Sundance kicks off with porn-obsessed 'Don Jon

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PARK CITY, Utah — The 2013 Sundance Film Festival got off to a rowdy and wry start Friday with “Don Jon’s Addiction,” written, directed by and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and co-starring Scarlett Johansson and Tony Danza.

As a wanna-be womanizer hooked on porn, Gordon-Levitt (“Looper”) lends his charming smile to a role that highlights his offbeat sensibility. Johansson plays the woman who could reroute his libido to the real world.
ohansson — whose current Broadway role in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” kept her from attending the festival opener at the Eccles Theatre — adds mainstream marketability to “Don’s” indie spirit, still the hallmark of Sundance as it laps its 25th official year.
ScarJo may not have had to endure the frigid Park City temperatures, which struggled to hit the double digits, but Naomi Watts was looking great to promote “Two Mothers,” which also bowed Friday.
The film, about lifelong friends (Watts and Robin Wright) who fall in love with each other’s grown sons, marks the Australian star’s return to edgier material. Female audiences at the Eccles may have been distracted by Watts and Wright’s on-screen objects of affection, newcomers Xavier Samuel and James Frecheville.
Earlier, festival-goers got a look at “Kill Your Darlings,” part of “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe’s transition from boy wizard to grownup. Playing gay Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg, Radcliffe is unrecognizable in dyed black hair and horn-rimmed glasses (on the red carpet, he added some chin scruff).
The film, co-starring Elizabeth Olsen as the Beats’ guardian angel, Edie Parker, is one of two Beat flicks at the fest, sharing space with the Jack Kerouac flick “Big Sur.”
Keri Russell, TV’s former “Felicity,” gives a comic turn in the adaptation of the best-selling novel “Austenland,” as a woman so obsessed with Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” that she heads to a theme park devoted to the 19th-century author. And Shailene Woodley sparked the high school dramedy treat “The Spectacular Now,” which was met with thunderous applause
Kristen Bell goes from box-office sinker “When in Rome” to the thoughtful indie “The Lifeguard,” about a frazzled New York reporter going back to her Connecticut hometown to take a job at a local pool.
The serious-minded “Mud,” a chewy Southern tale from “Take Shelter” director Jeff Nichols stars Matthew McConaughey as a criminal hiding out in a swamp who is discovered by two Arkansas kids. A de-glammed Reese Witherspoon co-stars as his wild girlfriend.
Another buzz-maker was “Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes,” in which Jessica Biel plays a mysterious neighbor to a troubled girl (Kaya Scodelario).
Finally, one of Saturday’s midnight slots was occupied by the hyperjumpy horror flick “S-V/H/S.” A sequel to a cult hit about videotapes that reveal ghastly happenings, it debuted in the spot that unleashed “The Blair Witch Project” from Sundance nearly 15 years ago. If that kind of success happens again, it’s an example of another thing Sundance does best — create heat even when the temperature is crazy cold.

Swami claims Indian rape victim was 'as guilty' as her attackers

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A so-called “spiritual leader” threw more verbal gasoline on the raging fire over the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman, saying the victim was “as guilty as her rapists” for the Dec. 16 attack.
Self-styled swami Asaram Bapu said Jyoti Singh Pandey should have “taken God’s name and could have held the hand of one of the men and said, ‘I consider you as my brother.’”
Pandey died from her injuries two weeks later — but that apparently wasn’t enough for Bapu.
"The victim is as guilty as her rapists,” he said. “She should have called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop. ... This could have saved her dignity and life,” the 71-year-old spiritualist said, according to Indian papers.
Bapu, who was speaking at a religious conference, also reportedly said Pandey could have saved herself by praying and chanting.
“The six were drunk. If the girl had chanted hymns to Goddess Saraswati and to Guru Diksha then she wouldn't have entered the bus,” Bapu said.
His remarks stunned political and cultural leaders in India, where the Pandey case has drawn international sympathy and focused national attention on the country’s pervasive sexual violence.
A leading political party condemned Bapu’s comments as “regrettable, deeply disturbing and painful,” local papers reported.
A spokeswoman for Bapu later tried to clarify his mean-spirited talk.
“He was only suggesting that women should try their level based to come out from such situation by using diplomatic ways,” spokeswoman Niam Dubey told Asian News International.
She insisted Bapu’s words had been misinterpreted, even as she admitted he’d made the offensive remarks.
“Yes, he said that the girl had made a mistake by taking an empty bus in night. If she had taken ‘Matra-Diksha,’ the God has might save her anyhow,” Dubey said.
Five of Pandey’s alleged attackers were formally charged with abduction, gang rape and murder Monday. The sixth suspect, 17, was charged in a juvenile court separately.
Reporters and photographers were barred from the courtroom as the charges were read Monday. The attack has triggered weeks of protests and forced the government to address demands for swifter justice, safer streets and heavier sentences in rape cases.

