‘Waterworld’: That Sinking Feeling

In a town that sometimes relishes the arrival of a potential box-office bomb as much as it does a hit, few films have been so eagerly awaited as Kevin Costner’s “Waterworld.” It’s been well-publicized that prospects for the $175-million epic aren’t good, but a further clue comes from the post-production crew. They’re calling the film “Fishtar.”

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Left His Marque: Perhaps it’s the influence of so many years of living in Los Angeles: David Hockney has painted a car.

The British artist, who has taken paint to a couple of swimming pools, has painted a BMW 850 csi in a reductive Neo-Cubist style for his retrospective at London’s Royal Academy. The car will be parked in front of the museum when the show opens in November.

The BMW’s sticker price is $104,000, though a Hockney paint job would presumably add to its resale value.

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Nine Lifers: Perhaps the fascination with near-death experiences will begin to die off now that they’re being parodied by a book about cats.

In October, Birch Lane Press will release “Petted by the Light: The Most Profound and Complete Feline Near-Death Experiences Ever.”

In it, cats share stories of the afterlife and talk of losing touch with their inner kittens and returning to the rat race.

The book’s authors say their hope is to “inspire cats everywhere to sit on sunny window sills, climb high trees or quickly dart from one room to the next for no apparent reason.”