Incendies Director Denis Villeneuve

There are no solid bronze statuettes here – I speak of the oversized Oscars producers plonk down on either side of the red carpet at the Kodak Theater on Hollywood Boulevard – but it’s still pretty swank company where I happen to be.

Today I was invited to the Canadian Consulate-General’s home in Hancock Park in Los Angeles for the annual luncheon held in honour of the Canadian Oscar nominees. (I make it sound so breezy, meanwhile I’ve been sweatin’ pellets for a week trying to figure out what to wear. More on that in a minute.) The 83rd Annual Academy Awards is airing on Sunday and the city is almost at a fever-pitch with dozens of cocktail parties, screenings and celeb spottings here, there, and everywhere.

Incendies, Barney’s Version, How to Tame Your Dragon

If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Canuck – and who isn’t, especially at the end of February – then you already know who’s representin’. But, in case you don’t know them verbatim, herewith the list of Canadians nominated for five Academy Awards:

Incendies is nominated in the Best Foreign Film category, so director Denis Villeneuve, as well as producers Luc Déry and Kim McCraw, were present. Incendies is the story of twins who follow their mother’s last wishes and journey to the Middle East to discover their roots, which turns out to be a father they thought was dead and a brother they didn’t’ know about.

Montreal native Adrien Morot is nominated for Achievement in Makeup for Barney’s Version adapted from Mordecai Richler’s novel. Do I really need to describe this (surely, you’ve heard of it)? OK, it’s 35 years in the life of Montreal TV producer Barney Panofsky and his various wives.

How to Tame Your Dragon is nominated for Best Animated Feature Film and its director/writer Dean DeBlois, a Sheridan College grad was in attendance.  Read the rest of this entry

Which Canadian musicians will win at this year’s Grammy Awards? Amber Nasrulla weighs in.

1. ARTIST: DRAKE ODDS: 1/4

NOMINATED FOR: FOUR AWARDS Best New Artist; Best Rap Solo Performance; Best Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group; Best Rap Album (Thank Me Later)

COMPETITION: Includes Ludacris (How Low), T.I. (I’m Back), Kanye West (Power), Eminem (Not Afraid) and Jay-Z (The Blueprint 3)

THE GRAMMY GOES TO: a) Bieber will beat Drake in the Best New Artist category. b)The award for Rap Album will go to Eminem because his album Recovery was a monster hit this year. c) Fingers crossed for Drake for Best Rap Solo Performance but it’s looking like Eminem’s first to the finish line in that race as well. d) Drake with T.I. & Swizz Beatz is competing against Jay-Z & Swizz Beatz in the category for Best Rap Performance by a Duo. Although Drake’s Fancy was a better song that Jay-Z’s On to the Next One, Jay-Z is master of the universe, the admiral, the godfather, he is critically acclaimed and has huge public recognition. You know where I’m headed. The award is his.

2. ARTIST: Neil Young ODDS: 1/3

NOMINATED FOR: THREE AWARDS Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance (Le Noise); Best Rock Song (Angry World); Best Rock Album

COMPETITION: Includes Mumford and Sons (Little Lion Man); Kings of Leon (Radioactive); Muse (Resistance); The Black Keys (Tighten Up); Album – Jeff Beck (Emotion & Commotion); Pearl Jam (Backspacer); Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (Mojo)

THE GRAMMY GOES TO: The iconic Young won his first Grammy in 2010.  Who’s to say the Academy won’t make him wait another 40 years before honouring him with the Best Album Award? It’s absurdly long overdue. It’s clear that Young also deserves the award for Best Rock Song but critics say that Muse will win it.

3. ARTIST: Arcade Fire ODDS: 2/3

NOMINATED FOR:  THREE AWARDS, Album of the Year (The Suburbs); Best Alternative Music Album; Best Rock Performance by a Duo or a Group

COMPETITION: Eminem (Recovery); Lady Antebellum (Need You Now); Lady Gaga (The Fame Monster); Katy Perry (Teenage Dreams)

THE GRAMMY GOES TO: a) For Album of the Year, the bookies are saying it’s a toss up between Lady Gaga and Eminem. Between his controversial video with Rihanna Love the Way You Lie and her meat dress, this race doesn’t get anymore, well meatier. b) But with their third album, Arcade Fire will take home the gold, Best Alternative Music Album, and rightly so! c) For Best Rock Performance, we’re select Arcade Fire for Ready to Start, but Muse is a hard-core rock contender and getting buzz for Resistance.

4. ARTIST: Justin Bieber ODDS: 1/2

NOMINATED FOR: TWO AWARDS,  Best New Artist; Best Pop Vocal Album (My World 2.0)

COMPETITION: Includes Drake, Mumford & Sons, Florence & the Machine, Esperanza Spalding; Susan Boyle (I Dreamed a Dream)

THE GRAMMY GOES TO: Bieber a) Usher’s his “brother”. Dana Carvey’s inner “church lady” got hot and bothered for him on Saturday Night Live recently. He’s on the cover of the Hollywood Reporter. Yeah, this is the Bieb’s moment and he’s going to be named Best New Artist. c) Lady Gaga will totter off with Best Pop Album… unless Boyle, the bushy-browed songstress from the U.K., whose humble reality TV beginnings paved the way for her fairytale success story, stages an upset.

