A doc for mrs kutcher, a French film for Fonda, a hip new handle for Jann, and a loving look at Don & his Rose

AMERICAN TWEETHEARTS: Still-sultry screen siren Demi Moore – aka mrskutcher to her 2.6 million daily followers — admits that her obsession with Twitter, so very shared with hubby Ashton Kutcher (aka aplusk, with 4.6 million followers of his own,) does have

ARDEN: name change?

an effect of their daily lives. “”I don’t think he ever says anything to me that is more than 140 characters long!” quips Demi. Mrs. Kutcher and her talented fun-loving hubby will be the subject of a new documentary focusing on their adventures in Twitterland … more than likely inspired by the success of James Lipton’s Inside The Actors Studio, HBO is getting into the Star Turn business with Masterclass, anine-episode documentary series set to premieres on Sunday April 18. Artists set to tell Almost All include Edward Albee, Bill T. Jones, Liv Ullmann, Jacques D’Amboise, Placido Domingo and Frank Gehry … Jann Arden tweets that she’s considering a name change. At the moment she’s favouring Diddy Ja Ja … and now that Sandra Bullock has joined the list of award-winning females whose marriages fell apart shortly after their big moment at the Academy Awards, my hero Liz Smith has some solid advice for future winners. “When actresses go up to accept awards,” sez Liz, “they should just thank themselves!”

FONDA: blingual

STILL FABULOUS, STILL FONDA: Enduring screen lioness Jane Fonda is prepping to shoot a French film in Paris in June – “my first film in French in almost 50 years!!” Fonda describes it as  “a tender, humorous, charming story about two couples and another dear friend with whom the two women had once been lovers who, because of the financial and physical challenges of age, decide to all move in together. (As many seniors are doing these days) A young sociologist who is doing research on the lives of older people is invited to live with them as well.” She admits she was startled when she met the film’s writer-director Stéphane Robelin and producer Christophe Bruincher. “I was startled by how young they both are! Stéphane is 39 and Christophe is 35. Just about the age of my children.” But she was thrilled to finally meet co-star Geraldine Chaplin. “I have always wanted to meet

BRUHL: when in France ...

her. I was on stage with her father the night he made his triumphant return to Hollywood to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars—the same night I won mine for Klute.” In the film Fonda plays an American who has lived all her life in France and is a Professor of Philosophy at the Sorbonne. German star Daniel Bruhl, so terrific as the young propaganda hero in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, plays the young researcher who moves in with the seniors and bonds with Fonda’s character. Bruhl’s personal presence, Fonda reports, is “sweet, attentive and soulful. Perfect for the role.” And she won’t be surprised if her first husband, legendary director Roger Vadim, is a frequent visitor to the set. She’s expecting to see lots of him.

CHERRY: true Blue

YOU THINK YOU KNOW A GUY, BUT — : Must admit I’d never heard of actor Jared Keeso before last night’s premiere of Keep Your Head Up, Kid on CBC. but I’m a fan now. His work in Part One of the two-part Don Cherry screen bio is absolutely stellar — tough, endearing and funny. Sarah Manninem is spectacularly good as Rose, the soft-spoken iron butterfly he woos and weds, and in last night’s opener Stephen McHattie gave us an eccentric, truly memorable portrayal of Eddie Shore. Written by Don’s son Tim Cherry and deftly directed by Jeff Woolnough, this is one wildly entertaining Movie Of The Week, so elegantly produced that you can enjoy it even if you’re not a hockey fan. Cherry himself  said he planned to watch the screen story of his life last night “with commercials and all, just like everybody else,” with his faithful pooch Blue by his side. I can only hope he and Blue enjoyed it half as much as I did. And yes, I’ll be glued to my set tonight when CBC  premieres Part Two tonight at 8 pm.

