Devon K. Shepard Movies
- 2005
A crate of soft drinks has fallen off a cargo plane and nearly destroyed the Hodes home. While Dean (Andy Milder) deals with the insurance adjuster, Celia (Elizabeth Perkins), who recently learned she has breast cancer, visits with a faith healer. Celia's bout with cancer seems to have given her a devil-may-care outlook on life. She starts giving away her worldly possessions and wearing the satin roller-disco jacket she wore as a girl. Doug (Kevin Nealon) spends an afternoon getting high and watching porn with Andy (Justin Kirk), and leaves behind papers for Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) to sign to start the process of buying the bakery. Silas (Hunter Parrish) is being pressured by a friend to dump "the deaf girl," Megan (Shoshannah Stern). A drive-by shooting at Heylia's (Tonye Patano) place leaves Nancy shaken up. ("White folks get soda pop," Heylia dryly laments. "[We] get bullets.") Nancy's in no mood to hear about Shane (Alexander Gould) getting in trouble at school for writing gangsta rap about gunning down his classmates. She's contemplating getting out of the drug game, and she rejects Andy's offer to use his culinary skills to team up with her in the bakery biz. Andy decides to go into business for himself; he makes a buy and then unwisely mocks the bike cop who stops him for a traffic violation on the way home. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lochlyn Munro, Ayla Kell, (more)
- 2005
Produced for cable's Showtime service, the half-hour Weeds starred Mary-Louise Parker as suburban housewife Nancy Botwin, whose comfy, affluent existence was shattered by the unexpected death of her husband. With no other readily available source of income, Nancy decided to service an ever-growing consumer demand -- by selling marijuana to other white-bread suburbanites. Purchasing her pot from streetwise dealer Conrad Shepard (Romany Malco) and his aunt, supplier Heylia James (Tonye Patano), Nancy set up her new business enterprise using a bakery as a front, with the assistance of city councilman Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon) -- all the while keeping her activities a secret from her snooty, traditionalist best friend, PTA president Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins). Also in the cast were Alexander Gould and Hunter Parrish as Nancy's sons, Shane and Silas; Justin Kirk as her overgrown-slacker brother-in-law, Andy; Andy Milder as Celia's feeble husband, Dean Hodes; Allie Grant as the Hodes' overweight daughter, Isabelle; and Martin Donovan as Peter, a single dad whom Nancy fell for -- and who turned out to be a DEA agent. The series' ironic theme music was the Womenfolk's "Little Boxes," a satiric paean to split-level conformity. One of those series invariably described as "smart and sexy" by in-the-know critics, the Golden Globe-winning Weeds debuted August 7, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1994
Robert Guillaume of Benson fame guests as Pete Fletcher, a fast-talking car dealer who hires Will (Will Smith) on an impulse. Will proves so adept at his new job that Fletcher tries to talk him into quitting college so he can work for the dealership full-time. When word of this reaches Will's mom Vy (Vernee Watson-Johnson), she embarks upon a terrifying campaign of Righteous Anger--and no one, but no one is spared her wrath! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1994
Will (Will Smith) falls in love with a girl named Lisa--not Lisa Wilkes, who will appear in later episodes in the person of Nia Long, but instead Lisa Adams, played by A Different World regular Cree Summer. Unfortunately, Lisa has a fearsome father named Augusteus (John Witherspoon), whose concern for her daughter's wellbeing borders on the psychotic. Intending to scare Will off, Augusteus takes him on a wild plane ride--culminating in a crash landing, leaving both men stranded in the wilderness! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1993
Both Will (Will Smith) and Carlton (Alfonso Ribeiro) aspire to join an all-black college fraternity. After a humiliating initiation ritual, Will is accepted--but Carlton is rejected as a Bel Air-bred "sellout" to his race. This sets the stage for a remarkable closing sequence, in which an indignant Carlton brilliantly defends himself, and his choices in life. Award-winning stage and screen actor Glenn Plummer is seen as the hostile fraternity head man. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