5. ARTIST: Michael Bublé ODDS: 0/2

NOMINATED FOR: TWO AWARDS Best Male Pop Vocal Performance; Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

COMPETITION: Michael Jackson (This Is It);  Adam Lambert (Whataya Want From Me); Bruno Mars (Just the Way You Are); John Mayer (Half of My Heart)

THE GRAMMY GOES TO: a) Bruno Mars has seven nominations and the most hits so he’ll probably take the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal. b) Michael Bublé’s album is beautiful but it’s likely to be overshadowed by the lingering emotion for the other Michael…yes Michael Jackson will win Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.

6. ARTIST: Michael J. Fox ODDS: 1/1

NOMINATED FOR: Best Spoken Word Album (A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Future)

COMPETITION: Craig Ferguson (American On Purpose); Sarah Silverman (The Bedwetter); Jon Stewart with Samantha Bee, Wyatt Cenac, Jason Jones, John Oliver & Sigourney Weaver (The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents Earth); Carol Burnett (This Time Together: Laughter And Reflection); Woody Allen (The Woody Allen Collection: Mere Anarchy, Side Effects, Without Feathers, Getting Even)

THE GRAMMY GOES TO: Talk about a tough crowd encompassing every generation, decade, genre, skill-set, niche, and hair colour. Nostalgia and sympathy for Parkinson’s Disease might play a part but our vote is with Fox. The others are all comedians but Fox has a cause worth fighting for.

7. ARTIST: Melanie Fiona (with John Legend, The Roots, & Common) ODDS: 0/1

NOMINATED FOR: Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (Wake Up! Everybody)

COMPETITION: B.o.B Featuring Bruno Mars (Nothin’ On You); Chris Brown, Tyga & Kevin McCall (Deuces); Eminem & Rihanna (Love The Way You Lie); Jay-Z & Alicia Keys (Empire State Of Mind)

THE GRAMMY GOES TO: When the DJ played Empire State of Mind, I can’t think of a single time the dance floor wasn’t mobbed this past summer. This award is a slam-dunk for Jay-Z and Alicia Keys but… Eminem and Rihanna could still steal it out from under them. That said, nothing would thrill us more than for the spritely Fiona to walk on-stage and pluck it away from everyone! Wouldn’t that be divine?

Watch The Grammy’s on Sunday February 13 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Global / CBS.

Singer Melanie Fiona is rooting for her longtime pal, a certain well-known rapper, to win Best New Artist Award at the 53rd Grammy Awards on Sunday night. “If I was looking in the crystal ball it would be Drake!,” she said Thursday night at the annual party for the Canadian Grammy nominees, which was organized by the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles. She added, “Either him or Justin Bieber because they are Canadian artists doing great things in America and bringing home that award would be kind of cool!” (If Bieber does win, you can expect squealing across international boundaries. Celebrity teen crushes have that affect.) (Drake and Bieber were no shows at the party – Drake was performing at a show while Bieber was promoting his new 3D concert film Never Say Never.)

Under a giant tent over the pool at the luxurious Hancock Park residence of the Consul-General, David Fransen, Fiona, 27, talked about who she’d crushed on when she was a teenager. “I’m an ’80s baby,” she said, laughing, “I was in love with Jordan Knight and Joey McIntyre from New Kids On the Block. I used to pretend Joey McIntyre was my boyfriend and I’d make pretend dinner for him.I was obsessed.” A Toronto native who now lives in Venice, Calif., Fiona was nominated for a Grammy last year for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance (she lost to Beyonce) and again this year  her work with John Legend, Common, and The Roots earned them a collective nod for Best Rap Collaboration.

In the throng of guests that included Teenage Head’s Dave DesRoches, Grammy-nominated cellist Matt Haimovitz (who performed for the crowd), media, music industry insiders and politicians, we ran into classical guitarist Liona Boyd who beamed that she was back on tour – “I just want to be a role model for middle-aged women!” At the coffee bar we yakked with Kevin Churko, the co-writer and producer of Ozzy Osbourne’s Grammy nominated album Scream.

Considered one of the industry’s leading engineers/producers, Churko has worked with Shania Twain and Britney Spears but was humble about his work. The Moosejaw native had come in from his home in Las Vegas, with his wife, Kemnay. In all, 14 Canadian artists earned 23 Grammy nominations.

The Grammy’s air live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday February 13 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Global / CBS.

*Swoon* My entire body is blushing since spending a few, choice moments with the dashing and very funny David Duchovny. I’m in Pasadena, California where I caught the star promoting the fourth season of his highly successful show, Californication. With only five minutes at my disposal (typical with celeb interviews), I ask him to tell us about a few of his favourite things. Read the rest of this entry