Marty plays the Jester, Bernie tells tales, Howie gets a new Deal & the Glee gang gets ready to graduate

HOW WILL I KNOW: Glee stars salute Whitney Houston tonight.

CALLING ALL GLEEKS: You thought Glee was a hot TV show? Hey, it’s all that and so much more. The Glee gang has sold more than 43 million songs and over 12 million albums worldwide. So far the show has scored three consecutive #1 releases with Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna, Glee: The Music, Volume 3 Showstoppers, and Glee: The Music, Journey To Regionals. Meanwhile, Glee: The Music, Volume 1 and Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album have each sold more than 1 million units – and of course there’s more to come. Glee: The Music, The Graduation Album will become available May 15 and includes Glee versions of hot tunes by Queen and Lady Gaga. Also featured on the May 22 finale are songs by Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, Madonna and Green Day. And wait ‘til you hear what they do with Whitney Houston’s music on tonight’s episode. This crew is clearly on top of their game, and in case you have any doubts, check out tonight’s opening number – and enjoy!

SURELY YOU JEST: Currently on view every weekend with fellow judges Measha Brueggergosman and Stephan Moccio on Canada’s Got Talent, fabled funnyman Martin Short has the juiciest role in the new animated

SHORT: off to see the Wizard?

feature Dorothy Of Oz, playing the evil Jester who has taken over the kingdom. Glee showstopper Lea Michele voices the role of Dorothy, aided and abetted by Tin Man Kelsey Grammer, Cowardly Lion Jim Belushi and Scarecrow Dan Aykroyd. Adding even more lustre to an already lustrous talent pool are Smash showstopper Megan Hilty as a China Princess, Oliver Platt as Wiser The Owl and Broadway showstopper Bernadette Peters as Glinda the Good Witch. Sounds like a hot Original Cast album to me … and speaking of star power, there’s less than one week left to help select the 2012 Inductees to Canada’s Walk of Fame and the 2012 Cineplex Legends Award recipient.  Submit your nomination and you could win a trip for two to attend the 2012 Canada’s Walk of Fame Awards Show and red carpet to celebrate with the stars – and

HILTY: a SMASH-ing performer

you can submit your nomination and contest entry once per day.  Click here to submit your nomination – and do it now!

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE:  Toronto International Film Festival co-founder Henk Van Der Kolk has a new gig in Central America – he’s the Director of the new week-long IFF Panama — Panama’s first international filmfest —  which opens this Thursday and promises to screen more than 50 ground-breaking films in Spanish and English before closing night on

COCKBURN: True Northerner

May 2 … it’s official, and it’s in stores now: Bernie Finkelstein tells all – well, almost all – in his new McClelland & Stewart memoirs, True North: A Life In The Music Business, from breaking into the Greenwich Village scene with The Paupers at the age of 20, discovering Bruce Cockburn, producing what might have been the “loudest band in the world,” Kensington Market, managing and producing Murray McLauchlan, Blackie & The Rodeo Kings, and Rough Trade, winning 40 Junos, and much more. Sounds like a fun  read … Howie Mandel, who successfully reinvented himself as a game show host with Deal Or No Deal, is now set to

MANDEL: Elephsnt in the room

host a new NBC game show, White Elephant, a spin-off concept on those mystery ‘doors’ from Monty Hall‘s classic Let’s Make A Deal. NBC will test the new series with seven episodes … and Pat Ferns continues to be one of the busiest men in showbiz. As he has done since the inception of the 14^th DocAviv event for Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers, he’ll return to Tel Aviv next month to moderate the pitching sessions and to interview key guests at this annual industry gathering of Documentary filmmakers. He’s also has been retained as the lead consultant for the third CNEX Chinese Documentary Forum in Taiwan in September and for the 7th China International Conference of Science and Education Producers in Yuyao, China in October, before returning to Guangzhou for the 10th anniversary of the Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival in China in December. Now that’s what I call Air Miles!

