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That, and the heart-stopping sight of Stella Stevens bending over to pick up another box of 8x10 photos. And it's also nice to hear from twisted musical maven Bruce Kimmel, whose planned workshop for the stage adaptation of 1976's The First Nudie Musical is on schedule for the end of the year?bringing us one step closer to a Post headline of "Boobies Over Broadway!"

Dianne Wiest, meanwhile, unloads her Bullets Over Broadway diva routine in Merci Docteur Rey, screened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art to launch the 6th Brooklyn International Film Festival?which you can differentiate from the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival because they have some movies that aren't about The Ramones. Merci is an unusually fun and light production from the Merchant/Ivory machine, even if it ultimately ends up being a celebration of being young, French and sociopathic.

Human behavior is equally scary at the following party, as waiters who aren't lucky enough to work in Tribeca lay out trays of canapes and then run as guests attack like it's so much soylent green. However, this also provides a chance to ask director Andrew Litvack about how happy we're supposed to be about Merci's happy ending with an innocent victim.

"Well," Litvack patiently explains, "we don't know if that person was really nice."

Funny, he doesn't look French.

Things are less morally ambiguous in Pokémon Heroes, screened as an Official Selection?or, if you will, a Miramax production?of the Tribeca Festival. Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and Pikachu Ramone travel to a city built on water, and anybody who isn't excited about that plot doesn't know about the film series' knack for amazing nautical sequences. There's also a touching display of interspecies Pokémon/human love, while villainous supervixens Annie and Oakley provide a little poké for daddies in the audience.

Speaking of pocket monsters, a conversation with Rick Springfield includes the reassuring revelation that he's still good friends with old flame Linda Blair, who was only 15 years old back when 25-year-old Rick was going where crucifixes had gone before. "We'd be crucified today," he laughs?louder than R. Kelly?"but that's bullshit. It was just a relationship."

Springfield also mentions that he still hangs out with the guys in Sparks?whose new Lil' Beethoven, admittedly, is a true masterpiece. Some of us, however, still have to live in this decade, even though there are plenty of 80s hits spinning as socialites and their dogs attend Animal Fair's PAWS for Style fundraiser for the Humane Society of New York.

Eugene's is full of snouts sticking out of handbags by Kate Spade?who is also one of the designers providing custom outfits for celebrity dog walkers and their pets. These supposedly include Catherine Hickland and Animal Fair covergirl Lauren Bush, but they all look like Julie Chen to me. More importantly, the dogs manage to keep their dignity, with the exception of two pooches with pink highlights.

Things don't go well for a Weimaraner named Rufus, either, as he's cruelly pointed out as one of the stars of Maid in Manhattan. But having seen folks climbing over one another for salmon in Brooklyn, I'm impressed to see people rich enough to line up politely for free Kenneth Cole sunglasses. The upscale doggies also show remarkable restraint in sniffing the asses of strangers, which?as I'm later informed by eyewitness Doug Dechert of Scandalmonger.net?is more than can be said for one of the night's celebrity guests.