Fey and Poehler to host SNL’s last show of 2015
Saturday Night Live has an early Christmas present for viewers. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are hosting the final episode of 2015 on Dec. 19.
And that’s not all: Bruce Springsteen is the musical guest.
Poehler and Fey are longtime collaborators. They were co-anchors for two years on “Weekend Update” and teamed up on the 2008 film Baby Mama.
They’ve already demonstrated their co-hosting chops on the Golden Globes, which they hosted for three consecutive years.
They also co-star in Sisters, which hits theatres a day before their SNL hosting gig.
Other names that popped up on SNL’s end-of 2015 roster include London, Ont.-born Ryan Gosling, who will host for the first time on Dec. 5. Chris Hemsworth will host (for the second time this year) the following week. The Washington Post
Rod Stewart stops in to T.O. shop
A Monday morning visit from raspyvoiced rocker Rod Stewart didn’t leave BYOB Bar and Cocktail Emporium owner Kristen Voisey the least bit shaken.
Stewart pulled up outside the Queen West barware retailer in a black SUV just ahead of opening, inspired to pick up a gold, three-piece Japanese cocktail shaker after quizzing a bartender at Yorkville’s Four Seasons where he got his “cool barware.”
“He was super cool, really very nice and so was his team,” said Voisey, who sold Old Fashioned-making supplies to Stewart’s assistant, one of two people who accompanied him into the all things cocktail store.
Stewart wanted a full set of the “highest quality” gold barware — plus six gold-rimmed cocktail glasses called coupes — to make French Martinis for his wife, Penny Lancaster-Stewart. He spent $350.
Stewart, who was in Toronto for an exclusive event at the Glenn Gould Studio, complimented Voisey on her five-year-old shop and her just-completed holiday window display, calling it “brilliant.”
“It was cool having him here,” said Voisey, who posted a photo of Stewart at the counter on Facebook with an enthusiastic description of her first customer of the day. “He loved the store,” she said. The 70-year-old singer is hardly the emporium’s first celebrity client. Claire Danes has dropped in a couple of times with husband Hugh Dancy. So has Jessica Biel. Linda Barnard
Concert to focus on race relations
When Pharrell Williams signed up to perform at an all-star concert highlighting race relations in America, the musician didn’t want to “have a kumbaya type of moment” onstage with his fellow performers, as he put it.
“That’s not what these communities need. They don’t need another song, they need action,” Williams said in an interview. “And if that’s accompanied by music, that’s a beautiful thing.”
What came from that are two specials airing on A&E on Friday. The two-hour “Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America” — which includes Bruce Springsteen, Smokey Robinson, Ed Sheeran, Sia and John Legend — will tape Wednesday at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. It will air at 8 p.m. on Friday.
“Shining a Light: Conversations on Race in America,” a one-hour special, will follow at 10 p.m. and includes conversations about racial inequality and violence in communities such as Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo.
Mattel welcomes Moschino Barbie
Moschino Barbie is pretty special. A Mattel collaboration with the Italian luxury fashion house Moschino, she sold out in less than an hour after her debut last week.
There were just 700 of the limitededition dolls, at a price tag of $200 (Canadian) each. (They’re now being resold for several times that.) Who could resist the stylish dolls, clad in trademark Moschino logo belts and edgy leather suits?
Not a cherubic blond boy with a Mohawk. In the commercial, a male child actor declares, “Moschino Barbie is so fierce!” before dangling a sparkling gold and black leather purse from his doll’s arm.
With the coming holiday season likely to provoke another debate over gender-specific toys, Mattel appears to have pre-emptively put down its stake for gender neutrality.
The gender-bending commercial is all part of a larger conversation about whether boys and girls truly prefer the toys that they have historically been known to prefer, or if they are simply conditioned to do so. The Washington Post