Classifieds

Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

ACROSS
1 Help for Holmes
5 All hands on deck
9 Baby food,
usually
14 “Can you give me
a __?”
15 Bass’ red
triangle, e.g.
16 Dove rival
17 Fraternal meeting
place
19 Sense & Spray
air freshener
maker
20 “Here are the
facts,” briefly
21 Garden outcast
22 Dark suit
23 Central church
area
25 Pacific Northwest
capital
27 “The Cask of
Amontillado”
writer
31 Reduced in
number
32 Track tipsters
33 Train cos.
35 Yankee
nickname since
2004
36 Asparagus,
mostly
37 Nemesis
38 ENE or WSW
39 Set straight
40 Golfer Palmer, to
fans
41 Where to read
candidate
endorsements
44 Much of the time
45 Kitchen add-on?
46 Yemenis’
neighbors
49 “__ been
thinking ...”
50 NASA thumbs-up
53 Acme’s opposite
54 Periphery ... and,
literally, the
periphery of 17-,
27- and 41-
Across
57 Most clubs in a
pro’s bag
58 Scott Turow
memoir
59 Vulcan mind __:
Spock’s skill

60 Principle
61 Superstorm
response org.
62 Functions

DOWN
1 “Cutthroat
Kitchen”
competitor
2 Easter bloom
3 Critical comment
4 Aliens, briefly
5 Prosperous, after
“in”
6 Took the bus
7 Fabergé
creation
8 Reason for hand-
wringing
9 Sloppy farm digs
10 Tanning booth
light, for short
11 Freeway, e.g.
12 Earth, to Hans
13 Windows to the
soul, so they say
18 “Reading
Rainbow” host
Burton
22 Mattress
supports
24 Matured
25 Liqueur in a fizz
26 Barnard grad

27 Like 27-Across’
work
28 Clothes
29 Fruity drinks
30 Bert’s buddy
31 Fleeting fashion
34 “Get it?”
36 Schedule
openings
37 Sassy tyke
39 Initially
40 More fitting
42 Salt additive

43 Low parking
garage floor
46 Bad mood
47 Bern’s river
48 Noodle bar order
49 List component
51 Gawk at
52 Classic sneakers
54 “That knocked
the wind out of
me!”
55 Sorbonne one
56 Aussie runner

By Jeffrey Wechsler
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/28/15

01/28/15

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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FOR RENT

ANNOUNCEMENT

6 — Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Swedish film 
dissects tense 
family drama

By ANDREW MCCLURE

Daily Arts Writer

Sounds seem, and maybe are, 

louder in isolation — screech-
ing tires, a baby wailing, an ava-
lanche. Such is 
the model with-
in which Swed-
ish 
filmmaker 

Ruben Östlund 
(“Play”) 
works 

in 
his 
some-

times 
absurd, 

funny in a look-
away-kind-of-
way exercise in 
family drama set in the quietude 
of a tiny Alps ski resort. And it’s 
really quiet — from the hissing of 
skis down an unpopulated run to 
the sun-kissed mountains playing 
with sleepy zephyrs. It’s also gor-
geous. The terrain, the Kubrick-
ian ritzy hotel and, of course, the 
family of four, in their matching, 
tailored baby-blue pajamas and 
blemish-free skin, on which the 
film centers. Doubtless, Östlund 
might have one of the tightest 
grips on naturalistic familiality 
I’ve seen — like when Mom’s so 
mad at Dad, she actually laughs.

The film title’s thematic signifi-

cance becomes apparent within 
minutes (“force majeure” means 
someone fails to uphold a con-
tract when something unforesee-
able happens): while lunching on 
a hillside with a marvelous view, 
a distant “controlled” avalanche 
suddenly becomes not so dis-
tant or controlled. Diners begin 

to freak, screaming and running 
for dear life. The father, Tomas 
(winsome newcomer Johannes 
Bah Kuhnke), on instinct, nabs 
his iPhone and shades, then bolts, 
ignoring his two young children 
and wife Ebba (played by lissome 
rookie Lisa Loven Kongsli), who 
blankets her children like a moth-
er should. The result is anything 
but cataclysmic — no injuries, no 
trauma, just a few snow-dusted 
butter plates. Tomas returns to 
the family table moments later, 
but, with deft subtlety, the table is 
so far from “family” that we don’t 
even know what it is. The emo-
tional maelstrom begins to whirl.

