People

By Benjamin Nugent

NATURAL-BORN BLAME TAKERS

When the nation is confronted by an incomprehensible horror, Tinseltown's heavies usually throw up their hands and cry, "Not our fault!" The events of Sept. 11 have proved a strange exception. Last week ROBERT ALTMAN, director of the satires MASH, The Player and Dr. T and the Women, almost offered a mea culpa. "The movies set the pattern, and [the terrorists] have copied the movies," he said. "Nobody would have thought to commit an atrocity like that unless they'd seen it in a movie." That self-flagellation comes on the heels of remarks by JFK director OLIVER STONE in which he called the attacks a "revolt" against "order" of the sort created by show-biz conglomerates that "have control of the world." Historical first: auteurs with low self-esteem.

Hill Is Hammered

Sometimes it takes a disaster to bring out hidden strengths in our leaders. The anthrax scare may have emptied offices on Capitol Hill last Wednesday, but Representatives J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, Diane Watson of California and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, among others, demonstrated a heretofore unrecognized capacity to get jiggy with it in a new music video by rapper MC HAMMER, filmed by the Capitol's reflecting pool. In keeping with the song's inspirational message, which Hammer described as "take it head on, be strong, stand up and fight," the pols were at their feistiest: "I was the one who was rivaling Hammer," says Representative CORINNE BROWN of Florida. "All of the members of Congress there were dancing, but some of us really know how to dance." Proceeds from the video and the single, titled No Stoppin' Us--USA, will go to those affected by the Sept. 11 attacks.

DON'T NEED TO BUY PAUL'S LOVE

PAUL MCCARTNEY and rapper Jay-Z don't appear, at first glance, to have loads in common: one is the pushing-60 former Beatle who sang "Life Goes On"; the other is the thirtysomething former street hustler who sang Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem). But both performed without material reward Saturday at the Concert for New York City in Madison Square Garden, a benefit for Sept. 11 attack victims that McCartney headlined. A Woodstock's worth of musicians did their thing, including David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Billy Joel, the Who and Elton John. Short films by Woody Allen, Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese and others paid homage to the city's spirit, and nonmusical performers stormed the stage in droves (Harrison Ford, Jim Carrey, Reese Witherspoon and many others). As one of them, Saturday Night Live comic and "huge Paul McCartney fan" Jimmy Fallon, said, "It's really cool when people do things for free."

BAYWATCH'S BIG CHILL BEACHED

Even the bravest among us are wigged out about traveling these days. Fox TV's Baywatch reunion movie, tentatively titled Baywatch Blast, was scheduled to begin filming in Hawaii this month. (Reported plot point: DAVID HASSELHOFF's lifesaver Mitch Buchannon was not killed in the blast at the end of Baywatch the TV series; he was rescued by a whale, which took him to a desert island.) But production was delayed, in part, Fox says, because some of the cast, which Hasselhoff hoped would include the show's "big girls," like YASMINE BLEETH, right, and ALEXANDRA PAUL, left, "felt uneasy about being out of the continental United States at this time." Those jitters and the fact that such crucial cast members as PAMELA ANDERSON, front, hadn't signed on yet meant the production wasn't under way by Thursday, when Fox shuttered its TV-movie division for financial reasons. Sorry, Mitch, no amount of CPR can save the reunion now.