It's been so long since we discussed Hounddog that it seemed like the film had already come and gone without a whisper. Not quite. The infamous Dakota Fanning movie that caused many waves for a controversial rape scene was planning to hit theaters on July 15. Now a new press release says the film will hit theaters starting September 5, where they are hoping to get the surprisingly high gross of $15 million before hitting shelves on DVD on January 20, 2009.

But that's not all. The company says that along with cross-promotion with other titles, it will "be supported with national television and radio ads, a consumer sweepstakes, and in-store merchandising." Defamer has mused about a whole Simpsons/7-11 approach with "Hounddog Sex Shacks," but the snark is not that big of a jump.

Whether warranted or not, the film has ruffled the feathers of many people, and it seems surprising that sweepstakes and in-store merchandising are being thrown into the mix. Hell, push aside the unrest and just think about the initial response. When Kim reviewed it from Sundance way back when, she said: "Hounddog is also one of the least likeable films I've seen here at Sundance -- and not, as you might expect, merely because it has a scene of the young actress being violently raped."

How far will they take it? We'll have to wait and see.

Although I read Libertas and other conservative sites regularly, on the premise that it's a good idea to know what the barbarians are up to before they get to your gate, I rarely post about stories I read there. This piece they had up yesterday, though, is so blatantly misinformed and misguided that I felt compelled to address it.

The piece is yet another conservative rant against the liberal Hollywood machine. It starts out by linking to an article over on The Daily Standard, deemed by Libertas an "insightful piece on a disturbing trend." That alone set off my inner alarm bells, but I gamely went off to see what insights the Standard had to offer. In his piece, titled "Hollywood on the Offensive -- Child Abuse Hits the Silver Screen," Kevin Kusinitz starts out by attacking two films from Sundance 2007 -- Hounddog, starring Dakota Fanning as a young rape victim, and An American Crime, a dramatization of the murder of Sylvia Lukens in 1965, starring Ellen Page. Kusinitz then goes on to attack Page for her role in Juno thusly:

Last we heard from Dakota Fanning, she was playing an Elvis-impersonating rape victim in the Sundance debacle Hounddog. That performance managed to simultaneously warm the hearts of festival goers, while rendering anti-kiddie porn crusaders appalled, and leaving most critics simply bored. Now, apparently having had a taste of life as a hot topic on MSNBC, Dakota wants more. She's signed on to star alongside little sister Elle Fanning in Hurricane Mary, which, according to Variety, "tells the true story of an Irish-American mother, played by Patricia Clarkson, who fought a long battle for the rights of her handicapped yet gifted daughters to have a public school education."

Elle and Dakota will play "handicapped yet gifted" under the director of Arvin Brown, a television director who has directed just one feature film, a 1980 horror flick called Diary of the Dead. I'm sure Dakota's parents and handlers have a master plan, and I'm absolutely positive they need no advice from internet movie critics when it comes to the handling of the preteen phenom's career. However, I do think now is the time to recall the sad story of Macaulay Culkin. If you remember, the Uncle Buck star was just about Dakota's age when he stuck his own little toe into dangerous waters, first as sidekick to a window-smashing, crotch-grabbing Michael Jackson in the "Black or White" video, and then as the villain in the 1993 thriller bomb, The Good Son.

Like Hurricane Mary, The Good Son was a family affair, co-starring Culkin siblings Quinn and Rory. Within a year after The Good Son's release, little Macaulay all but suffered a nervous breakdown and basically disappeared for almost a decade, only to resurface briefly to play a drug-addicted murderer and get engaged to a cast member from That 70s Show. This could very well all fit into the Fanning' family's plan: maybe the goal is to screw everything up now, wait until 2017, and then get Dakota cast in a remake of Monster and married off to Wilmer Valderrama. If so, well done, Mr. and Mrs. Fanning! Let all your haters stand corrected when this delicious plan comes to fruition.

It's never really fair to add to the million woes of the indie filmmaker by mentioning the troubles stirring around them pre-release. After all, it's what's on screen that counts. But there comes a time when the fuss is irresistible to watch, especially after a look at Cinematical's Kevin Polowy and Kim Voynar's reviews of Hounddog, as well as Monika Bartyzel's earlier anticipation of the trouble to come, from that now notorious Sundance film best known as the "Dakota Fanning rape movie."

