Walt discovers Mary Poppins, Julia takes a run at the White House and Paula gets a new mission

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Okay, I admit, Cabin In The Woods is not for me. Okay, hardly anything in the woods is.  But here’s a movie I want to see, even if they haven’t started shooting it yet, Tom Hanks and Emma 

THOMPSON: will she play P.L. Travers?

Thompson are in talks to star in Saving Mr. Banks, a behind the scenes look at the making of Mary Poppins. Hanks would play Walt Disney and Thompson would play Mary Poppins creator P.L. Travers … Paula Patton, so good with Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, is being wooed to join Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington in 2 Guns. Sounds good to me … legendary Air Farceur Don Ferguson will interview ex-CBC VP Richard Stursberg at the launch of Stursberg’s new book The Tower Of Babble next week at The Gladstone Hotel — $5 or free with the purchase of a book. For more

LOUIS-DREYFUS: new series

info, click here … and former New York Times critic and columnist Frank Rich is one of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ executive producers on her new HBO comedy series Veep, in which she plays the vice-president of the United States. The potty-mouthed series is set to premiere on both HBO and HBO Canada this Sunday, and for a saucy sneak peek, click here.

FLYING BENEATH THE RADAR (SO FAR:)  Fresh from his stint in The Hunger Games, big screen favourite Donald Sutherland is taking another crack at TV with Pan 

SUTHERLAND: pilot project

Am’s Mike Vogel and a new pilot called Living Loaded … Tate Donovan, so good with Glenn Close in Damages until he got whacked in season three, is co-starring with Victor Garber in the new Meagan Good pilot, Notorious … John Stamos plays an ex-con who attempts a reunion with his half-brother in his pilot, Little Brother …  Bradley Whitford’s new pilot, The Asset, is a spy drama that revolves around a female agent in the New York office of the CIA (hasn’t anyone in Hollywood seen Covert Affairs?) … Rick Schroder, who just turned 40 (OMG! How did that happen?) co-stars with Angela Bassettin

SCHRODER: OMG, he's 40!

her new still-untitled spy-vs.-spy drama pilot …  Kevin Bacon plays an ex-FBI agent who leads the search to catch a diabolical serial killer (James Purefoy) who has created a cult of serial killers, in his still-untitled new thriller pilot … Cuba Gooding Jr. plays a disbarred defense attorney in his new pilot Guilty … Vampire Diaries alumnus Matt Davis plays an investigative journalist blogger in his new pilot, Cult …  in her new pilot First Cut rising star Mamie Gummer plays a new doctor who discovers that, sadly and comically, life at the hospital where she works is no different than high school … and the storyline for another new pilot, The Selection, sounds strangely familiar.  It’s described as an epic romance set 300 years in the future which centers on a poor young woman who is chosen by lottery to participate in a competition to become the next queen of a war-torn nation at a crossroads.

Wow! … wonder who came up with that one.

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Carmela moves to the E.R., Pacino plays doctor, Courtney in Short order, Harrison & Calista blue-sky it, and why Denzel won’t play Obama

Okay, she’s a nurse with a drug habit. We’ve seen that before. And her boyfriend, a pharmacist, is also her dealer. Which is sort of a twist. What makes this story so interesting? Jackie – or Nurse Jackie, as per the new dramatic series about her – is played by award-laden Sopranos star Edie Falco, and her pharmacist

FALCO: addicted

boyfriend is played by Paul Schulze, who played Father Intintola, the neighborhood priest with whom Edie/Carmela was totally infatuated. And making the drama behind this drama even more, well, dramatic, is the fact that both the star and the series writers Liz Brixius and Linda Wallem are card-carrying members of AA. Falco, who has sober for almost two decades, says she was determined not to take a holier-than-thou approach to Jackie. ““It was sort of endlessly fascinating and deeply saddening when I was struggling myself,” she told New York Times writer Kathryn Shattuck. “I know what it’s like to be lost in addiction.” For more of Ms. Shattuck’s excellent Rx on Nurse Jackie, click here.

AND SPEAKING OF ANGELS OF MERCY:  It’s official. Al Pacino will play suicide specialist Dr. Jack Kevorkian in the upcoming HBO biopic.

MACNEIL: wedding belle

COMMON GROUND: What do John Travolta and Harrison Ford have in common? For one thing, they’re both licensed pilots. Which is how Ford celebrated the Memorial Day weekend by flyng his bride Calista Flockhart, her son Liam and his grandson Ethan to the Monterey Aquarium, which opened early so the family could watch some sleepy penguins wake up … what do Laura Dern, Eric Stolz, and Courtney Cox have in common? They’re among the celebrated on-screen players in the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival, set for June 16-21 at a theatre near you … what do CBC EVP Richard Stursberg and comely CBC news anchor Carole MacNeil have in common? Wedding bells. According to Carole’s CBC News: Sunday co-host Evan Solomon, they’re planning to tie the knot later this month.

BOYLE: " ...next?"

ON THE BOYLE: A sometime-collaborator of Steve Martin‘s, actor Ricky Jay is also a sleight-of-hand artist and author. Earlier this week he contributed an op-ed piece to the New York Times about the apparent worldwide obsession with Britain’s Got Talent ‘loser’ Susan Boyle.

 “Should we have expected anything more, or less?” he asks. “Our first look at Ms. Boyle generated not only expectation but surprise. But as she became overexposed, our surprise diminished. The extraordinary became commonplace.”

Because of her presence on youtube, he notes,  “A performing cycle that once could have taken years is herein reduced to days. She’s unknown, we’re surprised. She’s embraced, we’re disenchanted. She’s the runner-up … next?”

To see Jay’s column, cleverly and appropriately headlined Desperately Seeking Susan, click here.

WASHINGTON: remake

QUOTABLE QUOTES: “When Barack Obama’s story is ready to be told, I’ll be too old to do it. And if it were made right now, he has too much to do to have me hanging around asking for tips on how to play him.”

The speaker? John Travolta’s co-star in The Taking Of Pelham 123, Denzel Washington, in an interview with Reader’s Digest.

For a sneak preview of this remake – believe it or not, it was villainous Robert Shaw versus lawman Walter Matthau (yes, Walter Matthau) in the 1973 original – just click here.