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ENTERTAINMENT
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
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Sugar Man sounds just sweet Roger Ebert remembered for defining profession RODRIGUEZ HAS TROUBLE WITH HIGH NOTES BUT CROWD DOESN’T MIND BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sixto Diaz Rodriguez can’t hit the high notes like he used to, but that didn’t matter to his fans. The 70-year-old singer made famous by the Oscar-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man performed Sunday night to a worshipful crowd at Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre. The folk-rocker was at his best performing his own songs, like I Wonder, with the catchy line, “I wonder how many times you had sex,” and a slightly jazzy version of his beautiful, mournful ballad I Think of You. But the set list of 21 songs also included seven covers, with several American standards that his fading upper register cannot quite manage, like Cole Porter’s Just One of Those Things. His Blue Suede Shoes was uninspired: He’s no Elvis, and while the Rolling Stones have proved that age is no impediment to rocking out, Rodriguez is no Mick Jagger. None of that mattered to his fans — at least the ones who stayed until the end, since a small but noticeable trickle left well before the 90-minute show ended. “It’s more than a musical event,” said fan Rick Panero, who attended with his mother and brother. Denise O’Bleness agreed, saying, “He stuck with it. His dream came true.” Jody Rosenberg, who grew up in South Africa, also liked the show, saying she’d “tempered” her expectations after hearing from others that his voice wasn’t what it once was. A 20-something in the lobby simply gushed, “Awesome!” Searching for Sugar Man tells the story of how Rodriguez disappeared from public life after making two albums in the early 1970s. Unbeknownst to him, his records developed a cult following in South Africa during the apartheid era, when boycotts cut the country off culturally from the rest of the world.
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez performs at the Beacon Theatre on Sunday in New York. His fans came to believe he’d committed suicide, but the end of apartheid and the advent of the Internet enabled them to find him and bring him to South Africa for a triumphant tour. The movie’s Oscar win for best documentary has led to yet another career rebirth as Americans now discover the songs he wrote more than four decades ago. Rodriguez will also perform at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Oct. 9. Highlights of Sunday’s show
included several of his songs that do not appear in the movie, like Rich Folks Hoax. The film depicts Rodriguez as an eccentric fellow whose early career was marred in part by performances where he played with his back to the audience. In interviews, he comes across as shy and uncomfortable, and despite his fans’ attempts to engage him with shout outs at Sunday’s show, he maintained the curtain on his emotions.
Stage illusionist Peter Reveen dies BY THE CANADIAN PRESS LAS VEGAS — Peter Reveen, a popular stage illusionist and hypnotist who toured extensively in Canada, died Monday. He was 77. Reveen died at his home in Las Vegas of complications from diabetes and dementia, said his daughter-in-law Cathy Reveen. “He was a classic performer,” she said in an interview from her home in Kelowna, B.C. “The grandeur of the old shows are something his memory retained and he would emulate.” After immigrating to Canada
from Australia in 1961, he began his career knocking on the doors of businesses in small towns in British Columbia, offering free tickets to shop owners if they put up his poster in their windows, she said. As a youth he was a stage magician, but he later studied hypnosis and developed a show that emphasized audience engagement. He performed in front of packed theatres and campus audiences around the world. But Cathy Reveen said he was particularly fond of entertaining audiences in small communities in Atlantic Canada, where he made his final
tour in 2008. While he hypnotized audience members, he was careful not to make fun of participants in his stage show, she added. “Family was very important to him,” she said. “It was very important to him that he had a clean show and that he was able to present it to multiple generations.” He worked as a manager to Las Vegas illusionist Lance Burton in the latter stages of his career before retiring. Reveen is survived by four sons and his wife, Coral. His son, Tyrone, performs magic in Canada.
