Spike Lee doesn't hold back. The Oscar-nominated man behind "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X" went off on Hollywood after Chris Rock asked a question following the Sundance screening for Lee's new film, "Red Hook Summer."

According to Entertainment Weekly, the film was screened for a large audience, some of whom left after the film took a controversial twist. That didn't seem to faze Lee. However, when Chris Rock asked Lee about financing the film, the director went off on a bit of a tirade.

2012 Sundance Film Festival Portraits

Rock, who appeared to be joking around, said, "You spent your own money ... What would you have done differently if you'd actually gotten studio money? What else would have happened? Would you have blown up some (bleep)?"

Lee, apparently unamused, responded, "We never went to the studios with this film. I bought a camera and said we're gonna do this mother(bleeping) film ourselves. I didn't need a mother(bleeping) studio telling me something about Red Hook! They know nothing about black people! Nothing!" Lee then added, "And they're gonna give me notes about what a 13-year-old black boy and girl do in Red Hook? (Bleep) no!"

Yahoo! Movies: Sundance Film Festival 12

Lee later apologized for his outburst. "Sorry for that mother(bleeping) tirade," he said. "My wife is looking at me like I'm crazy."

"Red Hook," which stars Clarke Peters of "The Wire" and "Treme," is the story of a young boy from Atlanta who spends the summer in Brooklyn with his grandfather, whom he has never met. Lee makes an appearance as "Mookie," his character from "Do the Right Thing." However, Lee was quite clear when he told audiences that "Red Hook Summer" is not a "mother(bleeping) sequel" to "Do the Right Thing."

Got that, everybody? Not. A. Sequel.

Source:  yahoo.com

Nothing should surprise us in the world of Hollywood romance, but this one does. Supermodel Heidi Klum and singer Seal have renewed their wedding vows every year and his Secret video was an intimate showcase of the two of them naked together.

But they've "grown apart," they say.

The star couple issued a statement to People.com, confirming that they are splitting after almost seven years of marriage.

"We have had the deepest respect for one another throughout our relationship and continue to love each other very much, but we have grown apart," they say. "This is an amicable process and protecting the well-being of our children remains our top priority, especially during this time of transition."

The supermodel and the singer are parents to Leni, 7, Henry, 6, Johan, 5, and Lou, 2.

UPDATE, Sunday: A source tells People that Klum and Seal have been through a rough patch but "have no plans to announce a split right now. They're not divorcing."

ORIGINAL POST, Saturday: Another celebrity couple may be on the brink of splitting up, according to TMZ. The gossip site is reporting that Heidi Klum will file for a divorce from Seal, her husband since 2005, possibly as early as this coming week. "Sources with direct knowledge" say that Klum will cite irreconcilable differences.

The model/TV host and the singer have had three children together, and Seal also adopted Klum's daughter from a previous relationship.

Source:  usatoday.com

Joe Paterno, the iconic former Penn State football coach whose legend was tarnished when he was fired in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, has died, his family confirmed Sunday. He was 85.

JOE PATERNO: 1926-2012

• Joe Paterno dies at 85
• State College mourns
• Family statement
• Reactions, tributes pour in
• Cause of death confirmed
• Reiter: A good but flawed man
• Sandusky speaks
• O'Brien: Following JoePa an honor
• Gallery: Paterno through the years
• Gallery: A community mourns

Doctors had said Saturday that Paterno's condition had become ''serious'' in recent days after he experienced complications from lung cancer.

"His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled," the Paterno family said in a statement Sunday. "He died as he lived. He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been.

"His ambitions were far reaching, but he never believed he had to leave this Happy Valley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his family, his university, his players and his community.

"He has been many things in his life — a soldier, scholar, mentor, coach, friend and father. To my mother, he was and is her soul mate, and the last several weeks have shown the strength of their love. To his children and grandchildren he is a shining example of how to live a good, decent and honest life, a standard to which we aspire."