The implicit tension amid the 

family hurts and is hard to watch. 
Östlund slices these moments 
with a few smart tools: Hyperki-
netic baroque music akin to a Wes 
Anderson film and noiseless chair-
lift rides that let us breathe, prep-
ping for the next teeth-clencher. It 
doesn’t feel entirely unique, it just 
feels right — Östlund has a gut for 

this fusion of well-cast art house 
and Malick-esque sublimity. The 
intrafamily conflict gets exposed 
by an anxious Ebba over drinks 
with a couple when hiding behind 
a faux smile, she says that Tomas 
“ran away from the table like a lit-
tle girl.” Her smile just sits there, 
eyes tired, while everyone else 
looks anywhere but toward her, 
as if they can’t even fathom her 
bewilderment. Then, not because 
we want to, the lens flashes to a 
broken Tomas. We almost feel bad 
for him. This scene owns an emo-
tional quotient unmatched by any 
movie this year, one that makes 
you respect Östlund as a talented 
filmmaker, as a human being.

“Force Majeure” is not devoid 

of flaw. Ebba’s divorced brother-
in-law and his 20-year-old girl-
friend at first provide an effective 
soundboard for Ebba’s troubles, 
but soon fizzle out, Östlund try-
ing to shoehorn an otherwise 
redundant device into an already 
compelling yarn. This soon grows 

irrelevant, getting lost in the oozy 
subtext of marital gender roles, 
male conniption fits, the politics 
of infidelity, the male gaze and 
the hidden imperfections of an 
aesthetically perfect family. And, 
like, other stuff, too. All of this 
framed like a hovering specter 
via Fredrik Wenzel’s cam adds a 
witty, self-aware mystique, invit-
ing us in without ever allowing us 
to feel at home.

And the acting. The parental 

performances, by these two no-
names, feel real in an unreal way, 
a way that our parents growing 
up would seldom reveal, but when 
they did, it felt cinematic. Östlund 
smothers us in pulchritude — the 
modelesque cast, the hotel ame-
nities, the perfectness — without 
abandoning the root: Nobody lives 
like a J.Crew catalog, all smiles 
and riches and no rub, not even 
the J-Crew mannequins. It’s a fine 
study on Top 0.01 Percent Prob-
lems, but even more, a nuanced 
mediation on familial psychology.

Acclaimed cartoonist 

headlines Penny 
Stamps lecture 

By CAROLINE FILIPS

Daily Arts Writer

She came. She spoke. We 

laughed.

As soon as cartoonist and writ-

er Alison Bechdel appeared on 
stage at the Michigan Theater and 
graced the nearly-full crowd with 
her presence, she too laughed … at 
herself.

“There’s an old saying that car-

tooning is a field for people who 
are mediocre artists and medio-
cre writers, and I would say that 
in my case, those things are pretty 
much true,” Bechdel remarked. 
Soon after, Bechdel presented the 
audience with her rejection letter 
from the School of the Art Insti-
tute of Chicago.

It’s that genuine, self-deprecat-

ing humor and her idiosyncratic 
cartoons that captivated the audi-
ence on January 22.

But her accolades, such as her 

2014 MacArthur Genius Award 
and breakthroughs for the LGBT 
community, prove that she’s far 
from mediocre in her profession. 

Bechdel was selected to speak 

about her biographical graphic 
novels and the art of cartoon-
ing for part of the Penny Stamps 
Speaker Series, which has part-
nered with The Zell Visiting Writ-
er Series and The Institute for 
Research on Women & Gender. 
Speaker Series Director Chris-
stina Hamilton said Bechdel has 
been requested to speak numer-
ous times and is highly regarded 
by Stamps students.

Though ultimately delivered 

with insightful, witty candor, 
Bechdel’s presentation tugged at 
the audience’s heartstrings as she 
spoke about her unconventional 
upbringing, defined by the dra-
matic twists and turns within her 
family life. She evinced her signa-
ture ability to find humor in mis-
fortunes rather than succumb to 
them, proving her greatest talent 
lies beyond her work.

Bechdel’s graphic novels exam-

ine what most are shy to admit 
— let alone publish — such as the 
poignant tale of her father’s secre-
tive, sexual double life that led to 
his eventual suicide. Yet openness 
and freedom from inhibition is 
the essence of Bechdel’s powerful 
storytelling. 