Annette Funicello, Mouseketeer, big screen star, dies at 70
CHICAGO — Roger Ebert, one of the nation’s most influential film critics who used newspapers, television and social media to take readers into theatres and even into his own life, was laid to rest Monday with praise from political leaders, family and people he’d never met but who chose movies based on the direction of his thumb. “He didn’t just dominate his profession, he defined it,” said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a brief eulogy to hundreds of mourners who gathered at Holy Name Cathedral just blocks from where Ebert spent more than 40 years as the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. Ebert died last Thursday at the age of 70 after a yearslong battle with cancer. It was Ebert who told readers which films to see and needed to see and which ones they should stay away from, Emanuel said, remembering the influence Ebert had on movie goers through his newspaper reviews and the immensely popular television show he hosted with fellow critic Gene Siskel during which they would issue thumbs-up or thumbs-down assessments. “Roger spent a lot of time sitting through bad movies so we didn’t have to,” joked the mayor. In a 90-minute funeral Mass, speakers took turns talking about how Ebert spent his career communicating his ideas about movies, social issues, the newspaper business and finally the health problems that left him unable to speak. “He realized that connecting to people was the main reason we’re all here and that’s what his life was all about,” said Sonia Evans, his stepdaughter, her voice choking with emotion. That realization, she and other speakers said, helped explain Ebert’s fascination with outlets such as Twitter and his blog that he took to just two days before he died to tell readers he was taking a “leave of presence.” “Roger was 24-7 before anybody thought of that term,” said John Barron, Ebert’s former boss at the Sun-Times, who said Ebert was among the first to recognize the changing media landscape as well as the first in the office to use a computer or send emails. Ebert was also a champion for the little guy, as over the years he weighed more and more on social issues and other topics that had nothing to do with film. Gov. Pat Quinn spoke as much, if not more, about Ebert’s “passion for social justice” and the fact that he was a “union man,” as he did about Ebert as a film critic. Ebert’s widow, Chaz, who received a standing ovation as she made her way to the lectern to speak, expanded on that devotion. “It didn’t matter to him your race, creed, colour,” she said. “He had a big enough heart to accept and love all.” That was the message of Jonathan Jackson, who, after relating comments from his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, told the crowded church why Ebert’s early support for the films of Spike Lee and other black filmmakers was so important. “He respected what we had to say about ourselves,” said Jackson, who pointed to Ebert’s glowing review of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing in the late 1980s. “It was not his story but he understood the value of an important film was authenticity and not the fact that it depicted your interests.” www.carnivalcinemas.net 5402-47 St. Red Deer MOVIE LINE 346-1300 THE CALL
14A
Brutal Violence
Annette Funicello, who became a child star as a perky, cute-as-a-button Mouseketeer on The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s, then teamed up with Frankie Avalon on a string of ’60s fun-in-thesun movies with names like Beach Party Bingo and Bikini Beach, died Monday. She was 70. She died at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, Calif., of complications from multiple sclerosis, the Walt Disney Co. said. Funicello stunned fans and friends in 1992 with the announcement about her ailment. Yet she was cheerful and upbeat, grappling with the disease with a courage that contrasted with her lightweight teen image of old. “She will forever hold a place in our hearts as one of Walt Disney’s brightest stars, delight-
Central Alberta Theatre
ing an entire generation of baby boomers with her jubilant personality and endless talent,” said Bob Iger, Disney chairman and CEO. The pretty, darkhaired Funicello was just 13 when she gained fame on Walt Disney’s television kiddie “club,” an amalgam of stories, songs and dance routines that ran from 1955
to 1959. Cast after Disney saw her at a dance recital, she appeared in mouse ears, a pleated skirt and a turtleneck sweater emblazoned with her first name. She soon became the most popular Mouseketeer in the cast, receiving 8,000 fan letters a month, 10 times more than any of the 23 other young
Last of the Red Hot Lovers
By Neil Simon April 11-13, April 18-20, April 25-27 CAT ONE ACT FESTIVAL June 13-15, 20-22 Nickle Studio Tickets available at the Black Knight Inn
www.blackknightinn.ca
403-755-6626
PG
Coarse Language
1:10, 3:40
Brutal Violence
SNITCH
14A
14A
1:05, 3:35, 7:05, 9:35
1:00, 7:00
A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD 14A
DEAD MAN DOWN BULLET TO THE HEAD
14A
Brutal Violence, Coarse Language, Not recommended for your children 3:45, 10:00
ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH 3D G 1:15, 3:50, 7:20
HANSEL AND GRETEL W HUNTERS 3D
18A
Brutal Gory Violence
9:50
HANSEL AND GRETEL W HUNTERS 2D
18A
Brutal Gory Violence
4:00
Violence
1:10, 7:10
MAMA
14A
Frightening Scenes
9:40
DJANGO UNCHAINED
18A 6:40, 9:25
RISE OF THE GUARDIANS 2D G 1:20, 3:55
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK 14A Coarse language
6:55
Carnival Cinemas is CASH ONLY Before 6pm $3.00 after 6pm $5.00 All Day Tuesday $3.00 3D add $2.50
GST & DEPOSIT INCLUDED
Budweiser
POKER TOURNAMENT DAILY & NIGHTLY
$
• Roulette • Black Jack • 3 Card Poker • Mini Baccarat • Ultimate Texas • Four Card Hold’em Poker • Cash Crib
39
24 pc.
99
Polar Ice 750 ml.
$
Las Vegas Style Slots
19 99
$
Lamb’s Palm Breeze 750 ml.
$
SLOT MACHINES 10 A.M. - 2 A.M. FRIDAY - SATURDAY ‘TIL 3 A.M.
19 99
*Limit of 2 sale items per customer.
6350-67th Street, Red Deer
346-3339 Ample, Well-Lit Parking Lot
Kokanee
24 pc.
44317TF
4214-58 St. Red Deer
QUARTET
PG
Not recommended for young children 3:30, 7:05, 9:30
Spring Has Sprung!
LIVE ENTERTAINMENT 2013 Season
performers. She appeared in such Disney movies as Johnny Tremain, The Shaggy Dog, The Horsemasters, Babes in Toyland, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones“ and The Monkey’s Uncle. She also became a recording star, singing on 15 albums and hit singles such as Tall Paul and Pineapple Princess.
SAFE HAVEN
39 99
Royal Reserve 750 ml.
$
19 99
Please enjoy responsibly.
Must be 18+
Northeast Corner of 32nd St. and Taylor Dr. Open until 1:00 am Friday & Saturday (403) 347-8877
50087D4-20
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
1:25, 9:55