“At 2 a.m. you can’t come home after a night out and act… but you can write a song.”  – Tim Robbins.

We tend to return to the roost after a night out and eat microwaved pizza and fall asleep on the couch, but we may take a page from Tim Robbins’ songbook after hearing his first album, Tim Robbins & the Rogues Gallery, released at the tender age of 51 (what else is a guy to do after breaking up with Susan Sarandon?). In fairness, Robbins has been fiddling around with a guitar for a long time, with a musical family, experience co-producing the soundtrack to Dead Man Walking, and under-the-radar shows in small venues. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the folksy, storytelling songs by Tim Robbins & the Rogues Gallery are actually really good. We won’t miss his Montreal debut tonight at Club Soda.

But we’re probably just going to pack it in with a poutine and leave the song writing to Tim.

Tickets ($32.50) available online and by phone 514-286-1010. Wednesday July 13, 8 p.m. at Club Soda, 1225 St. Laurent Blvd., Montreal, www.timrobbins.net

“You gotta be like a rock-and-roll Jesus with a cowboy mouth."

Girl Got Lost Productions presents Cowboy Mouth, a thinly-veiled autobiographical play written in 1971 by Sam Shepard with Patti Smith over the course of several sleepless nights. Performed only once with Smith and Shepard in the starring roles, this relevant-as-ever one-act play explores the ambivalence of the American Dream and the cost of fame, incorporating music, clowns and taxidermy.

How far would you go to become the next big rock star? —JN

Cowboy Mouth, April 20-30 at  Espace 4001, 4001 Berri St., Montreal. For tickets ($20) call 514-279-5219 or email girlgotlostproductions@gmail.com

In the vapid world of L.A. festivities, fashion and frenemies, Lo Bosworth was the only one who kept her head, and a slight sense of humour, during the six seasons of The Hills.

Not that we ever watched it, of course.

Now she can be your sensible girlfriend in her new book The Lo Down, where she dishes dating advice gleaned from own experiences as Lauren Conrad’s least insane friend. You didn’t think that award went to Heidi, did you?

As long as she advises us to stay away from the bad-boy-Brodys and sinister-Spencers of the world, we’re in.

$11.23 at Amazon.ca

Our most anticipated movie of the year is Black Swan. In part because the media has been referring to it as an “erotic ballet thriller,” and we’d like to find out what that means.

Beautiful and unsettling, Black Swan stars Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis as competing ballerinas who wind up entangling lithe limbs off-stage as well as on. Winning rave reviews at the Venice International Film Festival and TIFF, Black Swan finds Tchaikovsky meeting director Aronofsky with stunning results.

Did we mention Winona Ryder stars as the aging Prima Ballerina replaced by the younger starlets? Reality bites.

In select theatres on December 1, www.foxsearchlight.com/blackswan

There are probably a lot of librarians out there who dream of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. But who would have thought Keith Richards dreamed of being a librarian?

Life ($33.99) is the just-released autobiography of Keith Richards (with contributor James Fox), ironically named for a man who spent a decade on the “Most Likely to Die” list. The hard-living hardcover promises to be a juicy read, getting into everything from Richards’ difficult relationship with the “unbearable” Mick Jagger, to his addictions to drugs, to his love of the Dewey Decimal System. Who knew?

It’s only rock ‘n roll. But we like it.

At bookstores including Chapters, Indigo, and online at amazon.ca

Audrey Hepburn launched subtle-sexy and LBD chic but it might never have happened were it not for a little film called Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

It heralded the career of Givenchy and the rise of the new '60s dame, one who didn’t live in the kitchen and spoke her mind. Sam Wasson’s Fifth Avenue, 5 a.m. is a page-turning look at the making of Blake Edward’s film filled with juicy details about Truman Capote’s narcissism (he hated the script and wanted Marilyn Monroe for the lead) and how Hepburn nearly refused to eat Danish in the film’s iconic opening scene (she lobbied for an ice cream cone).

It’s the perfect cure for the mean reds.

$16.05 at Amazon.ca

TIFF might have the star power of Matt Damon and Nicole Kidman, but we’ve got auteurs au but.

The 36th edition of the Montreal World Film Festival will screen 430 films from 80 countries, including Louis Bélanger’s much-anticipated fest opener Route 132. Our picks include the world premiere of Pete Smalls is Dead by indie director Alexandre Rockwell (9:30 p.m., August 28), Christine Cristina, the directing début of Italian diva (and Bernardo Bertolucci muse) Stefania Sandrelli, and a master film class taught by French actor Gérard Depardieu (September 6).

See, Montreal Cannes too!

August 26 to September 6, tickets from $10, 514-848-3883, www.ffm-montreal.org

Does the thought of your daughter looking up to socialite panty flashers keep you up at night?

Creating an outlet for bright and funny females is web series Smart Girls at the Party. Hosted by Amy Poehler (of Saturday Night Live fame), the short webisodes are filmed with a wink towards Inside the Actors Studio, but instead of celebrities, you get intelligent females, like 7-year-old skateboarder and feminist Ruby.

This is Girl Power we can get behind.

Watch Smart Girls at the Party here.

The King and Queen of jolie laide couples, Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, had a chemistry that was palpable.

It all began on the set of the 1969 film Slogan that launched several sexy duets and an 11-year affair. The satirical romp tells the story of a philandering director who falls for a doe-eyed English rose on a visit to Venice. Birkin won the role opposite her future lover despite not speaking a word of francais.  It all ends badly of course (on screen and in life) but just think, if it wasn’t for Slogan there’d be no Birkin bag. 

Quelle horreur!

$17.99 at HMV stores, www.hmv.ca

Rufus might be staging operas and playing Carnegie Hall, but our favorite Wainwright sibling has always been Martha.

We adore her even more with the release of Sans Fusils, ni souliers, à Paris, a live interpretation of Edith Piaf’s lesser-known songs. The tunes are both romantic and tortured (just like Piaf) with Martha’s folksy voice wobbling in all the right places.

Is it unfair to play favourites in families? Je ne regrette rien.

$9.99 on iTunes

Martha Wainwright in concert, 7:30 p.m., June 24, Salle Andre-Mathieu, 475 Boulevard de l'Avenir, Laval, 450-667-2327, tickets here ($28.25), www.admission.com