| 12.15.99 |

CANOE 2000 JAM! POLL
Canadian news source Canoe.ca is currently running a poll, allowing people to vote for (among other things) "Top Canadian actor of the century" and "Top Canadian movie director of the century". Don of course, is nominated in both catagories, so go cast your vote for him today!!

| 12.11.99 |

RETURN OF THE DROWSY CHAPERONE
According to an ad in today's Toronto Star, Don's play The Drowsy Chaperone will be returning for another engagement sometime in the future! The shows have been a huge success, with sellouts of all 22 performances! (For more info on the play itself, see older news below...)

SHOWCASE NEW YEAR'S EVE MOVIE
Showcase is giving its viewers a chance to choose the last movie that will air before the new year, and one of the choices is Don's 1995 film When Night Is Falling. People can vote for their favorite choice as many times as they want before Monday, December 20th. Happy voting!

VCR ALERTS!
Highway 61 will be airing on Thursday Dec 16th on Bravo at 2pm EST. The movie will be airing again on Friday Dec 17th on Moviepix at 7:15pm EST.

| 12.10.99 |

RED VIOLIN ON VIDEO IN THE U.S.
According to the latest Entertainment Weekly, The Red Violin is now available on video in the States (the film garnered a "B" rating by the magazine.)

| 12.09.99 |

eXistenZ GENIE NOMINATIONS
On Dec 7th, nominations for the Genie Awards were announced at a Toronto Art Gallery. The movie eXistenZ (where Don portrayed game-guru Yvegeny Nourish) snagged three nominations, for Best Picture, Art Direction, and Editing.

Also, it was none other than our Don who had played host for the event. Here's a brief excerpt from The National Post:

Don McKellar, the actor/director whose Last Night took home three statues at last year's ceremony, served as one of three hosts for the event. "I'm the guy reading the list," he deadpanned as he took to the podium.

McKellar said he hoped that his newly grown moustache would give him the requisite verve to pronounce the non-English names on the list with the proper accent. It didn't. When it came time to announce the nominees for best adapted screenplay, he stumbled over the title Histoires d'hiver. "Those are French words," he sheepishly explained to the audience.

The Genie ceremony will be broadcast live on the CBC on Jan. 30.

THE DROWSY CHAPERONE
Hopefully most of you caught this news bit earlier, which was posted on this site's front page. Here's the text from the On Stage Now site:

Best Man Productions is delighted to present the runaway hit of the 1999 Toronto Fringe Festival, THE DROWSY CHAPERONE, in a new, full-length version, at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto, from November 24 to December 12, 1999.

An original musical comedy with lyrics by Lisa Lambert, music by Greg Morrison and book by Don McKellar and Bob Martin, THE DROWSY CHAPERONE is an hilarious and affectionate spoof of the great Broadway musicals of the 1920s.

It tells the story of a Broadway producer who's desperate to prevent the marriage (and retirement) of his leading lady. At stake are both his show and his skin, for his gangster investors will not be happy to lose their star. Enter Aldolpho [played by Don McKellar], a Latin gigolo adept at breaking engagements... and, behind Adolpho, enter The French Maid, Trix the Aviatrix, Kitty the Chorine, Carmen Miranda and the Drowsy Chaperone herself. The plot spins completely out-of-control... until everyone flies down to Rio for a happy ending.

If any of you were lucky enough to catch the show, feel free to mail us your thoughts and comments!

TWITCH CITY UPDATE (well, kinda...)
Here's a message that was posted anonymously at the Twitch City message board, by a lucky individual who had attended the American Museum of the Moving Image retrospective of Don's work (and caught a sneak peak at the new Twitch eps!)

Saw the 7 new eps. as part of the Don McKellar Retrospective at the American Museum of the Moving Image last weekend. Hil-freakin'-larious! You liked Hugh Dillon last time out, yer gonna love him even more this trip. [Bruce McCulloch] was good - Mark is different but just as funny. Molly Parker is simply a Goddess, Tracey Wright comes back as Dizelle, Kris Lemche is cute and funny as Clinton and oh My Freakin' Gawd, you are just gonna love Callum Keith Rennie's Newbie even more this time out. I've been telling people for ages that CKR should do more comedy - and boy howdy has he ever! WooHoo! And as for McKellar - He Rules! Long Live Twitch City! 'Nuff said!

| 10.10.99 |

FILM RETROSPECTS
Some info I found on the Canadian Film Centre site:

"Thirteen Canadian Film Centre short films will screen in New York City's Independent Feature Project Canadian Film Series called "Ocularis", October 3-26. This alternative film series has dedicated the fall line-up to Canadian films, with many of the Centre's shorts screening in front of features such as EXOTICA, JESUS OF MONTREAL and DEAD RINGERS.

