Ashley Greene: Skateland

[Bella Cullen]

Ashley Greene in Skateland



Promo Video


Promo Stills:
coming soon

Synopsis:
1980s-era coming-of-age drama about a teen forced out of a job when his small-town roller rink shuts down. He faces tough decisions about his future, his parents' divorce and complicated relationships with friends Brent (co-screenwriter Heath Freeman) and Kenny (Taylor Handley), his sister Mary (Ramm) and Brent's sister Michelle (Greene). LeGros plays Brent and Michelle's father.

------------------------------

Reviews:

Skateland -- Film Review
By Kirk Honeycutt, January 25, 2010 11:30 ET
Bottom Line: Good filmmaking but trite storytelling.


PARK CITY -- The Sundance Film Festival this year is pitching itself as the place where filmmakers can renew the rebellion against the expected and proudly give birth to brave new ideas. So what's "Skateland" doing in the Dramatic Competition? For an indie film, it's very well made, even rather slick, in fact. But what a thoroughly conventional movie it is. "Skateland" is every coming-of-age-after-high-school movie you've ever seen with a formulaic plot and well-worn characters.

It probably got shortlisted because several scenes exhibit strong writing and the performances in the main roles are aces. So if nothing else, director Anthony Burns has a solid calling card to show the film industry.

"Skateland" should fill more festival slots, but it's hard to identify a theatrical audience. Teens tend not to care about filmmakers' reminisces about growing up, and adult fans of indie cinema may cringe at the utter neatness of the storytelling with every plot stand carefully tied up and a swell of music as the lovers share a kiss at fadeout.

Skateland is the name of a roller rink in an East Texas town, circa early 1980s. Yes, it's on the verge of shutting down. Like the movie house in "The Last Picture Show," the venue has symbolic value for the film's protagonist, the rudderless Ritchie Wheeler (Shiloh Fernandez). In his job as the rink's manager, he can cling to high school memories of his buddies and hanging out.

Which frustrates the women in his life, neither of whom is his mom. She seemingly can't wait to escape the boredom of the household for other male admirers. No, these women are his younger sister Mary (Haley Ramm) and his sometimes girlfriend Michelle (Ashley Greene). Both prod him to get out of the dead-end town, go to college and make something of himself. Unfortunately, decision-making is not Ritchie's long suit.

When Michelle's brother Brent (one of the film's writers-producers, Heath Freeman) returns to town, he plays the conquering hero. He has raced cycles for a while and been pretty successful at it. An accident wiped out his season. So he joins the partying with Ritchie and his friends but then realizes he's the oldest guy at all the gatherings.

There are other subplots in the script by Burns and the producing Freeman brothers, Heath and Brandon, about Ritchie's parents' crumbling marriage, a gang of goons who wander around threatening everyone and the lady-killer antics of Brent and another buddy, Kenny (Taylor Handley). However, the one involving Ritchie and his kid sister curiously vanishes about midway though the movie. Still the focus always comes back to Ritchie and his reluctance to make any decision about his future -- and therefore his future with Michelle.

The characters are not without dimension, and the young cast makes you care about what happens to at least some of them. But there aren't a lot of surprises unless you count a tragedy that springs up out of nowhere.

Production values don't get much better in an indie film. There is time and a budget for one of those show-off tracking shots to begin the movie, a white-knuckle car chase, on-the-money production and costume designs plus a soundtrack of '80s music.

There will always be coming-of-age films, but they keep getting trickier to make. You've got to have something very fresh and original to say on the subject. "Skateland" doesn't, so considerable talent got lavished on a tired script.

Venue: Sundance Film Festival
Production companies: Freeman Film in association with Reversal Films
Cast: Shiloh Fernandez, Ashley Greene, Heath Freeman, Taylor Handley, AJ Buckley, Haley Ramm
Director: Anthony Burns
Producer-screenwriters: Anthony Burns, Brandon Freeman, Heath Freeman
Director of photography: Peter Simonite
Production designer: Chris Stull
Music: Michael Penn
Costume designer: Kari Perkins
Editor: Robert Hoffman
Sales: CAA
Rated PG-13, 98 minutes

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Sundance 2010: 'Skateland' brings back the '80s

First-time director Anthony Burns ignored the struggling-filmmaker superstition about not coming to Sundance before you have a film in the fest and came last year.

This year he's back with his first feature, "Skateland," and he seemed more than pleased in introducing the film -- he seemed almost zen. "This feels right," he said about having the film open at Sundance.

The movie is set in a small Texas town in 1983 and is the kind of kinda-funny, kinda-earnest coming-of-age story that John Hughes might have made. (It's no surprise that the film is dedicated to Hughes at the end).

Shiloh Hernandez Fernandez stars as a budding writer whose post-high-school life is stagnating. He's the manager of a local skating rink that's closing down, and his girlfriend, played by "Twilight's" Ashley Greene, is going off to college with or without him. Obviously, the kid is going to have some lessons to learn.