The winningest major-college football coach of all time with 409 victories and two national titles, Paterno was diagnosed shortly after Penn State's Board of Trustees ousted him Nov. 9 following the child sex-abuse charges against Sandusky, his former assistant.

The firing marked the stunning end of Paterno's 61-year career at Penn State — 46 of them as head coach.

Critics charged that Paterno, when told years ago of the Sandusky allegations, did not take appropriate action. 

Paterno had been getting treatment since his cancer diagnosis. His health problems were worsened when he broke his pelvis.

FAN SUPPORT

Penn State fans' tributes poured in as news of Joe Paterno's deteriorating health spread and continued upon his passing.

On Saturday, the Washington Post, quoting individuals close to the family, reported on its website that the family had been weighing whether to take Paterno off a ventilator on Sunday.

As word spread Saturday of Paterno's condition, some 200 Penn State students and townspeople gathered at a statue of Paterno just outside a gate at Beaver Stadium. Some brought candles, while others held up their smart phones to take photos of the scene. The mood was somber, with no chanting or shouting.

''Drove by students at the Joe statue,'' Jay Paterno tweeted. ''Just told my Dad about all the love & support — inspiring him.''

Penn State student David Marselles held a candle in his right hand and posed next to a life-sized cardboard cutout of Paterno that he keeps at his apartment. A friend took a photo on the frigid night.

"I came to Penn State because of Joe Paterno. Since I was a little kid, I've been watching the games . . . screaming 'We Are ... Penn State' because of him. . . . He inspired me to go to college," Marselles said. "With such a tragic event like this, I just thought it was necessary to show my support."

The pelvis injury forced the Hall of Famer to spend most of his last season coaching from the press box — until trustees dismissed him.

The final days of Paterno's Penn State career were easily his toughest.

Sandusky, a longtime defensive coordinator who was on Paterno's staff during two national title seasons, was arrested Nov. 5 and ultimately charged with sexually abusing a total of 10 boys over 15 years. His arrest sparked outrage not just locally but across the nation, and there were widespread calls for Paterno to quit.

Paterno announced late on Nov. 9 that he would retire at the end of the season, but hours later he received a call from board vice chairman John Surma, telling him he had been terminated.

Winner, winner

Joe Paterno is among an elite group of the winningest coaches in sports.

By that point, a crowd of students and media were outside the Paterno home. When news spread that Paterno had been dumped, there was rioting in State College.

Police on Saturday evening barricaded the block where Paterno lives, and a police car was stationed about 50 yards from his home. Several people had gathered in the living room of the house. No one was outside, other than reporters and photographers.

Trustees said this week they pushed Paterno out in part because he failed a moral responsibility to report an allegation made in 2002 against Sandusky to authorities outside the university. They also felt he had challenged their authority and that, as a practical matter, with all the media in town and attention to the Sandusky case, he could no longer run the team.

Paterno testified before the grand jury investigating Sandusky that he had relayed to his bosses an accusation that came from graduate assistant Mike McQueary, who said he saw Sandusky abusing a boy in the showers of the Penn State football building.

Paterno told the Post that he didn't know how to handle the charge, but a day after McQueary visited him, he spoke to the athletic director and the administrator with oversight over the campus police.

Wick Sollers, Paterno's lawyer, called the board's comments this week self-serving and unsupported by the facts. Paterno fully reported what he knew to the people responsible for campus investigations, Sollers said.

"He did what he thought was right with the information he had at the time," Sollers said.

Sandusky says he is innocent and is out on bail, awaiting trial.

The back and forth between Paterno's representative and the board reflects a trend in recent weeks, during which Penn State alumni — and especially former players, including Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris — have questioned the trustees' actions and accused them of failing to give Paterno a chance to defend himself.

Three town halls, in Pittsburgh, suburban Philadelphia and New York City, seemed to do little to calm the situation and dozens of candidates have now expressed interest in running for the board, a volunteer position that typically attracts much less interest.

