Julia gets Javier, Joan gets a rich idea, Anna gets to play house, & U.S. viewers finally get to see US!

 

BARDEM: with Julia?

 

FLICKERS: Oscar winner Javier Bardem will join Oscar winner Julia Roberts and recent Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins in Ryan Murphy’s big-screen adaptation of the bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love.  According to my sometimes reliable sources, Bardem will play Felipe, “the exotic, deeply spiritual foreigner Roberts falls in love with towards the end of her journey, who rocks her world by introducing her to the wonders of the multiple-orgasm and expensive Spanish goat’s milk cheeses.” Well okay then! … Ed Zwick hopes to reunite Brokeback Mountain lovers Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway this fall in Love and Other Drugs, based on the nonfiction book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman (no, I’m not making this up) …  she’s

GYLLENHAAL: with Anne?

still working on a final cut, but word is out that Oscar winner Brigitte Berman has done it again with her new candid study of Playboy personified Hugh Hefner … Neil Patrick Harris, so good at holding the Tony Awards together last Sunday, will star in The Best And The Brightest, an indie about New York’s cutthroat world of private kindergarten … in Paul Bettany’s next film, a horror western called Priest, he’ll play a warrior priest who turns against the church to track down a murderous band of vampires who have kidnapped his niece. Oh sure, same old, same old … add one more thriller to your summer movie Must List: Kari Skogland’s 50 Dead Men Walking. And you can sneak preview it by clicking right here.

FARIS: short role

GLOBAL’S GOT IT: Global’s fall line-up includes my favourite show of the new season so far – Glee, a series about a vibrant group of geeky misfits and the resurgence of their high school’s unpopular glee club. The pilot was exceptionally entertaining … say, is that U.S. or … US? Oh – it’s us! Get ready to see a lot more Canada Post mailboxes on screen on U.S. television. Home-grown series Flashpoint and The Listener, and still to be seen police series Copper and The Bridge, are all set in Toronto. Filmed in Toronto, yes, but actually set in Toronto. I ask you, what is this world coming to! … and let’s enjoy it while it lasts … and Anna Faris (House Bunny, Observe & Report) plays a suburban mom who dreams of being an actress in Legally Blonde screenwriter Kirsten Smith’s directorial debut The Spleenectomy at next week’s CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival.  

RIVERS: rich?

HOW’D YOU GET THAT IDEA? Her new series, How’d You Get So Rich? starts in August on the U.S. cable channel TV Land, and Joan Rivers couldn’t be happier. “The premise for the show came to me while I was on the road and driving through neighborhoods across America. Suddenly there would be a humungous mansion and I’d ask, ‘Who the hell lives there? How’d they get so rich?’ And then I’d wonder, ‘Is it a single, Jewish man?’

“How’d You Get So Rich? goes inside the doors of these opulent homes where we meet real go-getter Americans who have made their fortunes doing some incredible things.” 

For a sneak preview, just click here.

 

KIRSTIE: root beer floats?

 

U ARE WOT U EAT:  “Sonic is doing free root bewer floats today,” Kirstie Alley swoons on Twitter. “I can’t believe I am missing out on Sonic root beer floats … I REALLY WANT ONE … I am having Fing nectarines … I hate being fat.” Given her too-celebrated roller coaster diets, you might think that Kirstie is the only Tweeter obsessed with food. Wrong. We all are, apparently. Before signing off a few nights ago screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno) informed us that she was “going outside for a

COUPLAND: cereal killer?

swim.” Why?  “Just ate two bowls of pasta and want to see if I float.” And author Doug Coupland (JPod, Souvenir Of Canada,) who seems like the least likely suspect, is constantly keep us in the loop about what he’s eating and when he’s eating it. “Through a chain of circumstances too complex to explain here I ended up eating just three hotdogs and five vanilla sugar cookies for dinner.” And: “Crazy summer heat …” (Yes, he lives in Vancouver.) “… Had to force myself to eat a bowl of Lucky Charms and Vitamin D milk.” And: “Breakfast is for losers.” And: “Brunch is the worst idea for a meal.” In short, not yer average ham ‘n’ eggs kind o’ guy.

 

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Nia’s life in ruins! New movies for Jason and Julia! Joan & Melissa make headlines for the Trumpster!

CELEBRITY ASSASSINS: Okay,  we’ve seen sizzling reality TV before, but for a junk TV food addict, Sunday night’s episode of Celebrity Apprentice was an epicurean feast. And it’s still making headlines.

