lifestyle THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2014 MUSIC & MOVIES Garth Brooks returns after 13 years

society that’s “rotten to the core,” as he states in the title song, which pits a desper- ate man making a stand against an Orwellian power structure. The album shows the influence of country rockers Jason Aldean and Eric Church in its heavy guitars and dark-hued themes. But he doesn’t go for auto-tuned vocals, rhythm loops or rapping. The songs are weighty and wordy, taking up where his albums “Scarecrow” and “In the Life of Chris Gaines” left off. s would be expected, Garth Brooks Some tunes - “She’s Tired of Boys” and strives for an epic statement on his “Midnight Train” - could benefit from the Are-entry into full-time recording, concise editing that defines the best coun- after a 13-year hiatus. Unlike most modern try songwriting. However, the unabashed male country stars, Brooks looks beyond sentiment of “Mom,” the cowboy swing of partying and celebrating rural life on “Man “Rodeo and Juliet” and the jaunty, dobro- Against Machine.” Like U2 or Bruce led “Wrong About You” suggest the possi- Springsteen, Brooks positions himself as a bilities of country music in the 2010s just as cultural figurehead who speaks for, and to, Brooks’ classics did in the 1990s. Now, like the common man. then, Brooks’ desire to address life’s impor- To his credit, Brooks represents the mid- tant themes should be welcomed into a dle class who work too many hours and country music scene that rarely shows such devote their earnings to getting by in a ambition these days. — AP

Berlin Film Festival to celebrate This image released by Roadside Attractions shows Tommy Lee Jones, left, and Hilary Swank in a scene from “The Homesman.” — AP 100th anniversary of Technicolor he Berlin Intl Film Festival will cele- the dawn of Technicolor in 1915 and brate the 100th anniversary of 1953, include “Gone with the Wind,” ‘Homesman’ reverses TTechnicolor as part of its “Singin’ in the Rain” and George Sidney’s Retrospective program. The fest will “The Three Musketeers.” screen some 30 Technicolor films, some “Thanks to the cooperation with of which have been restored. “The blaz- George Eastman House in Rochester, we ing red of Southern skies in ‘Gone with will be able to present prints from one of the Wind’ or the ecstatic yellow of the the world’s largest and best preserved the Western’s course raincoats in ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ - in those collections of Technicolor films-and they here’s been some trouble about the Upstanding citizen before the patrolman had enough and went off days, the play of dramatically intensified will range from original prints to modern women hereabouts,” says John But the dutiful, Christian, upholder-of-decen- to Disneyland. The movie, freed of its schematic colors was a sensation. color film prints. Thanks to the support of “TLithgow’s plains preacher in Tommy cy Mary Bee is, as the minister says, “as good a plot, went somewhere else, somewhere deeper. The Technicolor process combined other film archives and studios, we will Lee Jones’ “The Homesman.” The hereabouts is a man as any.” The carpenter who crafts the jail- with cultural and economic trends to also be showing a large number of tiny, hardscrabble settlement in the Nebraska like cell, abundantly fitted with chains to hold Melancholic balance produce great cinematic works of art that restored versions,” commented Rainer Territory, sometime around 1860. On the deso- the women, tells her: “People like to talk about In “The Homesman,” Mary Bee and Briggs still thrill audiences today,” Berlinale Rother, head of the Retrospective and late prairie, a handful of hardened settlers try to death and taxes, but when it comes to crazy, travel across the plains, a pious spinster and an director Dieter Kosslick said. The select- artistic director of the Deutsche eek something out of the dry land. Going West they stay hushed up.” ornery rascal towing madness across the dan- ed pics, which were produced between Kinemathek. — Reuters never looked like more a questionable decision. “The Homesman,” surely, is about citizenship. gerous open range. Jones, a devoted fan of The directional movement of “The Homesman,” It’s a Western parable, told with handsome John Cormac McCarthy (whom he adapted for the however, is east. When three of the town’s Ford classicism, about how we care for our ill, HBO film “The Sunset Limited”), takes after the women (Miranda Otto, Grace Gummer and our mad and our dead. Into the Western’s tradi- novelist’s pursuit of bleak, merciless poetry ‘American Sniper’ to premiere Sonja Richter) lose their minds, it’s decided that tional sweeping grandeur creep the discordant down North American pathways. In “The they must be taken to a church in Iowa, across notes of Marco Beltrami’s score. Mary Bee’s Homesman,” adapted from a late novel by the the Missouri River. Each driven mad - one by companion is certainly no upstanding citizen. Arizona writer Glendon Swarthout, the melan- child-killing diphtheria, another by the constant She takes on a man set to be hung for squat- cholic balance isn’t always quite right and the at AFI fest Tuesday night rape of a cruel husband, all by the acrid isolation ting on another man’s ranch: George Briggs momentum wanes when it should be gaining. - they’re the seldom seen victims of the male (Jones). At least that’s the name he, chuckling at Most troublesome is the handling of Mary Bee’s pioneers usually glorified in Westerns, collateral its invention, gives her. fate, a conclusion at odds with Swank’s excellent, damage to an ill-conceived Manifest Destiny. Our first encounter with him is as he’s sturdy performance of her. As in “Melquiades The town’s men (Jesse Plemons, William smoked out of a cabin, his face cartoonishly Estrada,” “The Homesman” goes off its rails, with Fitchner, David Dencik) aren’t up for the month black from an explosion, rolling around in his detours both exciting and frustrating. long journey by wagon, so the task falls on the Long Johns. It’s an entrance that doesn’t jibe “The Homesman,” a Roadside Attractions sturdiest resident, Mary Bee Cutty (Hilary with the rest of the film, but, then again, Jones release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Swank). She lives “uncommonly