Today’s Top Tips: Bernie & Ruby, a slapshtick night at the Opera, and where to take Mom on Sunday

I’LL TAKE ROMANCE: Just added two movies to my Must See list that I didn’t know even existed until quite recently. The first one is Bernie, a black comedy based on a true story about the ill-fated romance of a young mortician

MACLAINE & BLACK: Must See new movie

and a not-so-youthful Texas widow. Jack Black is the mortician. Shirley MacLaine is the widow. I think you’ll understand why I’m dying (you should pardon the expression) to see it after you click on this sneak preview. The second movie on my new Must list is Ruby Sparks. It’s about a young novelist (Paul Dano) struggling with both his writing and his romantic life. Then he creates a character named Ruby who inspires him. And then he finds Ruby (Zoe Kazan), in the flesh, somehow manifested by his writing, sitting on his couch. Antonio Banderas, Annette Bening and Elliot Gould are along for

DANO: Sparks f;ly

the ride, which to me strongly resembles a romantic rollercoaster. Click here for the sneak preview of that one.

SHOWSTOPPER: It’s just one of those songs/that you hear now and then/you don’t know just where/you don’t know just when …  but you sure know it when you hear it. There is a soft stirring in the audience at the Four Seasons Centre this month as soon as the first strains of Puccini’s haunting melody O mio babbino caro come soaring up from the orchestra pit during every performance of Gianni Schicchi. The surprise for some of us less well-versed in operatic endeavours is that this beautiful ballad comes right in the middle of a slapstick farce about a greedy family trying to cheat monks out of an inheritance.

THE GAMG’S ALL HERE: A family schemes as Puccini serenades

Aided and abetted by a brilliant ensemble, soprano-turned-director Catherine Malfitano displays a fearless flare for broad comedy that suggests she’s a serious fan of such screwball classics as Weekend At Bernie’s and Fire Sale, and Wilson Chin’s stylishly topsy-turvy set consistently keeps us in on the

MAYNARD: first visit here

joke. The lush musical score, sensitively and splendidly conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, makes the contrast even more appealing, and Simone Osborne’s rich vocalizing on O mio babbino caro earns every minute of the tumultuous applause she receives. Check it out at www.coc.ca.

Still not quite sure which aria it is? To watch Montserrat Caballe’s version, click here; to watch Maria Callas’ sing it to Japanese fans in Tokyo, click here. And, enjoy!

OUR TOWN: Lots of sparklies on the radar this week. New Brit pop music sensation Conor Maynard, who’s 19 if he’s a day, was on hand to co-host New.Music.Live on MuchMusic last night. This morning he’ll make live

JOHNSON: on stage this week

appearances on the KISS 92.5 Morning show at 8 a.m. and CP24 Breakfast at 8:45 a.m. So will he sing Can’t Say No? Whaddya think? …  enduring pop music siren Tabby Johnson entertains Thursday night at Maggie Cassella’s Flying Beaver Pubaret … Jayzm Bee hosts Word Jazz – “ten poets doing ten minutes each in a truly unique evening of spoken word” — with Don Francks, Robert Preist, Dale Percy, Myna Wallin, Phatt Al, Mike Schram, Chris Hercules, Amanda Hiebert, Howard “Dr. Possibility” Jerome, Mike Hanson and Bruce Hunter, Thursday night at the Now Lounge on Church Street …. also this Thursday: Betty Buckley kicks off the 15^th and final We’re

COHEN: he’s Our Man

Funny That Way festival with a concert at Buddies In Bad Times that’s sure to be spellbinding …  don’t say I didn’t warn ya: This Friday’s night concert by the legendary Lighthouse rock orchestra at the Molson Canadian Studio in Hamilton is expected to go SRO … so is female illusionist Christopher Peterson’s Saturday night WFTW festival show at Buddies … also on Saturday: The Three Lennys, a special Toronto Jewish Film Festival screening of three Leonard Cohen films at the Bloor Cinema in honour of the recently-announced ninth recipient of the Glenn Gould Prize. And before Cohen receives his newest accolade next Monday at a gala evening at Massey Hall, local musicians will take to the streets to play his music all over downtown Toronto. So keep your eyes and ears open!

