House Party

The heart has its reasons. This, the moral of Jean Renoir's bittersweet souffle The Rules of the Game, enables viewers to enjoy the writer/director's unsurpassed social comedy without passing judgment on its inconsistent, incorrigible and indelible characters. The story is simple, the drama is complex. During a weekend house party, hosts, guests and help at a country chateau commingle, inflaming passions in an accelerated minuet of flirtation and infidelity. Made in France on the eve of World War II, the film stars Marcel Dalio as a courtly count, Nora Gregor as his wife, and Renoir himself as the bearish Octave, whose clumsiness of body and poetry of spirit are our entree to the social awkwardnesses and grace of this occasion.

"To Sleep with Anger" and "House Party" - two very different views of black, middle-class America - paced a diverse field of nominees Monday for the sixth Independent Spirit Awards. Each received seven nominations for the awards, presented by the Independent Feature Project/West to honor excellence in independent filmmaking. The controversial "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer" and the resurrected '60s black comedy, "The Plot Against Harry," received six nominations apiece, followed by "Pump Up the Volume" with four and "Metropolitan" with three.

North Carolina State concentrated on shutting down one player to reach the third round of the National Invitation Tournament. It didn't totally succeed - Arizona State's Eddie House still got his eighth 30-point game of the season - but the Wolfpack (19-12) still had enough to win, 60-57, over the visiting Sun Devils last night. House scored 32 points, but only two over the final 12 minutes. He missed the front end of a one-and-one with 1:18 left that could have given Arizona State a three-point lead, then missed a last-second shot after breaking open in the corner.

Kid 'N Play were among the first Rap Stars to break into mainstream movies, and among the few to actually perform Rap onscreen recently. Their debut picture, "House Party," was built around their rap and dance routines. The silly plot was incidental to the numbers they performed. "House Party 2" is another story. It's the rap numbers that are incidental here - they don't occur until the movie is nearly over. The silly plot dominates the sequel, which is good news only for those of you who are entertained by constant references to the crotch area (and judging by the Clarence Thomas Hearings, there are a lot of you)

Police investigating the fatal stabbing of a man at an Avondale house party say they made a grisly discovery when searching the crime scene - a second dead body. Police believe a large fight broke out about 10 p.m. Saturday between guests and people who weren't invited. Police say Cuahuctemoc Bedolla, 27, was stabbed several times and died at Christiana Hospital shortly after midnight. When police combed the crime scene, they found the body of 29-year-old Jose Rodriguez.

One of my daughter's teachers had to leave the classroom unexpectedly. The party started as soon as the door closed on her behind. Music, laughing, screaming, wrestling, dancing, dancing on tables and desks, bad language spoken, then shouted, then written on the floor in some medium that would not wash off. In short, it was exactly what you expect when you leave a class of 8th graders to supervise themselves. It reminded me, of course, of Congress. According to the U.S. Constitution, the House of Representatives picks the president if no candidate receives a majority of Electoral College votes in the November election.

Last year, you partied like it was 1999. This year, with all the cosmic navel-gazing over the significance of a simple date change in the Roman calendar, and all the anxiety over the Y2K bug when the clock strikes 12 tonight, many of us seem content to party like it's, well. . .Monday. For most of us. that means ringing in the New Year at HOME. You know, where the heart(burn) is, in addition to the TV, free booze, your own bed and a three-month supply of Dinty Moore, just in case.

President Bush couldn't attend Barbara Macdonald's backyard party last week in Downingtown, but he said hello on the phone. Two nights later, as Margaret Boyce-Furey hosted a party for John Kerry in her Whitemarsh living room, the senator from Massachusetts offered his greetings, also on the phone. Thanks to the Internet and other technology - in these cases, the means to link hundreds or even thousands of homes into a single nationwide conference call - the candidates for president have been able to connect with supporters this year in a newly intimate way. The old political house party, or kaffeeklatsch, in which a host invited over the neighbors to have cake and meet a candidate, has been reinvented in 2004 as a tool of mass mobilization.

One thing about Eric Meza. He'll do just about anything to make his actors comfortable. During a bedroom scene in House Party 3, the latest in the four-year-old series starring rappers Kid 'N Play, Meza's female lead got a case of the shys. "Angela (Means) said, 'If I gotta be in my underwear, everybody in this room gotta be in their underwear. I want to see you in yours,' " the film's director recalled, laughing. " 'The camera operator, the grips, the gaffers - all of you - in yours.

Capping a six-month investigation into the rape of a 17-year-old girl, prosecutors yesterday arrested two men and a woman who they allege watched it happen on a basement couch - and then lied to a grand jury about it. Yesterday evening, police arrested another man, who allegedly videotaped the assault at a house party, after he flew in from Florida. He was arraigned late last night. Bucks County District Attorney Diane L. Gibbons lodged perjury charges against Dmitry Yukhananov, 20, of Bensalem; Vladislav "Larry" Vestel, 22, of Philadelphia; and Karina Danilchenko, 18, of Southampton Township.

