Sin

Now that Jim and Tammy Bakker have discovered and latched onto the "976" telephonic-tape gold mine with an estimated possible daily take of up to $100,000 it may be necessary to revise the Biblical observation that "the wages of sin is $$$$$." NORM HASS Los Angeles

Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke's "A Touch of Sin," which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last week, will be coming to U.S. screens in late fall or early winter. The New York-based company Kino Lorber announced Tuesday that it had picked up the U.S. rights to the movie. The film is Jia's fourth to play at the festival and is divided into four stories. L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan called the film "a corrosive depiction of the New China, an everything-for-sale society still figuring out how to cope with the dehumanizing effects of unbridled capitalism.

If recreational sex these days is a battlefield, then Rebecca De Mornay and Don Johnson, the stars of this 1993 movie, come off as couple of erotic samurai. Playing a hotshot female defense attorney and her randy client, an accused wife-killer, these two use sexiness as a weapon: ripping each other with a glance, thrusting with an innuendo, parrying with a smile.

CANNES, France -- Films dealing with societal corruption may be nothing new for Western audiences. But in China, where the government keeps a tight grip on what appears on movie screens, that is hardly the case. Which is why “A Touch of Sin,” written and directed by the veteran Jia Zhang-Ke, created a major stir when it appeared here in the competition. Officially debuting Friday but screened for the media Thursday, “A Touch of Sin” is a corrosive depiction of the New China, an everything-for-sale society still figuring out how to cope with the dehumanizing effects of unbridled capitalism.

Re "A Quiet Triumph of Hate" by Al Martinez (Times, May 8): This is the most meaningful, serious and important article that Martinez has ever written . . . a prize winner. I hope the racist hate-mongers get the message. The most disgraceful and frightening thing is that the Police Department, the FBI and the postal inspector refused to become involved. It brings to mind the Holocaust, when the (people of the) whole world closed their eyes, while 6 million men, women and children lost their lives, and proves again that SILENCE is the most unforgivable sin in the world when there is a principle involved.

It's no wonder that Luis Buñuel wanted to turn "The Monk" into a movie. Once banned, now merely cherished, the 1796 novel is a lurid amalgam of religious devotion and sin, earthly temptations and supernatural doings. Buñuel never made his movie, but there have been numerous adaptations. The latest, from French director Dominik Moll, is a work whose elegant atmospherics ultimately overwhelm the story, even with the terrific Vincent Cassel in the title role. Moll's version, arriving stateside almost two years after it opened in France, is a decided change of pace for the director of "With a Friend Like Harry" and new territory as well for Cassel.

Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke's "A Touch of Sin," which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last week, will be coming to U.S. screens in late fall or early winter. The New York-based company Kino Lorber announced Tuesday that it had picked up the U.S. rights to the movie. The film is Jia's fourth to play at the festival and is divided into four stories. L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan called the film "a corrosive depiction of the New China, an everything-for-sale society still figuring out how to cope with the dehumanizing effects of unbridled capitalism.

"Living in sin" should no longer be regarded as sinful and the phrase should be dropped given the number of people who now live together before getting married, a Church of England report said Tuesday. Warning against judgmental attitudes about cohabitation and fornication, the report by the church's Board of Social Responsibility estimated that four in five couples will live together before they marry by the year 2000.

Re "The left finds an avenging angel in Katrina," Current, Sept. 11 Conservative apologist Dennis Prager sets up a false argument: that some people find the Bush tax cuts and ignoring of global warming akin to sin. He then attributes that position to a mysterious entity he dubs the "secular left" (as if liberals cannot be religious), ties it to Hurricane Katrina and smugly knocks it down. Truly an exercise in futility. As usual, his piece ignores the only fact that matters: The Katrina disaster finally exposed a staggering level of mendacity and ineptitude at the federal level, and people no longer feel safe.

Some of us journalists have sinned, oh Lord Public, master of our universe. We beg of you to forgive us our press passes. How did we sin? Let me count the ways: 1) By telling you things that we knew were not so; 2) By telling you things we believed to be so, but had not substantiated; 3) By telling you things that were so, but had been acquired by questionable means. Why does there, suddenly, seem to be so much journalistic sinning? Because the public seems to be turned off on the media.