Staying true to her childhood 

dreams, Bechdel made a name for 
herself and developed a unique 
style tinged with honesty. 

“I always wanted to be a car-

toonist, even when I was a little 
kid,” Bechdel said. “But it was 
soon pointed out to me that was 
not a very practical career choice.”

No stranger to grit and perse-

verance, Bechdel kept at her craft 
even when prospects were bleak.

“It took a lot of work and a lot 

of years before it actually became 
my job,” Bechdel said. “I had to 
keep pursuing it, keep pushing 
it, slowly let go of my paying day 
jobs. It was a long process com-
mitting to it.”

Bechdel emerged in the car-

tooning field with her marginal 
lesbian comic strip, “Dykes to 

Watch Out For,” (1983-2008), 
which originally was not intend-
ed for publishing. Instead, the 
comic was the medium through 
which Bechdel extracted humor 
from the lifestyles of her and her 
friends. 

“After I graduated from col-

lege, I had recently come out as 
a lesbian and I just started draw-
ing these comics for me and 
my friends about women like 
us, women who looked like us,” 
Bechdel said. “It was very unusu-
al in the early eighties to see any 
kind of different looking women 
in the media, you would just see 
very feminine women and we 
were all countering that kind of 
image and looking kind of wild, 
crazy and androgynous.”

Though well known for her 

comic strips and darkly humorous 
graphic novels, Bechdel is also the 
creator of her surname-titled test, 
which assesses the gender bias 
in films. The Bechdel test deems 
a film as feminist if it satisfies 
three requirements: one, if there 
is a scene with two women, two, 
the women have a conversation 
and three, if that dialogue is about 
something other than a man.

For fans of Bechdel and those 

who missed the presentation, a 
comprehensive showcase of her 
work will be on display at the 
Institute for Humanities through 
February 25. The exhibit features 
original diaries from Bechdel’s 
youth, the infamous rejection 
letters, notable comic strips and 
clutter from her creative process. 

Amanda Krugliak, arts cura-

tor for the Institute for Humani-
ties, modeled the exhibit after 
Bechdel’s childhood home with 
great attention to detail, even 
mimicking its wallpaper.

“Conceptually, the idea of the 

room is to place it in the context 
of the house she grew up in, which 
was this kind of Victorian house,” 
Krugliak said. “Her father was 
really interested in interiors and 
getting something just right from 
the Victorian period. I thought it 
would be interesting to use that as 
a starting point and think about 
all these things coexisting in this 
room — past, present, her work, 
but also bits and pieces of grow-
ing up.”

Bechdel also touched on the 

media’s response to the Jan. 7 ter-
rorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, a 
satirical French newspaper tar-
geted because of its depiction of 
the Prophet Muhammad.

“I think everybody can see the 

significance of cartoons and com-
ics especially right now,” Hamil-
ton said. “We’re sort of in a very 
fresh and precious moment with 
the terrorist acts that happened in 
Paris just in the last couple weeks 
that were directed specifically at 
cartoonists.”

Though intended for comedic 

effect, comics are undoubtedly a 
powerful tool. As evidenced by 
the recent, horrific Parisian trag-
edies, it’s clear that they can have 
formidable effects. Yet, the influ-
ence of the medium’s worldly suc-
cinctness is one to admire.

“Obviously the power of the 

cartoon is sometimes more pow-
erful than words can solve, that 
visual element can take it to 
another place,” Hamilton said. 
“The ability for comics and car-
toons to juxtapose real-world 
issues in a visual and separate 
world formant give people the 
ability to instantly see things that 
otherwise might take a novel to 
explain.”

Rather than acting in haste 

after the world deals us an unfa-
vorable card, perhaps we can move 
forward from adversity by taking 
a note from Bechdel and extract-
ing humor from our misfortunes 
rather than succumbing to them.

A-

Force 
Majeure

Magnolia 
Pictures

Michigan 
Theater

EVENT REVIEW
Bechdel talks 
comics & life

FILM REVIEW

MAGNOLIA PICTURES

Is that Shaun White?

Tour de force ‘Majeure’

A unique style 
of the craft, one 

tinged with 

honesty.

COME TO ONE OF THE MICHIGAN 

DAILY’S OPEN HOUSES AT 420 

MAYNARD STREET!

Interested in writing, design or 

multimedia? Come see it in action.

Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 8:00 p.m.

Monday, Feb. 2 at 8:00 p.m.

