A new trailer for the porn-centered drama About Cherry has landed online.  The film follows an 18-year-old girl on the verge of finishing high school who ends up in the porn industry.  Ashley Hinshaw stars as the young girl, with James Franco playing a coked-out lawyer who becomes her beau.  The cast is rounded out by Heather Graham, Dev Patel, and Lili Taylor.  The story provides a nice avenue for exploring the ups and downs of the porn industry and whether it plays a role in the objectification of women, but it’s hard to tell if this is the case based on the trailer.  Hopefully something a little deeper than “I make a lot of money but my life is falling apart” is explored in the full feature.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  Directed by Stephen Elliott, About Cherry will be available On Demand on August 9th and hits theaters on September 21st.

Some casting news for you today.  Here’s the pertinent info:

• Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers) has been cast in the starring role of The Days of Mary, a re-imagining of the Oscar-winning Federico Felllini film, Nights of Cabiria.
• Ashley Hinshaw (Chronicle) and Kim Shaw (She’s Out of My League) will play the wives of racecar drivers Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and Tom “The Mongoose” McEwan in Snake & Mongoose.

Hit the jump for more on each project.

Social media is ubiquitous in this day and age, which allows us to stay connected more easily than ever before while making privacy a thing of the past. In the remake of a 2008 French film of the same name, LOL looks at how social media impacts adolescence in this coming-of-age film.  Starring Miley Cyrus and Demi Moore as a daughter and mother on separate sides of a technology gap, the crux of the story falls on Moore’s character “accidentally” reading her daughter’s racy journal.   LOL also stars Ashley Greene, Thomas Jane and Douglas Booth and will open in limited release on May 4th.  Hit the jump to see the images.

The trailer for the drama Cherry has gone online.  Cherry centers on a young woman (Ashley Hinshaw) who goes into porn, and her various relationships with her porn director (Heather Graham), friend (Dev Patel), mother (Lily Taylor), and, according to what we previously reported, James Franco as a coked-up lawyer.  The Playlist caught the film at the Berlin Film Festival a few days ago, and said that the movie “is not very good” and avoids tough questions about whether the porn industry exploits or empowers women.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film currently does not have U.S. distribution, although I can easily imagine a straight-to-DVD future based on what I’m seeing from the trailer.

The cinéma vérité style can easily go astray. It can be used more as a lazy way to put the viewer closer to the action without worrying about thoughtful cinematography or good performances.  Chronicle avoids the pitfalls by coming up with a good reason why its story should take a found-footage approach instead of a half-assed reason why a character should carry around a camera.  Rather than throw non-actors into the fray for “raw” performances (i.e. sloppy), the film places its trust in lead actors who give good performances.  There are times when the movie can no longer hold its fake documentary conceit together and at the climax it loses the character drama in favor of a big action scene, but Chronicle manages to be not only a good found-footage movie, but a good movie period.

We have two quick pieces of casting news for you this morning.  First up, the incredibly sexy Ashley Greene (The Twilight Saga) has signed on to co-star in the Miley Cyrus comedy LOL along with Thomas Jane (Hung).  According to THR, “The story centers on a teenage girl (Cyrus) who is dumped by her more sexually experienced boyfriend (George Finn) while her divorcee mother (Demi Moore) struggles to move on with her life.”  Greene will play “a high school bad girl” (nice) and Jane will play Cyrus’ father.  The film also stars Ashley Hinshaw (Gossip Girl) as Cyrus’ best friend.

Hit the jump for Kali Hawk’s two new projects.