Garden Party (2008)

April (age 15) is running from one bad situation into another, hoping to find an answer that doesn't involve nudity, and falls in with a group of confused kids chasing their dreams. The black widow in the web is the sexy, pot-dealing Sally.

Director:

Jason Freeland

Writer:

Jason Freeland

Stars:

Erik Smith, Tierra Abbott, Vinessa Shaw

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Tierra Abbott	...	Lana
Christopher Allport	...	Davey Diamond
Lisa Arturo	...	April's Mother
Erik Bragg	...	Dirk
Alexander Cendese	...	Nathan (as Alex Cendese)
Alesha Rucci	...	Adriana (as Alesha Clarke)
Lindley Domingue	...	Second Groupie
Fiona Dourif	...	Becky
Shelley Dowdy	...	Anna
Robert Ellsworth	...	Waiter
Carrie Finn	...	Lost Girl (as Carrie Finklea)
Patrick Fischler	...	Anthony
Scott Grossman	...	Super Duper
Richard Gunn	...	Todd
Jessica Havard	...	First Groupie

Storyline

Are you young, sexually confused, just trying to get by? Do you sing, dance or possess some other talent? Welcome to the Garden Party. At the center of the story is 15-year-old April. She is running from one bad situation into another, hoping to find an answer that doesn't involve taking off her clothes. As April navigates Los Angeles, she falls in with a group of confused kids struggling to chase their dreams. The black widow at the center of this web is a sexy, pot-dealing realtor named Sally St. Clair. Anyone who gets too close falls victim to her kinky entanglements. For some it goes bad, for other worse.

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Plot Keywords:

teenage girl in underwear | looking at oneself in a mirror | pornographer | party | artist | 

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Taglines:

Come with a Dream. Leave with a Story.

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jennifer Lawrence talked about the embarrassing experience she had auditioning for this film during an interview in 2017. "When I was much younger and starting out, I was told by producers of a film to lose 15 pounds in two weeks. [It was] sort of crazy. One girl before me had already been fired for not losing enough weight fast enough. During this time a female producer had me do a nude line-up with about five women who were much, much, thinner than me. We are stood side-by-side with only paste-ons covering our privates. After that degrading and humiliating line-up, the female producer told me I should use the naked photos of myself as inspiration for my diet." Lawrence claimed that tue director at the time only made matters worse and more uncomfortable than they were already. "He asked me to star in a porno as the character, among many other things that are too inappropriate to repeat. He said he didn't know why everyone thought I was so fat, he thought I was 'perfectly f**kable.'"

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Quotes

[first lines]
Davey Diamond: Hey, you need a ride?
April: [shakes her head] No.
Davey Diamond: I'm Davey Diamond. You're sitting on my face. Turn around, that's me, see? Good lookin' guy, right? You need an apartment, I can help you with that, I'll find you a gem. That's my motto, I'll find you a gem, you get it, "diamond", gem?
April: [starts walking away] Uh.
Davey Diamond: Give me a call. You know your gonna need a friend in this town...

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Connections

Spoofed in Funny or Die Presents...: Storm: A Star Wars Indie (2017)

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Soundtracks

Flaunt It
Written by Sean Berchik, Ivan Gough, and Grant Smillie
Performed by TV Rock
Courtesy of Ministry of Sound Records

User Reviews

Enjoyable but Pointless Stories in LA

The teenager April (Willa Holland) arrives in Los Angeles expecting to find a job and she stays at her lesbian cousin's home. Sammy (Erik Scott Smith) is a talented homeless singer, musician and composer that meets a guy that offers an opportunity to him to become a pop star. Nathan (Alex Cendese) is a young gay that has come to Los Angeles expecting to be a dancer but works as secretary of the real state agent Sally St. Claire (Vinessa Shaw). Todd (Richard Gunn) is an artist that neglects his girlfriend and spends most of his time in porn sites. Their lives are entwined when the pornographer Anthony (Patrick Fischler) meets Nathan and April in a bar and he offers two-thousand dollars to take nude pictures of them. Nathan befriends Sammy on the street. Sally hires April to work in her office with Nathan. And Sally dates Todd and finds that there are pictures of her in Internet.

"Garden Party" is a film with enjoyable but pointless stories in LA. The characters are likable but the neither the characters and nor the situations are well developed. The one-dimensional characters are shallow and the story goes nowhere. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 May 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

Garden Party

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$10,876, 13 July 2008

Gross USA:

$21,886

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$21,886

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lookout Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1