Dakota Fanning headlines the controversial drama Hounddog, a movie best known for featuring a rape scene of the young actress. Directed by Deborah Kampmeier, Hounddog features strong acting and a good screenplay, but it fades in the end as it fails to get to the point.

Hounddog is about a young girl named Lewellen (Fanning), who has become quite independent over the years as her father (David Morse) skips town from time to time, effectively leaving her to fend for herself. One day, though, her dad is struck by lightning, turning him into a mental cripple. Aided by her grandmother, Lewellen takes to caring for him, even though her real aspirations are to meet Elvis. But in her desperation to get tickets, her innocence is stolen, her future apparently shattered.

Read the rest of the Hounddog movie review.

Oh, religious conservatives. How their hypocrisy continues to amaze me. Of course, that’s a broad generalization… I’m sure there are a lot of religious conservatives who practice what they preach; then again, I’m sure there are a lot who either lie to themselves, lie to others or are just downright hypocrites.

Take one Daniel Thompson, who up until recently was the operator of the Flix Club in Orem, Utah. The Flix Club is a part of the Clean Flix chain, which has drawn fire in recent years from the major studios for altering their films to be, shall we say, PG-rated. The chain illegally removes scenes depicting sex and violence from home videos, and essentially waters down perfectly good films for those who are too afraid to watch quality stories the way their creators meant for them to be watched.

Anyway, needless to say, the Clean Flix chain – and, specifically, the Flix Club – appeals mainly to religious conservatives. One would guess that the Flix Club is operated by a religious conservative. Maybe. Then again, maybe he’s a man who likes to have sex with underage girls and film them for his pornographies.

Yes, Daniel Thompson, operator of Utah-based Flix Club, was arrested for statutory rape. According to Orem police, Thompson also told the girls his business was “actually a cover for a pornography studio  and asked them to participate in making a porn movie.” Large amounts of pornography was found at the business. Needless to say, Thompson claims he didn’t know the girls were underage and that the pornos were for his own personal collection.

With Senator Larry Craig and seemingly countless other disgraced religious conservatives popping up every year, not to mention priest abuse and so on and so forth, it’s just amazing that… well, I’ll just leave it at that.

As many people know, Roman Polanski is not allowed to return to the United States or travel to countries that have an extradition treaty with the U.S. (like Great Britain) due to his conviction of “engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor” in the late 1970’s.

With a new movie called Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired looking to be a major contender at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, I figured now would be a good time to gauge what people think of Polanski and what should happen to resolve everything. The movie, directed by Marina Zenovich, details the events revolving around Polanski’s conviction and flight to France, is sure to stir up controversy…

These are not all the facts, but this is what I pulled from Wikipedia:

•  In 1977, Polanski got the permission of Samantha Geimer’s mother to conduct a private photo shoot of the 13-year old (or was she 14?) girl.
• On March 10, despite her reservations, Geimer returned for a second photo shoot. “We did photos with me drinking champagne,” Geimer says. “Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn’t quite know how to get myself out of there… I said no several times, and then, well, gave up on that.” This took place at Jack Nicholson’s home.
• Polanski was initially charged with rape via use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, but put in a plea agreement for a lesser charge.
• On a tip that the judge was going to throw out the plea agreement, Polanski fled to France, where he was still a citizen. France and the U.S. do have an extradition treaty, but France will not extradite its own citizens. The U.S. could put in a request for France to try him, but they have not do so and will probably never do so.
• While Polanski admitted to unlawful conduct, psychiatric experts did not consider him a sexual predator and both the defense and prosecution believed probation would be sufficient punishment rather than jail. (Yahoo!)
• In a 2003 interview, Geimer (now Samantha Gailey) said, “Straight up, what he did to me was wrong. But I wish he would return to America so the whole ordeal can be put to rest for both of us… I’m sure if he could go back, he wouldn’t do it again. He made a terrible mistake but he’s paid for it”.

So, here are some questions:

• Is Roman Polanski likely to re-offend?
• Has Polanski already “paid his due”?
• Since Polanski has directed several great films and the crime committed was thirty years ago, does that factor in?
• Do any of the previous questions matter? He had sex with a 13-year old.

What do you think? I’m torn myself. I must admit that I do have some compassion for people who committed crimes decades earlier. More than likely, those people have grown beyond whatever they did in the past, experience guilt and suffer as a result. And the fact that Polanski has won Oscars and contributed extensively to the arts does provide some bias. At the same time, Polanski had sex with a young girl. He knew how old she was, and he knew she was really, really young. And according to the initial charge and statements from Geimer, the sex was definitely not consensual or pleasant in any way or form.