MUSIC NEWS:

They may scare you silly, but Irish horror movies should be taken seriously.

As music legend awaits the final appeal of his murder conviction and Al Pacino plays him in a new film, Vikram Jayanti remembers Phil Spector’s tortured struggle between genius and monster

Lauren Bacall has been given an honorary Oscar.

The jury in Phil Spector’s second murder trial will visit the famed music producer’s home where actress Lana Clarkson died, but the judge set strict rules on the presence of Spector’s wife and the operation of an outdoor fountain.

Jurors in Phil Spector’s murder trial have indicated they believe they are at an impasse, the judge said today after the panel sent a note in its seventh day of deliberations.

Two months after music producer Phil Spector's murder trial began, the defence began its effort today to show that actress Lana Clarkson killed herself.

The Phil Spector murder trial erupted in intense arguments outside the jury’s presence today over whether the defence can introduce a diary written by gunshot victim Lana Clarkson in which she wrote of her visions of a dead actress, depression over her acting career and fascination with guns.

The barrel of a gun may have been forced into actress Lana Clarkson’s mouth, bruising her tongue before the gunshot that killed her, a coroner said today in record producer Phil Spector’s murder trial.

FIVE weeks into the Phil Spector murder trial, it is time for the prosecution to change course, moving the courtroom drama from personal stories into the critical phase of forensic evidence.

A FORMER girlfriend of Phil Spector testified that the music producer “was not his usual self” during a dinner date hours before actress Lana Clarkson was shot dead at his California mansion.

The defence in Phil Spector’s murder trial today sought to undermine the credibility of the fourth woman to testify to being threatened with a gun by the record producer in the years leading to actress Lana Clarkson’s shooting death.

A criminalist who examined evidence for Phil Spector’s murder trial testified in a hearing that a missing piece of acrylic fingernail from shooting victim Lana Clarkson’s hand may or may not be of value in reconstructing the actress’ death at the record producer’s home.

An actress shot dead at Phil Spector’s mansion was the last of several women victimised by the legendary music producer in a decades-long series of alcohol-fuelled confrontations, a prosecutor told jurors today as the murder trial began.

AN ACTRESS shot dead at Phil Spector’s mansion was the last of several women victimised by the legendary music producer in a decades-long series of alcohol-fuelled confrontations, a prosecutor told jurors yesterday as the murder trial began.

Four men and two women were seated today as alternate jurors for music producer Phil Spector's trial on a charge of murdering actress Lana Clarkson in southern California

Prospective jurors for record producer Phil Spector’s murder trial were told that they would remain anonymous to the public for their own privacy and they should not think they were in any danger.

Prospective jurors for record producer Phil Spector's murder trial were told today that they would remain anonymous to the public for their own privacy and they should not think they were in any danger.

JURY selection began yesterday in the murder trial of legendary music producer Phil Spector — four years after an actress who starred in a cult movie was shot to death in the foyer of his castle-like home.

THE judge in the murder case against music producer Phil Spector said he was leaning towards allowing the trial to be televised and would make a decision later this month.

The judge in the murder case against music producer Phil Spector said today he is leaning toward allowing the trial to be televised and will make a decision after hearing from lawyers later this month.

The long-delayed US murder trial of music producer Phil Spector has been postponed a third time, with a judge pushing it back to next March.

The Producers Guild of America went ahead and made his day, choosing Clint Eastwood as the recipient of its highest honour.

Record producer Phil Spector was today charged with murder over the shooting of a B-movie actress at his mansion last year.

Irish director Andrew Baird is contemplating a Hollywood offer to helm A Plague of Spiders, a dark thriller, for famous producer Roger Corman.

Chuck Jones, who created all of the wonderfully-manic Warner Brothers cartoon characters, once told me that his favourite was the ill-fated Daffy Duck.

The man behind Gollum in Lord of the Rings finally proved there was more to his character than computer wizardry when he clinched a Best Actor award.

Police responding to an emergency call at the home of legendary record producer Phil Spector in February found a blood-spattered gun, broken teeth and the body of an actress who had been shot in the mouth, according to court records.

Legendary record producer Phil Spector, charged with murdering an actress at his California mansion, told his chauffeur that night that he thought he had “killed somebody,” according to a police report.

LANA CLARKSON, the actress found shot dead at music legend Phil Spector’s ten-bedroom castle in Los Angeles, was well-known to B-movie fans.

The famed independent Stateside moviemaker John Sayles knows all about Ireland ... and what he knows is all good.

Singer Joey Ramone, the lead singer of US punk rock group the Ramones - which launched an explosion of bands like the Clash and the Sex Pistols, has died in New York at the age of 49.