While everyone involved has said the focus should be on Sandusky's accusers and their ordeals, the abuse scandal brought a tarnished ending to Paterno's sterling career.

Paterno won 409 games and took the Nittany Lions to 37 bowl games and two national championships, the last in the 1986 season. More than 250 of the players he coached went on to the NFL.

Penn State coverage from Scout.com

• Joe Paterno dies at 85
• Words of thanks, support pour in
• Joe Paterno, the father
• Penn State hires Bill O'Brien as coach
• Gallery: Emotional gameday
• More Scout.com coverage

Throughout his coaching years, Paterno maintained that, yes, winning was important, but even more important was winning with honor.

"When he decided to forego a career in law and make coaching his vocation," the family statement said, "his father Angelo had but one command: Make an impact.

"As the last 61 years have shown, Joe made an incredible impact. That impact has been felt and appreciated by our family in the form of thousands of letters and well wishes along with countless acts of kindness from people whose lives he touched. It is evident also in the thousands of successful student athletes who have gone on to multiply that impact as they spread out across the country.

"And so he leaves us with a peaceful mind, comforted by his "living legacy" of five kids, 17 grandchildren, and hundreds of young men whose lives he changed in more ways than can begin to be counted."

In lieu of flowers or gifts, the family requests that donations be made to the Special Olympics of Pennsylvania or the Penn State-THON, The Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon.

Source:  ap/Newscore contributed to this report

In real life, little about James was as genteel as that song. The platinum blonde's first hit was a saucy R&B number about sex, and she was known as a hell-raiser who had tempestuous relationships with her family, her men and the music industry. Then she spent years battling a drug addiction that she admitted sapped away at her great talents.

The 73-year-old died on Friday at Riverside Community Hospital from complications of leukemia, with her husband and sons at her side, her manager, Lupe De Leon said.

"It's a tremendous loss for her fans around the world," he said. "She'll be missed. A great American singer. Her music defied category."

James' spirit could not be contained - perhaps that's what made her so magnetic in music; it is surely what made her so dynamic as one of R&B, blues and rock 'n' roll's underrated legends.

"The bad girls ... had the look that I liked," she wrote in her 1995 autobiography, "Rage to Survive." ''I wanted to be rare, I wanted to be noticed, I wanted to be exotic as a Cotton Club chorus girl, and I wanted to be obvious as the most flamboyant hooker on the street. I just wanted to be."

"Etta James was a pioneer. Her ever-changing sound has influenced rock and roll, rhythm and blues, pop, soul and jazz artists, marking her place as one of the most important female artists of our time," said Rock and Roll Hall of Fame President and CEO Terry Stewart. "From Janis Joplin to Joss Stone, an incredible number of performers owe their debts to her. There is no mistaking the voice of Etta James, and it will live forever."

Despite the reputation she cultivated, she would always be remembered best for "At Last." The jazz-inflected rendition wasn't the original, but it would become the most famous and the song that would define her as a legendary singer. Over the decades, brides used it as their song down the aisle and car companies to hawk their wares, and it filtered from one generation to the next through its inclusion in movies like "American Pie." Perhaps most famously, President Obama and the first lady danced to a version at his inauguration ball.

The tender, sweet song belied the turmoil in her personal life. James - born Jamesetta Hawkins - was born in Los Angeles to a mother whom she described as a scam artist, a substance abuser and a fleeting presence during her youth. She never knew her father, although she was told and had believed, that he was the famous billiards player Minnesota Fats. He neither confirmed nor denied it: when they met, he simply told her: "I don't remember everything. I wish I did, but I don't."

She was raised by Lula and Jesse Rogers, who owned the rooming house where her mother once lived in. The pair brought up James in the Christian faith, and as a young girl, her voice stood out in the church choir. James landed the solos in the choir and became so well known, she said that Hollywood stars would come to see her perform.