Maldives girl faces flogging after alleged rape

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A 15-year-old in the Maldives whose father is accused of repeatedly raping her and killing the resulting baby risks being flogged for "fornication" with another man under the nation's strict Islamic law, a police source said Monday.


In the course of inquiries into the rape case, investigators say they unearthed evidence of the girl having had consensual sex with another man, which is an offense in the Indian Ocean holiday destination, the source told AFP.
Women, including minors, having consensual sex outside marriage can be charged in the Maldives, where convicts can be publicly flogged. Minors receive the punishment when they reach 18, the age of majority.
The child's step-father is accused by police of repeatedly raping the girl and fathering a child by her which he subsequently murdered. The girl's mother has been charged with helping dispose of the infant's body, police said.
"We completed the investigation (into the murder of the infant) and gave a report to the prosecutor general's office," Maldivian police spokesman Hassan Haneef told AFP by telephone.
He declined to give details saying that Maldivian common law did not allow the discussion of any case involving a minor.
The local Haveeru newspaper quoted an unnamed official from the prosecutor's office saying that the fornication charge was unrelated to the rape which had been separately dealt with.
The legal system of the Maldives, a nation of 330,000 Sunni Muslims known for its coral-fringed islands and sandy beaches, has elements of Islamic Sharia law as well as English common law.
The country carries out the flogging of women despite calls from the UN Human Rights Council to drop the practice.
In September, a Maldivian court ordered a public flogging for a 16-year-old girl who confessed to having pre-marital sex. Her 29-year-old lover was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The gang-rape last month in the Indian capital of a 23-year-old student who subsequently died has also sparked protests over crime against women in neighbouring South Asian nations including Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

SEE Channing Tatum and wife show off buff bods on St. Barts beach

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The 32-year-old actor showed off the abs that received top billing in this summer's "Magic Mike" Thursday while on a romantic St. Barts getaway with his pregnant wife, Jenna Dewan-Tatum.
Dewan-Tatum, 32, wasn't exactly chopped liver, looking bewitching in a purple sarong and an orange bikini that showed off a slight swell of her emerging baby bump. The child, which reportedly came as a bit of a surprise to the Hollywood hotties, will be the couple's first.
Jenna Dewan-Tatum and Channing Tatum are pleased to announce that they are expecting the birth of their first child next year," a rep for the actor told Us Weekly on Dec. 17.
On Christmas Day, Tatum posted a picture of himself caressing his wife's stomach, After starring in four movies this year — including "Haywire" and "The Vow" — and with another four scheduled for release in 2013, he has also said he will take an extended break around the birth of his child.
"I'm ready; I think she's ready (for a baby)," Tatum told People when the magazine named him "The Sexiest Man Alive" earlier this year. "The first number that pops into my head is three, but I just want one to be healthy and then we'll see where we go after that.
But on their tropical vacation at least, the couple, who met on the set of 2006’s "Step Up" playing on-screen lovers and married in 2009, only had eyes for each other.
Photographers captured the tender side of the "21 Jump Street" star as he cradled Dewan-Tatum in an embrace on the white-sand beach.