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Luba returns to her roots, Rick goes back to school(s), and flashbacks to tasty times at Truffles

END OF AN ERA: Sooner or later we’re all history. Bistro 990 is gone — witness Bill Marshall’s splendid salute in the National Post — and the Four Seasons closed last week, and I enjoyed some wonderful times in both places. In its heyday the Four Seasons restaurant Truffles was even better than Le

MACLAINE: dining at Truffles

Cirque, and many New Yorkers shared that opinion.  At Truffles one night I shared a saffron palate cleanser with Shirley MacLaine, who put one spoonful in her mouth and grimaced. “Don’t eat it!” she warned. “It takes like tin!” When I explained it was saffron, she stared back at me blankly. “Saffron,” I persisted. “Like the colour of a monk’s robes.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, saffron!” she purred, and gobbled up the rest of it. At Truffles I introduced 75-year-old theatre legend Helen Hayes to Gordon’s Gin Tomato Soup, and she liked it so much she ordered it again the next day. “I should go out to dinner with you more often!” she teased. But everything must change, and now Sutton Place is set to close its hotel doors June 15 to begin the process of reconverting the property

HAYES: Gordon's Gin soup

into an upscale condominium. (So where do the hotel’s current apartment dwellers go from here? Just askin’ … ) However, I’m not nearly as nostalgic about that hotel anymore. It was glorious in the Hans Gerhardt era, when that superb hotelier would import Wolfgang Puck and the namesake nephew of Italian legend Alfredo De Leio  (as in Fettucine Alfredo) to cook up a storm in his elegant Sanssouci dining room. In those days you could barely make it through the lobby without bumping into two or three mega-stars – but that was once upon a time, many years ago. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for hotel space downtown in the next two months, I’m told Sutton Place is offering some of its rooms and suites at deep discounts. So enjoy it while you can.

HELLO WE MUST BE GOING: Two more season finales tonight. First, Rick Mercer wraps up his ninth (!!!) season by going back to school, attending celebrations at the winning schools in the annual Mercer Report Spread the

MERCER & FRIENDS: back to school

Net Student Challenge. Watching Mercer interact with elementary school kids is definitely something to see. Following his 8 pm Rick Mercer Report on CBC is the season finale of 22 Minutes, with Shaun Majumder at the Junos, Mark Critch at the Trudeau-Brazau fight and, if we’re lucky, HRM

SHORT: comedy special tonight

Cathy Jones making another Diamond Jubilee visit. Immediate following the 22 Minutes show is Martin Short’s off-the-wall comedy special, I, Martin Short, Goes Home, a 60-minute tour de force by Short and sidekicks Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, Robin Duke, Fred Willard and your boyfriend George Stroumboulopoulos, who’ll be watching from B.C,  Strombo starts three nights of taping today at CBC Vancouver with guests Sandra Oh, Daryl Hannah, ‘Dragon’ Jim Treliving, Brent Butt, Kim Campbell; Ian Hanomansing, Jane Goodall and too many more to list here.

LUBA: back on the boards

PEOPLE: Special bulletin to Air Farce fans (and I know you are legion:)  Your favourite funny lady Luba Goy is coming home to a stage near you. She’s set to open May 7 at the Berkeley Street Theatre in Luba, Simply Luba, an autobiographical one-woman show penned by Diane Flacks …  John Peller, whose family makes those tempting Peller Estate wines in Niagara, and Wayne Gretzky, who needs absolutely no introduction, have joined forces and vineyards to make new vintages together. “Our families share the same commitment to quality,” Keller recently told his subscribers, “and we both feel passionate about making award-winning wines that we can share with you.” Okay, but will they sell for $99? Never mind, just kidding … devoted jazz buff Tim

TOWNSEND: lucky XIII

Tamashiro took over the reins of Tonic on CBC Radio this week from legendary music maven Katie Malloch, retiring from the airwaves after a 40-year career …  Juno Nominee George Olliver performs at the Old Newcastle House in – where else? – Newcastle, ON this Saturday night …  Stuart Townsend is back in T.O. to headline season two of the one-hour conspiracy thriller XIII.2 which will film in and around Our Town from now through to mid-July. Townsend plays XIII, a lethal former secret agent whose memory has been erased. The 13-episode original series will air on Showcase this fall …  The Voice judge and Maroon 5 front man Adam Levine is in talks to make his acting debut with Jessica Lange on American Horror Story … and how did Aaron Sorkin keep his new HBO series The Newsroom under the radar so brilliantly for so long? And will Ken Finkleman want his title back? Stay tuned.