RICHARDSON: Sunday salon stint

SUNDAY’S SPECIAL: Looking for significant stuff to do on Mother’s Day? Look no further.  Take her to The Flying Beaver Pubaret on Parliament for a 1 pm jazz brunch with Shannon Gunn on Vocals, Reg Schrager on guitar and Rosemary Galloway on bass, or a 7 pm Mother’s Day concert by singer-songwriter Duff MacDonald … Jackie Richardson joins Paul Hoffert at his weekly jazz salon at Musideum on Richmond on Sunday at 3 pm … Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie have added an extra show to their world premiere of From the House of Mirth,

THOMPSON: Glory-watcher

directed and choreographed by James Kudelka, at the Citadel — which means you now have a choice of two Sunday performances (3 pm & 8 pm) …  Judith Thompson previews her new one-woman show, Watching Glory Die, in a staged reading this Sunday at 2 pm at the Factory Theatre … just looking for something special to slip in the envelope with that Hallmark card? The National Ballet of Canada is offering a special Mother’s Day deal on its upcoming premiere of Hamlet. Buy tickets to see the high-flying Prince of Denmark on Friday June 8 and get 30% off the price of tickets, in all sections. To take full advantage of this special I Love Mom promotion, click here!

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Roseanne plots her return, Gordon calls on Ottawa, Reba calls Lily ‘mom’ and Mr. D calls it a season

MUM’S THE WORD:  Remember when she romanced little Tom Hanks in Big? Ageless head-turner Elizabeth Perkins is playing Sarah Chalke’s mother in a new TV pilot, How To Live With Your Parents For The Rest Of Your Life. Who’s playing Dad? Brad Garrett. And John Dore is

ROSEANNE: pilot project

somewhere in the mix too … Lily Tomlin, so good last season as the malevolent matriarch in the hypnotic Glenn Close series Damages, is playing Reba McEntire’s mother in Reba’s new comedy pilot, Malibu Country … Marcia Gay Harden and Kevin Nealon are headlining Howard Busgang’s new pilot Isabel, inspired by the CBC Radio Canada series Le Monde De Charlotte … Matthew Perry plays a sportscaster in therapy in his new pilot, Go On. No word yet on who’s playing his mom … and the woman some folks would describe as the mother of them all, and I do mean the one and only Roseanne Barr, is taking another kick at the can with a weekly series, without TV daughter Sarah Chalke (she’s busy) but with TV hubby John Goodman already on board. Roseanne’s new pilot, Downwardly Mobile, is about a trailer park boss –guess who? — who serves as a surrogate mother to all her tenants. And the beat goes on.

FLIGHTS OF THE PINSENT: “Guests may never wash their arms again after rubbing elbows with Gordon Pinsent,” reported the Ottawa Citizen after Pinsent showed up at a benefit party to promote this summer’s Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. Pinsent will make his Festival debut there on July 30 by narrating Ogden Nash poetry to Saint-Saens‘ Carnival of the Animals and Tennyson‘s Enoch Arden set to Strauss. He’ll also wing to Halifax next month to participate in April 15 events marking the 100th anniversary of the Titanic. In the meantime, his new CD collaboration with Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo and Travis Good of The Sadies, Down And Out In Upalong, is scheduled to drop next week;  his latest movie project, the 3D IMAX film Flight of the Butterflies, which he just finished shooting in Mexico last month, is currently set to premiere in September; and his new autobiography, Next, is due in stores on October 16. For the inside scoop on the Upalong album, click here. And if you’re in Toronto on April 12, stop by The Drake Hotel and see Good, Keelor & Pinsent showcase their new CD  in person.  So don’t say I didn’t warn ya!

DICKINSON: big decision-maker

GRAND FINALES: If it’s April it must be Season Finale week on CBC Television. Tonight Gerry Dee wraps up the first season of his freshman comedy Mr. D. with Jonathan Torrens and Bette MacDonald, followed by the much-anticipated very last episode of Little Mosque On The Prairie with Zaib Shaikh and Sheila McCarthy. (I believe Little Mosque is the only Canadian sitcom to be inducted into the Museums of Radio and Television Science in both New York and Los Angeles, and last week’s episode, by the way, was a real church-burner — literally!) Also saying sayonara is Big Decision, which wraps up its four-show test-drive tonight too, with Arlene Dickinson on deck as the decision-maker. And tomorrow night we’ll see the season closers of Rick

MR. D & Mr. M: on CBC's Season Finales

Mercer Report and 22 Minutes. Also calling it a season this week: Dragons’ Den, now this country’s top-rated home-grown entertainment show; Republic Of Doyle, coming off its best season yet; Marketplace, which attracted a hefty new audience this season; and the fifth estate, which after 36 noteworthy seasons saw some of its largest audience numbers in more than a decade.  Hey, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Somebody must be doing something right.