But she wouldn't stay a gospel singer for long. Rhythm and blues lured her away from the church, and she found herself drawn to the grittiness of the music.

"My mother always wanted me to be a jazz singer, but I always wanted to be raunchy," she recalled in her book.

She was doing just that when bandleader Johnny Otis found her singing on San Francisco street corners with some girlfriends in the early 1950s. Otis, a legend in his own right, died on Tuesday.

"At the time, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters had a hit with 'Work With Me, Annie,' and we decided to do an answer. We didn't think we would get in show business, we were just running around making up answers to songs," James told The Associated Press in 1987.

And so they replied with the song, "Roll With Me, Henry."

When Otis heard it, he told James to get her mother's permission to accompany him to Los Angeles to make a recording. Instead, the 15-year-old singer forged her mother's name on a note claiming she was 18.

"At that time, you weren't allowed to say 'roll' because it was considered vulgar. So when Georgia Gibbs did her version, she renamed it 'Dance With Me, Henry' and it went to No. 1 on the pop charts," the singer recalled. The Gibbs song was one of several in the early rock era when white singers got hits by covering songs by black artists, often with sanitized lyrics.

After her 1955 debut, James toured with Otis' revue, sometimes earning only $10 a night. In 1959, she signed with Chicago's legendary Chess label, began cranking out the hits and going on tours with performers such as Bobby Vinton, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Everly Brothers.

"We would travel on four buses to all the big auditoriums. And we had a lot of fun," she recalled in 1987.

James recorded a string of hits in the late 1950s and '60s including "Trust In Me," ''Something's Got a Hold On Me," ''Sunday Kind of Love," ''All I Could Do Was Cry," and of course, "At Last."

"(Chess Records founder) Leonard Chess was the most aware of anyone. He went up and down the halls of Chess announcing, 'Etta's crossed over! Etta's crossed over!' I still didn't know exactly what that meant, except that maybe more white people were listening to me. The Chess brothers kept saying how I was their first soul singer, that I was taking their label out of the old Delta blues, out of rock and into the modern era. Soul was the new direction," she wrote in her autobiography. "But in my mind, I was singing old style, not new."

In 1967, she cut one of the most highly regarded soul albums of all time, "Tell Mama," an earthy fusion of rock and gospel music featuring blistering horn arrangements, funky rhythms and a churchy chorus. A song from the album, "Security," was a top 40 single in 1968.

Her professional success, however, was balanced against personal demons, namely a drug addiction.

"I was trying to be cool," she told the AP in 1995, explaining what had led her to try heroin.

"I hung out in Harlem and saw Miles Davis and all the jazz cats," she continued. "At one time, my heavy role models were all druggies. Billie Holiday sang so groovy. Is that because she's on drugs? It was in my mind as a young person. I probably thought I was a young Billie Holiday, doing whatever came with that."

She was addicted to the drug for years, beginning in 1960, and it led to a harrowing existence that included time behind bars. It sapped her singing abilities and her money, eventually, almost destroying her career.

It would take her at least two decades to beat her drug problem. Her husband, Artis Mills, even went to prison for years, taking full responsibility for drugs during an arrest even though James was culpable.

"My management was suffering. My career was in the toilet. People tried to help, but I was hell-bent on getting high," she wrote of her drug habit in 1980.

She finally quit the habit and managed herself for a while, calling up small clubs and asking them, "Have you ever heard of Etta James?" in order to get gigs. Eventually, she got regular bookings - even drawing Elizabeth Taylor as an audience member. In 1984, she was tapped to sing the national anthem at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and her career got the resurgent boost it needed, though she fought addiction again when she got hooked on painkillers in the late 1980s.

Drug addiction wasn't her only problem. She struggled with her weight, and often performed from a wheelchair as she got older and heavier. In the early 2000s, she had weight-loss surgery and shed some 200 pounds.

