Get ready for GLEE’s sophomore season, Justin in August, and a surprise from the fair maid Marion

THE POWER OF GLEE: First it conquered TV, then the music charts, and now it’s going legit — big time. Cast members from the hit FOX series Glee, led by Spring Awakening star

MICHELE: Glee girl

Lea Michele, have added yet another performance to their run at Radio City Music Hall, so they’ll now do five, count ’em, five shows in that 6,000-seat New York room on the weekend of May 28-30. In addition to Michele, who plays Rachel, the tour cast will include Cory Monteith (Finn), Amber Riley (Mercedes), Chris Colfer (Kurt), Kevin McHale (Artie), Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina), Mark Salling (Puck), Dianna Agron (Quinn), Naya Rivera (Santana), Heather Morris (Brittany), Harry Shum, Jr. (Mike), and Dijon Talton (Matt). And a third CD from the cast, this time featuring the music of Madonna, will be released on April 20, the same day the show’s Madonna-inspired episode is scheduled for telecast. And before you ask: The series’ second season starts Tuesday April 13 on Global.

NO BIZ LIKE SHOW BIZ: Prolific TV producer Laszlo Barna (The Bridge) tells Academy of Canadian Cinema breakfast club attendees what it takes to get a Canadian

BIEBER: T.O.-bound

production on a U.S. network this morning at the Academy’s T.O. office  …  teen sensation Justin Bieber is set to rock the ACC on Aug. 21. Will he arrive driving those new wheels Usher bought him for his birthday? … Broadway lion Victor Garber guests with Allan Hawco on Republic Of Doyle tonight on CBC …and ya gotta love music mogul David Geffen‘s off-the-cuff remarks when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last week in New York. “I had no musical talent, but after working in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency I knew how to bullshit, and that’s how I got to handle Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Cher and all the others.”  Whatta charmer!

A DRAGON IN THE DESERT: “I’m in a place some call the ‘Sandbox.’ It’s Dirty. Dusty. Dangerous. Bomb infested. My mission is to boost morale but I am the one who is walking away inspired. I won’t be able to think the same about my life ever again. This trip is having a profound effect on me.”

The speaker? Dragons’ Den diva Arlene Dickinson, tweeting from Afghanistan.

REYNOLDS: light touch

FLICKERS: Crowd-pleaser Paul Giamatti will co-star with Amy Ryan in Tom McCarthy’s Win-Win … Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman, both masters of the light touch, will co-star in Universal’s body-switching comedy The Change-Up … … John Malkovich will reportedly start shooting Transformers 3 with Frances McDormand (now that’s off-the-wall casting!) before winging to T.O. for his Luminato gig in June …the latest film by Donna & Daniel Zuckerbrot, My Nuclear Neighbour, is now a Yorkton filmfest nominee. Neighbour premiered last month on CBC’s The Nature of Things … and the April 10 premiere of Maria Del Mar’s new flick, A Touch Of Grey, at the 10^th annual ReelWorld filmfest is reportedly all sold out.

COTILLARD: closet comedienne?

SEE/HEAR: Young French import Marion Cotillard, seems to bring a special elegance to all her work, from her Oscar-winning turn as tortured chanteuse Edith Piaf to her portrait of Daniel Day Lewis’ betrayed wife in Nine. So what you are about to see is, I promise, a complete departure from the Marion we’ve seen on screen so far, but perhaps an indication of the secret Cotillard that lies within. It’s a fabulously funny send-up of so many commercials we’ve suffered through, and it comes, yet again, from Will Ferrell’s fertile Funny Or Die comedy site.  Click here, and enjoy!

TOMORROW:

Margaret Atwood, Shia Lebeouf, Jann Arden, Roger Ebert and more.

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Mamma Mia! There they go again! My, my, how can we resist them?

FLICKERS: Ridiculously rich Mamma Mia film producer Judy Craymer is hoping to persuade Benny Andersson and his musical sidekick Bjorn

SEYFRIED & STREEP: bella Donnas?

Ulvaeus to lend their irresistible ABBA tunes to a prequel, with a brand new young cast. Will Amanda Seyfried get to play the young Meryl Streep, who played her mother Donna in MM? Stay tuned … Deidre Kelly’s new book, Paris Times Eight, already sounds like a movie. Kelly first arrived in Paris, the city of her dreams, “as a starry-eyed ingénue.” In some of her subsequent visits she returns as a budding writer who interviews Rudolf Nureyev and crashes an

KELLY: Paris, je t'aime (photo: Bryan L. Davies)

exclusive fashion show, and as an emotional daughter who takes her mother to Paris to meet her “other mother;” until finally she returns to Paris as a mother herself. Sounds like a least three great roles for women, n’est-ce pas? … and yes, it’s true, shooting is already underway in Shanghai for the Chinese version of Disney‘s megahit High School Musical. How did Disney get the green light from China? Well, for one thing, the Chinese version is set at a university, “since Chinese high school students are so focused on academics that they would not have time to devote to singing and dancing.” Okay, got it.

