THE SCENE : Star Search

Aunt Beulah is in from Kansas and wants to see famous people like they have on “Entertainment Tonight.” You could book a table in Siberia at Eclipse and take your chances (“Hey! There’s Ed Begley Jr.!”). Or you could take Beulah to where the stars really go: the Blockbuster Video in Malibu.

The store at 23705 W. Malibu Road is the neighborhood video bazaar for locals like Nick Nolte, Candice Bergen, John Cusack, Steven Spielberg, Cher . . . even Demi and Bruce have dropped by sans entourage.

“You never know who you’re going to see when you turn around,” notes a don’t-name-me-please assistant manager over the phone. “Right now Sam Elliott is outside the door. I’m waving at him.”

Cool. But what about when, say, Spielberg slides his ID and a copy of “Sugarland Express” across the counter? “You tell them you enjoy their work or whatever, but you don’t jump up and down or anything. I think they like that.”

They probably like that just down the pike at the Malibu Wherehouse record store at 23361 Pacific Coast Highway--Billy Idol, Emilio Estevez and Jon Bon Jovi are customers--even if the staff harbors frankly Beulah-like fantasies. “Cindy Crawford came in,” says manager Laura Pew, “and the young man at the counter kicked himself for not having her autograph a magazine we had in the store with her on the cover.”

Back at the Malibu Blockbuster, meanwhile, the names just keep on dropping: Gary Sinese, Rod Steiger, Shirley Maclaine, Linda Hamilton, Cary Elwes . . .

Anybody not dropped in lately?

“I haven’t seen Tom Hanks in a while,” says the assistant manager. “But he’s a really busy guy.”