TOMORROW:

Take the K-Train

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About Kylie & Barbara & Barbra & Stompin’ Tom

   NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE:  Fresh from her acclaimed Manhattan run at Feinstein’s cabaret, late-blooming Broadway legend Barbara Cook re-

CONNORS: still stompin'

unites with the New York Philharmonic for one night only on Saturday May 30 … following in the footsteps of Rick Mercer, John Cleese, Bob Newhart, Steve Smith and Tracy Ullman, grown-up Kid In  The Hall Mark McKinney will receive the CTV-sponsored Peter Ustinov Award at the Banff International Television Festival next month … pack up your pick-up trucks. The indefatigable Stompin’ Tom Connors is set to serenade high-rollers at Casino Rama on August 22 … pop superstar Kylie Minogue will finally make her North American debut with a six-city tour which includes the Hollywood Bowl in L.A. (October 4) and the ACC in Toronto (October 9) … young Canuck filmmaker Stephen Dunn reports that this week’s Cannes screening of his award-winning short film The Hall went extremely well. “The audience was packed and extremely lively. It had the exact same reaction in Cannes as it did in Toronto, so obviously the humour translated overseas. We are all very proud of the success of the film!” …   and why Will Ferrell keeps remaking TV series into movies is beyond me, not to mention anyone else who suffered through Bewitched – but he’ll try it again on June 5, the official opening date for his comedy (fingers crossed) remake of Land Of The Lost. To catch a sneak preview, click here.

So glad you got it.

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BETTER THAN BEING THERE: Okay, the jury’s in — Roger Ebert‘s daily journals from Cannes are the best that ever were, sometimes breath-takingly brilliant, almost always riotously entertaining. Add his ability to add his own Shaky Cam coverage — wait ’til you see Mike Myers tell Maclean’s film maven Brian D. Johnson he’s very “honoured with a U ” to be in Quentin Tarantino’s new film with Brad Pitt — and the result is Don’t-Miss daily reading. And as Computerworld magazine noted not so long ago, “The comments from readers are about the best you will see on a blog.” I’ll say. To put him on your Must list right now, just click here.

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EVERYTHING’S COMING UP ROSE: New audiences are discovering her as cub-lawyer Ellen Parsons on Damages with Glenn Close, but do they know she’s part of the current Australian invasion taking over Hollywood?

BYRNE: Australian

Yup, Rose Byrne is an Aussie, the youngest daughter of a statistician and a grammar school administrator. So how come she and Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman are so darn fluent in American?

“There’s really no great secret to it,” Byrne tells Sharp magazine’s Dylan Young. “It’s just that we have a distinct advantage over Americans actors—we grow up watching their films and television shows. Let’s face it, for every thousand hours of American content that we watch, Americans probably watch one or two that come from Australia or Britain. We’re bound to find it a bit easier.”

Byrne, who also co-starred with Nicolas Cage in Knowing, appreciates the value of making a great entrance. “Damages basically began with my character running down the street half-naked and covered in her fiancé’s blood. And that’s not the worst thing she ends up having to deal with.”

For more of the Sharp interview with Ms Byrne, click here.

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DAISY, DAISY, GIVE ME YOUR ANSWER, DO: (But gimme the correct one this time.) Yesterday I reminisced about H.A.L., the too-human computer in  Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and mentioned that H.A.L. had been voiced by Douglas Campbell.

Wrong. The voice of H.A.L. was, of course, the golden-throated Douglas Rain.

My bad. Sorry. But it’s great to have such diligent readers. Thanks!

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QUOTABLE QUOTES: “Reality shows? My thrill is Dancing With the Stars. I love it. But if I had to compete in an event, it would probably be eating. I could pretty much whup anyone’s ass there.”

BERGEN: bullied

The speaker? Candice Bergen, who also says she was bullied — and not by Charlie McCarthy, her notorious ‘sibling,’ but by all sorts of bullues, all her life.

“Oy, have I been bullied. I must have a sign tattooed on my forehead: ‘This one’s a pushover.’ Bullied by men. Women. But in the distant past. And yet, how well I remember … the distinct “I’m shrinking!” feeling. Turning to sludge. It seems to be something most people grow out of but I am a devout shirker of confrontation. No spine.

“That’s one of the reasons I loved playing Murphy Brown. She was fearless and it sort of wore off on me.”

I’ll say.

