Going green at the box office on ‘Earth’ day

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US:  Yes, it’s Earth Day. This special occasion, which becomes increasingly special each year, was launched almost four decades ago, when most of us were blissfully ignorant of the term “unrenewable resources.”

Good news is, we’re a lot smarter now. Better news is, we’re not alone. Millions of people around the world are taking it seriously. And yes, that includes major show business corporations.  

Disneynature is the first new Disney film label to be introduced by the Walt Disney empire in 60 (!!!) years. To celebrate its premiere film, Earth, being released nationally today, Disneynature will plant a tree in honour of every moviegoer who sees the film in its opening week.

So far, 500,000 trees will be planted. 

Now that’s a LOT of green!

* * *

JAMES: weekly series

 

 

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Boy, that Ryan Reynolds gets around.  The B.C.-born Hollywood heartthrob has two potential megahits about to hit North American movie screens — X-Men Origins: Wolverine with Hugh Jackman, and The Proposal, a quirky new romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock as the subject of his affection and Betty White, Mary Steenburgen and Craig T. Nelson also on board … good news for Ron James fans — your hero is now officially inked to headline his own weekly prime-time series on CBC Television this fall … and frequently unheralded screen legend Steve McQueen gets his own retrospective next month at Lincoln Center.  The retrospective, aptly titled Yesterday’s Loner, is set to run May 20-26 and will feature 12 of his finest performances, “all on the best prints available.”

* * *

THOMPSON: body & soul

 

 

FOOTLIGHTS:  Still haven’t seen it, despite the rave reviews from everyone you know? Me neither. But let’s really try to get to Jersey Boys now that the transplanted Broadway musical has been extended ’til June 28 … speaking of rave reviews, has any revival won as much lavish praise as the current Mirvish incarnation of Sound Of Music? … bad news for Dr. Seuss fans: Dancap has canceled plans to mount How The Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical, as renovations on the Sony Centre are behind schedule and the theatre will not be ready in time … good news for Judith Thompson fans — her Dove-inspired creation body & soul, which played to sold out houses and standing ovations for its entire run at the Young Centre iast year, will be performed at the Tarragon extra space from June 4th-21.

* * * 

JONES: floral tribute

 

 

DISSED BY ‘THE DUKE:’  Some of the starry folk unable to attend last week’s Norman Jewison tribute in L.A. sent notes and posies instead. Jewison received extravagant floral offerings from Marisa Tomei and Quincy Jones, among others, and truly personal regrets from Goldie Hawn, David Foster, Martin Short (who came down with flu and decided not to share it) and Canadian Film Centre alumnus Vincenzo Natali (Cube,) who couldn’t attend for a reason that delighted Jewison: Natali was on location directing a new movie … and Bev Thomson coaxed some great stories out of liberal activist Jewison on her Canada A.M. exclusive earlier this week, including the fact that John Wayne dissed him as “that Canadian pinko.” To see her interview with the award-laden Jewison, click here.

-/-

Advertisement

The show must go on. And on. And on.

 

  

KOSLO

   

MERCER

  

BERGEN

  

SEDARIS

 

 

 

 

 

When did live theatre become a synonym for marathon?

First came Mr. Charles Dickens’ The Life & Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, an eight-hour stage play presented over two performances. Then came Alan Ayckbourn’s three-play Norman Conquests (“See one! See them all!”)

Coming soon to our town, for the very first time, is the entire City of Wine seven-play cycle about the ancient Greek city of Thebes by yet another Dickens — Kingston playwright Ned Dickens. Billed as “an unprecedented event in Canadian theatre history,” City of Wine features 105 of Canada’s newest talents from the graduating classes of theatre schools across the country, in seven, count ‘em, 7 productions mounted by the award-winning Nightswimming theatre company for Theatre Passe Muraille.

COWARD

And just when I was thinking that seven could be heaven, I watched Rick Mercer and learned that Shaw Festival chief Jackie Maxwell is staging all 10, count ‘em, 10 of Noel Coward’s one-act plays this season, and that yes, there are three consecutive days in the schedule where you can actually get to see all 10 Noel Coward one-act stands.

“Do you get lunch?” asked Mercer.

“You get a Noel Coward lunch,” Shaw Festival headliner Corrine Koslo assured him – “a martini and a cigarette!”

You can catch Mercer’s festival apprenticeship — in a Sondheim musical, no less! – tomorrow night at 8 pm on CBC.

* * *

MEAT & GREET: Still-gorgeous Candice Bergen, as magnetic on Boston Legal as she was on Murphy Brown, admits she has a strong feelings about eating any kind of four-legged animal.

“Also some two-legged,” she adds, “like duck. I will never eat duck. And I haven’t eaten pork or beef, especially veal, for 35 years. This started because I suddenly started to find people carving into these bloody haunches of meat so disturbing. And after walking through the former huge market square in Paris, with hundreds of carcasses hanging side by side, it just repulsed me and I decided to keep my own half-assed vegetarianism.”

She says she doesn’t mention it at dinner parties.

“I just eat around the meat. I’m not a pain in the ass, but I cannot eat meat now — even some that looks and smells delicious, like barbecued ribs or prosciuto — without feeling like I am betraying animals.”

* * *

BEFORE THE GAY GUY SEES YOUR BOOBS: Funnybone tickler David Sedaris (When You Are Engulfed In Flames) admitted to Sharp magazine interviewer Jeremy Freed that he’s a major fan of Sidney Lumet’s masterwork Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead.

“I don’t understand why they just didn’t give an Academy Award to everyone who was in that movie,” he told Freed.

TOMEI

He was also admitted that he was somewhat bedazzled by Lumet’s wide-screen exposure of Marisa Tomei’s breasts.

“I’m curious, too, because I’m not a good judge of these sorts of things, were those really Marisa Tomei’s breasts? Or do you think that she had something done? She must be, like, 45 or something,” Sedaris reckoned.

But why the fascination with Ms. Tomei’s ta-tas?

“Because I’m a homosexual and I don’t see many breasts, I always thought that breasts, like, just looked a certain way. I didn’t know there were so many styles of them. But Marisa Tomei’s breasts look like a mermaid’s breasts.

“If I were her,” he added, “I would never wear a shirt.”

Then again, if you were her, you wouldn’t be David Sedaris.