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Lily conquers Vegas, Bette plans a Showgirl exit, and meet the new Susan Boyle (he’s a guy!)

LOVIN’ LAS VEGAS: Don’t know why I thought that Lily Tomlin and Sin City were not a natural fit. Turns out they are. La Tomlin premiered her new

TOMLIN & WAGNER: Viva Las Vegas

one-woman show, Not Playing With A Full Deck, at the MGM Grand, and reportedly loves Las Vegas! Lily’s partner and personal muse, the unabashedly brilliant humourist Jane Wagner, is the mighty pen behind her new show as well as such previous Tomlin megahits as The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe and Appearing Nitely. Lily’s new show is a mix of Greatest Hits – the characters her fans still can’t get enough of, like Ernestine and Edith Ann – and new characters, and

SHORT: Damages control

new technology. Tomlin’s new show ‘try-out’ played in MGM’s Hollywood Theater, which seats about 2,000 people at each performance. And when Tomlin isn’t hanging out with her Big Business co-star and Caesars Palace headliner Bette Midler (The Showgirl Must Go On) or trying to coax Jane (“it’s come down to begging, really,”) into writing a new Broadway show for her, she’s commuting to New York to shoot her scenes in the new season of Damages with Glenn Close. In it she plays the matriarch of a powerful family determined to destroy shady legal eagle Close. Assisting Lily in this mission are Martin Short as her high-powered attorney and Campbell Scott as her son. And yes, she confesses, she and Marty did misbehave one day on the set, when

MIDLER: The show must go ... off

she read her lines as Ernestine and he did his as Ed Grimley. “But never when the cameras are rolling!”

THE SHOWGIRL MUST GO OFF: P.S. for Vegas-bound Bette Midler fans: Your heroine ends her two-year residency at The Colloseum – aka The House That Céline Built – on January 31. Says Bette: “These legs have had such a great run in the desert, it may be time to haul them to places with more humidity and fewer slot machines.”

GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS: Yes, it’s true, the latest YouTube sensation is a recent audition for Simon Cowell’s British talent show The X Factor. The singer is a 40-year-old cabinet-maker named Daryl Markham. Markham has his own website now, and is now a household

MARKHAM: YouTube sensation

name for millions of people all over the world. But can he sing? You be the judge. To see his now-historic audition, just click here.

NO BIZ LKE SHOW BIZ: Leave it to Reg Hartt to find a copy of the sumptuous MGM musical Kiss Me Kate, with Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel and young hoofers Bob Fosse & Tommy Rall competing for Ann Miller’s machine-gun taps., in — wait for it — 3D, its screen original format. Cineaste extraordinare Hartt unspools the classic Cole Porter musical this Sunday and next at 5 pm at his Cineforum HQ at Bathurst & College. Adds Reg: “Bring your own popcorn and we will zap it for you.”

WILLIAMS: ReelWorld decade

Hmmmm, wonder if Stratford’s Kiss Me Kate star Juan Chiorian, now on stage at the Factory Theatre in The Madonna Painter, has ever seen this version? … fan faves Colin Mochrie & Deb McGrath guest with Ron James tonight at 8 pm on CBC Television …  the Kate Rogers Band performs live tomorrow morning on CBC Radio One’s GO! Show. “Tickets are free and everyone is welcome!” sez Ms Rogers … speaking of tickets, you can still snag some for this weekend’s performances of the National Ballet’s spectacular Sleeping Beauty revival before it closes Sunday .. and can you believe that Tonya Lee Williams’ ReelWorld Film Festival, the little movie marathon that grew, celebrates its 10th anniversary next spring? Ms Williams, of course, is currently stationed in Washington, D.C. — on screen, at least — in The Border. And BTW, the ReelWorld call for submissions has already started. So if you have a feature, documentary, short, music video or animation from the Aboriginal, Asian, Black, Latino, Middle Eastern, South Asian or other multi-racial community, click here and fill out the submissions form.

