Widescreen: Cirque du Soleil at home, 'Close Encounters' on the big screen
Normally, you have to wait for the big tent to go up outside United Center or fly to Las Vegas to see the artistic acrobats of Cirque du Soleil, but you can watch a one-of-a-kind performance from your couch at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 16.
"One Night for One Drop: Imagined by Cirque du Soleil", a one-night-only event taped earlier this month at the Bellagio Resort & Casino, will air on CBS and CBS All-Access. As the title suggests, the performance was designed to raise money and awareness for One Drop, a charitable organization founded by Cirque du Soleil co-creator Guy Laliberté. Its mission is to bring clean water to parts of the world that need it. The charity's recent projects helped people in Honduras, India, Burkina Faso and El Salvador, according to onedrop.org.
The one-hour TV special, hosted by Olympic skating legend Tara Lipinski and "Entertainment Tonight's" Kevin Frazier, includes an appearance by Blue Man Group and music by film composer Hans Zimmer. Choreographers Andre Kasten and Leah Moyer have previously worked on Cirque du Soleil's "Mystere," which has been a fixture at Vegas' Treasure Island resort since 1993.
'This means something'
If you want to see one of the all-time great science-fiction films on the big screen, the Lake Theatre in Oak Park, 1022 Lake St., has three opportunities for you on Tuesday.
Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," the 1977 classic in which Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) becomes obsessed with alien visitors and sees visions in his mashed potatoes, will screen at 10 a.m., noon and 7 p.m. Tickets cost $6 for the matinees and $8.50 for the evening show, and are available online at classiccinemas.com under the "Special Events" tab.
A call to the theater confirmed they'll be showing Spielberg's director's cut - the very best of the three commercially available versions of the film, if you ask me. (The funny scene where Roy throws bricks and trash into his home: in! The awful, tacked-on ending from the so-called Special Edition: out!)
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