Sideshow | Paris gets time off for good behavior

Poor little rich kid

Paris Hilton

, who, truth be told, is facing, like, a real crisis, has been given something of a reprieve with a court ruling cutting her 45-day jail sentence in half.

Paris has also been freed from dealing with the hoi polloi, and will spend her 23 days in a "special-needs housing unit," apart from the general prison population.

L.A. County sheriff's rep Steve Whitmore said Paris' sentence was reduced in part because she has so far displayed good behavior. (But she's not in jail yet.) No comment from Paris' rep.

"We can only hope that something positive will come from this,"

Kathy Hilton

said about her daughter's troubles in a statement read on

The View

. "Hopefully, young people who look up to people like Paris can learn from this."

Um, look up to?

Variety says

Robert De Niro

and

Al Pacino

will share the silver screen for the second time

ever

in their storied, four-decades-long careers with

Righteous Kill

, a thriller in which they will play cops on the tail of a serial killer.

Co-producer Avi Lerner sounds mildly excited about the prospect of a De Niro-Pacino reunion. "This is an event in world history," he said. "They were in two scenes in Heat. In this movie, they are in the whole thing together."

TMZ.com says, "TMZ has learned that

Britney Spears

' new long blond locks aren't a wig."

"Stop the presses!", the celeb news site pleads before unveiling, "She has new extensions!"

Seems an anon stylist broke client-haircutter privilege and told TMZ the disturbing news.

Perhaps those hair extensions have scrambled Brit's frontal lobe - or maybe she has ascended to the astral plane: The pop princess has posted a most mystical post on her Web site. Ostensibly written to thank her fans for their support over the past few months of Brit Nuttiness, Brit says, "I am so blessed that you care enough about me to be concerned and will continue to live in this brighter state with all of you by my side during this trying time."

(No, Brit! Don't walk into the light!) Britney, who once dabbled in Kabbala with Mater Spiritualist Madonna, then made references to George H.W. Bush's "thousand points of light" and the Clintons' "it takes a village (Called Hope)" tropes.

"We are all the lights of the world," she said. "And we all need to continually inspire others and look to the higher power. . . . Godspeed. Love, Britney."

Godspeed? (Indeed.)

An auction of

Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car)

, a 1963 silk-screen painting by Pennsylvania's proud pop art son, the late

Andy Warhol

(real name

Warhola

), has sold for $71.7 mil, more than four times the dosh hauled in by any of Andy's previous pieces.

Christie's sales extravaganza of postwar and contemporary products cha-chinged a staggering total of $385 mil - for 74 pieces - on its first day Wednesday. (It was due to continue yesterday.)

In all, 10 Warhol pieces were sold for a total sum of $136.7 mil, including the iconic Monroe image Lemon Marilyn, which sold for $28 mil.

Access Hollywood

co-host

Nancy O'Dell

, who announced in December she's pregnant, tells Pregnancy mag pregnancy rocks so much, it

totally

rocks.

"I was craving baked beans at the beginning, big time," said Nancy, who ran out to buy a dozen more.

Thing is, Nancy said, "the craving lasted one day." Now she's stuck with 14 cans.

Exquisite Bollywood angel and former Miss World

Aishwarya Rai

, 33, is making waves at the Cannes Film Festival: Wednesday, the epitome of Bollywood's neo old-Hollywood glamour took a time-out from her honeymoon to debut her new husband, thesp

Abhishek Bachchan

.

Rai said she's still getting used to being addressed as Mrs. Bachchan: "I've maybe done a double take at times, but pleasantly so."

Rai's new film, Provoked, a most unglamorous drama about a battered wife, opens in Philly today.