MOVIESThe Other Festival: Cannes gets the spotlight,...

MOVIES

The Other Festival: Cannes gets the spotlight, but there’s a film festival going on in St. Petersburg, Russia, too, with a full slate of movies all week. The Festival of American Films’ 1995 Peter the Great Achievement Awards will honor actor Michael York, documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles, producer Roger Corman and executives Jack Phillips of Metromedia and Leonard White of Orion Pictures as industry leaders. The accolades will be presented Saturday night at the Cinema Center Leningrad. If you’re in the neighborhood, admission is 10,000 rubles ($1.98) at the door and the address is Potemkinskaya 4.

TV/RADIO

Not Seeing Eye to Eye: Don’t expect a quick resolution of Connie Chung’s departure from CBS. According to insiders, Chung--who refused to accept a demotion from CBS, which removed her from co-anchoring the “CBS Evening News” and also canceled her “Eye to Eye” series--expects to be paid the remainder of her $2-million salary on a contract that expires in less than a year. CBS--which many people believe is for sale by chairman Laurence Tisch--is said to be balking.

MUSIC

Another Russian Defection: Kirov Opera soprano Galina Gorchakova, scheduled to sing the lead in Tchaikovsky’s one-act opera “Iolanta” in the Los Angeles philharmonic’s season finale this weekend, has canceled because of illness. Her replacement is Tatiana Novikova, a leading soprano with the Kirov for 14 years. This is the second cancellation for the Philharmonic’s two-weekend Tchaikovsky mini-festival. Last weekend, Carl St.Clair, the music director of the Pacific Symphony, conducted in place of Kirov maestro Valery Gergiev. Gergiev will be conducting all four performances of “Iolanta,” which runs tonight through Sunday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

POP/ROCK/JAZZ

Grammys in L.A., Again: With a nod to Mayor Richard Riordan, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences made it official Wednesday: The Grammys will return to Los Angeles for the second year in a row. “The reason we’re coming back has to do with the commitment of Mayor Riordan,” Michael Greene, NARAS president, announced at a City Hall news conference. The 38th annual Grammy program will be telecast live next year on CBS-TV from the Shrine Auditorium in late February or early March. Said Riordan, who had lobbied to return the program to Los Angeles this year after it had been held in New York three of the last four years: “I think we agree: Music is one of the best ways to bring Angelenos together--both the young and the young at heart.”

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No Room at the Met: New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art withdrew permission Tuesday for Diane Sawyer to use its ancient Egyptian Temple of Dendur as the location for an interview with singer Michael Jackson and his wife, Lisa Marie Presley. The museum was overwhelmed with reaction after plans were revealed for ABC-TV’s June 14 “PrimeTime Live” Jackson segment at the Met. “We have been bombarded with phone calls from people who are variously excited and angry, outraged and exhilarated,” said museum spokesman Harold Holzer. “Our primary concern is the safety of our visitors and the works of art.”

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Jazz Great a No-Show: Freddie Hubbard, the maverick jazz trumpet great who has a history of canceled performances and missed engagements because of health and personal problems, failed to appear for his scheduled performance Tuesday at Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood, where he was to play with the B Sharp Jazz Quartet. Despite his no-show, Catalina Popescu, owner of the jazz club, said at press time that she is still presenting Hubbard and B Sharp, which played two solid sets without the trumpeter Tuesday. Hubbard could not be reached for comment.

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Hootie Hangs On: Hootie & the Blowfish’s “Cracked View Mirror” sold an estimated 113,000 copies last week and will continue to hold the No. 1 position on the nation’s pop chart when Billboard magazine hits newsstands Saturday. “Cracked,” which took 11 months to climb to the top, is trailed by Live’s late-blooming “Throwing Copper” album, which sold 103,000 copies last week and hit the No. 2 position one year after its release.

QUICK TAKES

KCRW’s Warren Olney takes a day off today to pick up a “Treasure of Los Angeles” award from the Central City Assn. of Los Angeles. Filling in for Olney’s topical “Which Way, L.A.?” will be “Inner Calm,” an investigation of relaxation techniques. Olney gets Memorial Day off, too, with Norman Corwin’s landmark V-E Day “On a Note of Triumph” being reprised in Olney’s 1 p.m. slot and again at 7 p.m. . . . Scott Richard Weiland, 27, lead singer of the Stone Temple Pilots “grunge rock” group who was arrested May 15 after an alleged drug deal, faces arraignment on cocaine and heroin charges in Pasadena Municipal Court on June 5. Weiland, free on $10,000 bond, could be sentenced to up to three years and eight months in prison if convicted, Deputy Dist. Atty. Tia Fisher said Tuesday. . . . Peg Phillips, 77, who portrays Ruth Anne on “Northern Exposure,” suffered an aortal aneurysm May 16. She is resting comfortably in a Seattle hospital and is expected to fully recover, publicist Melissa Harold said Tuesday. . . . Ever had trouble finding Phil Donahue and Vladimir Pozner’s weekly talk show on CNBC? Come next fall that won’t be a problem because they’re switching to NewsTalk Television, a Multimedia channel. (Well, no one said that would be easy, either.)