A Sunset-Strip movie company, headed by the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin, was actually a money-laundering front for an international drug-smuggling operation, according to federal authorities. The alleged criminal activities of Limelight Films were reported today (Thursday) in the Los Angeles Times, which said that Limelight principals Bruno D'Esclavelles and Alexandre De Basseville were arrested during a sting operation in Arlington, VA last month. In a brochure, the company described itself as having "a desire to promote worldwide talented individuals who treasure cinema and cherish the creative spirit of Charlie Chaplin." Kiera Chaplin, the 23-year-old granddaughter of Charlie, who was once engaged to De Basseville, was serving as president of the company. She has not been charged.

Apple has been quietly signing deals with the major studios in which they have agreed to allow their movies to be downloaded on computers or video iPods for one-time-only viewing, several online technology websites reported today (Tuesday). Apple Chairman Steve Jobs is expected to announce the deals during a keynote address to the Worldwide Developers Conference next month. According to ThinkSecret.com, a website that claims to provide inside information on Apple, the deal marks a rare setback for Jobs, who has battled the studios to allow cheap downloads of movies that consumers would own, not rent. The website said that the movies will be coded with a date stamp that would either limit the number of playbacks or allow the movie to be viewed an unlimited number of times for a predetermined duration.

The executive editor of Frontline, produced by Boston's WGBH for the Public Broadcasting System, has taken exception to a new directive from PBS on how programs are to deal with language that could result in an FCC fine. Writing in Current magazine, Louis Wiley Jr. noted a paragraph in the directive saying that "if the F-word or the S-word were uttered to camera so that viewers could recognize it from the speaker's mouth, the lips must be pixelated." Wiley speculated that at first he imagined such pixelated scenes turning up on the late-night talk shows. "My next thought? If public television producers are forced to not only bleep words but also to pixelate lips, most will simply cut the scenes, no matter how powerful or relevant, rather than see them turned into a joke." Wiley pointed out that last year, Frontline allowed the use of the F-word six times in one clip during a story about a U.S. infantry company in Iraq, when the company was hit by an explosive device. At the time, he said, he made the decision to leave the words in but to alert stations, since they could have been fined $32,500 per utterance. The fine is now 10 times greater. In the end, he said, only 14 stations agreed to run the unedited program. There were no complaints. Wiley concluded: "What is happening behind the scenes is self-censorship, or what I believe is really indirect government censorship. And that is precisely the problem. Editorial decisions that filmmakers, producers and station managers should make with due regard to their standards and those of their local communities are more and more being shaped by fear of a government agency."

Addendum: In Thursday's edition, we reported on a new PBS policy that requires not only that language that could result in an FCC fine be bleeped, but that if the words can be recognized "from the speaker's mouth, the lips must be pixelated." We headlined the item, "Now Censorship for Deaf People." We subsequently received the following email from Marlee Matlin, Hollywood's most celebrated deaf actress (winner of the 1987 Best Actress Oscar for Children of a Lesser God): "All I can say is I've been reading the lips of bleeped-out words, angry baseball players, and stoned-out rock stars on awards shows for years and it's been HILARIOUS. Everyone is always asking me what the bleeped-out parts are saying. Just say no to pixelization! Hehe."

Animated films rarely receive critical raves. But Monster House is piling up quite a few of them. Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer praises it as "easily the best computer-animated feature to come from Hollywood in a long while." Geoff Pevere in the Toronto Star calls it "a divertingly bizarre movie." A.O. Scott in the New York Times describes it as "marvelously creepy" and "the best child-friendly movie of the summer so far." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post predicts that it will be "a genuine sleeper hit." And Scott Bowles in USA Today observes, "The movie may be rated PG, but Monster's clever use of sound and shadows will likely have parents flinching in their seats with the kids." But Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls Monster House a monstrosity and concludes, "I agree with the little girl down the row from me at a preview screening who said, 'Mommy, I don't want to be here.'"