November 1, 1999
Web posted at: 3:55 p.m. EST (2055 GMT)

• 'Crazy From the Heat': Roth goes after Web site
• Almodóvar's 'Mother' enters Oscar pool
• Kennedy's 'American Hollow' wins AFI award
• Conan's sweet on stardom

Roth

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Former Van Halen vocalist David Lee Roth is trying to pull the plug on a Web site on which fans can buy his memorabilia. The 44-year-old singer has filed a lawsuit against his former personal assistant Edmund Anderson, who operates the site, according to Roth's attorney Jeff Benice.

"The suit was filed as a result of Roth attempting to clean up the bootlegging and piracy of his image off the Internet," Benice says. Anderson, who worked for Roth for 10 years, could not be reached for comment.

Benice says Roth initially allowed Anderson to set up a Web site to help sell Van Halen T-shirts, tour posters and other items. But when Anderson stopped working for Roth in February, Roth told him to shut down the site, Benice says. Anderson did so, but apparently "re-set up the old site," Benice says. He says damages exceed $100,000.

Since leaving Van Halen in the mid-1980s, Roth has turned out solo efforts "Eat 'em and Smile" (1987), "Skyscraper" (1988), "Crazy From the Heat" (1992) and "The Best" (1997).

Almodóvar

MADRID (CNN) -- Spain has selected "All About My Mother," written and directed by native son Pedro Almodóvar, as its entry for the non-English language film Academy Award, according to Variety.

"Mother," Almodóvar's 13th film, is a screwball melodrama that focuses on the tribulations of a group of less-than-typical female friends. The cast includes Cecilia Roth and Penelope Cruz. Almodóvar says if he wins the Oscar, he'll dedicate it to his mother, Francisca Caballero, who died in September. The film already has grossed about $34 million worldwide, and Sony Pictures Classics is to release it in the United States on November 19.

Almodóvar, best known for 1988's "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," has yet another project in the works. He says he's written an English-language screen adaptation of Pete Dexter's "The Paperboy," co-written by director Sebastian Gutierrez ("Judas Kiss," 1998).

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Rory Kennedy, youngest daughter of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, won the documentary prize for her movie "American Hollow" at the 13th annual American Film Institute (AFI) Los Angeles Film Festival on Sunday.

The film, which premiered this year at Sundance, offers a look at an Appalachian family in an isolated valley of eastern Kentucky. Kennedy wasn't at the ceremony.

"Not of This World," directed and co-written by Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Piccioni, earned the AFI's grand-jury prize. The drama, about a young nun who finds an abandoned baby, also won the festival's audience award for best feature film.

O'Brien

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Conan O'Brien digs all the trappings of being a celebrity, he tells Time Out New York. The host of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" says in an interview in the October 28 edition, "I get spotted when I walk around a lot -- but it's nice.

"It's an ego boost. But sometimes it leaves me with this feeling of, 'Where was all this in 1984 or 1985,' you know? I was a lonely 22-year-old guy, and it would have been sooo nice."

O'Brien will be riding solo again when his sidekick, Andy Richter, leaves the show in May. O'Brien says he has no plans to replace Richter right away. "The worst thing that could happen is if he's replaced by someone that's not right," he says.

Reuters contributed to this report.