Ang Lee's 'Lust' gets NC-17 rating
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- The erotic spy thriller "Lust, Caution," the latest from director Ang Lee, has drawn an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.
The movie, starring Tony Leung and newcomer Tang Wei, will screen during the Toronto International Film Festival before opening in New York Sept. 28 and expanding to more U.S. markets Oct. 5.
Focus Features, the film's distributor, was said to have accepted the MPAA rating without a fuss, Variety reported Thursday.
"As with so many of his previous films, Oscar-winning director Ang Lee has crafted a masterpiece about and for grown-ups," said Focus Chief Executive Officer James Schamus, who co-wrote "Lust, Caution" with Wang Hui Ling.
The Mandarin-language, sexually explicit film is based on Eileen Chang's short story about a shy Chinese drama student drawn into an assassination plot against a Japanese collaborator during World War II.
The MPAA created the NC-17 rating in 1990 as an attempt to remove the stigma of an X rating.
Lee's last film, the provocative "Brokeback Mountain," earned him the Academy Award in the director's category.
Man arrested in Kirsten Dunst robbery
NEW YORK, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- New York police have arrested one of two suspects in connection with a robbery earlier this month of actress Kirsten Dunst's hotel suite.
Thieves made off with the "Spider-Man" trilogy actress's $13,000 handbag, wallets, cash, cameras and an iPod, the New York Post reported Friday. The theft of the items belonging to Dunst and others occurred Aug. 9 in the penthouse suite in the Soho Grand Hotel.
The two men allegedly entered the suite after Dunst and her companions left for filming her new movie, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People," police said. Police have recovered some of the items.
Aided by hotel surveillance video, law enforcement officials arrested one suspect Tuesday as he left Brooklyn Supreme Court, where he was facing pending charges for the sale of heroin, the newspaper said.
Jarrod Beinerman, 33, of Brooklyn, was being held on $50,000 bond after his arraignment Wednesday on burglary and grand-larceny charges. Police said they were searching for his accomplice, whose name they know.
Winehouse emerges bloodied from hotel
LONDON, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- A cut and bloodied Amy Winehouse was reportedly seen leaving a London hotel, where witnesses said the singer and her husband engaged in an early morning brawl.
Witnesses said they heard Winehouse screaming as she ran from the Sanderson Hotel in Central London Thursday as husband Blake Fielder-Civil allegedly chased her, the Web site Metro.co.uk reported Friday.
Winehouse had bruises on her neck, cuts on her knees and swollen knuckles, while Fielder-Civil had cuts on his face and neck, witnesses told the Web site.
The couple reportedly checked into the hotel Monday after leaving a rehabilitation center in Essex.
Earlier the "Rehab" singer canceled shows in Britain and postponed her North American tour scheduled to begin in September. Her record label cited "severe exhaustion" for the change in tour plans, despite published reports that she accidentally overdosed on drugs and was seeking treatment.
Indian movie star’s conviction upheld
JODHPUR, India, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- An Indian district court Friday upheld the five-year jail sentence of movie star Salman Khan in the poaching of the protected gazelle called Chinkara.
Judge Kamal Raj Singhvi in Jodhpur in the western desert state of Rajasthan rejected Khan's appeal of a lower court sentence issued last year. He was convicted in the case in 1998.
The ruling was widely reported by various media.
The reports said Khan, 41, wasn't in the courtroom when the decision was announced. He now faces an arrest warrant.
Chinkaras are protected under the Wild Life Protection Act and is also regarded as sacred by the Hindu Bishnoi community in the region.
Khan’s conviction follows that of Sanjay Dutt, another popular Bollywood actor. Dutt, who is out on bail, was sentenced last month to six years in jail for buying weapons from those involved in the 1993 Bombay serial bombings in which 257 people were killed.
