for the two of them, it needing to have the title "Way Back into Love", and which needs to be completed by the end of the week. There is no guarantee that Cora will actually record the song as she has made arrangement for other retro artists to write back-up material if Alex's song is not to her liking. Alex has a problem in that he was never good at writing lyrics, and is having issues with the lyricist he has chosen for the collaboration. He thinks he has come up with a solution when his temporary plant watering person, Sophie Fisher, starts humming some of her own made up and good lyrics to Alex's tune. Sophie is an unconfident woman and a hypochondriac, who believes that, although she writes, she is not a lyricist who can come up with words to Alex's very specific song. Even if Alex is able to convince Sophie to help him, he will have to help her overcome her emotional problems in life, most specifically around her own current minor notoriety concerning her now love/hate relationship with author, Sloan Cates, who has put his skewed version of their life on paper in the form of a best selling novel. If Sophie does assist him, she may learn the hard way of the compromises that often accompany the creative process, some of those compromises with which she may not be able to live. —Huggo Cheery Alex Fletcher faded into to background of the Manhattan pop scene after his partner split away from their hit band PoP, singing their old PoP songs at cheesy retrospective gigs. His first comeback opportunity is when current singing sensation Cora Corman, a huge PoP fan, commissions him to write a duet for the two of them, to be entitled "Way Back into Love", but to be completed by the end of the week. Lacking inspiration and confidence to match the melody he writes easily, Alex notices his plant watering help Sophie Fisher, starts humming some of her own made up and good lyrics to his tune and decides to hire the hypochondriac without self-confidence, but must deal with her distracting personal issues if they are to make the deadline. Once they deliver it, Cora's absurd, irreverent 'arrangement' causes discord whether to fight for the song or go along for the money, while Cupid strings his bow. —KGF Vissers