MOVIES - March 26, 1994

Calling All Cans: Are you going to the Can Film Festival? No, that’s not a typo. This is not the famed Cannes in the south of France. This festival is the one going on now at many of the AMC Theaters in the Los Angeles area. The concept is simple: In exchange for a can of food, you will receive a coupon good for one small popcorn. The festival benefits the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank and reinforces the recycling “CANpaign” being conducted by the Steel Recycling Institute this month. The festival continues through Sunday night at all 13 AMC locations in Los Angeles County, plus Fullerton and Main Place Theaters in Orange County and the Chino Town theaters in San Bernardino County.

POP/ROCK

The Hills Are Alive . . . : Julie Andrews is putting the final touches on a new album of the best-loved Broadway hits by Richard Rodgers, including songs from Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s “The Sound of Music.” The film version of the stage musical, released 29 years ago this month, starred Andrews and won five Oscars, including best picture. The Phillips Classics recording will be released in September and features the title song to “The Sound of Music” as well as her first solo recording of that show’s “Edelweiss.”

* One More for the Road: Frank Sinatra forgot some of the words but he showed his son who’s boss in his first concert since he collapsed on a Richmond, Va., stage March 6. Sinatra, 78, appeared in good shape during an hourlong concert Thursday in Kansas City, but missed several lines to “New York, New York” and stumbled his way through “The Lady Is a Tramp” despite help from four large electronic prompters. The Chairman of the Board bantered with Frank Sinatra Jr., who directed his orchestra. “His mother said get him a job, get him out of the house,” Sinatra wisecracked.

* Move Over, Magic: Sunday’s L.A. Lakers’ game at the Forum will not only be notable for being the once-retired Magic Johnson’s first as coach. Singer Melissa Etheridge’s young nephew Josh Etheridge will be the game’s honorary ballboy on Sunday when the Lakers play Milwaukee. Etheridge, who’ll attend the game, bid $1,500 at Elton John’s AIDS Foundation benefit recently and won the prize.

STAGE

Plaza to Lose Leader: Gema Sandoval, executive director of Plaza de la Raza in Los Angeles, will resign from her post effective July 1. Sandoval, who has headed the 20-year-old Latino cultural center for six years, said she is leaving to devote herself full time to her dance troupe, Danza Floricano, which performs folk dances of Mexico. Sandoval will leave the center during a period of turmoil, as its seven-member staff is negotiating to unionize. “People are worried about their jobs, but in a nonprofit organization, nobody’s safe,” Sandoval said.

ART

MOCA, San Diego, Gets Gift: The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, has received a major new gift: 10 works by modern American master Joseph Cornell. Included are four boxes and six framed collages from the late 1940s through mid-’50s. The museum, which plans to display the works in the inaugural exhibition of its new La Jolla flagship location in 1996, is one of six American institutions to receive Cornell works from the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation. The other institutions are the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Seattle Art Museum, the New Orleans Museum of Art and Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.

* Landseer Record: A private collector paid $1.2 million Friday for a painting by Sir Edwin Landseer, a new record for the Victorian artist, Christie’s auctioneers in London said. The painting, “Scene in Braemar--Highland Deer,” was sold by the estate of Lord Moyne. Christie’s said it was not known when the painting was done by Landseer, who lived from 1802 to 1873. The previous record for a Landseer was established in October, 1989, in New York when an American collector paid $577,500 at auction for “Neptune.”

SHORT TAKES

Elizabeth Taylor is recuperating after having her arthritic left hip replaced. The 62-year-old actress should be out of Century City hospital in about a week and will need crutches or a walker for three to six months, her orthopedic surgeon reported Friday. . . . NFL greats Terry Bradshaw, Carl Banks, Jim Harbaugh and Ken Norton Jr. will team up as an elite cowboy posse in the two-part season finale of Fox’s “The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.,” airing in May. . . . Musical legend Ray Charles makes a rare TV series appearance in the season finale of NBC’s “Wings,” airing May 12. . . . HBO will rebroadcast its documentary, “I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School,” which won an Oscar Monday, at 8:30 a.m. on April 25. . . . Comedian Dennis Miller returns to the late-night fray April 22. His half-hour HBO show will air live in the East Coast but run tape-delayed here at midnight. Six shows are currently scheduled.