Bruce goes back to the future, Rachel struts her stuff, and Liz tells us why Bad is so good

KNIGHTLEY: Boulevardier

NO BIZ LIKE SHOW BIZ: Big-screen charmers Keira Knightley and Colin Farrell are set to co-star in London Boulevard, for which writer William Monahan (The Departed) will make his debut as a director. Farrell will play the ex-con, just released from prison, who tries to become a handyman; Knightley will play the reclusive actress who hires him … The Marcus Trio — a.k.a. drummer Richard Brown, bass impresario Ian De Souza and guitar maestro Marc Ganetakos — reunite tonight at The Smiling Buddha on College street, for one 11 pm 45-min. set only … also opening tonight, just in time for Gay Pride Week: Fagart, a new exhibiton at the Pentimento Fine Art Gallery on Queen Street East, showcasing artists David Hawe, Patrick Lightheart, Izik Levy, Oscar Wolfman, Bill Pustai, John Rankine, Paul Specht & Geoff Simpson … and it looks like comeback kid Bruce Willis may have another summer hit on his hands with his Matrix-y new thriller Surrogates, now set to open in August. To sneak preview the futuristic thriller, just click here.

ASNER: MTM alumnus

THEY’RE SO ANIMATED: Three Mary Tyler Moore Show alumni are lending their voices to their other alma mater these days. Disney veterans Cloris Leachman and Betty White both voice roles in the English language version of the new Miyazaki animated feature, Ponyo, due Aug.14. And of course Ed Asner is the lead voice (a.k.a. grumpy old homeowner) in the Disney/Pixar monster hit UP. (Isn’t Asner also set for an on-camera stint with perennial showstopper Cynthia Dale in her upcoming CBC Christmas special? Just askin’ …) Meanwhile Betty is riding high on the rave reviews for her work with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal, which opens tomorrow, and will be prominently featured in a USA Today profile next week.

McADAMS: hot, hotter, hottest

RACHEL, RACHEL:  Is anyone hotter than gorgeously gifted Rachel McAdams? She rocked us in Slings & Arrows, made us go through boxes of Kleenex with The Notebook, followed up with Wedding Crashers, Family Stone and last fall’s TIFF gala The Lucky Ones, and now has two, count ’em , two new blockbusters coming our way. In Sherlock Holmes, the lively new opus from Madonna ex Guy Ritchie, she gets to play games with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. And in the new screen version of the international best-seller The Time Traveler’s Wife, she gets to play wife to Eric Bana‘s enigmatic, ethereal, other-worldly husband. To sample Sherlock Holmes, click here; to preview Rachel’s work as the Time Traveler‘s missus, click here — and enjoy!

GIMME A BREAKING BAD: Legendary New York gossip girl Liz Smith is Annoyed As Hell and isn’t going to take it anymore.

SMITH: 'Bad' girl

What’s bugging her? The fact that every time she talks about her favourite show on television, nobody she mentions it to seems to know what she’s talking about.

Liz’s favourite show – which may be the best show we’re not watching – is Breaking Bad, which she rates even higher than her other two favourites, Mad Men and Big Love. “Because I have seldom seen such an engaging, shocking, surprising, violent and adult drama on television,” she says, “I keep touting Breaking Bad as if I am an evangelical TV watcher!”

She says the end of the second season featured happenings “so dramatic, unbelievable and yet unhappily believable that they defy TV expectations.”

Not that the show has gone completely unnoticed.

CRANSTON: 'Bad' guy

“Breaking Bad,” she reports, “won an Emmy for Bryan Cranston as best actor in a drama back in 2007/2008. It won a Peabody during season one. It won an AFI award as one of the top ten shows in 2008. It won a Writer’s Guild Award for Vince Gilligan in 2008. It was a best-edited one-hour series for Lynne Willingham for 2008. And Bryan Cranston won best actor again from the Satellite Awards. And yet none of my high-brow – or even my low-brow – friends seemed to know about this great show!”

