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

TELEVISION

CNN’s Dobbs Refutes Charges of Bias

CNN financial journalist Lou Dobbs on Thursday denounced as frivolous complaints voiced in several newspaper articles that past ties with the Arthur Andersen accounting company create a potential conflict of interest in his commentaries on the firm.

The host of the nightly financial news program “Moneyline” has editorialized on his show against the Justice Department’s indictment of Andersen for obstruction of justice. Though people who committed crimes in the Enron case should be prosecuted, he concedes, innocent people are being hurt.

Dobbs has acknowledged accepting a speaking fee during an Andersen-sponsored event and hiring the company as auditor for an Internet venture he started while on hiatus from CNN. (He gave up his controlling interest in the company upon rejoining CNN last year.)

Reporters “who don’t like my position or want to connect some rather frivolous and, I think, rather tenuous dots and impugn the sincerity of my position, I think they’re the ones who have something to answer for, certainly not me,” Dobbs said during an appearance on CNN’s “American Morning.”

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MOVIES

Union Objects to Kirov ‘K-19’ Soundtrack

The Kirov Orchestra, which appeared at the Kennedy Center in February, picked up some extra work during its visit--recording the soundtrack for Paramount’s upcoming “K-19: The Widowmaker,” starring Harrison Ford. And, according to the Washington Post, the American Federation of Musicians is upset.

Union President Thomas Lee wrote a letter to James W. Ziglar, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, complaining that the orchestra entered the country “under false pretenses.”

“The Kirov was admitted to the United States expressly as an accompaniment to opera and ballet performances,” Lee wrote.

“They were not admitted to steal work from American recording musicians, undercut American wages and permit Paramount Pictures to dodge payroll taxes. If they are going to lie by omission about the pretense under which they wish to enter this country, then future entry into this country, by all rights, should be denied them.”

Don Franzen, a lawyer acting on behalf of the Kirov, said Thursday the orchestra disputes the union’s allegations.

An INS spokesman said that it would be premature to draw conclusions without examining “a statutory and case history on the range of permissible activities for [the Kirov’s] type of visa.” The group is scheduled to come to Washington every year for the next decade.

A Paramount spokesman said the studio was only distributing the movie and had no part in creative decisions. No one from the production company could be reached.

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AOL Time Warner Execs Top Power List

Despite its plummeting stock price, AOL Time Warner has landed two executives at the top of the 2002 Power List published in the May issue of Premiere magazine.

The company’s chief executive, Richard Parsons, and chief operating officer, Robert Pittman, grabbed the spot from last year’s winner, Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone, who is now No. 2. The duo oversees a vertically integrated media empire that has “crushed the competition with the sheer weight of its size, synergy and franchise savvy,” the magazine observes.

Others on the list of Hollywood’s most influential folks, in order: Vivendi Universal’s Jean-Marie Messier and USA Interactive Chair Barry Diller; News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch; Disney chief Michael Eisner; director Steven Spielberg; Universal Studios President Ron Meyer and Universal Pictures Chairman Stacey Snider; and Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer and President Alan Horn.

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Post-Terrorism Play Headed for Big Screen

“The Guys,” a one-act play by Anne Nelson about the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, will be made into a movie starring Sigourney Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia.

The project will be directed by Weaver’s husband, Jim Simpson, who also directed a production of the play in New York that originally starred Weaver and Bill Murray. The story is about a fire captain who lost eight men in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers and the editor who helps him write the eulogies he must deliver.

Nelson is a journalism professor who assisted a firefighter in composing eulogies for the men he lost and, at Simpson’s suggestion, turned her experience into a play.

The film will be shot on location in New York, starting at the end of this month. Simpson hopes to have the movie ready to commemorate the first anniversary of the attack.

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THEATER

Deaf West’s ‘Big River’ Flows to the Taper

For the first time in its 35-year history, the Mark Taper Forum is importing a production from Los Angeles’ sub-100-seat theater scene--presenting the acclaimed Deaf West Theatre production of the musical “Big River” on its main stage, Nov. 14-Dec. 29.

Jeff Calhoun, who won a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award Monday for staging and choreographing the show, will again perform those assignments.

QUICK TAKES

Actress Elizabeth Hurley gave birth to a baby boy, Damian Charles, in London on Thursday. The father is said to be her former boyfriend, American film producer Steven Bing....

Veteran hard-rock band Megadeth has broken up following leader Dave Mustaine’s announcement that he is leaving the group after suffering an arm injury in January.