Cirque Du Soleil

As a winter playground for the well-heeled, the chic French ski resort of Courchevel is used to the extravagant demands and excesses of its wealthy clientele. With its 11 five-star hotels, Michelin-starred restaurants, heated pavements and numerous diamond dealers, the Alpine getaway is a magnet for the super-rich, especially oligarchs from the former Soviet Union. But with the world in the economic doldrums, Ukrainian steel magnate Victor Pinchuk has shocked some residents by throwing himself a lavish birthday party that French news media estimate will cost $6.6 million.

A few days ago at Hollywood & Highland, a smooth-scalped man in a black leather jacket, jeans and sneakers got a red-carpet treatment that royalty might envy. Not one, but two, L.A. City Council members took turns gushing over him. His fellow countryman, the director James Cameron, praised the honoree as a theatrical magus who conjures "living dreams," populated with aerialists, acrobats and clowns that are actually amusing. Then, as a beaming Hollywood Chamber of Commerce representative looked on, Guy Laliberté, the press-shy billionaire founder and CEO of Cirque du Soleil, stepped forward to unveil his and Cirque's shiny new star, the 2,424th on the Walk of Fame.

Filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard will not be coming to Hollywood to accept his honorary Academy Award. Academy President Tom Sherak said Monday that he had gotten word from Godard that the 79-year-old director would not attend the Governors Awards on Nov. 13, when honorary Oscars are presented. The decision followed what the academy called a cordial, two-month exchange with the iconoclastic filmmaker, a pioneer of the French New Wave who has taken potshots at Hollywood over the years.

Hollywood is awash in recently opened bars and clubs right now, but two brand new destinations near Hollywood & Highland are using a fresh approach to woo night owls: experiential entertainment. At new clubs Premiere Supper Club and Supperclub Los Angeles at the Vogue , guests interact with friendly staffers (who are sometimes in character) and take in light theater-inspired entertainment. It's the latest bid for your club dollar. "The two things I'm best at [are]

.— On a blustery January morning, Michel Laprise found himself in a private conference room within Microsoft Corp.'s labyrinthine campus here, surrounded by 15 of the company's sharpest analytical thinkers. Laprise started his presentation by dumping a pail full of sand on top the conference table, alarming executives who worried about the wiring embedded in the table for PowerPoint presentations and technology demos. Armed with three rocks, a small wooden elephant and a flashlight, he spent an hour weaving a tale of a boy on a quest to locate meteors that have fallen from the sky and to uncover their meaning.

Michael Jackson's estate and Cirque du Soleil will collaborate on a series of projects designed to extend the late pop star's legacy across several media, chief among them a reality TV show tied to a concert-style touring production and a permanent show in Las Vegas akin to existing Cirque productions built around the music of the Beatles and Elvis Presley. The parties say that the collaboration recognizes Jackson's longtime fascination with Cirque's signature blend of music, dance and theatrical spectacle.

A circus fit for the King Montreal meets Memphis as Cirque du Soleil premieres for the public its revamped tribute to Elvis Presley in Las Vegas on Feb. 21. "Viva Elvis," staged at Aria Resort & Casino at CityCenter, is a blend of Cirque's famous acrobatics and the King's music. If you're looking for an Elvis impersonator, you'll need to look elsewhere on the Strip; modern remixes of Elvis' hits dominate the production. Ticket prices start at $115, including taxes and fees. Info: www.ticketmaster .com.

Now that Cirque du Soleil is in the process of launching its latest dancing, trampolining extravaganza, "Viva Elvis," at the Aria Casino and Resort in Las Vegas, the Montreal-based company is looking ahead to one of its next opening nights: at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland in 2011. In an interview last week in Las Vegas, Gilles Ste-Croix, Cirque's senior vice president of creative content and new projects development, and Stéphane Mongeau, executive producer of "Viva Elvis," confirmed that Cirque is on track to bring a $100-million Hollywood-themed show to the 3,400-seat theater that hosts the annual Oscars ceremony.

Forget the iconic white jumpsuit, the caricature of gilded celebrity and the gossipy whispers that attended a dispirited legend's final bow. Forget -- heaven help us -- the peanut butter and fried banana sandwiches. That's not what "Viva Elvis," Cirque du Soleil's latest acrobatic-musical extravaganza, is about. Rather, Gilles Ste-Croix and Stéphane Mongeau were saying the other day, it's about evoking an extraordinary man and his shape-shifting times. It's about honoring a musician who unified the once-segregated genres of pop, gospel, country and blues into the mongrel art form known as rock 'n' roll, and ushered American pop culture into the frenetic, youth-centric Atomic Age. It's about celebrating a prodigiously charismatic performer whose insistence on pleasing his audience helped resurrect a culturally moribund desert metropolis founded on sand and mob money.