Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

MOVIES

Wagging the Rentals: Video stores in the U.S. capital scrambled Friday to keep up with skyrocketing demand for “Wag the Dog,” the 1997 film in which a president starts a fictional war to divert attention from a sex scandal. Thursday’s U.S. military strikes against terrorist bases in Afghanistan and an alleged weapons facility in Sudan created intense interest, said Dale Shaw, assistant manager at Potomac Video. “It’s been renting like crazy,” he said. “People have been calling to try to get it on hold.” Copies were also all checked out at Washington Video on Dupont Circle, store manager Erik Evans said, adding: “I think that [media attention to the coincidences] really revived the sales. People wanted to see what the press was talking about.” Locally, some stores, including Tower on Sunset and Blockbuster in Pasadena, reported no extraordinary rentals on Friday, although Odyssey Video in North Hollywood had rented out all 17 of its copies and said it turned away other potential customers.

Public Pleas: Tony Kaye, the British conceptual artist who has vowed to take his name off his feature directorial debut, “American History X,” because he maintains New Line Cinema is meddling with the film, is again going public in his battle with the studio. In full-page ads placed in this week’s Hollywood trade magazines, Kaye has addressed several of the film’s co-stars directly, asking them to “help me preserve the integrity of my vision” and “stand by me along with your colleagues who have believed in that vision.” Kaye has been wrangling with New Line for months over the fate of the film, which stars Edward Norton as a neo-Nazi skinhead who tries to put his past behind him after being imprisoned for the murder of two black men. After Kaye spent more than a year in post-production and offered no timetable for the film’s completion, the studio took back the film with plans to release it as is, prompting Kaye to call the move “a rape, a total abuse of creativity.” An initial batch of Kaye ads, taken out in June and apparently directed at New Line, mysteriously quoted the likes of Edmund Burke, John Lennon and Abraham Lincoln. But this week’s were far more direct, clearly addressed to co-stars in the film: Edward Furlong, Elliott Gould and Beverly D’Angelo. Representatives for both Furlong and Gould had no comment on the ads Friday, and D’Angelo was out of town and could not be reached.

Celebrity Crusaders: Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford, Madonna and 15 other celebrities have joined Woody Harrelson’s crusade against a government deal over ancient redwood trees in Northern California. The celebrities, who signed a protest letter written by Harrelson to state legislators, say a plan agreed to by the state and Pacific Lumber Co. to conserve 200,000 acres of timberland does not go far enough to protect old-growth redwoods and threatens wildlife. Harrelson, 37, was arrested last year when he climbed atop the Golden Gate Bridge to protest the deal.

STAGE

Loh Comes Home: Los Angeles writer-performer Sandra Tsing Loh’s lament about the dating wars for a thirtysomething in New York, “Bad Sex With Bud Kemp,” is coming to Los Angeles. The one-woman show, which had a weeklong run at Manhattan’s Second Stage Theatre in May, will open Oct. 2 for six weeks at West Hollywood’s Tiffany Theater. Though the play chronicles Loh’s days in the Big Apple, a show spokesman says she may add some material about her more recent life in L.A. Loh was a columnist for the now-defunct Buzz magazine and wrote the book “If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home by Now.”

POP/ROCK

No R.E.M. Tour: R.E.M. has canceled a planned concert tour to promote its new album, with manager Bertis Downs saying the decision was based on the loss of longtime drummer Bill Berry (he left the band last fall) and the remaining members’ reluctance to lock in their time for a year. The band will instead concentrate promotional efforts on TV appearances, Downs said. The new R.E.M. album, “Up,” is scheduled for release in October.

Star Search, MTV-Style: Think you’ve got what it takes to be the next hot music group? MTV is looking for unsigned, “record deal-ready acts” for a new series, “The Cut.” Each episode of the daily program will feature four acts auditioning for a spot on the season finale; the winning act will get a music video produced and added to MTV’s rotation. The show premieres in late September. To audition, call 877-MTV-THE-CUT.

QUICK TAKES

Planet Hollywood restaurants in Beverly Hills and Costa Mesa will hold viewing parties tonight from 10:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. for the premiere of the new “Howard Stern Radio Show,” at 11:30 p.m. on KCBS-TV Channel 2. Show personalities including Melrose Larry Green and Jenna Jameson will attend, and the restaurants will offer a special menu including the “Baba-Booey Bacon Burger” and “Crackhead Bob Chicken Crunch,” both named for Stern show characters. . . . ABC has ordered an additional 13 episodes of its Drew Carey-hosted summer hit, “Whose Line Is It Anyway?,” in which various comedians and actors perform unrehearsed skits and games. . . . Cable’s E! Entertainment Television will premiere the hourlong biography “Phil Hartman: The E! True Hollywood Story” on Sept. 6 at 8 p.m. . . . Lionel Richie will make his first L.A. concert appearance in 10 years Oct. 24 at the Greek Theatre. Tickets go on sale Sunday.