POLLYWOOD | HOLLYWOOD ON THE POTOMAC

BY JANET DONOVAN

A Jewel, Pearl, feeling French and all you need is love

BE-JEWELED FOR BREAST CANCER Eat your heart out Liz Taylor: Singer/songwriter Jewel swears that's her given name.
As part of Lifetime Television's "Stop Breast Cancer for Life" public awareness campaign, Jewel participated in a press conference on Capitol Hill to urge Congress to pass the bipartisan Breast Cancer Protection Act sponsored by Senators Olympia Snowe and Mary Landrieu and Congresswomen Sue Kelly and Rosa DeLauro. Although she's never even known anyone with cancer, she was drawn to the cause by thought provoking ads urging the end of "drive-through" mastectomies.
Thrice nominated for a Grammy, the odds of her becoming an international phenomenon were about as remote as her Alaskan childhood. "At six I remember singing for Eskimos, taking dog sled rides through frozen tundra," she said. From touring with her parents to singing in seedy bars with her father, it set the stage for an insightful and passionate career. That experience was a prelude to wanderlust. She survived and thrived in the tawdry atmosphere and singing became her connection to the world; so connected is she now that you can download her music as cell phone ringtones.

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE How John Lennon went from musician to an anti-war activist is anyone's guess, but it's perfectly laid out in a fascinating documentary: The U.S. vs. Lennon which premiered in Washington at The National Press Club. Equally interesting was the audience response to Yoko Ono, who in her heyday was considered a disruptive force in both society and the private lives of the Beatles.
The mostly baby boomer guests never remembered her as she was: Hot. That sentiment was echoed by best-selling author Larry Leamer and Pulitzer-nominated author Myra MacPherson, fresh from an earlier book signing for her latest tome, All Governments Lie. The long-haired, mini-clad young protester came out remarkably sound. History has served her well. Walter Cronkite, Angela Davis, Mario Cuomo, J. Edgar Hoover, George McGovern and Gore Vidal were all woven into the fabric of discontent surrounding the Vietnam War. Introduced by omnipresent and multi-faceted Ariana Huffington, the flick was long, but worth it.

PEARLS OF WISDOM HBO's The Journalist and the Jihad: The Murder of Daniel Pearl, which premiered in Washington in October, is not a gentle souvenir of war and terrorism. Skillfully narrated by CNN's Christiane Amanpour, it chronicles the life and death of WSJ reporter "Danny" Pearl, who was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan in 2002 while researching Islamic fundamentalism. Co-hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations and The Wall Street Journal, it was followed by a discussion with Akbar Ahmed, American University; and directors and producers Ahmed A. Jamal and Ramesh Sharma. The Situation Room's Wolf Blitzer presided.
For those who prefer a more intimate, personal and joyful look at the man whom most of us remember as an expectant father and husband of journalist Mariane Pearl, that opportunity happens on the big screen when Angelina Jolie portrays her in the screen adaptation of Pearl's book A Mighty Heart. Jolie and her partner Brad Pitt have donated $100,000 to The Daniel Pearl Foundation in keeping with their dedication to humanitarian causes.

LES BRIGADES... BRING 'EM ON Both AFI Director Murray Horwitz and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, whose knowledge of French fi lms is staggering, seemed to agree that Diary of a Country Priest is their favorite. But all that may have changed after viewing The Tiger Brigades, which premiered at the French Embassy under the patronage of French Ambassador Jean- David Levitte and his wife Marie-Cecile as part of C'est Chic, D.C.'s fi rst French fi lm festival. As to why Breyer is such an afi cionado, we didn't ask. Considering the hoopla over all things French after 9/11, some things are best left alone.
Starring Diane Kruger as a renegade Russian princess, it's a charming film set in Belle-Époque Paris loaded with political and international intrigue. It was hard to separate fact from fiction so we asked director Jerome Cornuau to do that for us. "It's about 60 percent reality and 40 percent fiction, Kruger being 40 percent," he said. As for working with the stunning Kruger, Cornuau commented: "The Princess was my main character, but as with the actions of all my actors, I propose ideas, they propose ideas - then you just go inside the character." C'est Chic!