After Nechemya Weberman, Hasidic Satmar sect considers sending rebel teens away

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Embarrassed by the sex abuse trial of a Hasidic counselor, leaders of Williamsburg’s pious Satmar sect are considering a different way to deal with rebellious teens: shipping them out of the country for treatment.
The idea comes as the jury weighs charges against the counselor, Nechemya Weberman, who prosecutors said molested a then-12-year-old girl referred to him because she wore supposedly indecent clothing, read People magazine and questioned God’s authority in a religious school class.
Without addressing the allegations against Weberman, a Satmar official told the Daily News that leaders are considering ways to avoid similar accusations by victims.
“This was a wakeup call; nobody denies that,” said Gary Schlesinger, who heads a nonprofit tied to Satmar leader Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum.
Maybe we will send them to an Israeli program or a European program, and the kid will come back a different person.”
A verdict is expected this week. Meanwhile, the Satmar community — where self-styled modesty police crack down on perceived transgressions — is riven by the victim’s account.
“It’s a horrible embarrassment,” said Pearl Engelman, 65. “We represent ourselves as the Almighty’s children. We don’t want to be an embarrassment to God.”
Some Satmars believe that it’s too late for that.
“It’s an embarrassment for the community that some are standing up for the abuser,” said Raizy Pollak, 19, who dropped out of the accuser’s yeshiva to protest the strict rules. “We need to stand up for the victim instead of pushing her down,” she added.
Supporters of the victim rallied last week, holding signs in Yiddish blasting perverts and molesters.
“Every single Jewish family is talking about this case. The grand rabbi (Teitelbaum) couldn’t even ignore it,” said real estate developer Joel Neuwirth, 22. “He had to address the issue.”
The rebbe did just that last week — and blamed the victim.
A Jewish daughter has descended so low,” said Teitelbaum, according to a translation published by the Jewish blog, FailedMessiah.com. “There hasn’t been such a disgusting saga in (the history of religious) Jewry.”
Weberman was the driver for Teitelbaum’s late father Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum, under whose leadership the movement grew into one of the largest Hasidic groups in the world, with the majority of its 100,000 members living in Brooklyn.
Aaron Teitelbaum’s statement incensed supporters of Weberman’s alleged victim.
But Weberman has plenty of supporters.
“Weberman was trying to help her,” said Joel Weinstock, 31, a private tutor. “The rules are set forth by the rabbis. There is no reason to change.”
Outsiders see a community hoping not to draw attention to itself.
“They want to be seen as God-fearing and well-behaved,” said CUNY sociologist Samuel Heilman, who specializes in Jewish studies.
“The case is over whether the girl is deviant, or is Weberman deviant,” said Heilman. “It is all about deviance within the Satmar community.”

What a body of work! Painted naked ladies

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Bodyspectra body painting festival
Art doesn't get much more lifelike than this! Using the naked body as their canvas, students at the City Varsity School of Media and Creative Arts in Cape Town, South Africa showcased their artistic talents at Bodyspectra 2012, the country's premier body painting event. From the beautiful and whimsical to the downright strange

California man who performed as clown 'El Tin Larin' gets 10 years for raping 12-year-old in 2002

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Jose Guadalupe Jimenez, 43, was sentenced to ten years in prison for raping a 12-year-old girl in 2002.
A sick sex predator who worked as a birthday clown around Los Angeles will spend 10 years behind bars for kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old girl while wearing his clown makeup and clown mask.

Jose Guadalupe Jimenez, 43, who entertained kids under the name "El Tin Larin," was busted in 2011 after investigators matched DNA taken from another crime to some from the girl's rape ten years ago.

The depraved bozo was dressed in his clown getup when he nabbed the girl from outside a fast-food joint around midnight on Jan. 19, 2002, prosecutors said.

He drove to a school parking lot, where he raped her, and then took her to a seedy motel, where the sex attack continued, prosecutors said.

The girl managed to escape when Jimenez left to talk to a motel clerk, local TV station KTLA reported.

Cops said the case went cold because the girl couldn't describe her attacker beyond saying he was a Hispanic man in a clown costume.

Jimenez, 43, was in clown makeup and a clown mask when he kidnapped and raped a 12-year-old girl in 2002, prosecutors said.

