The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 18

B2 SUKDAV I THE GAZETTE, MONTREAL, SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2006 Hollywood takes interest in Next Great Prime Minister Gossip website Defamer pokes fun Brian Mulroney pegged as the nasty judge, Kim Campbell as loopy-headed cheerleader Mr. Mrs. Smith for the tube Said Defamer of the decisionmakers on The Next Great Prime Minister: "Producers are touting the foursome's 'unbelievable with Mulroney emerging as the group's nasty, "tell it like it is" judge not lying to you. Worst agricultural subsidies reform plan we've heard in Clark the urban slang-spewing technical taskmaster foreign policy platform's just a'ight, and Campbell the lovably loopy-headed, narcotized cheerleader." Mulroney's son Ben, incidentally, hosts Canadian Idol, the Canuck version of the Idol franchise. The Next Great Prime Minister is an annual contest that began about a decade ago by Magna Corporation.

This year, however, it will be televised and the panel of former prime ministers will choose a winner, to receive a $50,000 prize, an internship award. CANADIAN PRESS los anceles Will former prime minister Brian Mulroney emerge as the next Simon Cowell? Hollywood gossip website Defamer has aimed its daggers at The Next Great Prime Minister, CTV's new Idol-like political reality show. The hour-long special, to air Feb. 4, features four ex-PMs -Mulroney, Kim Campbell, John Turner and Joe Clark assessing a group of young people to decide who has the greatest leadership potential. The contestants will have to go through public speaking and debate challenges.

"Canadian Politics has Idol Fever," Defamer declared this week, tongue planted firmly in cheek. The site went on to compare the political panel to the judges on the singing contest American Idol, where Cowell routinely skewers hapless contestants. 7'; -j I I ton might be co-stars in a spring wedding: "To date, I've lived a selfish lifestyle and never considered marriage. I don't have the time to fully commit to anyone at the moment. But I'll know when the time's right to do so." Here's a strange one: Disney and Pixar have scrapped plans for Toy Story 3.

What makes this mysterious is that the first two made buckets of money, which should make another instalment as sure as sunrise. The official line is that the suits weren't happy with the script something about Buzz Lightyear malfunctioning and being recalled to Taiwan -and not wanting to fall short of the standard set by the first two, etc. etc. I suppose we'll get the real story fairly soon, and the third movie eventually camillithegazette.canwest.com DOUG CAMILU Sienna Miller, who has been dabbling in modelling. The Sun was there: Kate "was loudly saying Sienna was not a professional model and she (Moss) should be getting front covers not an actress.

Sienna is a real threat because she is younger and has kept her nose clean. But Kate is not ready to give up her throne." Quote of the day: Vince Vaughn, speaking to Now magazine, pours cold water on speculation that he and Jennifer Anis Jury, audience agree on Sundance winners Now there will probably be a TV version of Mr. Mrs. Smith, a movie that would already have been as forgotten as Theodore Frelinghuysen except that it's how Brad met Angle. Doug Liman, who directed the movie, told Us Weekly magazine he'll direct the series, too.

Liman has a "first look" deal with NBC, so if the pilot's any good, that network will get first crack. Apparently Simon Kinberg, who wrote the movie and is working on the TV project, first conceived of this thing as a TV series. There's no casting news yet. Need I tell you that neither Pitt nor Jolie will be in the TV version? Even so, I don't imagine Jennifer Aniston will be programming this one into her Ti Vo. Apparently desperate for business, British fashion designer Vivienne West-wood has volunteered to clothe Germany's new chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Westwood told Stern magazine that Merkel should take style tips from Margaret Thatcher "If Mrs. Merkel wants to wear West-wood, I can promise that I will design clothes for her that will make her look chic, refined and influential. For me, Thatcher has always been one of the world's best-dressed people. Her politics were appalling, but her look gave her incredible presence." Madonna has seen fit to issue a formal denial that her marriage to Guy Ritchie is in trouble. The rumours have been flying lately; in one version they've already split up.

No way, says Madge, speaking through her publicity staff in that sincere way celebrities have. In fact, Guy and the kids even visited Madonna last weekend. She's in London, working on a video called Sorry Publicist Liz Rosenberg said "Mr. and Mrs. Ritchie seemed comfortable and adoring of each other.

My sense is that they're quite a happy, content couple." But then, she's paid to say that. I give the couple six weeks. During a boozy evening but no drugs, of course at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, Kate Moss said what she really thinks about CANWEST NEWS SERVICE park city, utah The Sundance Film Festival crowned its winners last night, honouring God Grew Tired of Us, Quincea-nara, In the Pit and 13 Tzameti with major jury prizes. Gela Babluani's 13 Tzamati, a neo-noir French thriller about a man forced to use his wits to survive when he accidentally becomes involved in a dark plot, picked up the World Cinema Dramatic prize, edging out Canada's lone feature Eve and the Fire Horse for the honour of being the first non-American reel to win a juried prize here at Sundance. In years past, Jury prizes were only handed out to U.S.

films. Though the Vancouver-based director's film didn't win the big honour, it was nonetheless recognized by the jury for its eloquent storytelling and given a Special Jury Prize. Said Kwan: "It's unbelievable. I'm overwhelmed, this is such a small, intimate film; it means so much to me." God Grew Tired of Us, which picked up the Grand Jury Prize Documentary (U.S.) as well as the audience award in its category, told the story of three Sudanese boys who survived refugee camps and a thousand-mile trek through the desert to start a new life in the United States. Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer's Quinceanara won the Grand Jury prize in the dramatic competition (U.S.), as well as the audience award, for its story of a young Latina woman dealing with an unexpected pregnancy in working-class Los Angeles.

