Pacific Data Images

After years of fits and starts, George Lucas has quietly launched a new unit -- Lucasfilm Animation -- to help crack the lucrative digital animation business. The "Star Wars" visionary has been frustrated by the collapse of studio-controlled animated projects that were to be produced by his organization. The new operation gives him the freedom to generate his own full-length computer-generated cartoons.

After a decade of rapid expansion, the Southland's globally dominant cultural-industrial complex appears to be retrenching. Propelled in part by a glut in feature films and a decline in network ratings, film and television production, up nearly 80% since 1993, appears to have reached a plateau. Job growth, which had been averaging more than 10,000 annually, has stopped and even begun to contract.

Dolphin guru John Lilly likened the film to "cosmic game-playing." The editor of a psychoanalytical journal interpreted its real world/electronic world duality as "the filmic conceptualization of schizophrenia." And Vice President Al Gore, no doubt entranced by its pre-Information Superhighway perspective, ranks it as his favorite movie of all time.

When Carlos Arguello first told friends that he was chucking it all -- the Porsche, the house in the Hollywood Hills, the skyrocketing career as a top Hollywood animator -- and moving back to Guatemala, most wished him luck and promised they'd come visit. Others figured that the Type-A Arguello soon would go nuts hanging out in some rustic Central American village with nothing to do but paint and gawk at the snow-capped volcanoes.

The world premiere here of "Antz"--a gala screening and party complete with red carpets and oversized martinis--marked the grand finale of the 23rd Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday night. But it was just the start of what is shaping up to be a cutthroat and unusually personal battle of the cinematic bugs. DreamWorks SKG's computer-animated satire about an ant who wants to be his own man features the voices of Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman and Sylvester Stallone.

John Travolta made a comeback. So did Donny Osmond, Drew Barrymore and Burt Reynolds. But silver-screen legend Marlene Dietrich is attempting the most unlikely Hollywood comeback of all. Dietrich's resurgence, should it come to pass, won't be based on a breakthrough role, a studio's marketing genius or a stint in drug rehab. Rather, the sultry actress--who died in 1992--would owe her cinematic rebirth to computer graphics technology.

The throng shrieking at the Academy Awards nominees as they filed into a luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel earlier this month didn't have much to say to Chris Landreth. "Chris . . . ?" frowned Tina Morehouse, 24, of Madison, Wis. "I'm hoping to see Mel Gibson. Omigod, there's . . . SHARON! OVER HERE!!!"

At 4 a.m. on Halloween, the imposing double red doors at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood opened to reveal a man clothed fully in black, including a color-coordinated surgical mask. It wasn't a wayward trick-or-treater or a cat burglar. Pop legend Michael Jackson had come to supervise the final work on his much-anticipated album, "Dangerous." Jackson's mythic perfectionism already had delayed the release of the album by several months.

Pixar woke up Hollywood to the possibilities of computer animation with the success of "Toy Story," produced for Disney. With DreamWorks' "Antz," Pacific Data Images proved two could play the game. Now India's second-largest software company, Pentafour Software & Exports Ltd., hopes to become the latest company to turn digital images into box office gold.

The radio promotions for Steven Churchill's new festival of computer animation sound like ads for a high-tech rock concert. " 'Future Visions' will take you to the edge of technology," the breathless announcer says in an oddly mechanical voice, describing the festival opening Friday at the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater. In his La Jolla Colony home, Churchill stopped the tape of the radio ad, obviously happy with the high-energy effect.