Tag Archives: Phaedre

Mr. Sheen takes a bite out of New Moon, Mr. Brooks turns 2000 again & Mr. Mercer goes to the rodeo

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Good news for Mel Brooks fans — his Grammy-winning comedy collaborations with Carl Reiner, The 2000 Year Old

MIRREN: seeing Red

Man, have been remastered and repackaged for a 50th anniversary four-disc reissue (three CDs and one DVD), The 2000 Year Old Man: The Complete History, due in stores this week. Not only that, Toronto audiences well finally get to see Mel’s Broadway musical version of Young Frankenstein, now slated to play March 16 – April 18 at the Princess Of Wales … Helen Mirren is set to co-star with Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman in a new thriller, Red, after she brings the National Theatre production of Phedre to Broadway with Dominic Cooper, the Mamma Mia boy toy currently on view with new scene-stealer Carey Mulligan in the hit TIFF star-maker An

MERCER: Rodeo daze

Education … 40-year CHUM radio veteran Roger Ashby will be inducted into the Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Hall of Fame at a Canadian Music Week dinner March 11 at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel … and talk about yer urbane cowboy! Rick Mercer goes a-ridin’ and a-ropin’ at the Edmonton Rodeo tonight, and actually lives to tell the tale, on CBC’s Rick Mercer Report at 8 pm.

FANGS FOR THE MEMORIES: He became David Frost in Frost/Nixon, shone as Tony Blair in The Queen, and plays legendary maverick U.K. rugby coach Brian Clough in The Damned United. So what does Michael Sheen have to do with that mess of a man pictured beside him? Yup – that’s

SHEEN: he sucks, but only in THIS movie

him. Sheen plays the vampire leader Aro in last weekend’s top boxoffice sizzler, The Twilight Saga: New Moon. And he makes no bones about why he took the role. “I knew it would make my 10-year-old daughter, Lily, very happy,” he confesses. And it has. “She’s got pictures from Twilight and New Moon everywhere in her bedroom,” he notes. “And now, she’s put her dad up there as well.” Just wait ‘til she sees him as The White Rabbit in Tim Burton’s bound-to-be-peculiar re-telling of Alice In Wonderland.

MAY IN NOVEMBER: Toronto Western Hospital’s Fracture Clinic and Medical Imaging Waiting Room is a happier place this morning after renowned

KARP: a gift to last

Toronto photo artist May Karp gifted 22 pieces to TWH. Karp’s uplifting photography is already on view in a number of Canada’s larger hospitals. In 2004 she donated 27 framed images for Toronto General’s new Surgical Centre waiting room, adding warmth and a new visual focus for the families of surgery patients. After seeing the impact of her photography in the Surgical Centre, Tennys Hanson, President and CEO of Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation, asked her to consider a similar project for Toronto Western Hospital. “Hospital waiting rooms are for patients, sometimes for their relatives or friends,” Karp notes. “Most visitors are frightened and anxious. Time passes very slowly as they wait for results or treatment. One can almost ‘taste’ the emotions. Over 20 years ago I spent a lot of time in rooms like this. I experienced all the emotions many times since then.” Which is why her colourful, eye-catching and blissfully distracting works are brightening TWH this morning.

TOMORROW:

Glee & Nine go on the record.

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Ms Taylor comes out to play, Ms Mirren comes to town (almost!) and Mr Mochrie goes to the dogs

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Wheelchair-bound but mobile again, Elizabeth Taylor made her first public appearance in months at Andrea Bocelli’s concert at the Hollywood Bowl. “My mind, my soul were transported

LAW: pajama Dane

LAW: pajama Dane

by his beauty, his voice, his inner being,” she reports. “God has kissed this man and I thank God for it.” Yeah, she likes him … funnyman John Wing says he was the sixth most famous person on the plane to Los Angeles Monday. Howcum? “The Tragically Hip were on the same flight!” … add director Guy Maddin to the growing list of fans hopelessly smitten by Roger Ebert’s Journals. (And yes, Ebert really does elicit the warmest, brightest, smartest, most literate responses from his devoted readers, including Winnipeg wunderkind Guy … Jude Law is breathing easier these days now that his Hamlet was well received by U.K. critics. Law himself acknowledged that playing the melancholy Dane is “a bit like a great song that’s been covered by a load of different singers.” But at least he’s comfortable on stage. In the London production he’s clad in pajama-like costumes for most of the play … and shhhh, it’s a secret, but Patricia Clarkson wants to play now-92 year-old Phyllis Diller in the still-being-scripted biopic of the legendary comedienne.

