Napkin Man gets a Barenaked booster, Seagull stars get set to soar, and Nico dances into Cinefranco

FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS: Hard to believe, but Marcelle Lean’s once-struggling Cinefranco Film Festival is celebrating its 15^thstanza this year. After running a successful weeklong school program of screenings last month, the

NICO & MYLENE: They've got Rhythme

festival opens to the general public this Friday at TIFF Bell Lightbox. Weekend highlights already generating a sizeable buzz include Nico Archambault’s splashy performance with Mylène Saint-Sauveur  in On The Beat/Sur le rhythme, directed by Charles-Olivier Michaud; the new Isabelle Hupert entry, My Worst Nightmare/Mon pire cauchemar, directed by Anne Fontaine; director Emmanuel Mouret’s new comedy The Art Of Love / L’art d’aimer, with François Cluzet and Julie Depardieu; and Dominic Desjardins’ opening night film, La Sacrée. For the complete list of films and how to get to see them, click here – et bon cinema!

OUR TOWN: Lots of openings tonight. A revisioned version of The Vindication of Senyora Clito Mestres, directed and performed by Dora nominee Dragana Varagic, is set to run tonight through Sunday at Theatre

RODRIGUEZ: opening night

Passe Muraille’s Backspace, with an additional performance March 31 at the Isabel Bader Theatre … Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie bring back Lemieux’s acclaimed 2003 choreographic work Varenka, Varenka! from tonight through March 31 at the company’s new dance centre in Regent Park, The Citadel. The work is inspired by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s first novel Poor Folk, about an aging clerk and his love for a young woman in mid-nineteenth century Russia … and wow, what an opening night cast! — Guillaume Coté, Greta Hodgkinson, Aleksandar Antonijevic and Sonia Rodriguez. Still wondering if you will be able to keep all the different lovers distinct and separate when John Neumeier’s splashy ballet version of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull opens tonight at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts? Fear not – the National Ballet has produced a cheeky one-minute video guide to all the love affairs in the show. To see it, just click here — and enjoy!

ROBERTSON: Napkin Man

TV SHOP TALK: Corus Entertainment will launch its newest service, ABC Spark, next Monday with the day-and-date season premiere of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. The primetime schedule will also include ABC Family original series Switched at Birth, Melissa & Joey, The Lying Game and Make It or Break It … BBC director general Mark Thompson will step down after the London Olympic games this summer … KIds’ CBC is currently developing a new show for small fry called The Adventures Of Napkin Man, hosted by Barenaked Ladies charmer Ed Robertson … Discovery Networks International has bought a 20% stake in French pay-TV company Televista, gambling that

SCHONEBERGER: Rose d'Or host

Televista will move into France’s free-to-air market … and only three Canadian entries made it to the finish line as Rose d’Or nominees this year. Storming Juno Interactive, produced by Secret Location for History Television, is a Multiplatform nominee; For One Night Only, produced by Les Productions Rivard for ARTV, is a Live Event Show nominee; and Property Brothers, produced by Cineflix Inc. for the W Network, is a Lifestyle finalist. Winners will be revealed on May 10 when German TV presenter, actress and singer Barbara Schöneberger hosts the Rose d’Or awards ceremonies in Lucerne.

WOMAN’S WORLD: It’s been a year or three since she lit up home screens as Felicity, but now Keri Russell is set to star in FX’s period drama pilot The Americans. Russell will play an undercover KGB spy who starts to fall in love

GUMMER: will First Cut be the kindest?

with her arranged husband (also a spy). Hmmm – wonder if Scott Speedman is available … Meryl Streep’s talented actress daughter Mamie Gummer, so good in her guest stints with Julianna Margulies on The Good Wife, is the lead in CW’s new medical drama pilot First Cut … three-time Oscar nominee Sigourney Weaver is set to star in her first primetime series, Greg Berlanti’s USA pilot Politcal Animals. She’ll play a former First Lady who is now Secretary of State. In the good old days the networks would have waited until Hillary Clinton left the job — but hey, these are the good new days. Or so they tell me.