QUOTABLE QUOTES: “I’ve no interest in playing oldies anymore. No, no, no. Far more fitting for the next stage in my career to play a slut.”

DENCH: Nothing like a Dame.

The speaker? Dame Judi Dench, now 74 but never at a loss for words. Currently starring in the about-to-be blockbuster movie musical Nine, Dame Judi’s next gig will bring her back to the boards, as Titania, the queen of the fairies in a new Midsummer Night’s Dream in Kingston, England. She first performed the role of Titania as a schoolgirl some 56 years ago, and is thrilled to be able to take another crack at it. “Of course,” she adds, “one is lucky to be acting at all. I’m happy when I have a job – any job. One is always afraid of having no work.”

Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein said it best. There really is nothing like a Dame.

21 AGAIN: It came and went 10 days ago, November 21 2009 was not just another Saturday night for Veronica Tennant. The prima ballerina who reinvented herself as a prima television producer was in three different cities that

TENNANT: November is the Coolest month

night. She was in Toronto attending the National Ballet of Canada’s performance of The Sleeping Beauty — the ballet she premiered more than 35 (!!!) years ago with Rudolf Nureyev as her prince — in tribute to Canada’s National Ballet School’s 50th Anniversary Assemble Internationale. But she was also in Edmonton, on film, as Honourary Chair of the Shumka Ballet, welcoming guests to Shumka’s Red Boots, Ballet and Bubbly Gala. And she was also in Cuba, where her much-lauded dance film, Vida y Danza, Cuba, was being screened at the 18th Anniversary celebration of Lizt Alfonso’s Dance Cuba.

JACKSON: new role

“November 21 has always been a significant day for me,” admits Tennant with a shy smile. I’ll say! Her Gala farewell performance with the National Ballet of Canada, A Passion for Dance: Celebrating the Tennant Magic, took place on November 21, 1989. And ten years later, to the day, she won her first International Emmy award as a television producer, for Karen Kain; Dancing in the Moment, on November 21, 1999.

Safety in numbers, you say? Sounds more like magic to me.

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Slaight Communications chief Gary Slaight will be lauded for his longstanding commitment to charitable initiatives

GABEREAU: hosting for Mercer

as the recipient of the Humanitarian Spirit Award. at the Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Awards on March 11 at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, during Canadian Music Week … rising marquee bait Joshua Jackson has won the lead in a feature adaptation of British TV series UFO … Robin Mirsky, executive director of Rogers Group of Funds, has succeeded CFTPA prez Norm Bolen as co-chair of Hot Docs board of directors with Michael McMahon. New board members include marketing maven Robert Pattillo, Cobalt Pharmaceuticals chairman Neil Tabatznik and filmmakers Lalita Krishna, Julia Ivanova and Danijel Margetic … and Vicki Gabereau will host when Rick Mercer entertains the multitudes in Vancouver at a gala fund-raising evening June 10 for the Kay Meek Centre.

Special P.S. to Rick Mercer Report aficionados: Mercer’s final 2009 outing airs tonight at 8 pm on CBC-TV.

TOMORROW:

Roger gets ready for Toronto, and

Liz gives some advice to some dazzling Glamour girls.

Glee girl Lea Michele goes on record, Fergie makes a movie, and Camilla Scott plays a Scarlett woman

DEFYING GRAVITY: Currently thrilling all “Gleeks” (as fans of the hit FOX-TV show are called: The new Sony CD, Glee: The Music, Volume 1. Series star

MICHELE: powerhouse

Matthew Morrison (aka Mr Schu) and Wicked alumnus Kristin Chenoweth deliver a powerhouse performance of Heart’s Alone. Spring Awakening star Lea Michele duets with Chenoweth on a dynamic version of Kander & Ebb’s Maybe This Time, pairs with series co-star Chris Colfer on a soaring version of Stephen Schwartz’s Defying Gravity, and joins co-star Cory Monteith on lead vocals for Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’. Music lovers and Broadway show tune aficionados characterize this first Glee CD as “delectably youthful” and “electrifyingly fresh” — and who are we to argue? And here’s another one to add to your Christmas list. The all-star soundtrack for Rob

FERGIE: one of Nine

Marshall’s screen version of the Broadway hit Nine will be released digitally December 15 and available for purchase in stores on December 22, three days before the film opens here. Bonus material on the disc includes a new version of Quando Quando Quando, performed by Fergie, who also sings one of the show’s big hits, Be Italian. Other so-far unlikely warblers include a clutch of Oscar winners who star in the movie — Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard and Judi Dench, who gets to deliver the Follies Bergere showstopper. Can’t wait.

