Ben Mulroney and his wife are expecting twins! Just what the country needs seven days after the Winter Olympics — a third generation to continue the legacy of Canada’s least popular prime minister, and CTV’s least popular host of etalk. Perhaps paternity leave is what it’s going to take to keep Ben away from the red carpet next year — given how he has been a fixture on the Academy Awards celebrity arrival pre-show since eschewing his Université Laval law school degree to do this. But, thanks to Twitter, viewers masochistically tuning in for this annual experience have a neutral place to vent. Here’s the recap … Continue Reading

The biggest star to appear at the Stage West Dinner Theatre since “Doc” from The Love Boat starred in Viagra Falls last fall is the actress who played the first of The Facts of Life girls to lose her virginity. Per the review of Glorious! in The Mississauga News: “I have no idea if Mindy Cohn can really sing — her bio doesn’t indicate any musicals — but when it comes to singing badly, she’s terrific.” Not that the actress formerly known as Natalie — now typecast as Velma in recent Scooby-Doo cartoons — is ungrateful to play the role of delusional socialite Florence Foster Jenkins: “I’ll go anywhere for a good part, hence I’m now in a hotel in beautiful Mississauga,” Cohn confessed to the National Post last month. “It’s a bit frustrating because in New York, people go anywhere to see a play, but in Toronto, not as many residents come up this way.” So, she went down to The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulous. Mostly, he wanted to know what Cohn thought of former co-star George Clooney. Quite politely, she told Strombo to stuff it, forcing him to rephrase: “At the time … can you … can, I’m sure you had a lot of people who weren’t famous at the time, and you don’t have to throw them under the bus, but I’m just curious — can you sense when somebody’s got something, an ability to transcend, and you say, ‘That person’s going to go on …’?” Still, in the end, Cohn had his number: “You smell really good,” she blurted out. Strombo fended her off by explaining he slept on his office couch that morning. But, just like Mrs. Garrett would have wanted, she remained utterly undeterred: “I am trying to get a date out of this, you know that, right?”

Considering that it was nominated for a Grammy last month — if ultimately losing to “Boom Boom Pow” by the Black Eyed Peas — it’s no surprise that “Mr. Hurricane” by Montreal group Beast (see above) is nominated for Video of the Year in the 2010 Juno Awards . But a category that might have been as star-studded as such a ceremony could get ends up being on the more interesting fringes — along with a category that is equally enigmatic in the digital era of music, Recording Package of the Year. So, let’s be servicey and put the four other short-form nominations in one place. Continue Reading

Following a Winter Olympics closing ceremony whose surprise medley of musical talent assured Canadians that there might be more insufferable things than Nickelback — whether unfortunately aging emo boy bands Hedley and Simple Plan or unfortunately aging angsty female shriekers Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morissette — the nation will turn its lonely eyes to the Wednesday announcement of nominees for the 2010 Juno Awards. No other institution inspires as much faceplanting amongst the media — which has only accelerated since the Polaris Music Prize was instituted to honour the year’s favourite record amongst critical rock snobs. But that awards show has just one category, compared to 39 for the Junos, even if the vast majority of them won’t be presented on the telecast via CTV. Considerable criticism has been leveled at the extent to which the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences have bent to the will of the broadcaster — which snagged the rights in 2002, turning it into a cross-country road show that lands in Newfoundland on April 18, followed by a return to Toronto for its 40th anniversary in 2011. Last year, when Sam Roberts was named Artist of the Year, it was trumpeted as triumph of authenticity — although Roberts won the same trophy five years earlier. What happened in the interim was CTV’s franchise of Canadian Idol: implausibly, when Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene were at the peak of international attention, 2004 winner Kalan Porter and 2005 runner-up Rex Goudie were both nominated for Album of the Year. With the Canadian Idol “hiatus” now indefinite, the last Juno hope for acts anointed via Ben Mulroney is Theo Tams, the 2008 winner whose album was quietly released nearly a year after his victory — the last time Theo’s publicity phone rang, it was a reporter asking him whether fellow gay Adam Lambert could win American Idol.