She also predicts that the show’s catalyst, young actor Aaron Paul, “will be whatever kind of big-deal acting star that real life and this series intends him to be. He is fabulous.” Paul is apparently stellar in Big Love as well. And were he in

PAUL: 'Breaking' talent

a feature film, she says, “he’d already have been nominated for an Academy Award.”

Wow.

What should we do, Liz?

“I am hoping you’ll now go to your local store and buy the DVDs of the first season episodes. Or go to the trouble to download seasons one and two from iTunes. Maybe you don’t have to find seasons one and two and can just join the fray with season three, but, ye gods, you’ll be missing two seasons of the best TV I’ve ever seen. If it were a movie,” she adds, “I’d compare it to Chinatown. Only it is even better than that!”

Are you getting the feeling that Liz is very keen on this series?

Me too.  Can’t wait to sample it.

P.S. FYI: Episodes of Breaking Bad are now available on Rogers On Demand.

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Sandra & Ryan switch bait (and nationalities,) Kirstie gets a crush, Maggie hosts a Buddies bash, and Joan hits off-Broadway with a drag band

I’VE GOT A CRUSH ON YOU: Twitterbug Kirstie Alley admittedly gets crushes like crazy. Two weeks ago it was Jamie Foxx. Her new swoon? Violinist David Garrett. “Mr. Foxx is on the back burner today,” she confided last week

GARRETT: Kirstie crush

to her more than 40,000 Twitter followers. “Hottie violin player on front burner … boiling …” But she’s also an ardent admirer one of television’s true Golden Girls, Mary Tyler Moore alumnus Betty White. “I want to be Betty White when I grow up,” Kirstie insists. “I love her!” … which reminds me, Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds clearly had a lot of fun shooting their new romantic comedy The Proposal, and it shows. The plot involves a transplanted Canadian boss who forces an American underling into a marriage to avoid being deported from the U.S. The inside joke is, Hollywood screen queen Bullock plays the Canadian boss and Canadian heartthrob Reynolds plays her harassed American assistant. Funnier still is the ‘secret’ out-take they manufactured to promote the movie on Will Ferrell’s 

WHITE: friction causer?

Funny Or Die website, in which they both royally send themselves up as spoiled movie stars. Why did Kirstie’s crush on Betty White remind me of Sandra & Ryan? Because Betty is the cause of the fictitious friction between the two stars on the set in their sly rehearsed romp for Ferrell fanatics. To see for yourself, just click here.

GUESS YOU HAD TO BE THERE:  Okay, last night was not the Tony’s finest hour. Granted all the stars gathered at Radio City Music Hall seemed to love that overblown  musical opener, but despite Elton, Dolly and Liza it was mostly a train wreck on television. Camera direction was disastrous most of the night, as were persistent audio problems. New musicals were well represented but new dramas were given alarmningly short shrift

What was good about it? The Tony win for David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish, who continue to make Billy Elliot, The Musical the ongoing talk of the town. And, as predicted here Friday, Tony host Neil Patrick Harris’ clever closing number was almost worth wading through the three (!!!) hours preceding it, which he so masterfully sent up.  And despite this flawed smorgasbord showcase,   I can’t wait to get back to Broadway to see some of these great shows. George & Ira Gershwin wrote, I like New York in June / how about you?  Over the years I’ve been there every month of the calendar year, and still can’t find a time or a season when I don’t love New York. So take a few days to lick your wounds, Tony TV producers, and then go back to the drawing board and fix it. And in just case you’ve forgotten: Yes You Can.

