ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS.

MOVIES

Conserving the Classics: “A Streetcar Named Desire,” the 1951 movie that helped launch Marlon Brando’s career, and “The Kiss,” a 15-second film from 1896 featuring the first big-screen smooch, are among the 25 movies of cultural, historic or aesthetic importance added to the National Film Registry. Selections are made annually by the Librarian of Congress to preserve films that might otherwise disappear. Other additions include “Civilization” (1916), “The Docks of New York” (1928), “The Emperor Jones” (1933), “Laura” (1944), “Roman Holiday” (1953), “The Ten Commandments” (1956), “The Wild Bunch” (1969), “King: A Filmed Record . . . Montgomery to Memphis” (1970), “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) and “Do the Right Thing” (1989).

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One Thumb Down: Mike Wallace finally saw Michael Mann’s “The Insider,” in which he and “60 Minutes” producer Don Hewitt are shown buckling under to CBS pressure not to air a segment featuring a tobacco industry whistle-blower. The real title of the movie, he said Tuesday, should be “On the Seventh Day Bergman Rested”--a jab at Lowell Bergman, his former producer, who is played by Al Pacino. “The drama of the original ’60 Minutes’ pieces is more engrossing,” he added, “and, unlike the film, faithful to the truth.”

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Glove to Ghoul: Michael Jackson will segue from pop to movies playing the lead in “The Nightmares of Edgar Allan Poe,” according to the film’s co-executive producer Gary L. Pudney. The movie is due to shoot in Canada next fall and be released in 2002. Jackson’s only previous movie role was in 1978’s “The Wiz” in which he played the scarecrow.

POP/ROCK

Top of the Heap: Faith Hill’s “Breathe” entered the nation’s album chart at No. 1 on Wednesday, with sales of more than 242,000 copies, according to SoundScan. Two other albums debuted in the Top 10: Savage Garden’s “Affirmation” at No. 6 and the “Pokemon” soundtrack at No. 8. The best-selling single continues to be Santana’s “Smooth.”

STAGE

Firing Back: Playwright David Hare, whose critically praised one-man show “Via Dolorosa” was shut out of last year’s Tony nominations, documents the experience in his book, “Acting Out,” due this month. “[The omission] is an insult and I shall take it as such,” he said. Hare also takes aim at Lincoln Center Theater for denying his request for fewer shows per week--and at the audience itself: “If the assembled men and women could donate to the Lincoln Center only half of what they spend on reconstructive surgery and liposuction, then theater in Manhattan would be revitalized at a stroke.”

QUICK TAKES

Cartoonist Charles Schulz, whose “Peanuts” comic strip appears in 2,600 newspapers and has been turned into a host of movies and TV specials, is in stable condition, recovering from emergency surgery to clear a blocked abdominal artery. The 76-year-old artist is expected to remain in Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, 45 miles north of San Francisco, for about a week. . . . Seagram President and CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. will be honored at the fifth annual Stars of Tomorrow fund-raising dinner at the Regent Beverly Wilshire tonight. The event is hosted by the Fulfillment Fund, the largest private donor of scholarships to disadvantaged students in the Los Angeles area.