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Tracie brings Judy back to Broadway, Kal takes a flyer on a pilot, and Mother D gets her nun on

CASTING ABOUT: Brit sensation Tracie Bennett brings her Olivier award-winning talents to Broadway on  March 19 when she opens at the Belasco with her controversial portrayal of Judy Garland in the  West End musical

BENNETT: as Garland

hit End Of The Rainbow … popular German TV presenter Barbara Schöneberger will host the Rose d’Or Awards Ceremony on May 10 in Lucerne … Kristin Kreuk has been set as the lead in the CW pilot Beauty and the Beast, a remake of the CBS series from the late ‘8Os … and Harold and Kumar star and House alumnus Kal Penn is set to star in the ABC comedy pilot Prairie Dogs.

MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE ATLANTIC OCEAN:  This year’s Floating Film Festival sailors started their day yesterday with a fluffy croissant of a movie — Darling Companion, from Big Chill filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan.  Ostensibly about a lost dog, it’s really a gentle look at the different stages of male-female relationships and the emotional baggage we carry with us from childhood. And what a cast — Diane Keaton and Kevin Kline –– Rex Reed, who introduced the film, pointed out that this is Kevin Kline’s sixth outing with Kasdan — Dianne Weist and Richard Jenkins, Elizabeth Moss from Mad Men,  screen enigma Sam Shepard and more.

KEATON & FRIEND: going to the dogs

Thanks to Rex, our afternoon screening was a bit of a mind-bender.  Remember Dolores Hart, the actress who co-starred with Paula Prentiss, Yvette Mimieux and Connie Francis in Where The Boys Are? Some 47 years ago the fair Ms Hart left showbiz  to take holy orders. She’s now Mother Dolores at a cloistered convent in Bethlehem, Connecticut, and is the subject of the Oscar-nominated short God Is The Bigger Elvis. Knowing that Mother D’s chum Paula Prentiss would be on board with husband Richard Benjamin, Rex brought a copy of the film for all of us to see. Fascinating to hear Mother Dolores — now the Prioress of the Regina Laudus Abbey — reflect on her Hollywood screen life with Anthony Quinn, Montgomery Clift and, yes, Elvis himself. Even more fascinating was meeting the beau she left behind — Edith Head had already designed her wedding dress — and seeing his relationship with her today.

HARRELSON: all too convincing

The 26-minute short film was a stark contrast to the Woody Harrelson shocker Rampart, a somewhat relentless saga of a corrupt cop that proved to be a tough slog for many of us. Harrelson is all too convincing as the flawed protagonist, and he gets great back-up by a dazzling cast of supporting players, including Ned Beatty, Steve Buscemi, Ice Cube, Anne Heche, Audra Macdonald, Cynthia Nixon, Sigourney Weaver and Robin Wright, each of whom make the most of their material. Not exactly a good time at the movies, but undeniably strong filmiest fare.

ROSENTHAL: Raymomd by any other name

Rounding out our celluloid hat trick last night was a film about television by someone who definitely knows what he’s talking about. Exporting Raymond is a genuinely funny and unexpectedly revealing ‘In’-sight into the world of television.  The documentary follows Phil Rosenthal, creator of the hit TV series Everybody Loves Raymond, as he attempts to translate Raymond into a Russian sitcom. In a classic “fish out of water” scenario, show-runner Rosenthal travels to a distant land to help people who don’t want his help. What soon becomes amusingly apparent is that it is show creator Rosenthal, not Ray Romano, who is the real-life Raymond, with eccentric parents who are almost as camera-friendly as Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle. Watching him try to interact with understandably  suspicious Moscow TV types quickly becomes a guilty pleasure — which I suspect is exactly what Exporting Raymond star and producer Rosenthal had in mind. His sitcom was a monster hit and great fun, but his doc is not only entertaining, it’s also painlessly educational. Who’da thunkit?