The added fun of the film, for those who were alive during the '80s anyway, is all the era-specific details tucked into the corners of the frame. "He-Man's" Battle Cat is tucked onto a shelf, the teen writer works on a Commodore 64 hooked up to the tiny TV in his bedroom, and teenagers practice their moonwalk. And that's not even touching on the soundtrack, which includes all the usual '80s suspects including A Flock of Seagulls, REO Speedwagon and Talking Heads, among many others.

The crowd seemed mostly positive on the film, though one female audience member groused afterwards, "It's fine, I guess, but 'Dazed and Confused' was better."

Still, most everyone we talked to -- both young and old -- seemed to like it, as you'll see below:

[Bella Cullen]

Ashley Greene on “Skateland”, acting and how she got her start



Ashley Greene is starring in the new film, Skateland. It’s a coming of age story that also stars Shiloh Fernandez.

I’d never seen Ashley in anything other than the Twilight films so I was curious to see her in this while I was at SXSW. She plays a totally different character and she was great!

Ashley was incredibly sweet, I loved talking to her and if you’re a young actor you’ll love her answers.

Tell me about Skateland and your character in the film.

Ashley Greene: I play Michelle Burkham, and she is a bit of a love interest, really best friend to Richie Wheeler, and who is [played by] Shiloh Fernandez. And Brent Burkham [Heath Freeman] is my brother, and we’re all this kind of trio in the film. And it’s the 1980s small-town Texas. And basically, it’s kind of this girl and this coming of age film and everyone’s trying to figure out who they are and what they’re doing, and I’m certainly one of those people. But, I’m also one of the people that pushes Richie to find himself and grasp for higher things and she’s a great character to play. She’s very vulnerable, very strong. A lot of emotional ups and downs.

When you first look at a script and decide you want to do the part, how do you go about approaching a role?

Ashley: The first thing is, of course, reading the script and seeing if the script holds my attention and then more importantly, does the character… is it something I haven’t played before, and something that I actually care about and I’m passionate about. I feel like if you’re reading a script and it doesn’t hold your attention and you don’t care about where these characters are going next and what they’re doing and you don’t care what they’re thinking and how they’re affected, then it really shouldn’t be something you’re doing because never ever doing I want to be in a film where I don’t care. And so, I think that’s the biggest thing. I think it’s kind of a gut thing and follow your heart and it works out.

You’ve already had a ton of success. You said you were from Florida. How did you get your start?

Ashley: I was really lucky. I mean, I guess as we all need to be in this industry, but I started out in Jacksonville when I was about 15 because I wasn’t really aware that I could be an actress. That option wasn’t really thrown out there in Jacksonville, Florida. I fell into modeling, and I took a commercial class. And I was like hey, this is fun. So I took an acting class. An after that I was full steam ahead. Went to New York, found Ryan Daly who’s my agent that I’m still with today. Got a manager and convinced my parents to let me graduate early and move to L.A. And they did, you know, which they’re incredible, is the thing. They’re so supportive. And I couldn’t have done it without them. And they shipped me out there, put me up for a year. And I hit the ground running.

Did they come out with you?

Ashley: My mom came out with me for 10 days, set me up with an apartment, water, power, all these things that I had absolutely no idea about. And then she left (laughter). The first year was a lot of acting classes and a lot of me figuring out who I was.

So, what was your first big role in L.A.?

Ashley: Honestly, Twilight was the big, huge lucky break. The first year was tons of classes and me figuring out myself. The second year was lots of auditions and a lot of people saying, ‘We like her, but she doesn’t have a lot on her resume.’ But I just kept feeding myself and learning. And then finally, a little into the second year, I would get small [parts] like Punked and Crossing Jordan, small TV roles and really small roles in films because the directors liked me but I wasn’t a name. And then you know, Twilight came along and I auditioned five times and forced them to put me in the movie.

You’ve worked with a lot of really great, smart actors. When you work with people like that, do you take anything from them?

Ashley Greene in SkatelandAshley: Absolutely, I think that part of being a good actor is, most of being a good actor is listening and life experience. I can’t tell you how many times that something will happen to me and I’m like you know what, this sucks right now, but I can use this one day. And it’s the same thing on set. I worked with Michael Sheen, and I just was sitting there staring at him like who is this man? Because he’s so incredible. And so yeah, I definitely sit down and pick their brain. A lot of stuff I learn is honestly just sitting down and chatting with people, not even about acting necessarily, just about life and their experiences and how they deal with them.

What’s your advice to actors?

Ashley: My advice to actors is if your heart’s not in it, then you need to go home because it’s a tough industry. I absolutely love it, and I wouldn’t do anything else, but I will tell you, that there are times when I go, ‘Why in the heck am I doing this to myself.’ You know, it’s a lot of work. But I mean, if you love it, there’s nothing better in the world. You just have to keep working at it. I think the biggest thing is believing in yourself because no matter how much anybody else believes in you, if you don’t have that confidence in yourself, it’s going to be really tough to make it.

Source:Daily Actor