RIVERS: shut out

What happened? Donald Trump said his two trademark words, “You’re fired!” to Melissa Rivers. Rivers got canned after being virtually shut out by her ‘teammates,’ gorgeous Playboy ornament Brande Roderick and cunning poker champ Annie Duke, in what TV blogger Bill Brioux describes as the “electric, best ever episode of Celebrity Apprentice.”

Melissa’s mom (Joan Rivers, as if you didn’t know) went ballistic when her daughter got fired and stormed out of the Trump Tower — but not after (bleep) sharing her thoughts (bleep) with Brande and (bleep) Annie.

“Not since the hair-pulling heyday of Dynasty has there been such a catfight on TV,” said video veteran Brioux yesterday. “It was the ultimate, diva-in-flames exit, times two, the kind of thing (producer) Mark Burnett probably dreams about.”

Melissa said yesterday she had exploded because of exhaustion after a long shooting day.

She initially refused to do a post-firing interview, a standard feature of the series, but said she went back the next day.

“I really wanted to take a deep breath,” Rivers said. “It had been a very difficult few weeks of being attacked emotionally and personally. There’s only so much you can take.”

How sizzling was it? Go to Brioux’s website TV Feeds My Family and see for yourself. He even has video of the meltdown, “for as long as it stays up at YouTube:”  And you can check it out right here.

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BYRNE: going Greek?

FLICKERS:  Director Jason Reitman (Juno) next opus is up in the air – but that’s okay. His new flick with George Clooney is called, you guessed it, Up In The Air  … Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins will join Oscar owner Julia Roberts for the big-screen adaptation of the best-selling Eat, Pray. Love …  Rose Byrne, so good as Glenn Close’s near-fatal foil in the hypnotic TV drama Damages, will co-star with Sean Combs in Get Him To The Greek … this year’s Genie Award winner for Best Documentary, the powerful film Up the Yangtze returns for an encore presentation on CBC-TV’s Passionate Eye this Sunday, May 3, at 10 p.m, … and My Big Fat Greek Wedding star Nia Vardalos returns to her roots for her new film, My Life In Ruins, in which she plays a tour guide in Athens who has to deal with, among others, Harland Williams, Rachel Dretch and Richard Dreyfuss.  Can’t wait to see it? For a sneak preview, click here.

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STREEP: box office darling?

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: After touring Canada more than a dozen times with his band the Cosmic Crew, Chris Colepaugh will guest with Roch Voisine’s band when Voisine tours of France, Switzerland and Belgium next month. Colepaugh will play pedal steel, mandolin and more on the tour, which starts at the end of May, runs through June and then picks up again in November and December … Debbie Reynolds, still kicking up her heels at 77, is set to bring her cabaret act to NYC’s Café Carlyle June 2 – 27.  And you can do her bidding, so to speak, by bidding on two tickets to her show, now being auctioned on charitybuzz.com, benefiting SOS Children’s Villages International, housing orphans with AIDS. Debbie will meet the winners after her performance, pose for pix, and lift a glass to good deeds in a naughty world (and surviving MGM?) … and Meryl Streep, a boffo box-office draw for female audiences ever since The Devil Wears Prada and Mamma Mia, says it’s “completely improbable” that she’s become the queen of counter-programming. “No one in Hollywood can understand it!” she told Entertainment Weekly.  “We’re so used to seeing movies about dysfunctional relationships. Here are these outsized, vivid, problematic women with great men of substance who love them in spite of all their prickliness.” She and her Doubt co-star (and fellow Oscar nominee) Amy Adams team up again in Julia & Julia, scheduled to preem in August. In this one Adams plays a somewhat unlikely acolyte to master chef Julia Child (Streep,) with Meryl’s Prada co-star Stanley Tucci joining in the fun.

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ON YOUR MARK, GET SET: Tickets are going fast for Reporting in Afghanistan, the public forum hosted by CBC Toronto to mark World Press Freedom Day. To reserve your free ticket for this event, which is set for the Glenn Gould Studio tomorrow from 12:30 -2 pm, send an email to events@cbc.ca with your name, telephone local and the number of tickets you require … and nominations for The Comedy Network’s 2009 Canadian Comedy Awards & Festival in St. John, New Brunswick close this Thursday. You can enter online or by mail, but all mailed entries must be postmarked no later than April 30, 2009. So you only have two days left. To enter online just click here.

 

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