MAIDEN VOYAGE: A receptive audience of some 2,000 people welcomed James Cameron's Titanic to the screen Saturday night at the Tokyo International Film Festival, where the disaster epic, reportedly the most expensive film ever made, premiered. The $200 million behemoth, starring Leonardo DiCaprio (who attended the weekend screening), opens in U.S. theaters on December 19.
FOREIGN POLICY: Prince Charles and South African president Nelson Mandela proved no match for the Spice Girls. The two prominent men were virtually ignored when they stopped by a Girl Power press conference Saturday in South Africa.
MUSEUM PIECES: In Washington D.C., an exhibit of more than 200 props, models and costumes from George Lucas' Star Wars movies has opened to the public. The big show, at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, is scheduled to run for one year.
NO SWEAT: A threat by China to cut off business dealings with Hollywood isn't leaving the cel-phone set quivering in their BMWs. The movie industry's chief spokesman says the studios will not change their product to suit a foreign government.
WHALE TALE: Vets gave the whale star of Free Willy a blood test Saturday--the beginning in a series of pokes and proddings aimed at determining what, if anything, is wrong with the blubbery mammal. Keiko's health has been the subject of controversy in recent months.
MISS DIVA REGRETS: In New York, tongues are still wagging over Whitney Houston's Rosie O'Donnell "snub." The pop singer was supposed to appear on Rosie's talk show on Thursday to hype the TV-movie musical, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. Except she called in sick--only about an hour to tape time. Ms. O'Donnell was reportedly not amused. "Whitney, you really better be sick," the comedian joked (sort of).
HAT ACT: Country superstar Garth Brooks has finally hammered out a release schedule for his new album. Sevens should make it to stores by the end of November.
SPEAKING OUT: Samantha Geimer--who as a 13-year-old girl was seduced by director Roman Polanski--is breaking 20 years of silence. In an interview on TV's Inside Edition, to air next week, Geimer says she hopes Polanski can resolve his issues with U.S. authorities and be a fugitive no more. Geimer is now a 34-year-old married mother of three.
GOING TO THE HALL: Saturday night in Los Angeles, a glitzy black-tie ceremony was planned to honor the newest inductees to TV's Hall of Fame: newswoman Diane Sawyer, writer-producer James L. Brooks, Happy Days creator Garry Marshall, executive Grant Tinker and the late producer Quinn Martin (Barnaby Jones).
DEALING DIETRICH: Hundreds of movie buffs were expected in Los Angeles at Saturday's auction of Marlene Dietrich doo-dads. Among the prize items up for bid: A cocktail shaker from Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
OH, DOCTOR: TV's Ben Casey was an abusive, out-of-control gambler who made an "emotional hostage" and "passive zombie" out of his wife--this according to actor Vince Edwards' own spouse. Janet Edwards is shopping a book chronicling their three-year relationship. Vince Edwards died last year of pancreatic cancer.
BREAKING NEWS: "I'm not a stable person." So says fighter/biter Mike Tyson in an interview conducted a day before he took a nasty spill on a motorcycle this week. Tyson's "revelations" will air Monday on ABC's PrimeTime Live.
JOLLY GREEN GIANT: Former pro football player Lynn Red Williams will fill Lou Ferrigno's ripped-up pants in a big-screen version of The Incredible Hulk. The movie--titled simply Hulk--starts shooting next April. For all the casting news, see The Dotted Line.
CUTTING TAPE: The Dave Matthews Band has come up with an ingenious plan to foil bootleggers--release their own concert bootlegs. The first such project is Live at Red Rocks 8.15.95.
FREEBIE ALERT: The heirs of George Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael, and others, are lobbying Congress for increased copyright protection for tunes written by their famed namesakes. Under current U.S. laws, Tin Pan Alley hits of the 1920s are about to lapse into the public domain.
FETED AT FEST: Character, a Dutch movie about a young man and his overbearing father, has taken top honors in the first-ever dramatic competition at AFI's Los Angeles International Film Festival.
DIS-BAND: It's the end of the world as we know it. Drummer Bill Berry is quitting seminal Gen X-era rock band, R.E.M.. The remaining members--Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck--intend to continue as a trio.
MAKING NICE? Disney chairman Michael Eisner reportedly is warming to settling that lawsuit brought by exiled Magic Kingdom exec, Jeffrey Katzenberg. Trial on the Katzenberg suit is scheduled to start this month.
MONSTER MASH: Film buffs are about to get their first look at a presumed lost silent film that's actually the first big-screen version of author Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The 15-minute movie, produced in 1910 by Thomas Edison, was recently uncovered by a Wisconsin man. It'll be released on home video next month.
HITCHED: Legendary suspense director Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho) is getting stamped. The U.S. Postal Service has announced plans for a Hitchcock stamp to be issued next year.
SILENT BOB: The horse whispers, but not Robert Redford. The actor/director says he's not going to reveal the picturesque locations featured in his new movie, The Horse Whisperer. That's because he took so much heat from Montana residents who were angry that his last nature film, The River Runs Through It, put them in the spotlight.
JUST SAY NO: Two women touched by addiction--Courtney Love (Mrs. Kurt Cobain) and Troy Nowell (the widow of Sublime singer Bradley Nowell)--unveiled a series of anti-drug TV ads Friday in Los Angeles. The late Nowell himself will be featured in one of the spots.