dLife is Hot in Cracktown (2009)
The gritty, hard realities of a neighborhood, as well as the struggling, proud people who try to survive them everyday. Marybeth is a pre-op transsexual working as a prostitute and living with her lover, Benny, a small time burglar. In spite of their lines of work, they live a somewhat normal life as a married couple. Marybeth works the streets in the hopes of saving enough money for her final sex change operation, so then she and Benny can be married. Manny works two jobs: the late shift in an all night bodega surrounded by young junkies, drug dealers and prostitutes, and as a security guard in a Welfare hotel. At home his wife, Concetta, takes care of his sick infant son and makes their grimy rundown apartment as much of a home as she can. Willy, ten years old, lives in the Welfare hotel with his sister, mother and her violent boyfriend. Willy begs on the street so he and Susie can buy some fast food to eat. Romeo, a street tough, roams the streets with his gang. Upset over the murder of his younger brother, and feeling partially responsible for not being there during the shooting, he terrorizes anyone who comes in his path. These four stories come together in a powerful climax of love and salvation, showing that despite the obstacles of life in the inner-city, humanity and hope can still prevail. Based on Buddy Giovinazzo\’s best-selling novel, “Life is Hot in Cracktown,” the vignettes show how crack cocaine has infiltrated the streets of urban America.
Presents a quartet of vignettes on a disparate group of Angelenos exploring the challenges and heartaches that come with falling and staying in love. Each story follows the inhabitants of different rooms in one hotel on the same evening. In the bathroom, a young woman looking for closure has an emotional conversation with her hallucination of an ex-lover, all while her new boyfriend waits behind the door. Down the hall, a husband and wife attempt to spice up their sex life, and a young man has his first encounter with a call girl. 
Episode 1: Five ladies party with Ludacris; Tommy Lee and a newlywed get crazy with transsexual hookers. Episode 2: A man is surprised by his stripper experience and how one young woman hooks up with two hot Asian girls.
Jasira, a 13-year-old Arab-American girl, navigates the confusing and frightening path of adolescence and her own sexual awakening. When Jasira’s mother sends her to Houston to live with her strict Lebanese father, she quickly learns that her new neighbors find her and her father a curiosity. Worse, her budding womanhood makes her traditional and hot-tempered father uncomfortable. Lonely in this new environment, Jasira seeks friendship and acceptance from her neighbors Mr. Vuoso, an Army reservist, and Melina, a meddling but caring expectant mother. Thrown into an unfamiliar suburban world, Jasira must confront racism and hypocrisy at home and at school – and at the same time struggle to make sense of her raging hormones and newfound sexuality. Her boyfriend, Thomas, though a few years older, provides some comfort – but even that relationship causes problems when her father discovers that Thomas is black. Surrounded by adults who are just as lost as she is, Jasira yearns for understanding, even amidst often brutal acts.
In 1976, the maverick ABA is a fast-paced, wild and crazy basketball league that rivals the NBA and makes a name for itself with innovations like the three-point shot and slam dunk contest. Jackie Moon is a one-hit wonder who used the profits from the success of his chart-topping song “Love Me Sexy” to achieve his dream of owning a basketball team. But Moon’s franchise, the Flint Michigan Tropics, is the worst team in the league and in danger of folding when the ABA announces its plans to merge with the NBA. If they want to survive, Jackie and the Tropics must now do the seemingly impossible–win.