James performed well into her senior years, and it was "At Last" that kept bringing her the biggest ovations. The song was a perennial that never aged, and on Jan. 20, 2009, as crowds celebrated that - at last - an African-American had become president of the United States, the song played as the first couple danced.

But it was superstar Beyonce who serenaded the Obamas, not the legendary singer. Beyonce had portrayed James in "Cadillac Records," a big-screen retelling of Chess Records' heyday, and had started to claim "At Last" as her own.

An audio clip surfaced of James at a concert shortly after the inauguration, saying she couldn't stand the younger singer and that Beyonce had "no business singing my song." But she told the New York Daily News later that she was joking, even though she had been hurt that she did not get the chance to participate in the inauguration.

Upon hearing of her death, Beyonce released a statement on her website that read: "This is a huge loss. Etta James was one of the greatest vocalists of our time. I am so fortunate to have met such a queen. Her musical contributions will last a lifetime. Playing Etta James taught me so much about myself, and singing her music inspired me to be a stronger artist. When she effortlessly opened her mouth, you could hear her pain and triumph. Her deeply emotional way of delivering a song told her story with no filter. She was fearless, and had guts. She will be missed."

James did get her accolades over the years. She was inducted into the Rock Hall in 1993, captured a Grammy in 2003 for best contemporary blues album for "Let's Roll," one in 2004 for best traditional blues album for "Blues to the Bone" and one for best jazz vocal performance for 1994's "Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday." She was also awarded a special Grammy in 2003 for lifetime achievement and got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Her health went into decline, however, and by 2011, she was being cared for at home by a personal doctor.

She suffered from dementia, kidney problems and leukemia. Her husband and her two sons fought over control of her $1 million estate, though a deal was later struck keeping Mills as the conservator and capping the singer's expenses at $350,000. In December 2011, her physician announced that her leukemia was terminal, and asked for prayers for the singer.

In October 2011, it was announced that James was retiring from recording, and a final studio recording, "The Dreamer," was released, featuring the singer taking on classic songs, from Bobby "Blue" Bland's "Dreamer" to Guns N' Roses "Welcome To the Jungle" - still rocking, and a fitting end to her storied career.

Source:  ap/hunter007

Sarah Burke was an X Games star with a grass-roots mentality — a daredevil superpipe skier who understood the risks inherent to her sport and the debt she owed to it.

TRAGIC SPORTS DEATHS

Remembering the many athletes sports lost way too soon.

The pioneering freestyler, who helped get superpipe accepted into the Olympics, died Thursday, nine days after crashing at a training run in Park City, Utah.

Burke, who lived near Whistler in British Columbia, was 29.

Tests revealed she sustained "irreversible damage to her brain due to lack of oxygen and blood after cardiac arrest," according to a statement released by Burke's publicist, Nicole Wool, on behalf of the family.

A four-time Winter X Games champion, Burke crashed on the same halfpipe where snowboarder Kevin Pearce sustained a traumatic brain injury during a training accident on Dec. 31, 2009.

Wool said Burke's organs and tissues were donated, as she had wanted.

"The family expresses their heartfelt gratitude for the international outpouring of support they have received from all the people Sarah touched," the statement said.

Burke will be remembered as much for the hardware she collected as the legacy she left for women in superpipe skiing, a sister sport to the more popular snowboarding brand that has turned Shaun White, Hannah Teter and others into stars.

Aware of the big role the Olympics played in pushing the Whites of the world from the fringes into the mainstream, Burke lobbied to add superpipe skiing to the Winter Games program, noting that no new infrastructure would be needed.

Her arguments won over Olympic officials and the discipline will debut at the Sochi Games in 2014. Burke likely would have been a favorite for the gold medal at her sport's Olympic debut.