BLUE will screen in a Don McKellar retrospective curated by the American Museum of the Moving Image on October 23."

If you're interested in attending the retrospective of Don at the AMMI (and we highly recommend it!), here's a schedule for the retrospect's itinerary, taken off of their website:

Saturday, October 23, 1999
1:00pm ~ Twitch City tv series (season one, episodes 1-6)

4:00pm (admission $12 public/$8 members) ~ A Pinewood Dialogue with Don McKellar (I'm assuming that this is a Q&A session with Don, but I may be wrong...), Last Night, Elimination Dance, The Bloody Nose.

Sunday, October 24, 1999
1:30pm ~ Twitch City series (season two, episodes 7-13)

4:30pm ~ Highway 61

General admission to get into the museum (which is located in the Queens, NY area) is $8.50 for adults, $5.50 for seniors and college students with ID, and free for members. To find out more info, visit the AMMI website. Oh, and if anybody attends the event, please feel free to contact this site and let us know how it went! (And some details about the sneak preview of tbe new Twitch City eps wouldn't hurt either! ;-)

According to me0me0 from the Don McKellar Yahoo! Club, another retrospect featuring all of Don's work is currently being featured at the Cinematheque Quebequoise throughout this month. We'll provide more info about the event if we find out more.

TWITCH CITY UPDATE (And spoilers!)
As previously reported, Jennifer Jason Leigh will be making a guest appearance on the show. As revealed on the AMMI website, Jennifer will play a "pseudo-sociologist obsessed with Curtis." At one point, Curtis accuses Hope of being jealous of him, because Jennifer's character decides to write an article about Curtis...

| 09.26.99 |

VCR ALERTS!
Bravo will be airing Don's acclaimed film short Arrowhead on Wednesday, September 29th at 11:00am EST. Bravo will also be airing the movie Giant Steps Tuesday October 12th, at 2:00pm EST. And, for those of you who missed its last airing, Bravo will be re-airing the Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach six-part film series beginning October 9th. The film which features Don (entitled "Sarabande") is to air Saturday October 30th, at 7:30pm EST.

LAST NIGHT IN AMERICA
According to Kelly, Last Night will be released theatrically in New York and Los Angeles on November 5th, 1999. The U.S. distributors of the film have now launched an excellent website devoted to the film - you can find it at www.lastnight.net.

TWITCH CITY UPDATE (And spoilers!)
According to the Ottawa Citizen, Twitch City's first episode will open with a hilarious parody of HBO's acclaimed prison drama Oz. To paraphrase a segment of the article:

"[The show] will open with a scene of a dreadlocked black prisoner spouting cynical, street-savvy observations about life behind bars (a reference to Oz's resident soliloquist, the wheelchair bound Augustus Hill, who is played by Harold Perrineau.)

The camera will pull back to reveal officious, fussy Nathan (imprisoned during the first season for killing a bum with a can of cat food) offering bloodless literary criticism of his poet/cell-mate's latest oeuvre. The joke will work for everyone, but particularly those who know Oz, the most disturbing and uncompromising drama series on North American television."

Read the the Ottawa Citizen article in its entirety by following this link.

(Correction on the previous news statement on the airing date of the new Twitch episodes -- I meant to type "Winter of 2000" instead of "Spring of 2000". If you want my personal opinion, I think the CBC will choose to air the episodes sometime in January/early February, like they did with the first season of episodes last year...)

| 09.03.99 |

TWITCH CITY UPDATE
The six original episodes for Twitch City will be re-airing on the CBC from Sept 6th ~ 8th at 8pm EST. Two shows will be aired back-to-back each of those days! AND, the seven brand new episodes of Twitch City are now officially slated to air in the Spring of 2000! (Thanks to daydreamer for the info!)

More guests slated to appear on Twitch City (Caution! Spoilers!): Kenneth Walsh will appear as Hope's "deaf" father; Kris Lemche (eXistenZ) plays Clinton, an unlucky roomate who gets thrown out of a window(!) and as previously announced, rock band Sloan will be guesting on the show as well. Apparently Curtis has a run-in with a Neo-Nazi leader, and the Sloan boys are the Nazi's followers. Despite their lovely singing voices, none of the guys have a speaking part... :-(

[ 24/06/99 ]

VCR ALERT!
Showcase will be airing When Night Is Falling at 11:10pm EST this Friday, June 25th, and will be repeating again later that night. AND, TVO will be airing Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach: Sarabande on Sunday, June 27th at 9pm EST! (Many thanks to Valerie!)

| 06.08.99 |

VCR ALERT!
CBC's "Undercurrents" will be re-airing an interview with Don on July 11 at 10:30pm (EST) -- please double-check your local listings for the correct time and channel in your area.

ALSO, The Passion of Ayn Rand will be shown on Showtime on the following days: