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

MOVIES

Not Welcome in Manila: The Manila City Council has declared American actress Clare Danes a persona non grata and banned her movies from the city because of a Premiere magazine article in which she called Manila smelly, rat-infested and weird. Danes, 19, spent several months in the city this year to shoot the film “Brokedown Palace.” She issued a statement last week saying that she meant no disrespect, and that her comments reflected only the locations used in the film, which, because of the its subject matter, included “the darker and more impoverished places of Manila.” Danes added that she found Filipino people to be “nothing but warm, friendly and supportive.” However, the apology wasn’t enough for the City Council or for Philippine President Joseph Estrada, who said this week: “She should not be allowed to come here. She should not even be allowed to set foot here.”

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Super Tom!: Actor Tom Cruise is again being hailed as a hero, this time for aiding a woman who was being mugged on a London street. “Tom was brilliant. He rushed down the road with his bodyguards and chased the attackers away,” victim Rita Simmonds told the Evening Standard on Thursday. The thieves fled after ripping a ring, watch and earrings from the terrified woman. In 1996, Cruise was hailed as a hero in three separate incidents, including one in which he called 911 to report a hit-and-run accident in Santa Monica.

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AFI Fest Slate: The 1998 AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival will feature 21 U.S. and 14 world premieres, including director John Landis’ first independent feature in more than 20 years, “Susan’s Plan,” starring Nastassja Kinski, Billy Zane, Lara Flynn Boyle, Rob Schneider, Michael Biehn and Dan Aykroyd. Other world premieres slated for the Oct. 22-31 festival, which features screenings in Hollywood, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, include the late actor Lloyd Bridges’ final film, “Meeting Daddy.”

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Japan Honors Kurosawa: Legendary Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa, who died Sept. 6 at age 88, has become the 14th person in Japan’s history to receive the prestigious People’s Honor Award. The honor, presented Thursday by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi to Kurosawa’s eldest son, Hisao, is given to Japanese figures who have made substantial contributions to the arts, entertainment or sports.

TELEVISION

Keeping the Faith: CBS’ Faith Ford comedy “Maggie Winters” premiered with promising results Wednesday, according to Nielsen Media Research, drawing almost 13 million viewers. That surpassed both its lead-in, “The Nanny,” and the competing ABC sitcom “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.” The news wasn’t quite as good for two other new shows, CBS’ romantic drama “To Have & to Hold” (9.9 million viewers) and ABC’s comedy “The Secret Lives of Men.” The latter drew 13.1 million viewers but lost 23% of the audience from its lead-in, “The Drew Carey Show.”

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MTV Casting Call: MTV will hold open calls Saturday for new cast members for its series “Road Rules” and “The Real World.” Interviews will be conducted between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. at the Magic Johnson Theaters in Baldwin Hills. Members of “Road Rules” will face a series of adventures posed by the show’s producers while earning university credit during a “semester at sea.” “The Real World” cast members, meanwhile, will be roommates in Honolulu, where they will run a cafe/performance space. Applicants must be between 18 and 24 years old, and “Road Rules” applicants must be full-time university students.

POP/ROCK

Ode to Obscenity: An obscenity-laden poem written by John Lennon will be up for auction next week, but London auction house Finian & Co. said the piece is too unusual for experts to estimate its price tag. The typed work--sent to poet Susan Baker in 1969 after she wrote to the Beatle requesting a poem--is made up of a four-letter expletive repeated 104 times around the single word “you.” It is signed by both Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono.

ART

Stolen Goods?: FBI agents seized three gold artifacts from an exhibition at the Museum of New Mexico’s Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe on Wednesday, suspecting they may have been looted from an ancient Peruvian tomb and smuggled into the United States. Museum director Tom Chavez said the pieces will be returned to their rightful owners if they are found to be stolen. The works, part of “Art of Ancient America, 1500 B.C.-1500 A.D.,” all came from the same collector, who has asked to remain anonymous and is said to be cooperating fully with the FBI.