THE SHADOW OF HER STYLE: Supertalent Camilla  Scott always delivers the goods, in big stage musicals like Crazy For You, Mamma Mia and We Will Rock You, on U.S. soaps like Days Of Our Lives and The Guiding Light and

SCOTT: Larry's lady?

in intense TV dramas like Law And Order and This Is Wonderland. Now she’s playing another sublimely talented dame – the late, great Vivien Leigh – in Austin Pendleton’s wry behind-the-scenes comedy Orson’s Shadow. Set in 1960, it’s Pendleton’s version of what really happened when legendary London critic Kenneth Tynan brings Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier together to collaborate on the English language premiere of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. Olivier, deep in the throes of his affair with his young co-star Joan Plowright, is not yet separated from the mercurial, iconic and fatally unstable Ms Leigh, which makes backstage rehearsals very, very interesting. After previews start tomorrow, Orson’s Shadow opens next week at Theatre Passe Muraille, with Christopher Stanton as Kenneth Tynan, Paul Eves as Olivier, Janet Porter as Joan Plowright, and Steve Ross as Orson Welles. To order tickets, click here.

DICKINSON: dog show?

DRAGONS’ DEN GOES TO THE DOGS: Woofstock creator Marlene Cook, the brainy entrepreneur whose annual summer salute to Man’s Best Friend drew 300,000 participants to downtown T.O. this year, pitches the Dragons tonight with five look-alike dogs — one for each dragon. Would you be surprised to learn that Ms Cook matched Kevin O’Leary to an English bull terrier?  Probably not. But apparently finding an apricot poodle with a coat that was just the right shade of red to represent Arlene Dickinson was a far greater challenge. To catch all the Dragons and their canine cut-ups, tune in CBC-TV tonight at 8 pm.

TOMORROW:

Julia Roberts, The Frantics, and more Dragons!

Emails, we get emails, we get lots & lots of emails

Dear B.G.:

Has Glenda Jackson returned to the screen? The last I heard she had retired to work full time as the Labour Member of Parliament  for the constituency of  Hampstead and Highgate in the London. But I recently caught a glimpse of her, or at least I think it was her, in a movie trailer with Daniel Day Lewis. What is the movie? And why haven’t I read about her comeback? –– Curious in Kelowna

Dear C.I.K.:

Ms Jackson is still lobbying for her British constituents and as far as I know has no immediate plans to return to the screen. The actress with the striking Touch

NINE: It's Judi, not Glenda

 

Of Class bob in that movie trailer is the inimitable Dame Judi Dench, who may be channeling Glenda, for all we know. And you’re right, it is Daniel Day Lewis. The movie is directort Rob (Chicago) Marshall’s screen version of the Broadway musical Nine, which of course was the stage version of Federico Fellini’s 8½. So Day Lewis is playing a role originated on screen by Marcello Mastroianni and on stage by Raul Julia (and most recently Antonio Banderas.) And in the movie the key women in his life are played by Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson and Ms. Dench. Anticipated as a spectacular gift to fans of movie musicals, Nine is scheduled to open here on Christmas Day.

Dear B.G.:

Is it true that Michael Ondaatje’s latest novel Divisadero is being made into a movie? And if so when will it open? — Ondaatje disciple Benjamin K.

Dear B.K.:

I won’t be surprised if Divisadero eventually reaches the big screen.  In the meantime, the Necessary Angel theatre company, director Daniel Brooks and

BALABAN: next weekend

the author himself are rethinking his novel as a play, with a view to a 2010/2011 opening with subsequent touring. Title of the stage production is When My Name Was Anna, and you don’t have to wait to 2010 to sample it. Next weekend Liane Balaban, Maggie Huculak, Tom McCamus and Amy Rutherford are set to appear in three work-in-progress presentations of When My Name Was Anna, directed by Brooks, at Theatre Passe Muraille’s Mainspace. For more information, click here.

Dear B.G.:

I saw a Broadway musical a few years ago called 10 Million Miles. It didn’t last very long, and we didn’t keep the Playbill, but I’m sure

10 MILLION MILES: guess who?

 

the male lead was Justin Timberlake. My wife saw your blog about Glee and says the male lead was the guy who plays the teacher, Matthew Morrison. Can you settle this domestic dispute? –– Hoping I’m Right

Dear H.I.R.,

Sorry, you lose. 10 Million Miles is one of several Broadway shows, including Hairspray and South Pacific, in which Matthew Morrison appeared. But he did have a Timberlake look about him in that show, so don’t beat yourself up too badly. Morrison, who is also a rapper and a beat box hoofer, loves performing on stage for a live audience. But he’s equally passionate about Glee, and with good reason. “More people saw the pilot of Glee,” he notes, “than saw me in the entire ten years I was on Broadway.”