John le Carré's novels have responded brilliantly to the absence of the Cold War, which was, from 1963's classic "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" to "The Secret Pilgrim" in 1990, their traditional domain. In one sense, though, whether set before or after the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, the subject of Le Carré's fiction has never changed. A theme always was, and remains, the question: How can the individual hope to take any effective action in the murk of politics? Le Carré's most famous (and best loved)

The supernatural side of Sin City will be on display as the Las Vegas Paranormal Conference casts its spell May 19-21 at the Palace Station Hotel & Casino . Local ghost hunters Robert George Allen and Janice Oberding are hoping for plenty of paranormal activity over the course of three days. A planned seance will try to put participants in touch with Liberace. The legendary entertainer, who died in 1987, was known as Mr. Showmanship, and the seance is to be held in his old dressing room.

Tickets go on sale Friday for the Las Vegas performance -- this year's only U.S. appearances -- by Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band. The former Beatle and his group of well-known musicians will perform Nov.  22 and 23, at the Pearl Concert Theater  inside the Palms resort. The Las Vegas dates will follow a 10-city Latin American tour by the reincarnated band. Besides Starr, it includes Gregg Bissonette; Steve Lukather, formerly of Toto; Richard Page of Mr. Mister; Mark Rivera; Gregg Rolie of Santana; and Todd Rundgren.

  ESPN NBA analyst Chris Broussard caused a lot of controversy Monday when he said the following about NBA center Jason Collins, who had announced he was gay earlier in the day: "I'm a Christian. I don't agree with homosexuality. I think it's a sin, as I think all sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is.... If you're openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be ... that's walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. " Late Monday night, Broussard, who made the comments during ESPN's "Outside the Lines" show, released a statement clarifying his remarks.

Chris Broussard usually offers expertise on fast breaks and zone defense, but on Monday he drove right into America's culture wars by calling homosexuality "an open rebellion to God" and implying that gay people can't be Christians.  Speaking on ESPN's "Outside the Lines," the basketball analyst and former New York Times writer was discussing NBA player Jason Collins, who in a landmark move just became the first active player in one of the major...

May 1 may be Lei Day in Hawaii , but in Las Vegas , it's May 4 and 5 -- at least in downtown Las Vegas at the California Hotel Casino . The California Hotel will host a weekend of island-style activities from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days. Musicians and dancers will perform virtually nonstop, and vendors will be selling arts and crafts. Attendees also can sample traditional island food and drink. Among the dishes for sale: kalua pig, lau lau, a pork dish wrapped in taro leaf; and hot malasadas, a sweet pastry.

Frustrated high school tennis players in Tennessee can yell "Jesus!" or "Christ!" without censure. What they can't do is scream "Jesus Christ!" Those two words were shouted by Bearden High's Cameron Boyd after he lost serve in the third set of the Class AAA championship doubles match--and he and partner Brandon Allan were disqualified. Jan Genosi, the Tennessee Secondary Schools Athletic Assn.

It's no wonder that Luis Buñuel wanted to turn "The Monk" into a movie. Once banned, now merely cherished, the 1796 novel is a lurid amalgam of religious devotion and sin, earthly temptations and supernatural doings. Buñuel never made his movie, but there have been numerous adaptations. The latest, from French director Dominik Moll, is a work whose elegant atmospherics ultimately overwhelm the story, even with the terrific Vincent Cassel in the title role. Moll's version, arriving stateside almost two years after it opened in France, is a decided change of pace for the director of "With a Friend Like Harry" and new territory as well for Cassel.

"The Hangover Part III" trailer promises plenty of mayhem as we see the return of Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms and Ken Jeong for the final installment of Todd Phillips' trilogy. The latest trailer includes very few lines of dialogue and only hints at the plot: Revenge on Sin City. The teaser dramatically opens with Cooper and Helms' characters -- Phil and Stu, respectively -- attending a funeral, which showcases a moving "Ave Maria" solo from Galifianakis' Alan. "My God. He's got the voice of an angel," Phil says.