CASSELLA: Vent-ing

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Gorgeous Natalie Portman makes her directorial and writing debut behind the camera directing Lauren Bacall, Olivia Thirlby and Ben Gazzara in Eve, one of the ‘hot tickets’ for the Canadian Film Centre’s upcoming Worldwide Short Film Festival June 16-21. For more info on the WSSS line-up, click here …  Tragically Hip icon Gord Downie narrates Mongrel Media’s dazzling new doc, Waterlife, about the future of the Great Lakes, a gift enjoyed by 35 million North Americans that may not be able to continue giving if we don’t change our corporate ways. Want a sneak preview? Click here … Maggie Cassella’s much-anticipated new series The Vent premieres June 28 on Out TV and on the web at http://www.getoutthevent.com. La Cassella will host a Vent launch party – an

RIVERS: stand up

official Gay Pride event — on Sunday June 21 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and will preview the series’ first episode, Celebutantes, at the party. Sounds like fun … and speaking of Pride, Joan Rivers, who championed AIDS victims and fund-raised for research long before it became fashionable to do so, is set to do two shows on Thursday June 25 at off-Broadway’s Gramercy Theater, at East 23rd Street and Lexington Avenue, timed to coincide with New York City’s annual Gay Pride Week. The historic venue had been transformed into an intimate nightclub for Rivers’ show, with cabaret tables in the orchestra section, a full bar and waiter service. Her opening act? Rising indie drag band She-Dick. (And no, I’m not making that up.) Tickets are $25-$125 with net proceeds going to Rivers’ favorite charities: God’s Love We Deliver and Guide Dogs for the Blind.

TOMORROW:  Catching up with Anne Murray.

Going green at the box office on ‘Earth’ day

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US:  Yes, it’s Earth Day. This special occasion, which becomes increasingly special each year, was launched almost four decades ago, when most of us were blissfully ignorant of the term “unrenewable resources.”

Good news is, we’re a lot smarter now. Better news is, we’re not alone. Millions of people around the world are taking it seriously. And yes, that includes major show business corporations.  

Disneynature is the first new Disney film label to be introduced by the Walt Disney empire in 60 (!!!) years. To celebrate its premiere film, Earth, being released nationally today, Disneynature will plant a tree in honour of every moviegoer who sees the film in its opening week.

So far, 500,000 trees will be planted. 

Now that’s a LOT of green!

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JAMES: weekly series

 

 

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Boy, that Ryan Reynolds gets around.  The B.C.-born Hollywood heartthrob has two potential megahits about to hit North American movie screens — X-Men Origins: Wolverine with Hugh Jackman, and The Proposal, a quirky new romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock as the subject of his affection and Betty White, Mary Steenburgen and Craig T. Nelson also on board … good news for Ron James fans — your hero is now officially inked to headline his own weekly prime-time series on CBC Television this fall … and frequently unheralded screen legend Steve McQueen gets his own retrospective next month at Lincoln Center.  The retrospective, aptly titled Yesterday’s Loner, is set to run May 20-26 and will feature 12 of his finest performances, “all on the best prints available.”

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THOMPSON: body & soul

 

 

FOOTLIGHTS:  Still haven’t seen it, despite the rave reviews from everyone you know? Me neither. But let’s really try to get to Jersey Boys now that the transplanted Broadway musical has been extended ’til June 28 … speaking of rave reviews, has any revival won as much lavish praise as the current Mirvish incarnation of Sound Of Music? … bad news for Dr. Seuss fans: Dancap has canceled plans to mount How The Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical, as renovations on the Sony Centre are behind schedule and the theatre will not be ready in time … good news for Judith Thompson fans — her Dove-inspired creation body & soul, which played to sold out houses and standing ovations for its entire run at the Young Centre iast year, will be performed at the Tarragon extra space from June 4th-21.

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JONES: floral tribute

 

 

DISSED BY ‘THE DUKE:’  Some of the starry folk unable to attend last week’s Norman Jewison tribute in L.A. sent notes and posies instead. Jewison received extravagant floral offerings from Marisa Tomei and Quincy Jones, among others, and truly personal regrets from Goldie Hawn, David Foster, Martin Short (who came down with flu and decided not to share it) and Canadian Film Centre alumnus Vincenzo Natali (Cube,) who couldn’t attend for a reason that delighted Jewison: Natali was on location directing a new movie … and Bev Thomson coaxed some great stories out of liberal activist Jewison on her Canada A.M. exclusive earlier this week, including the fact that John Wayne dissed him as “that Canadian pinko.” To see her interview with the award-laden Jewison, click here.

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