The LA Times's Robin Abcarian did the pro-Hounddog piece on Jan. 20 , taking the high road as she described the 21 credited producers, the usual horror stories of money dropping out and director Deborah Kampmeier hocking her car. S.T. VanAirsdale of The Reeler took a significantly lower road, reproducing, in all of its misspelled glory, the ad Kampmeier wrote for the Sundance newsletter which describes trying to avoid the unions while she made Hounddog. As a reward for this small act of union-avoidance, Volkswagen presented her with a VW Touareg. It's interesting to note in Neil Gabler's book on Walt Disney, by the way, that unionized newspaper critics refused to attend the screening of Pinocchio because of Disney's well-known labor troubles. Other times, other morals. Warmly heralding the director's "exploitative, racist piece of s--t," VanAirsdale links to Manhola Darghis' by now famous Sundance screed calling Hounddog "overinflated rubbish ... as sincere as it is stupid."

While waiting for someone to find the tongs with which to handle this movie, you can sign (sight unseen) either the "block Hounddog petition" or the "support the movie Hounddog" petition.

Last year, a "motley group of techie folks" came together and used Bayesian analysis (don't worry, I'm not smart enough to figure it out either) to predict which films at Sundance would win the four major awards. Part of their process includes gathering 11 years worth of festival guides, information off IMDb and an assortment of film reviews, throwing it all in some sort of virtual whiz-kid blender and, apparently, out spits which films are most likely to finish on top. It sounds pretty nutty, but in 2006 they accurately predicted all four winners. Yes, I'm serious.

Since the big Sundance awards are being handed out tomorrow -- we're talking the Dramatic Competition Audience Award, the Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize, the Documentary Competition Audience Award and the Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize -- we decided to check back in with Deconstructing Sundance to see what their picks for 2007 are. Basically, they break it down into three hilariously-named categories: Films under the Timberlake Britney category are the best, Federline Britney lists those in the middle and Pantiless Britney, well, you get the drift. Beside each film is a percentage level which is supposed to represent how confident they are in their decision to place a film in a certain category.

So ... you probably want to know which films they picked, huh? Well, according to their 2007 predictions list (and hopefully I'm reading it correctly), The Good Life (98.76%) and Joshua (99.27%) are the two favorites in dramatic competition, followed somewhat closely behind by Grace is Gone (89.13%), Four Sheets to the Wind (86.69%) and Hounddog (66.81%). And the worst film in dramatic competition? Adrift in Manhattan wound up in the Pantiless Britney category with 83.76%.

If you've turned on the television at all this week, you're probably aware that there's a film at Sundance called Hounddog, in which there's a rape scene featuring 12-year-old Dakota Fanning. There's been a lot of talk about the rape scene in theory, but most of it has come from people who haven't, and may never, see the film. After being shut out of the film's sole Sundance press screening, I swung by a public screening of the film, to find out what ticket buyers had to say after seeing it for themselves.

Oh, it's officially on -- as if folks weren't all up in arms prior to Hounddog's screening at Sundance, now there's a petition circulating online attempting to not only block the film's release, but also asking law enforcement to arrest Dakota Fanning's mother (Joy) and agent (Cindy Osbrink). Should you be interested in signing such a petition, here's a little taste of what you'd be agreeing with: "They both are responsible, and if so they should be arrested and the film destroyed so the public doesn't witness this atrocity all in the name of an Oscar, whose name will be tarnished in the process."

Yes, apparently, the people behind this petition also feel like the only reason Dakota decided to take on the role was so she would be nominated for an Oscar. But let's back up for a minute -- is this sexually explicit rape scene featuring a 12-year-old actress against the law? Is it really kiddie porn? Slate looked into the actual law which states that things only get messy if the viewer is somehow convinced by what they see on the screen that Dakota Fanning had actual, real-life intercourse on set which, as most of us already know, rarely ever happens in a film featuring adults, let alone children. Says writer-director Deborah Kampmeier: "... you have a child yelling 'Stop it!' and only when you put that next to an image of a boy unzipping his pants do you see that it's rape."