Happy weekend!

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http://reelworld.ca/

Strombo gets Fox, Mosque gets manipulated, Montreal gets Whoopi & Rick gets stung

TONIGHT, TONIGHT: Your boyfriend George Stroumboulopoulos kicks off his sixth season of The Hour tonight with an intimate hour-long interview

GEORGE: Sixth Season

with Michael J. Fox. Other sparklies about to get Georged: Andre Agassi, Michael Buble, Drew Barrymore, Michael Douglas, John Irving, Michael Moore, Anne Murray, Edward Norton, Clive Owen, and Snoop Dogg … earlier in the evening Little Mosque On The Prairie returns with a new edge when Brandon Firla (Billable Hours) plays a manipulative minister from the big city who is less than thrilled to find a bunch of Muslims as tenants in his church. Zaib Shaikh, Sitara Hewitt, Sheila McCarthy, Carlo Rota, Debra McGrath and Arlene Duncan continue to keep the pot boiling … also returning tonight: Just For Laughs, with a premiere

GOLDBERG: just for laughs?

episode from Montreal featuring Whoopi Goldberg, Jim Gaffigan, Louis C.K., Pete Zedlacher and Adam Hills. In addition to Zedlacher, Canuck showstoppers set to perform on the weekly series include Mike MacDonald, Deb DiGiovanni, Angelo Tsarouchas, Shaun Majumder, Martin Short, Jon Dore and Gerry Dee. So what’s not to like? … and Hot Docs is the co-presenter of tonight’s showing of Larry Towell’s Canada-Palestine co-production Indecisive Moments at the 2009 Toronto Palestine Film Festival, which continues through Friday. A personal video diary of Towell’s experiences in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, which he refers to as “the world’s largest open-air prison,” the film screens tonight at 7:00 pm at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall, with filmmaker Towell in attendance. For more information and/or to purchase tickets, just click here.

BRIDGES: new John Wayne?

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Newcomer Christoph Waltz, the breakout star of Inglorious Basterds, is set to play the villain opposite Seth Rogen in The Green Hornet … Jeff Bridges is in talks to star in a Coen Brothers remake of the classic John Wayne western True Grit … Meryl Streep’s daughter, actress Mamie Gummer, has been cast in director John Carpenter‘s new thriller, The Ward … and watch and listen for songbird Dawn Langstroth on a channel near you. She’s set to stop by AM 740 today at 2 pm to perform selected songs from her new CD Highwire in the radio station lobby. And tomorrow morning she’ll serenade early-risers on Breakfast Television (BT Toronto, that is.) So stay tuned!

LORD OF THE FLIES: When Canadian comedy icon Rick Mercer flew to B.C. to kick off the new Spread The Net campaign at Simon Fraser University, SFU biologist Carl Lowenberger, challenged him to stick his arm in a cage filled with mosquitoes — and you know how Mercer responds to challenges.  You can see the results on tomorrow night’s premiere of The Rick Mercer Report. (And I won’t even mention the bit where Lowenberger dares him to stick his entire head in the cage.)

MERCER & LOWENBERGER: SFU research team?

Meanwhile, Mercer’s spoof of that weird Michael Ignatieff commercial, which will be revealed to television viewers on RMR tomorrow night, has already ricocheted around the word as a viral video. And yes, it’s funny. Funny enough for Ignatieff to instantly install it on his Facebook page (not to mention his Twittering about it.)

Still haven’t seen it?

Really?

So what was it like in the monastery?

Never mind. If you’re really sure that you really can’t wait ‘til tomorrow night, just click here.

TOMORROW:

More fun ‘n’ games. (Who knew?)

More laffs for T.O.! Rick Mercer tweets! Don’s new porn gig! 40th anniversary of John & Yoko Bed-In! All this and more!