alone,” she says, seems to thrive on an unbalanced, mordant Association of America for “for violence, sexual with a twinge of shame, fastidiously running her tragicomedy. content, some disturbing behavior and nudity.” farmstead. When she proposes to a potential His good first film, “The Three Burials of Running time: 120 minutes. Two and a half stars mate, the dimwitted man turns her down, saying Melquiades Estrada,” set up as a confrontation out of four. MPAA rating definition for R: he’ll go back east for a wife, and besides, she’s between a Mexico border patrolman and a Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying too plain and too bossy. rancher bent on burying his friend in Mexico parent or adult guardian. — AP Kenny Rogers plans last tour of Australia, New Zealand ountry music legend Kenny Rogers on Tuesday announced a tour of CAustralia and New Zealand and said that, at age 76, it will certainly be his last Down Under. The Texas-born singer-whose FI Fest will premiere Clint Eastwood’s wife and kids after four tours of duty in Iraq, crossover appeal has helped him top the “American Sniper,” starring Bradley he finds that it is the war he can’t leave charts with a string of songs including “The ACooper, on Tuesday night at the behind. Kyle was murdered at a shooting Gambler,” “Lady” and “Islands in the Egyptian Theatre. The showing will be the range in Texas last year. Stream”-said he was not retiring but that first public screening for “American Sniper,” The AFI slot has been reserved for a his January-February tour would be the last which opens Christmas Day through Warner “secret screening,” which was unveiled to Australia and New Zealand. Bros. “Clint Eastwood is an American icon,” Monday as “American Sniper.” Eastwood “For all of the traveling I’ve done around said Bob Gazzale, AFI President and CEO. directed Jason Hall’s screenplay, based on the world, Australia and New Zealand “His are stories that stand the test of time, the book by Chris Kyle, with Scott McEwan remain two of my favorite places to per- and we are proud and honored to unveil his and Jim DeFelice. The film is produced by form,” he said in a statement. “They have a latest masterpiece.” Cooper stars as Chris Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Andrew Lazar, great sense of humor, and they’ve always Kyle, the most lethal sniper in US military Bradley Cooper and Peter Morgan and is treated me with such great respect, so for history with the nickname “Legend” and produced in association with Village that, I say thank you,” he said. Besides his 160 confirmed kills. Upon returning to his Roadshow Pictures. — Reuters solo work, Rogers is known for his collabo- ration with Dolly Parton and appearances on films and television programs including ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2’ “The Muppet Show.”— AFP Kenny Rogers acquired by Universal Member of rap pioneers Sugarhill Gang dead at 57 File photo shows Joan Rivers posing as she presents “Comedy Roast with Joan Rivers “. — AP ig Bank Hank, whose Sugarhill Gang trio recorded the first rap song to go Joan Rivers’ daughter Bmainstream and pioneered the use of samples, died Tuesday. He was 57. Big Bank Hank, a New York area native whose real ‘outraged’ by findings name was Henry Jackson, died at a hospital in Englewood, New Jersey, after suffering ttorneys say Joan Rivers’ daughter is “outraged” from cancer, a representative for the group by findings that errors were made at a said. “So sad to hear of our brother’s passing. AManhattan clinic where the comedian suffered Rest in peace Big Bank,” surviving members a fatal complication during a medical procedure. A Wonder Mike and Master Gee said in a statement on behalf of Melissa Rivers says she’ll work statement. In this April 9, 2014 file photo, Nia Vardalos attends the Zooey Deschanel for to ensure the safety of future patients. The federal Rap was born in the 1970s in the Bronx Tommy Hilfiger Collection launch event at The London Hotel in West Hollywood, Department of Health and Human Services has given but the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” Calif. —AP Yorkville Endoscopy until Jan 7 to correct deficiencies in 1980 became the first song from the he boisterous Portokalos family is “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” became to avoid losing Medicare accreditation. genre to break into the mainstream Top 40 definitely ain’t that wack.” coming back to the big screen. one of the most successful independent A state report released Monday said the clinic chart. The song’s structure, with a rapper The song, which in its album version TUniversal Pictures has acquired the films of all time, grossing over $241 mil- “failed to identify deteriorating vital signs and provide boasting of his exploits over a bass-driven stretched to nearly 15 minutes, opened with domestic distribution rights to “My Big lion domestically after its 2002 release. It timely intervention.” Rivers, who was 81, died Sept 4 of rhythm line sampled from another song, lines that stayed in the memory of many lis- Fat Greek Wedding 2,” a sequel to the even spawned a short-lived sitcom, “My brain damage due to lack of oxygen. She’d stopped proved to be the basis of much of hip-hop teners then unfamiliar with rap: “I said a hip beloved independent hit, with writer and Big Fat Greek Life,” which aired on CBS in breathing during an endoscopy days earlier. The clinic over the coming decades. The trio hands off hop / the hippie, the hippie / The hip, hip a star Nia Vardalos set to return. Kirk Jones, 2003. The sequel promises the return of said it has submitted a plan to state and federal the microphone to one another, with Big hop / And you don’t stop.” The sample came best known for directing “Nanny many of the original cast, who are reunit- accreditation agencies addressing all issues raised. It Bank Hank rapping, “I got more clothes than from the song “Good Times” by Chic, whose McPhee,” has signed on to helm the new ed by the discovery of a family secret said the physicians involved no longer provide services Muhammad Ali / And I dress so viciously / I funky music was omnipresent in nightclubs installment with a script by Vardalos. and, yes, another wedding. — AP there. — AP got bodyguards, I got two big cars / That of the disco era. —AFP