"The problem was the only description we had was 'a clown,'" Fullerton police Sgt. Andrew Goodrich said at the time.
The break in the case came when Jimenez was arrested on suspicion of abusing a relative's child in November 2010, AOL News reported.
Jimenez submitted a DNA sample, and investigators matched it with evidence from the 2002 rape.
A warrant was issued, and Jimenez was busted at a motel in Newport Beach in March 2011.
A handful of the sicko's performances as 'El Tin Larin' are still up on YouTube. In one, he performs with a ventriloquist puppet.

For nine years, Jimenez moonlighted as a pudgy Ronald McDonald lookalike at children's parties while working days in construction.
A handful of videos from his performances are still up on YouTube.
After his bust, cops found several clown masks, costumes, oversized shoes, balloons and puppets at his Anaheim home.
Jimenez pleaded guilty to two counts of lewd acts upon a child on Wednesday and will have to register as a sex offender.
With News Wire Services

Teacher attacks teen wearing Romney T-shirt, compares it to KKK, student says

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High school sophomore Samantha Pawlucy says her teacher asked her why she was wearing the pink Romney-Ryan shirt in a 'democratic school,' then asked her to leave class or change. 'She said that's like her wearing a KKK shirt,' the teen said.



A Philadelphia high school student says she was harassed for wearing a Mitt Romney T-shirt her teacher likened to the Klu Klux Klan.

“The teacher told me to get out of the classroom. I said no,” 16-year-old Samantha Pawlucy told NBC Philadelphia.


“She told me to take off my shirt and said that she has another one if I need one. And then the teacher asked me, ‘Are your parents Republican?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’

“She said that’s like her wearing a KKK shirt.”

Pawlucy, a sophomore at Charles Carroll High School, said she was mortified last Friday when the teacher went into the hallway to urge other students and teachers to check out the shirt.

“I was really embarrassed and shocked,” she told Philly.com. “I didn’t think she’d go into the hallway and scream to everyone.”



The teacher has been moved to another class at Charles Carroll High School, the district says.

Pawlucy wore the pink Ryan-Romney shirt for the school’s “dress-down” day.

The teacher wanted to know why Pawlucy was wearing a “Republican shirt” when “this is a democratic school,” her father Richard Pawlucy told local radio station, WWIQ.

Pawlucy’s parents met with the teacher, who apologized and explained she was only joking.

“If it was a joke between two adults, I can take a joke like that,” Richard Pawlucy told NBC Philadelphia. “But [Samantha] didn’t know how to take it, she doesn’t understand. She actually thinks she did something wrong.”

Pawlucy’s mother Christine said she could “picture her sitting there feeling ashamed for just wearing a T-shirt.”

The Philadelphia school district says the case is under investigation and the teacher, whose name has not been released, has been moved to another classroom.

Buxom blond high school teacher Courtney Speer, 31, busted for having sex with student

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Courtney Speer faces charges stemming from her alleged sexual relationship with a high school teen.

A buxom blond high school teacher from Arkansas is accused of having repeated sex with one of her teen students in the school's parking lot.

English teacher Courtney Speer, 31, is out on $20,000 bail awaiting formal charges after turning herself in to police Tuesday, a spokesman with the Saline County Sheriff's Department said.

"She was very quiet and somber during booking. She didn't say a word. Her lawyer was with her the whole time," Sgt. Phillip Bentley told The News.

Cops said they got a call from Bryant High School on Monday after an unidentified tipster reported her alleged sexual relationship with her former 9th grade student who's now 17 years old.

Speer resigned immediately amid a probe of allegations she had sex with the student at her house in nearby Benton and on school grounds in Bryant.

"In our city, there were four different occasions during which she allegedly had sex with the student in the parking lot. It was in a car," Sgt. Todd Crowson with the Bryant Police Department told The News.

He said Speer is married with two young children.

Police Dept.
Courtney Speer has retained a lawyer and said nothing when she turned herself in to authorities.

She quickly retained a lawyer and has not made any statements, he said.

Speer was booked on suspicion of six counts of felony assault spanning the two jurisdictions and faces six to 30 years in jail if convicted.

She's due back in court Oct. 13.

"You have enough to worry about when you have teens, especially with all the peer pressure out there. The last thing you want to worry about is a teacher taking advantage of your child," Crowson said. "The vast majority of our teachers are good. But you do have a few bad ones out there, and in this case, that's what we have."