DILLER: before ...

DILLER: before ...

CLARKSON: ... and after

CLARKSON: ... and after??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A TAIL OF TWO CITIES: In Montreal they close Ste Catherine street for the jazz festival and shut down Rue St Denis for the comedy festival. In Toronto we

MOCHRIE: going to the dogs

MOCHRIE: going to the dogs

close Front Street from Jarvis to Yonge for Woofstock, the annual doggie love-in set for the St. Lawrence Market Neighborhood this weekend. New features this year include a Saturday night Yappy Hour at which Wooftinis will be served. Seriously. (Oh c’mon, even I couldn’t make that up!) Headliners participating in Main Stage contests include Mark Breslin, Geri Hall, Colin Mochrie and Nikki Payne, and don’t be surprised to find a lot of four-legged friends on the TTC on Saturday and Sunday. Last year more than 150,000 dog lovers and their canine companions showed up from all over North America.

QUOTABLE QUOTES: “I don’t just sit around and wait for the phone to ring because, you know, I had to write my own script in the first place because I don’t look like Nicole Kidman. And the fact is I still don’t. So I don’t get offered fun, interesting roles. So I’m not going to whine about it; I just sit in my office and I write them.”

The speaker?  Comedy confection Nia Vardalos, currently winning new fans in her romantic comedy romp My Life In Ruins.

 OUR TOWN:  Yearning to be in London’s West End to see Jude Law‘s Hamlet and Helen Mirren‘s Phaedre? Lucky moviegoers will see Mirren ‘live’ on stage at The National Theatre, when Cineplex telecasts the play at key theatres across

MIRREN: On screen from stage

MIRREN: On screen from stage

 the country on June 25 … Driftwood Theatre launches its 15th season in Toronto at Todmorden Mills on July 11 & 12. The theatre company is taking two of Shakespeare’s plays on the road — King Lear and The Comedy of Errors — and will roll through 27 locations in Ontario with its Bard’s Bus Tour through to August 23. Stops include outdoor locations in Bloomfield, Cobourg, Dundas, Durham, Kingston, Marmora, Mississauga, Peterborough and more, and all shows are pay-what-you-can … add Sonia Rodriguez to the star power already

RODRIGUEZ: White heat

RODRIGUEZ: White heat

assembled for Karen Kain’s sizzling White Hot Gala, the National Ballet of Canada’s fourth annual fundraising event next week at the Four Seasons Centre. Sultry high-stepper Rodriguez will partner with Piotr Stanczyk in a Garbo-esque pas de deux from the company premiere of Val Caniparoli’s Lady of the Camellias … … and Art On The Move will launch June 22 in the Distillery District. Mayor David Miller will personally welcome the first three art-wrapped vehicles of the project onto city streets. Art On The Move is a three-year community arts initiative that will ultimately turn 15 selected vehicles into moving canvasses of art.

NET WORTH: Two major Canadian newsmakers, Rick Mercer and former MP Belinda Stronach, received honorary degrees from Brock University

MERCER: he's Dr. Rick now

DR. MERCER: class of 2009

yesterday.  Mercer and Stronach were honoured as the co-founders of the Spread the Net fundraising campaign. “I must — from the bottom of my heart — thank the students here at Brock for contributing over 5,500 bed nets for Spread the Net,” Stronach told the crowd. “It’s a great legacy for you to leave behind.” Mercer described a life-changing visit to Africa he and Stronach took to learn about the malaria problem. “I told Belinda, ‘I’m not going to come back from Africa as one of those guys on TV who won’t shut up about Africa.’ Now every time I turn around, I’m on TV telling people to Spread the Net.”

Mercer told reporters that he’s also the proud owner of an honorary high school diploma from a Nova Scotia school for students with learning disabilities — and now he has a doctorate of laws from Brock. “I don’t know if it comes with a prescription pad or not, but I’m going to frame it, hang it on the wall and offer legal advice to my friends.” 

And just before he and his Net partner Stronach left the stage, they imparted a few words of wisdom to the assembled graduating class.

Mercer said that in the meantime, he’s acquired an honorary high school diploma from a Nova Scotia school for students with learning disabilities.
“And from there, I’ve gone to a doctorate of laws,” he said.
“I don’t know if it comes with a prescription pad or not,” he added. “But I’m going to frame it, hang it on the wall and offer legal advice to my friends.” 

Said Mercer: “As you go through life, leave the world a better place for having been here.”

Dead-panned Stronach: “Never order food in a strip club.”

These two should definitely go on the road together.

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