THE LAUGHS JUST KEEP COMING: Talk about the little engine that could. Montreal producer Gilbert Rozon’s phenomenal Just For Laughs/Juste Pour Rire comedy festival keeps growing, growing, growing. This year the Quebec-based

DEGENERES: just for laffs

mirth-machine will stage its Toronto festival at the same time as its annual summer comedy extravaganza in Montreal. The Toronto Just For Laughs festival opens on July 15 and runs five days. The Montreal Just For Laughs festival opens on July 16 and runs 10 days. Meanwhile, the first collaboration between cable network TBS and Just For Laughs is set for June 17-21 in Chicago and will feature performances from Ellen DeGeneres, George Lopez, Lisa Lampanelli, Russell Peters, Mike Epps, Jimmy Fallon, Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, Bill Engvall, David Alan Grier, Louis CK, John Pinette, Martin Short and more.

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QUOTABLE QUOTES: “I’ve learned one thing: obstacles are your friends. And after you’ve been around as long as I have, you’ve made a lot of friends.”

The speaker?

Actor/director/designer/choreographer/producer and Quebec’s favourite enfant terrible, Robert Lepage, in an intriguing profile by Richard Ouzounian in Saturday’s Toronto Star. Lepage’s new nine-hour theatre-and-music epic, Lip Synch, premieres in T.O. on June 6 at Luminato.

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 NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Small-screen icon Don Johnson has been cast as a porn director in the Adam Sandler-produced film Born to Be a

 

JOHNSON: porn part

 

Star … Lizzy Caplan and Crispin Glover have joined the cast of the feature comedy Hot Tub Time Machine … Alex O’Loughlin is in negotiations to star opposite Jennifer Lopez in The Back-Up Plan … Rosemary DeWitt is set to join Chris Cooper, Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones in The Company Men … Sylvester Stallone’s Expendables  now include non-expendables Brittany Murphy, David Zayas, Jason Statham and Mickey Rourke  … and the Glenn Gould Foundation is plotting a spectacular week in October with the renown 250-member Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, to honour the creator of the Venezuelan youth orchestra system (El Sistema,) Dr. Jose Antonio Abreu. Dr. Abreu, this year’s winner of The Glenn Gould Prize, has also been named co-winner of Sweden’s Polar Music Prize along with Peter Gabriel.

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TALKING TO TWEETERS: Canuck TV lion Rick Mercer sez he still can’t figure out current social SuperNetwork twitter. “I’m socially twitarded,” he confessed recently on the site. Methinks he doth protest too much. This is the same guy who twitter-warned us (‘twarned’ us??) in 140 characters or less.  that “if the swine flu becomes a pandemic Canadians may have no choice but to find out who Canada’s Health Minister is.”

Call me crazy, but I’d say he’s got the hang of it.

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GIVE PEACE A CHANCE: Forty years later, Peaceworks Now curator Joan Athey has published a new book, Give Peace A Chance, of never-before seen

 

YOKO & JOHN: 40th anniversary

 

photos of the John Lennon/Yoko Ono Bed-in For Peace which took place May 26 to June 1, 1969 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. At the same time as a limited exhibition of the photos opens in LIverpool, Torontonians can see a full exhibition of the photographs May 26 to June 1 at the Bulger Gallery at Queen St. W.  The public opening is tomorrow from 5-8 pm as part of the current at Contact Festival of Photography. Meanwhile, Jerry Levitan will be the Indigo Eaton Centre tonight at 7 pm to sign copies of his new Collins Harper book, I Met The Walrus, the literary version of his Oscar-nominated doc about infiltrating the infamous Montreal Bed-in.

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QUOTABLE QUOTES: “I do not believe in an afterlife. One does not know. But even though I say I don’t believe in an afterlife, I have made funeral arrangements so that my daughter in Maine doesn’t have to worry. And I decided not to be cremated, so a little part of me must think that my body perhaps goes on. I don’t want to be dust.”

The speaker? Barbara Walters, in a candid moment with her longtime Manhattan chum Liz Smith, in Avenue magazine.

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