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WHICH TUNE HAS THE TONY? That would be singer-dancer-choreographer-director Tommy Tune, who owns nine (9) of em! … Oscar,

STREISAND: sales champ

Emmy and Tony owner Barbra Streisand’s new DVD package, Streisand: The Concerts, has scored the No. 1 spot on both the UK and USA charts. In America, the set has had the highest sales for any music DVD so far this year … Jane Fonda’s caricature is finally part of Sardi’s famous theater restaurant and it’s taken only 46 years for her to get there. Before her current Tony nomination for 33 Variations, she made her Broadway debut in the ‘60s … and speaking of the Tonys, honorary Tony recipients this year, for their contributions to excellence in theatre, include composer Jerry Herman and writer/actress/producer Phyllis Newman.

Joanne Woodward, Robert Redford & Julia Roberts will make Monday June 8 a night to remember

On Monday June 8, the night after Neil Patrick Harris hosts the Tony Awards, Broadway will have a second starry night, for a spectacularly good reason. Joanne Woodward, Robert Redford & Julia Roberts will co-host

REDFORD: Paul pal

a fundraiser Celebration of Paul Newman’s Hole-In-The-Wall Camps with performances by Joshua Bell, Harry Connick, Jr., Art Garfunkel, Yo-Yo Ma, Jerry Seinfeld, Take 6 and James Taylor. Tickets begin at $50 and are available through Center Charge, 212-721-6500 or www.lincolncenter.org. Benefit tickets including an after-party begin at $1,500 and are available for purchase through the Benefit Office, 212-627-0678. The evening will benefit the Association of Hole in the Wall Camps – the world’s largest family of camps for children with serious and life-threatening medical illnesses. The camps were Paul Newman’s dream and this event will celebrate his legacy.

To which we say, Bravo!

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NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Mentalist star Simon Baker is set to co-star with Casey Affleck in the thriller The Killer Inside Me … dynamic

PARKER: prescient

Weeds heroine Mary-Louise Parker is still smarting over her nude bathtub scene from last year’s finale. “I didn’t think I needed to be naked, and I fought with the director about it, and now I’m bitter,” she tells More magazine in its June issue. “I knew it was going to be on the Internet: ‘Mary Louise shows off her big nipples.’ I wish I hadn’t done that. I was goaded into it.” So are we surprised that “Mary Louise shows off her big nipples” is currently among the Most Viewed clips on Google Trends? … and ‘gorgeous’ Kerry Connelly opens a two-night stand tonight at the Jane Mallett Theatre, bringing some of her favourite repertoire by Stephen Sondheim, Georges Bizet, Steven Schwartz and more. For a soupcon of Kerry in action just click here.

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SANDLER: reunion

 

FLICKERS: Chalk up a first leading role in a feature film for Christina Aguilera. She’ll play “an ambitious small-town girl with a big voice who tries to escape a hollow past” in Steven Antin’s Burlesque …  Ray Stevenson has the title role in the forthcoming crime drama The Irishman … Adam Sandler‘s new comedy, The Lake House, is not, repeat, NOT a remake of the Sandra Bullock-Keanu Reeves melodrama. In this one Sandler plays one of a bunch of guys (Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, David Spade) who get together for a reunion at a summer cottage … and Robert De Niro will play parole officer to Edward Norton’s arsonist in John Curran’s Stone.

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BUT WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO IS DIRECT: Currently launching Inglourious Basterds in Cannes, Quentin Tarantino is reportedly plotting

AGUILERA: leading lady

 

a new film called Weekend, to be filmed in Serbia (!?!) with Sharon Stone, Jessica Biel, Lucy Liu, Dennis Hopper and Michael Madsen … remember H.A.L., the wondrous computer magically voiced by Douglas Campbell in Stanley Kubrick’s masterwork 2001: A Space Odyssey?  Now Kevin Spacey is following in his voiceprints, playing Sam Rockwell’s robot companion in Moon, a new sci-fi thriller spine-tingler penned by two famous sons – Nathan Parker, son of filmmaker Alan Parker, and Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie. Duncan, formerly known as Zowie, also directs … and as we near the 40th anniversary of the murder of actress Sharon Tate and four others at the hands of Manson family cult members, Oliver Stone is in talks with Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecuting attorney on the Manson case, to bring his creepy classic  Helter Skelter to the big screen.

Hope not. Four decades later, it’s still too fresh for some of us.