Kevin and Kim both seemed to feel the same way about the rape scene -- that it wasn't nearly as bad as watching Fanning prance around in a "skimpy undershirt and panties, writing and wriggling her hips and fanny seductively as she imitates Elvis Presley's dancing style." But this is her Jodie Foster moment. This role shall define Dakota's transition from cute and cuddly to serious and thought-provoking. This is what the movies are all about -- consistently pushing the barrier and experiencing uncomfortable images all for the sake of pure entertainment and, perhaps, everyone will learn something in the process. Right?

Let's get this out there right from the top: Yes, Dakota Fanning's performance in Hounddog is mature, powerful, and everything it should be to launch her career to the next level as a young actress who can handle serious roles. That said, however, Hounddog is also one of the least likeable films I've seen here at Sundance -- and not, as you might expect, merely because it has a scene of the young actress being violently raped. Fanning plays Lewellen, a young girl somewhere in the South whose big dream is to meet Elvis Presley. Elvis, she imagines, is going to take her away from her troubled life and make her a famous singer. Lewellen lives back and forth between the ramshackle shack her daddy (David Morse) lives in, and the house up front where her Grammie (Piper Laurie) lives.

Lewellen and her family are what their neighbors on the better side of the tracks might call "white trash," and if ever a movie took every white trash stereotype out there and stuck in one place, this is it. And of course, if you're going to make a movie about white trash in the Deep South in the 1950s, why, there'd better be some black folks around for them to hang out with, so the well-to-do white folk can have a reason to toss around the "n-word." And while you're at it, make sure to make one of those black folks the wise, all-knowing, medicine-man character (Charles, played by Afemo Omilami) who saves the day with his mojo. Oh, and don't forget to toss in a random rich white girl to contrast with the trashiness of the poorer character and treat her like dirt, just in case we don't get it.

Santa Barbara seems like a pretty cool place to hold a film festival; nice people, fancy cars, great weather, swanky restaurants ... and oh yeah, the movies. The Santa Barabarians are presently gearing up for their 22nd annual film festival, and I'm here to tell you what they'll be playing. Well, some of what they'll be playing. Well, the big titles anyway.

Based on what Variety tells me, the SBIFF will be offering a solid handful of world premieres, including Joel Schumacher's The Number 23 (which stars Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen), Lake of Fire (a documentary about abortion that comes from the guy who directed American History X) and Christopher Plummer in Man in the Chair, which is a story about the last-surviving Citizen Kane crew member. Interesting.

Not premieres, but potentially quite interesting are "that Dakota Fanning movie" Hounddog, George Hickenlooper's controversial Factory Girl, Michael Apted's Amazing Grace and Sue Kramer's Gray Matters. The fest folks will also take some time from their busy screening schedule to honor filmmakers like Forest Whitaker, Bill Condon, Helen Mirren and Will Smith.

Plus a whole lot more. So if you live within, say, 40-some miles of Santa Barbara and you want to see some interesting flicks between January 25 and February 4, now you have something to do.

Man, it must be terrible to be a 12-year-old child superstar and realize you can't rest on your laurels, but instead, must think about the future when your looks start to go and you just aren't the cutest thing around anymore. What's a pre-teen actor to do when this kind of problem inevitably arises? Thus is the current issue apparently confronting the precocious Dakota Fanning who was asked, according to a recent AP story, what she might want to do when she grows up. Her answer? Are you sitting down? Good. She wants to direct.

According to the article, Fanning was asked about her future career plans during an interview for Time Magazine promoting her upcoming films Charlotte's Web and the indie-drama Hound Dog. "I would love to direct someday," Fanning told the magazine. "I've learned a lot from watching directors I've worked with, like Steven Spielberg and Gary Winick, whom I worked with on Charlotte's Web. I would love to have that relationship with another actor." Well, I guess if you've spent that much time with talented directors like those, something is bound to rub off, right? What a great way to learn.

Besides, there are many directors working today who started out as actors -- the most successful probably being Ron Howard. But there's also, of course, Mel Gibson, Kevin Costner, Danny De Vito and one of my personal heroes Orson Welles. I'm sure I missed a bunch more. To be honest, Dakota Fanning is one of the few child actors who doesn't bug me when I watch her films -- I especially liked her in Man on Fire. Maybe its her or more the directors or actors she works with. Whatever the reason, if I had to bet on someone making a successful transition from actor to director I would have to bet on her. Plus, she's just so darn cute -- and that never hurts either.