The winner of the World Documentary prize was In the Pit, from Mexican director Juan Carlos Rulfo, which examines the life of construction workers building a freeway in the midst of Mexico City i COURTESY OF 20TH CENTURY FOX Angelina Jolie (as Jane Smith) eyes a cleaver tossed by her husband John (Brad Pitt). Brownstein Man loses detonator roulette CHAUD SHOW Two solitudes and he toys with both "It's unbelievable," Spence says. "So many people around the world just don't get it. We're killing the planet and, even when presented with all this compelling evidence, most of us are still in complete disconnect mode. Talk about stupidity" A The World Stupidity Awards are not to be confused with the Darwin Awards.

The latter deal with the dead stupid or as its organizers so succinctly put it: "we salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who remove themselves from it" while the former deals with the living stupid, who, if they keep it up, will one day win Darwin Awards -posthumously But just as the hit documen- GAETAN CHARLEB0IS tary Stupidity was an offshoot of the World Stupidity Awards, the motion picture, The Darwin Awards which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and which stars the recently deceased Chris Perm owes its origins to the Darwin gang. And the producers of The Darwin Awards flick are probably kicking themselves for not including this award-winner from last year. Sad but true and stupid and confirmed: Hanoi resident Nguyen, 21, had a novel suggestion while drinking with his buddies. He pulled out an old detonator he had just found. He figured it was too deteriorated to explode.

His friends figured otherwise. Undaunted, Nguyen put the detonator in his mouth and asked one of his cronies to plug the dangling wires into a 220-volt electrical outlet Turned out his buddies were right. The resulting explosion blew out Nguyen's cheeks and what was left of his brains. He died en route to hospital Equally painful and dumb is another Darwin winner from last year. But what could Croatian chimney-sweeper Marko have been thinking by using a hand-grenade as a weight for his broom and then turning on his welding apparatus in the cleaning process? Evidently, Marko's body parts were later discovered in numerous Croatian postal zones.

So, a reminder to humankind: this is no time to become smug. bbrownst thegazette.canwest.com ANSWER TO CHALLENGER B9 In a Word: Christopher Hall is nobody's token. Yes, in a crowd of francophone vedettes, he'll stick out like a sore thumb; not only for that anglo name but for the outlandishly anglo accent and hyper-WASP look (tall, handsome and blond). And, yes, he has been making a very solid career en francais despite it all But if you listen to what the actorcomic says, it's clear he isn't trying to ingratiate himself with those on the other side of the linguistic divide indeed, a good deal of the time, he seems to be biting the hand that feeds him. Take his performance at a Juste pour rire gala two summers ago.

He gave a wonderfully jaundiced history lesson to the packed house, the highlight of which was saying that FLQ stood for Front des Losers du Quebec. Despite some initial misgivings murmured in the hall full of aficionados and banlieusards alike, soon it became clear the young man had charmed the socks off everyone. As he does with his appearances on the Radio-Canada animated news satire, Et Dieu crea Laflaque, or on the weekly Tele-Quebec debate show, va avoir du sport But Hall didn't get off the boat yesterday He has been working on all four main networks and on stage since he hit his stride on Julie Snyder's late, great Le Poing in 1998. He has bounced from Canal Vie to radio, he has emceed for corf orate functions and hey! has played the clarinet for the MSO and L'Orchestre Metropolitan! So we had to ask: what's the most dangerous thing about crossing from one solitude to the other and laughing all the while? In a (Rene) Simard vs. (Nathalie) Simard and now, renowned drug addict Anne-Marie Peladeau vs.

the monstrously wealthy rest. Just out of her latest rehab, Annie gave interview to TQS and Radio-Canada (Peladeau competitors) exclusively The step she seems to have missed during her 30 well-publicized therapies: No. 8 Make a list of all persons harmed, and be willing to make amends to them. (We suspect that includes family) Pots 'n' kettles: Huntingdon's controversial mayor, Stephane Gendron, on Les Francs-Tireurs, joked with interviewer Patrick Lagace about the "professionalism" of Radio-Canada's news division. Laff riot.

Except Lagace's other job is at Journal de Montreal and Gendron moonlights as the boob in residence on TQS's L' Avocat et le diable. So dope, man: La Presse's Pierre Foglia, who defended cyclist Genevieve Jean-son in the past, is playing the suitor scorned now. "I am sad for this waif who sparkled and who has become a rouee, manipulator a good woman, what." Classic Foglia: rage and irony rolled up in one big ball o' sexism Election post-mortem: Washington reacts and though we changed to francophone television to avoid him, there's fat-faced Davey Frum talking at us on Rad-Can. It makes us want to buy a gun and blow our brains out (Hey! Jeez! Now we can!) gaetancharleboissympatico.ca word, "I haven't run into anything really dangerous yet. But the fact is, the solitudes do exist no matter what the governor-general says and my job wouldn't be as much fun if they didn't.

I simply bridge the gap and play on the prejudices. I say, for instance, 'You think all of our women are frigid; that's not true. We simply tell you that to keep you away from them' Star Mart: While the rest of us were torturing ourselves about how to vote, the kids of Star Academie were signing autographs at the mall last weekend. Doesn't it make your hearts sing when two noble and soulful organizations Quebecor and Wal-Mart work together to defend the culture! We're just not that into you: Ardent nationalist Francois Parenteau did satire on the queen's network. He just got canned for reasons many think are political.

Really? Have you ever heard Parenteau or even his team, Les Zapartistes? Not really funny ha-ha More like funny blah. Falling Down the Steps: The new trend in Quebec culture is intra-clan destruction. 5 6 9jT TTTT IM 8 jjjT 16 19 27 18 AMSWER TO WHATZIT? B9 Win some, lose some.