Music eN ArtiS News Update

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) -- At a festival that features several films with sexual content, including full male nudity and a documentary about bestiality, a Southern Gothic tale that includes the rape of a young girl is causing the biggest stir.

"Hounddog" is the story of Lewellen, a girl played by 12-year-old Dakota Fanning, who is growing up in the 1960s South. She is a free-spirit obsessed with Elvis Presley and has little supervision by her abusive father and alcoholic grandmother.
Even before the first screening of "Hounddog" at the Sundance Film Festival this week, a Christian film critic, citing Fanning's age, decried the movie as child abuse, and Roman Catholic activist Bill Donohue called for a federal investigation.

Fanning is defending her work as well as the movie, and so is the head of Sundance, who said it was courageous for director Deborah Kampmeier to tackle "challenging material." "Hounddog" is entered in the festival's dramatic category.
"It's not a rape movie," Fanning said Tuesday. "That's not even the point of the film."

Fanning is upset at people who have criticized her family and colleagues.

"When it gets to the point of attacking my mother, my agent ... my teacher, who were all on the set that day, that started to make me mad," she said in an interview with Reuters.

"I can let other things go, but when people start to talk about my mother, like, that's really bad in my opinion ... that's an attack, and that's not fair. They hadn't seen the movie," she added.
The disturbing scene lasts a few minutes but is not graphic. There is no nudity, the scene is very darkly lit and only Fanning's face and hand are shown.Kampmeier said it took her a decade to get the film made, largely because of the rape scene, but cutting it was a compromise she was unwilling to make.

"This issue is so silenced in our society. There are a lot of women who are alone with this story," she said.

"When you're shooting a film, it's the images you line up next to each other that create a story," Kampmeier said. "If you have a hand hitting the ground, Dakota screaming 'stop' and you see a zipper unzip -- that creates a rape."

At least, that's the holiday he cited as the date on which he and estranged wife Dita Von Teese went their separate ways, disputing her claim that the glam-Goth twosome uncoupled on Christmas Eve. Manson counter-filed for divorce last Friday in an attempt to block Von Teese from being awarded spousal support, although the burlesque performer did not request it when she filed her own divorce petition Dec. 29.

Her heavily made-up hubby has also stated that he wants Von Teese to pay her own attorney fees, while she has requested that he pay for the breakup proceedings. The duo did agree, however, on the cause of the split—irreconcilable differences across the board.

Manson has since been linked to 19-year-old Evan Rachel Wood, who stars in the hard rocker's upcoming feature directorial debut, Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll. Manson has stated that his aim for the film is to "redefine the horror genre." While part of the blame for Manson's impending divorce has been placed on his increasingly hard-partying ways over the past year, per People magazine, it's his relationship with Wood that appears to be the major contributing factor.

The Antichrist Superstar artist and Von Teese tied the knot in December 2005 at a friend's lavish home in County Tipperary, Ireland, in front of 60 guests. The bride, not one for your traditional white, wore a royal purple silk taffeta gown, replete with corset, petticoats and a lengthy train. Manson took a more understated approach, for him, in a velvet-trimmed black tuxedo and matching hat.

But divorce proceedings aren't the only thing on Manson's mind. Perhaps as a diversionary tactic, the shock-rocker just issued a press release touting his next album, Eat Me, Drink Me. Manson said he's almost completed work on the album, and it will be out this spring followed by a world tour.

She failed to slow down and struck the back of a 2005 Honda at about 65 mph, according to a California Highway Patrol report
The Honda driven by Awatef Aboudihaj, 38, hit another vehicle and then slid sideways before it struck a center divider, the report said.

Aboudihaj's car was then hit by an oncoming car driven by 50-year-old Mallory Ham, the report said.Aboudihaj was taken to a hospital, where she died of blunt-force injuries, said county coroner's spokesman Craig Harvey. The coroner's office ruled her death an accident.
Ham also was taken to a hospital where she was treated for moderate injuries.

Brandy was not injured, and she wasn't under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash, said her publicist Courtney Barnes.

"She wishes to publicly express her condolences to the family of the deceased," Barnes said.
A message left for a CHP spokesman was not immediately returned Wednesday.

Norwood, whose hits include "Sittin' Up in My Room" and "The Boy Is Mine," has made five albums and earned a Grammy in 1999. She began her recording career at 14 and acted in film and TV shows, starring on the sitcom "Moesha" from 1996 to 2001 and most recently as a judge for NBC's "America's Got Talent."

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-bound band-Roth included-is now thisclose to inking a deal with Live Nation for a 40-date amphitheater tour, Billboard.com reported Wednesday.
Roth, who unceremoniously parted ways with Van Halen in 1985, told the music magazine's Website eight months ago that getting him and his former hair-band brothers back together would not be "rocket surgery."

"It's very simple to put together," Roth said. "And as far as hurt feelings and water under the dam, like what's-her-name at the end of the movie Chicago-'So what? It's showbiz!' So I definitely see it happening."
And, somehow, Roth's career in morning radio hadn't taken off by then.

The former heavy metal frontman last rocked out with his fellow "Hot for Teacher" artists in 1996, when they recorded a few songs that ended up on the greatest hits album Best of Volume I. But an appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards that year by all four original band mates-siblings Eddie and Alex Van Halen, Roth and bassist Michael Anthony-proved that the guys weren't really ready to reconcile.

While fans hoped that their group showing-the quartet's first public appearance together in 11 years-was a sign of a full-fledged reunion, Roth issued a statement several weeks later saying he'd been the "unwitting participant" in a publicity stunt engineered to sell more copies of Best of Volume I, and that he told Eddie at the time that he didn't "think it was a good idea for the band to go to New York half-cocked.
The Van Halen brothers and Anthony denied Roth's take on the situation, saying "the intention all along was to do two new songs" and that Roth was "never led to believe anything but that."

Despite the inauspicious undertones of that exchange, along with Roth's comment to tmz.com last month characterizing a possible Van Halen reunion as "Jerry Springer meets Knots Landing," it looks as if fans are going to get the chance to "Jump" for Roth, Eddie & Co. after all, with Billboard reporting that a contract could be signed as early as Wednesday.

Anthony, however, will not be along for the proposed ride, having since joined up with Van Halen's second former frontman Sammy Hagar for a series of shows in which they billed themselves as The Other Half and performed both Roth and Van Hagar-era Van Halen tunes.
Instead, Eddie's 15-year-old son, Wolfgang, will take over bass responsibilities when the band hits the road again, a notion that apparently doesn't sit well with Hagar, who last performed with Van Halen in the summer of 2004.

While Houston and Ray J (real name: William Ray Norwood Jr.) have not admitted that they are romantically involved, paparazzi photos of the pair leaving the Beverly Hills eatery Maestro's Steakhouse together--after reportedly having dinner there on Sunday, January 21--seem to substantiate rumors of their supposed May-December romance.

According to Charlton, "Whitney Houston is in LOVE," Houston and Ray J have already moved in together, and Houston spent the holidays with the Norwood family. Charlton also writes on her website, janetcharltonshollywood.com, about alleged Houston/Ray J spa vacations in Santa Barbara and plans for Ray J to appear on Houston's much-anticipated comeback album.

"A few months ago I felt really low, really sad. Depressed for no reason," the 22-year-old actress-singer says in an interview in the February issue of Jane magazine, on newsstands Tuesday.

"I'm a very positive person, and I've always been glass-half-full," she continues. "So it was like someone flipped a switch in me."
Moore, newly single after high-profile relationships with actor Zach Braff and tennis standout Andy Roddick, says her recent split with Braff didn't help matters.

"The breakup added to what I was going through, but it's not the complete reason," she tells the magazine. "It definitely doesn't help if you're already in that place ... ."
Moore started out as a squeaky-clean teen singer and later crossed over into movies with featured roles in such films as "A Walk to Remember," "Saved" and "American Dreamz."

"I feel bad that people wasted their money on such trite, blah pop music," says Moore about her earlier music.
Moore, who is working on a new record, has been looking inward a lot of late.

"I've been going through this really crazy time in my life — it's what I imagine people fresh out of college go through," she says. "I'm asking life-altering questions, like `Who am I? Where do I fit in this world? What am I doing, what do I want to do? Am I living to my full potential?'"