Thompson on Hollywood

Besides George Clooney and Matt Damon's January 22 Haiti Aid Telethon, and Sean Penn arranging an emergency medical shipment to Haiti, many other members of the Hollywood community are stepping up to help the earthquake-ravaged island. On the eve of their annual Golden Globes Awards ceremony, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have donated $100,000 to Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti relief fund. Sandra Bullock, and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's foundation, have committed $1 million in relief. And Artists for Peace and Justice is mounting a fundraising brunch this Sunday, reports writer-director Paul Haggis:Our board members have raised a significant amount of money in the past few days and we are hand delivering the funds to Port au Prince now. We have been told supplies are available in Haiti, they are just expensive; the banks are closed, so the hospitals that are still functioning, like the children's hospital we sponsor, St. Damien's -- the only free hospital serving the people of the slums of Port au Prince -- have run out of medicine and fuel for their generators. The emergency cash is a quick fix; we are also partnering with Operation USA and are flying in containers of medicine and supplies within the next few days. Anyone interested in donating can go to our website.

Finally, Conan O'Brien is close to settling with NBC, which (thanks apparently to Universal chief Ron Meyer) is not only paying the talk show host off, but letting him go work for someone else. Leno, who has been hammered relentlessly, along with NBC and NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker, will stay.

Over coffee today with outgoing MPAA chairman Dan Glickman--who served as Agriculture Secretary in the Clinton administration and plans to return to public service on September 1 when he stops repping the Hollywood studios in Washington--he made clear how much devastated Haiti, which is just 300 miles away from the U.S., needs support from folks in Hollywood. "Our industry needs to step up," Glickman said. "Now [relief organizations] are focused on clean-up, medicine and food. Development work will be done later on."

Finally, months after its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, Magnolia Pictures has landed U.S. rights to Neil Jordan’s Ondine, starring Colin Farrell in a rare performance in his native dialect. (The film scored eight nominations for the Irish Film and Television Awards.) According to Movieline's Stu VanAirsdale, the final cut of the Paramount Vantage leftover will be different from the one screened in Toronto: