Mike's Bloggity Blog

If you’re like me, you’ve always dreamed about being invited to an awards show. No, not backstage.  Any bald blogger from Calgary can get invited backstage, but the actual award shows.  You know, so you can shmooze with the best of the best and maybe exchange a business card or two.

Well since the Gemini’s don’t have a blog category, it’s definitely not happening for me this year, but the CBC is giving one lucky Canadian the chance to present at this year’s award show.

The network has launched the Gemini U Present Contest and in a matter of weeks, you could be on the Gemini stage presenting the award for Best Comedy Series or Program, and just like the celebs, you get to take home a sweet Swag Bag full of some awesome stuff.

So how do you win?  Well, click here for all the details, but they are asking you to submit a video tribute to one of the Comedy nominees which include:  Call Me Fitz,  Living in Your Car,  This Hour Has 22 Minutes,  The Halifax Comedy Festival, The Rick Mercer Report and Good Dog.

Hurry, contest closes on August 29th!

While Jason Priestly‘s Call Me Fitz was never a huge ratings it, that didn’t seem to stop the HBO Canada series from dominating this morning’s Gemini nominations!  The show picked up 16 nominations, which is especially impressive considering that the show has only been on for one season!  Among it’s many nods, Jason Priestly was nominated for Best Actor and the show for Best Comedy.

CTV’s Flashpoint has a lot to celebrate this morning!  The show, which also airs on CBS, picked up a total of 17 nominations including best drama and best leading actor in a drama, for Enrico Colantoni.

The Geminis also fixed a huge wrong from last year, and nominated Being Erica’s main lady Erin Karpluk.  Fans will remember that after winning Best Actress two years ago, she wasn’t even nominated last year.

Also of note, Angela Asher and Peter Keleghan are both nominated for their roles in the now canceled 18 to Life. Being canceled didn’t seem to stop Showcase’s Endgame from being nominated for Best Drama either.

The Gemini’s will be handed out in Toronto on September 7th.

This year’s Geminis were a who’s who of the best minds behind Canadian television.

The big winner of the night was HBO Canada’s Less Than Kind, which walked away with three awards, including Best Comedy.  The Best Drama went to the UK co-production of The Tudors.  I’ve never heard of The Cupcake Girls but they won Best Reality Show over Dragon’s Den and This House Has 22 Minutes won for best ensemble performance.  Flashpoint and Being Erica were essentially shut out!

As predicted, host Cory Monteith played the drums instead of singing. Besides that, I’ve read nothing buy glowing reviews for the Glee star for his role as MC!

The highlight of the night may have been the Degrassi reunion that say cast members from the last twenty years gather together to celebrate Degrassi being named Canada’s favourite show!  It definitely got my vote!

Here’s the list of this year’s Gemini Award Winners:

Best drama: The Tudors
Best comedy: Less Than Kind
Best actor, drama: Robert Carlyle, Stargate Universe
Best actress, drama: Caroline Cave, Cra$h and Burn
Best supporting actor: Clé Bennett, The Line
Best supporting actress: Catherine Disher, The Border
Best reality program: The Cupcake Girls
Best miniseries: The Summit
Best ensemble performance, comedy: Cathy Jones, Gavin Crawford, Mark Critch, Geri Hall, Shaun Majumder, This Hour has 22 Minutes.
Best music or variety program: 2009 MuchMusic Video Awards
Best host in a music or variety program: Michael Bublé, At the Concert Hall
Best actor, miniseries: Jared Keeso, Keep Your Head Up: The Don Cherry Story
Best actress, miniseries: Sun Li, Iron Road

Tomorrow night is Canadian television’s biggest night of the year.  The Gemini awards never really seem to get the attention they deserve but this year might be a little different.

Glee superstar Cory Monteith has been summoned to host the show but Gleeks shouldn’t expect to hear him sing.  At last year’s Gemini awards in Calgary, where Monteith also made an appearance, I remember hearing that he wouldn’t be singing because his voice just wasn’t strong enough to sing live, so he played the drums instead.  I’m expecting the same this year but then again, maybe a year’s worth of vocal lessons have strengthened the Calgary-born star’s voice.

Speaking of musical talent, producers have also secured quite an impressive line-up of singers who will be performing during the awards show.  Elvis Costello, Feist and Ron  Sexsmith are all now scheduled to perform.

For me, the night’s highlight will be the special tribute to Degrassi.  Some of the alumni expected to make appearances include Nina Dobrev, Stefan Brogren and Amanda Stepto, Adamo Ruggiero, Cassie Steele, Lauren Collins and Melinda Shankar.  Plus, since the awards are in Toronto, I’m sure you can expect a LOT more of your Degrassi favourites to get the night off from waiting tables to show up.

You can expect some of the night’s biggest winners to include The Rupublic of Doyle, Flashpoint, The Vancouver 2010 Olympics and hopefully Being Erica and MTV Live.

The Geminis air on Global and Showcase on Saturday night.

Days after the Emmys, Canadian’s attention have now turned towards our own television sets with the Geminis!  Don’t sigh, the Geminis are cool. No really, seriously, stop rolling your eyes.  It is the Geminis people!

This year the Geminis are celebrating their 25th anniversary in Toronto by announcing hundreds of nominees in dozens of categories all having to do with Canadian television productions.

Click here to read the entire list of nominees.

But with so many nominations, I thought I break some down for you.

Being Erica (Six nominations)
My fave series about our dearest little time-traveller should be really happy with their six nominations including for Best Male Actor Michael Riley.  But the most shocking bit of news is that last year’s winner Erin Karpluk didn’t get nominated!!!  Uhh…what?  I nearly spit out my Honey Nut Cheerios when I read this!  Seriously shocked. Obviously this is a huge mistake.  You should expected the nominations to be retracted any minute….right?  RIGHT?!?!  (Single tear.)

Melinda Shankar from Much’s Degrassi scored a nominated for Best Performance in a Children’s Program…but not for Degrassi. She is also the star of How To Be Indie and that’s what she got nominated for!  With her nomination, we should now officially have her on lock-down so the CW can’t steal another one of our actresses.

Poor Jay Onrait.  One the funniest broadcasters was nominated for Best Sportscaster/Anchor but he’ll face some heavy competition from my secret best friend Brian Williams who pretty much should have gotten his own gold medal for his coverage of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.  But what is working for Onrait is that he has an awesome twitter account.  That has to count for something.

The awards will be handed out on November 13th.