"Sarah, in many ways, defines the sport," Peter Judge, the CEO of Canada's freestyle team, said before her death. "She's been involved since the very, very early days as one of the first people to bring skis into the pipe. She's also been very dedicated in trying to define her sport but not define herself by winning. For her, it's been about making herself the best she can be rather than comparing herself to other people."

She was, Judge said, as committed to the grass roots of the sport — giving clinics to youngsters and working with up-and-coming competitors — as performing at the top levels.

"She was a great, positive person for the whole team, the whole sport," said David Mirota, the Canadian team's high-performance director. "She enlightens the room, and she's great."

Burke's death is also sure to re-ignite the debate over safety on the halfpipe.

In Memoriam

We look back at those we've lost in the sports world in 2012.

Pearce's injury — he has since recovered and is back to riding on snow — was a jarring reminder of the dangers posed to these athletes who often market themselves as devil-may-care thrillseekers but know they make their living in a far more serious, and dangerous, profession.

The sport's leaders defend the record, saying mandatory helmets and air bags used on the sides of pipes during practice and better pipe-building technology has made this a safer sport, even though the walls of the pipes have risen significantly over the past decade. They now stand at 22 feet high.

Some of the movement to the halfpipe decades ago came because racing down the mountain, the way they do in snowboardcross and skicross, was considered even more dangerous — the conditions more unpredictable and the athletes less concerned with each other's safety.

But there are few consistent, hard-and-fast guidelines when it comes to limiting the difficulty of the tricks in the halfpipe, and as the money and fame available in the sport grew, so did the tricks. In 2010, snowboarding pioneer Jake Burton told The Associated Press that much of this was self-policed by athletes who knew where to draw the line.

"If the sport got to the point where halfpipe riding became really dangerous, I think riders would do something about it," Burton said. "It wouldn't be cool anymore."

His opinion is shared by many.

"There are inherent risks in everything," Judge said. "Certainly, freestyle skiing has one of the greatest safety records of almost any sport. Freestyle is a very safe sport in large part because we had to build a safe sport in order to get into the Olympics."

In 2009, Burke broke a vertebra in her back after landing awkwardly while competing in slopestyle at the X Games. It was her lobbying that helped get the X Games to include women's slopestyle — where riders shoot down the mountain and over "features" including bumps and rails.

It wasn't her best event, but she felt compelled to compete because she pushed for it. She came to terms with her injury quickly.

"I've been doing this for a long time, 11 years," she said in a 2010 interview. "I've been very lucky with the injuries I've had. It's part of the game. Everybody gets hurt. Looking back on it, I'd probably do the exact same thing again."

She returned a year after that injury and kept going at the highest level, trying the toughest tricks and winning the biggest prizes.

A native of Midland, Ontario, Burke won the ESPY in 2007 as female action sports athlete of the year.

In 2010, she married another freestyle skier, Rory Bushfield, and they were headliners in a documentary film project on the Ski Channel called "Winter."

In her interview with AP two years ago, Burke reflected on the niche she'd carved out in the action-sports world.

"I think we're all doing this, first off, because we love it and want to be the best," she said. "But I also think it would've been a great opportunity, huge for myself and for skiing and for everyone, if we could've gotten into the (Vancouver) Olympics. It's sad. I mean, I'm super lucky to be where I am, but that would've been pretty awesome."

A little more than a year later, with Burke's prodding, her sport was voted in for 2014.

Source:  ap

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday voted unanimously to review how cities and counties regulate marijuana dispensaries.

The court will address whether local governments can bar the pot shops despite voter passage of Proposition 215, which legalized marijuana use with a doctor's recommendation.

The court also will consider the continued conflict between state and federal authorities, who don't recognize Proposition 215. Under federal law, marijuana is illegal in all forms.

An appellate court last year struck down Long Beach's attempt to license pot stores, ruling that the local ordinance conflicted with federal law. Another appellate court upheld Riverside's right to close and prohibit dispensaries.

The Supreme Court has not yet scheduled oral arguments for the cases.

Source:  ap