TOMORROW:  Watch for the Glenn Gould Foundation to announce the details of a Gala evening celebrating the ninth Glenn Gould Prize laureate Leonard Cohen. A stellar line-up of musical stars and honourary speakers will take to the stage to salute Cohen’s lifetime achievements in music and poetry. Stay tuned.

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If it’s Monday it must be music, music, music!

TONIGHT, TONIGHT: Tonight marks the Canadian debut concert of the world-famous Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela led by

DUDAMELL: he's a rock star

superstar conductor Gustavo Dudamel, the new music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic — (60 Minutes called him “the hottest thing to hit classical music since Leonard Bernstein”) — at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Special highlight tonight will be the presentation of the Glenn Gould Prize to Dr. José Antonio Abreu, whose visionary music education and youth orchestra system, El Sistema, has transformed the lives of over a million at-risk children and youth in Venezuela. Tonight’s gala concert kicks off a week of performances, education and outreach activities to illuminate, stimulate and communicate the passion for music. For more info, just click here.

SHARPS ‘N’ FLATS: Strumming queen Liona Boyd wants it known that despite the title of her new CD, Liona Boyd Sings Songs Of Love, she has not,

MULDAUR: here Wednesday

repeat, NOT given up guitar. “I might not quite be the virtuoso player I used to be,” the ageless entertainer confides to her fans, “but I can still perform beautiful melodies and incorporate many different guitar techniques, as you’ll clearly hear on my CD.” However, she’s more than partial to vocalizing as well. “I love singing and I practice my songs around the house at every opportunity … one of the great advantages of living alone!” … three dozen albums and one Midnight At The Oasis later, Maria Muldaur returns to her jug band roots with an intimate concert Wednesday night at Hugh’s Room … after almost four years and sales of four million copies of her debut album, Corinne Bailey Rae’s second

AZNAVOUR: jazz roots

album, The Sea, is set for release in February …Geri Halliwell (a.k.a. Ginger Spice) is reportedly set to produce a new West End “pop extravaganza” which would tell the tale of the rise of The Spice Girls, the ‘90s English pop girl group who made a big-boxoffice reunion tour last year … attention Christmas shoppers: The much-anticipated, rumoured-to-be-breathtaking CD featuring Charles Aznavour performing some of his classics with the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra is due in local disc shops on Dec. 1 … A.M. on A.M.? You bet. You can hear AM740’s two-hour Anne Murray All of Me – the Radio Special at 1 pm today, on the radio or on the internet (in stereo) at www.am740.ca … the new Lighthouse CD/DVD

LIGHTHOUSE: new CD/DVD package

package, 40 Years Of Sunny Days, includes a new DVD of 16 recent Lighthouse videos in surround sound, commentary by band members,s a newly remastered CD of the most requested Lighthouse  classics and a 42 page booklet about the band … and call it a sign of the times, but Chris Colepaugh’s new album Burning —  a collection of live performances captured by his Cosmic Crew — is being released in digtal format only. To preview the new album, go to his website right here.

contains a new DVD of 16 recent Lighthouse videos in surround sound, commentary by band members,s a newly remastered CD of the most requested Lighthouse

classics and a 42 page booklet about the band

QUOTABLE QUOTES: “I’ve been through a lot of change in the 21 years I’ve been anchoring this program, and I can remember times we’ve switched the

MANSBRIDGE: let sleeping dogs lie?

theme music and our loyal viewers got really upset – some of them wrote to us explaining how their dogs used to fall asleep to the old theme music and now they’re barking like mad – so there’s no doubt there will be a few people who will initially be unsure of it.”

The speaker? Peter Mansbridge, in an interview with National Post reporter Vanessa Farquharson, commenting on the new-look changes we’ll see tonight on The National and CBC News.

TOMORROW:

Who gets to play Hef in the movie?