Anne kicks off a new tour, Robin gets ready for Rama, Robert gets ready to make a splash, the NFB gets animated & T.O. film buffs go on Cairo Time

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Jazz legend Joe Sealy, cabaret queens Nancy White and Judith Lander, and We Will Rock You alumni Yvan

LANDER: October concert

Pedneault and Alana Bridgewater headline an afternoon musicale Oct. 25 at Rosedale United Church … Robin Williams plays Casino Rama Nov. 11 & 12 … Ron James is set to host the Nov. 14 Gemini Awards telecast from Calgary … good news for her Atlantic fans: Serena Ryder will play the first of six “intimate” east coast gigs November 26 in St. John’s … and Robert LePage’s nine-hour theatrical marathon, Lipsynch, is currently on view at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, with intermissions and a dinner-break, through this Sunday. The brilliant Quebec dazzle-master, set to world-premiere his predictably controversial new opera The Nightingale and Other Short Fables

WILLIAMS: at Rama

here next week at the Four Seasons Centre, plans to fill a partially raised orchestra pit with roughly 30 tonnes of water. His singers will wade in, waist-deep, to manipulate puppets while the orchestra plays onstage behind them. Now that’s show business!

FLICKERS: New season for the TIFF Cinemateque screenings at the AGO starts tonight, with Lisa Ray set to make an appearance tomorrow night for the screening of Deepa Mehta’s hit comedy Bollywood/Hollywood. For more info, just click here …  TIFF award-winner Cairo Time, with Patricia Clarkon and Alexander Siddig, opens in T.O. today. Film buffs, take note: Director Ruba Nadda will be attending tonight’s 7pm screening and tomorrow’s 2pm and 7pm

CLARKSON: in TIFF winner

screenings at the Varsity Cinemas for post-screening Q&A’s … award-laden writer-director Paul Haggis’ current film project has an intriguing title: The Next Three Days … and in celebration of International Animation Day and the National Film Board of Canada’s 70th anniversary, the NFB is launching a special edition of Get Animated! – a series of free public screenings, from October 23–31, 2009, in 13 communities across this country. Accordingly, the NFB’s Get Animated! website is already offering exclusive animation programming to all its visitors.

LITERATI: Royalists continue to be fascinated by the Queen Mother’s recently revealed diaries and letters, despite the fact that her younger daughter,

MURRAY: on the road again

the late HRH Princess Margaret, reportedly destroyed a lot of the Queen Mum’s correspondence in an effort to cover up the scandals created by Charles and Diana … look for new books this fall from both Peter Mansbridge and Rex Murphy … on your mark, set, buy: Top Five fiction finalists for this year’s Giller Prize are Kim Echlin, The Disappeared; Annabel Lyon, The Golden Mean; Linden MacIntyre (yes, the Linden MacIntyre,) The Bishop’s Man; Colin McAdam, Fall; and Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault … and Anne Murray is set to kick off her cross-Canada tour to promote her new autobiography, All Of Me, with a signing session at Indigo Books & Music on Oct. 29 at the Eaton Centre. To find out when she’s coming to your town, just click here.

And have a happy Thanksgiving.

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Jim gets Jack, Tony gets Chris, Nova Scotia gets a Zannslide & Stratford gets Hockey Day In Canada

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Looks like Jack Nicholson has signed on to another James L. Brooks joint. Brooks, who directed Jack in Terms Of Endearment and As Good As It Gets, wants him for a new romantic comedy with

VANELLI: Dutch treat

Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd …  Serena Ryder’s critically acclaimed CD is it O.K., already certified Gold here, will debut in the U.S. this September … Gino Vanelli is happily hunkering down in his country getaway in Holland, just 20 kilometers south of Amsterdam. “Why do logic and simplicity strike only later in life?” he ponders. “Having a home here allows me so much more latitude and access to Western and Eastern European concert halls. Even a gig in Moscow is only 3½ hours away.” Besides his current dates overseas he’s considering a Greatest Hits concert this coming September at the Hilton in Las Vegas. Stay tuned …  young filmmaker Jonathan Chiovitti premieres his new Batman fan film, Reign Of Fate, on Sunday at 5 pm at the Royal Theatre …   irreverent laugh-makers Gavin Crawford & Elvira Kurt are Together Again For The First Time tonight at Buddies In Bad Times … and director Tony Scott has signed new Star Trek captain Chris Pine to co-star with Denzel Washington in Unstoppable. Which sounds like it probably is.

THICKE: NHL fan

REMEMBER WHEN IT WAS ‘THE CANADIAN GAME’?  My oh my, how times have changed. Armani and Gucci will replace shoulder pads and skates when the NHL’s brightest stars spruce up and head to Las Vegas for next week’s 2009 NHL Awards at the Palms Hotel. The 90-minute show will include performances by Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Chaka Khan and multi-platinum recording artist Robin Thicke, son of hockey fanatic Alan Thicke. (Look for another ice nut, crooner Michael Bublé, among the famous faces in the crowd. The NHL Awards house band will be led by Saturday Night Live band leader Katreese Barnes, and CBC Television will telecast the whole shebang in Hi-Def next Thursday  at 8:30 p.m.

OUT, OUT, DAMN PUCK:  It’s official – Coronation Street returns to its regular nightly 7 pm timeslot this coming Monday on CBC Television.

IN, IN, DAMN PUCK: Mr. Shakespeare’s second favourite town, Stratford Ontario, has been chosen to host the 10^th annual Hockey Day In Canada celebrations January 30, 2010 on CBC Television, with Tim Horton’s picking up the tab for the ice time. Way to go, guys!

BERGEN: ex-fashionista

FASHION FILE: “Haute couture is over,” says wowOwow.com contributor Candice Bergen. “Toast. And whoever said that celebrities were the only ones left to wear these gowns failed to note that celebrities don’t pay a centime for them. Bupkus. Borrowed or given. So that leaves who … Russian girlfriends and Arab wives? Not to belittle or be dismissive but …

“I borrowed a Christian Lacroix once for a ball at a chateau outside Paris. I had a fitting. It was a spectacular dress and they had to let it out in the waist and take in the bust. My daughter was two or three at the time and she was playing underneath the gown, like in a teepee, and we had a small BMW and we had to bat the dress down so we could see out to drive!”

FAVOURITE HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: From the Halifax Chronicle-Herald: Actress wins her seat by a Zannslide. Which, in fact, she did. Brand-new NDP candidate Lenore Zann won more than 4,000 votes in her Nova Scotia riding of Truro-Bible Hill this week, twice as many as her closest Conservative competitor, and celebrated by hosting her victory party in a local watering hole, the Ponderosa Tap and Grill, affectionate dubbed The Pond by its regulars. And another Tory stronghold bites the dust. Said stage screen charmer (and new MLA) Zann: “This shows people in this province were really ready for a change.” Sounds like they’re about to get one.

VARDALOS: poster girl

NIA’S NEXT: Her life may be in Ruins at the moment, but Nia Vardalos has already completed her next film. It’s called I Hate Valentine’s Day, her costar is John Corbett (who was also her costar in My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and she wrote and directed it. “It’s my directorial debut, and we shot it in 18 days.” To pull off the low-budget comedy she cast mostly personal friends, like SNL alumnus Rachel Dretch, who also joined her in her current rom-com hit, My Life In Ruins. And forget about those movie star salaries. They’re so yesterday. “Everybody worked for scale,” Vardalos reports – “including John and me.”

 

Have a great SUNNY weekend. See you Monday.

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