Dear B.G.:

Did I miss the Gemini Awards? I read somewhere that Geminis were handed out in Toronto this month, but I was sure that this year’s show was supposed to be in Calgary. What happened? — proud Canadian TV addict

Dear P.C.T.A.:

Yeah, it does get confusing at times. Fear not, you haven’t missed the boat – or the show, for that matter.  The 24th Annual Gemini Awards Broadcast Gala is just two weeks away, and will be broadcast live on Global and Showcase at 9pm

MONTEITH: Calgary-bound

ET/PT Saturday November 14 from the BMO Centre in Calgary. Presenters flying in to Alberta for the show include Hugh Dillon (Flashpoint,) Erin Karpluk (Being Erica,) Jessica Lucas (Melrose Place,) Amber Marshall & Graham Wardle (Heartland,) Mark McKinney (Less Than Kind,) Cory Monteith (Glee,) George Stroumboulopoulos and Rick Mercer. Host for the evening is Ron James, who BTW has two Gemini alumnus on his show tonight: Eric Peterson (Corner Gas) and Deb McGrath (Little House On The Prairie.) So don’t forget to set your PVR.

Have a great weekend!

-/-

Jane kicks up her heels again, Mike gets his own tribute and Ms Atwood goes back to Year One

BROADWAY BABIES: 30 Rock scene-stealer Jane Krakowski, who made her name in the Broadway musical Grand Hotel and won a Tony for dazzling

KRAKOWSKI: song & dance

Antonio Banderas in Nine, is finally getting back to full-time singing and dancing, if only temporarily. Due to her shooting schedule her cheeky tongue-in cheek cabaret act at Feinstein’s, Jane Krakowski Has Sold Out…Tickets Available, must close tomorrow night at Loew’s Regency … Laurie Metcalf, who picked up three Emmys playing Roseanne‘s sister on Roseanne, is back on Broadway starring as the mother in the first full-scale revival of Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs. She’ll continue to reprise her role in Broadway Bound, the second play in Simon’s autobiographical comedy, when both shows play in rep at the Nederlander. Brighton Beach Memoirs opens Oct. 25; Broadway Bound begins previews Nov. 18 and opens Dec. 10 … and Academy

METCALF: Broadway bound

and Tony Award winner Mike Nichols will be honored with the American Film Institute’s 38th annual Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. “I’m surprised and pleased,” dead-panned the impish director of such films as Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf and Angels In America. “I was watching The Graduate on my Blackberry last week and it really holds up!”

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Why do we watch movies on planes that we wouldn’t watch anywhere else? Margaret Atwood tweets that she disgraced herself by watching Year One, the sophomoric comedy spoof with Jack Black and Michael Cera, on her way to the Frankfurt Book Fair. Guess she consoled herself with news that her Year Of The Flood was

McGOWAN: Julie's ex on The Border

#8 on the New York Times bestseller list by the time she landed in Germany … Doug Coupland thinks Ed O’Neill’s new show Modern Family “is just pure genius. It’s sooooo well written.” A technology geek, Coupland finds delightful and absurdly obscure video clips and posts them on Twitter – for example, this gem with Mr. T, Loni Anderson, George Hamilton and Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton in the same Lipton commercial. Coupland, whose new book Generation A is due in book stores, reports he lost his cell phone a few weeks ago, but instead of hyperventilating he’s discovered that he simply doesn’t think about it any more. “Didn’t expect that to happen!” Me neither … and Darryl’s Hard Liquor and Porn Film Festival returns to Toronto tomorrow night for one night only at

O'NEILL: new series

the Bloor Cinema with its 10th annual show featuring funny short films about sex from Canada and around the globe.

EXES & OOOHS: Yesterday I told you that Julie Stewart, currently on stage at the Factory Theatre in Brad Fraser’srave-winning new comedy True Love Lies, also plays Graham Abbey’s ex onThe Border.

Wrong! Julie plays James McGowan’s ex on The Border. And yes, I really can tell those two guys apart. (sigh)

Oh well. Happens in the best of families.

KUTCHER: start 'er up

YA GOTTA HAVE A GIMMICK: Thanks to Ashton Kutcher for sending me (and maybe a million others) news of that new iPhone app that lets you start your car from your phone. I would start saving up for it but I’m saving up for a new TV set instead. No, not HD – 3D. Yup, Panasonic unveiled its prototype 50-inch Viera plasma 3-D set in Tokyo this week. Apparently it’s a wow. The technology works by rapidly alternating between left and right frames of the video. Viewers wear glasses that sync with the television over an infrared signal. The right frame is seen only with the right eye and the left frame with the left eye, creating the illusion of depth.

So all they have to do now is persuade producers to make reality TV shows in 3-D, and we’ll have even more reasons to go back to the movies.

Have a great weekend!

-/-