IT'S NOT often that a son can confirm his father's status as a good wingman. But when you're Mandela Van Peebles , son of actor/director Mario Van Peebles , you have firsthand experience. Seventeen-year-old Mandela is the star of his father's new film, " We the Party ," opening in area theaters today, a teen throwback to epic teen party movies such as " Sixteen Candles " and " House Party . " It's a coming-of-age story, featuring Mandela as Hendrix Sutton, one of five teens dealing with the pressures of growing up in the modern era. As research, Mario persuaded his kids (four of Mario's five have roles in the movie)

LAST WEEK, critics worried that "Act of Valor" might be a Navy recruitment video, luring young people into a life of (gasp!) military service. Not to worry. After that one-week blip, Hollywood is back to business as usual, pandering to a young male demo with a movie that celebrates self-indulgence, status-seeking, substance abuse, vulgarity and the headlong quest for "fine bitches," preferably drunk ones. It's called "Project X" and has all the earmarks of a commercial success.

STATE COLLEGE - Prosecutors yesterday asked to have Jerry Sandusky kept indoors as part of his bail conditions, citing complaints that the former Penn State football assistant coach was seen outside and watching children in a schoolyard from the back porch of his home, where he is under house-arrest while awaiting trial on child-molestation charges. The state Attorney General's Office argued in a court filing that Sandusky's bail conditions should be revised so that he is not allowed outside except to seek medical treatment.

Prosecutors on Tuesday asked a judge to order Jerry Sandusky to stay inside his Centre County home until his trial on child sex-abuse charges, saying neighbors and teachers at a nearby elementary school complained about seeing the former football coach outside watching kids play. "In order to allay the genuine fears of the community, defendant should be confined to his house," Senior Deputy Attorney General Jonelle Eshbach wrote to Judge John M. Cleland. The request marked the latest salvo between prosecutors and Sandusky's lawyer over the bail conditions for the former Pennsylvania State University football coach accused of molesting 10 boys between 1994 and 2008.

NEWARK, Del. - A Wilmington man was in custody Monday after police said he raped a girl, 17, during a Newark house party, then threw her out a window. Police said John Nelson, 20, kicked in the locked door of a bedroom where the girl was alone early Sunday. She tried to flee, but Nelson choked her to the point of unconsciousness, sexually assaulted her, then threw her from the window, police said. Officers clearing the crowd at the party heard screams for help and found the teen on the ground.

Hello there Lorin knew only one other person at the July 2007 house party. But there was a familiar logo in attendance, and she persuaded herself to walk over to the cute man wearing it. Lorin had just earned a master's in education from the University of Pennsylvania, where she had also been captain of the women's squash team. She loved squash, but squash did not love her anterior cruciate ligament. After tearing her ACL and having the related surgery three times, Lorin decided to try golf, the sport the rest of her family loved.

Police investigating the fatal stabbing of a man at an Avondale house party say they made a grisly discovery when searching the crime scene - a second dead body. Police believe a large fight broke out about 10 p.m. Saturday between guests and people who weren't invited. Police say Cuahuctemoc Bedolla, 27, was stabbed several times and died at Christiana Hospital shortly after midnight. When police combed the crime scene, they found the body of 29-year-old Jose Rodriguez.

Hello there In 2003, toward the end of her sophomore year at La Salle University, Mary was at a house party when a guy walked out of the bathroom trailing a white streamer. "Hey!" she said. "You've got toilet paper on your shoe!" Chris, a junior computer science major from Juniata Park, was appreciative of the heads-up. He stopped to chat a bit - long enough for Mary to notice his big brown eyes, disarming smile, and fun personality. And then he was gone into the crowd.

MANCHESTER, N.H. - There he was, a historic figure, big as life, trapped in the living room. For two hours Wednesday night, anybody could approach former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and pitch a surefire plan for ending illegal immigration, ask about old fights with Bill Clinton, or comment on the rocky start to his Republican presidential campaign. It was a house party hosted by tea-party favorite Ovide Lamontagne and attended by 200 grassroots conservatives shopping for a nominee, an important stop for GOP candidates trooping in recent weeks to New Hampshire, home of the nation's first primary.

Top drawer Nearly 1,000 guests attended the Preview Party for the 50th annual Philadelphia Antiques Show , held April 8 at the Navy Yard. The party was chaired by Katharine Booth and Sandy Nesbitt. Since its founding in 1962 by volunteer members of the Board of Women Visitors, the show has raised more than $17 million for the Penn health system, now known as Penn Medicine. This year the proceeds will benefit the Penn Ovarian Cancer Research Center. Chaired by Patty Cheek, the 50-dealer show of 18th- and 19th-century American antiques and folk art was held April 9 to 12.   Speaking up The Support Center for Child Advocates set a fund-raising record at its annual Benefit Reception and Auction , raising more than $500,000 for the nonprofit, which provides free legal and social services for abused and neglected children in Philadelphia.