It’s Niagara for Sly, Danger Mouse for Norah, Green Arrow for Amell, and His & Hers for Jessica & Joel

CASTING ABOUT:  When you’re hot, you’re hot. Jessica Chastain and Joel Edgerton are set to star in Ned Benson’s dual pictures The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: His and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Hers,

CHASTAIN: Eleanor Rigby

which tell the same story from the male and female perspectives … Vampire Diaries grad Stephen Amell will play the Green Arrow in Arrow, the CW’s series adaptation of the DC comic book …  Sarah Jessica Parker has replaced Demi Moore as Gloria Steinem in the film biography of tragic porn queen Linda Lovelace … now that he’s wrapped his role in Lincoln for director Steven Spielberg, Deadwood resident John Hawkes, who was Oscar-nominated for Winter’s Bone, has won the lead role in the new screen version of Elmore Leonard’s Switch … and Denzel Washington may team up with Mark Wahlberg in a new action thriller called 2 Guns.

NO BIZ LIKE SHOW BIZ: The 18th Annual Tommy Sexton Benefit is set for this Friday in Sr. John’s at The Bella Vista. The Benefit raises much needed funds to support of the Tommy Sexton Centre, which provides emergency shelter

JONES: Mouse-catcher

services, transitional and supportive housing, and supports to people living with HIV/AIDS and those at risk in Newfoundland and Labrador … Kylie Minogue is celebrating her 25^th year (!!!)  in show business with a year of surprises and gifts for her fans, including a series of especially commissioned new recordings of classic Kylie songs, recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios … Norah Jones’ new album, Little Broken Hearts, due this spring, is her latest collaboration with producer-musician Danger Mouse. The two first worked together on his acclaimed 2011 album ROME … and no, I’m not making this up:

STALLONE: Taking the Falls

Fans of Rocky and Rambo, and we are legion, will be trooping to Niagara Falls at the end of the month for An Evening With Sylvester Stallone – Yo, Adrian, it’s the man himself! – at Fallsview Casino Feb. 24-25.

FLICKERS:  It’s the odds-on Oscar favourite, but before there was The Artist, there was Wings. And John Downing’s reminiscences about high-flying under-appreciated filmmaker Sterling Campbell are too good not to share … and here’s another one for the No Good Deed Goes Unpunished file — Clint Eastwood never thought he’d have to defend his stunning Super Bowl ad for Chrysler.  “I’m surprised that people that are supposed to be intelligent have interpreted it otherwise.” As for the backlash from people who thought the ad was endorsing the auto bailouts:

EASTWOOD: Make his day

“No one was endorsing any bailouts or anything like that. That was all supposition. All somebody daydreaming out there.” Hey, in the words of the late, great philosopher Gilda Radner: It’s always something … this year’s annual Swiss Television Awards glamourfest will open the 2012 Rose d’Or Festival on May 6 in Lucerne …. and  this year’s ReelWorld Film Festival is set for April 11-15, with Opening and Closing Night Galas at the Cineplex Odeon Sheppard Cinemas and regular screenings taking place at Famous Players Canada Square. Meanwhile ReelWorld alumnus Ava DuVernay, director of the RWFF 2008 feature documentary This is the Life and the 2011 RWFF Closing Night Gala film I Will Follow, picked up this year’s Dramatic Directing Award at Sundance for her movie Middle of Nowhere, making her the first black woman to win Best Director at the 12-year-old Utah filmfest.

STEVEN & CHRIS: La-Z boys?

LAZY: Feeling La-Z? If you’d like a La-Z Boy Recliner of your very own, why not win one? Dynamic designing duo Steven & Chris (yes, that Steven & Chris) are giving away a La-Z-Boy® gift certificate valued at $1,599. And the certificate can be used towards any La-Z-Boy® products and is redeemable at any La-Z-Boy® store in Canada. Just click here to enter. (I mean, if you’re so reclined.)

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