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

MOVIES

‘Star Wars’ Mania Strikes Fans, Knowles

About 70 die-hard “Star Wars” fans--organized by the Web site LiningUp.net--have pitched camp near Hollywood’s landmark Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, more than a month before the May 16 premiere of “Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones.”

The ritual began in 1999 when fans, some from as far as Australia, banded together to form a ticket line six weeks before the last film in the sci-fi series opened, said event organizer Peter Genovese.

Those camping out won’t be the first to see the movie, however. Harry Knowles, the online movie critic, recently published a review of an unfinished print that, he claims, he saw last month.

Someone passed a note to him at an event promoting his new book, inviting him to a hotel room to watch it, he says. He went, convinced that agents of Lucasfilm, the production company of director George Lucas, would “knock down the door.” They didn’t, and his rave review of the movie ran on his Web site, aint-it-cool-news.com.

After reading the piece, one chat room surfer jokingly commented: “Breaking News: Lucas has 500 employees arrested, along with Harry Knowles. All are tortured, locked in a room with 50 stinky unwashed flannel shirts, until someone cracks and reveals who smuggled the film out.”

Another was more skeptical: “You naive idiots, Lucas ... ARRANGED for Harry to see the rough cut. It’s a masterful PR ploy on their part....”

Lucasfilm declined to comment.

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Israeli Consul Delivers Plea for Solidarity

In a fervent appeal to Hollywood’s creative talent to stand with Israel in its hour of need, Israeli Consul General Yuval Rotem urged directors and actors to show their faces in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Speaking Wednesday evening at the opening gala of the 18th annual Israel Film Festival, held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Rotem asked the audience, “Where have you been?

“We need to see you with us when times are hard. You don’t know how much your presence would mean to us to raise our morale and help us re-embrace life once again.”

Nearly 900 members of the American and Israeli film industry attended the event, which will continue through April 25 with screenings of 31 feature films, documentaries and TV specials at Laemmle’s Music Hall in Beverly Hills and Laemmle’s Town Center 5 in Encino.

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Columbia Sued for Digital Alteration

The owners of several Times Square buildings have filed a lawsuit against the makers of the upcoming “Spider-Man” movie for digitally altering a sign appearing in the motion picture. The sign was an advertisement for Samsung, a competitor of Sony, the owner of Columbia Pictures, which is distributing the movie.

In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, the owners allege that Columbia digitally replaced the Samsung ad on the side of the building with one for USA Today. The sign appears three times in the film, according to court papers.

“We think it’s inappropriate to substitute your own image for the one that exists,” Anthony Costantini, a lawyer for the building owners, told the New York Daily News.

A spokesman for Columbia Pictures in Los Angeles declined to comment. The movie, starring Tobey Maguire as the superhero, opens May 3.

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MUSIC

Montreal Symphony Conductor Resigns

Charles Dutoit, the celebrated artistic director who made the Montreal Symphony Orchestra a world-class band, has resigned.

After 25 years on the job, he said in a statement, he reached his decision after the president of the Quebec Musicians’ Guild accused him of a pattern of abusive and arbitrary behavior on the conducting podium. There was also concern about his dismissal of two musicians.

“Sadly, the reality of life in the MSO for most players is ... unrelenting harassment, condescension and humiliation by a man whose autocratic behavior has become intolerable,” union president Emile Subirana said in an open letter to the media, adding that “the vast majority” of the MSO’s 100 musicians had voiced dissatisfaction over Dutoit for excessive criticism of their work.

The fracas came after the announcement of the 2002-03 season that was to celebrate Dutoit’s quarter-century at the podium. Relations between him and the orchestra had been frosty since the 1998 musicians’ strike that led to touring and recording contractual provisions with which the conductor was unhappy.

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QUICK TAKES

“Flower Drum Song,” which premiered at the Mark Taper Forum last October, will open at Broadway’s Virginia Theatre on Oct. 17....Matt Damon will make his London stage debut, starring opposite Anna Paquin and Jake Gyllenhaal in Kenneth Lonergan’s “This Is Our Youth,” a comedy about a trio of wayward youths in 1980s New York....Showtime has given the go-ahead to a film chronicling the period between the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and President Bush’s response to Congress 10 days later. It will be produced by Edgar Scherick, who’s also overseeing a movie documenting LBJ’s strategic mistakes in Vietnam. Directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Michael Gambon, it will air on HBO in May....UPN canceled “Roswell,” a sci-fi series it acquired from the WB. Final episode: May 15....The Music Center is bringing back the American Ballet Theatre to perform “Le Corsaire” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion July 11-14.