The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, March 30, 2015 — 5A
ACROSS
1 Also
4 Hotelier
Helmsley
9 Make small
adjustments to
14 Post-ER area
15 First stage
16 ABBA’s “__ Mia”
17 Black-and-white
cruiser
19 High-tech prefix
with space
20 Memorial __
Kettering: NYC
hospital
21 Teensy bit
23 Word on a penny
24 Yin’s partner
25 Black-and-white
puzzles
27 When doubled, a
Pacific island
29 Actor DiCaprio,
familiarly
30 Black-and-white
music makers
35 “The Jetsons”
boy
39 Go over snow
40 Painkiller with a
Meltaways
children’s brand
42 “__ Maria”
43 2014 film about
civil rights
marches
45 Black-and-white
companion
47 Outfielder’s asset
49 Brouhahas
50 Black-and-white
flag
56 Take five
59 October
birthstone
60 Curly-horned
goat
61 Happen
62 Really casual “No
prob!”
64 Black-and-white
ocean predator
66 Pal of Threepio
67 Behave
theatrically
68 Type
69 Way up or way
down
70 Meeting of
church delegates
71 Albany is its cap.
DOWN
1 Slightly sloshed
2 City in Florida’s
horse country
3 Released from
jail until trial
4 Diving lake bird
5 Picture that
shows more
detail: Abbr.
6 “Sesame Street”
grouch
7 “Sweet!”
8 Gillette razors
9 HBO rival
10 “Totally
awesome!”
11 Campfire glower
12 Modify, as a law
13 Go-__: mini
racers
18 Tease
relentlessly
22 ISP option
25 Like dense
brownies
26 Little shaver, to
Burns
28 Dial type on old
phones
30 Ltr. add-ons
31 Eisenhower
nickname
32 Days of yore,
quaintly
33 Supporting vote
34 NBC show that
celebrated its
40th anniversary
in Feb.
36 Cause an uproar
of Biblical
proportions?
37 Fertility clinic
eggs
38 Itch
41 Actor Sharif
44 Shoplifter
catcher, often
46 Handheld
burning light
48 Med. scan
50 __ Brothers: pop
music trio
51 Dizzying painting
genre
52 Coffeehouse order
53 Bassoon
relatives
54 Potentially
infectious
55 Former jailbird
57 Tarnish
58 Tough hikes
61 Didn’t pay yet
63 Laughs from
Santa
65 From __ Z
By Bruce Haight
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/30/15
03/30/15
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Monday, March 30, 2015
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
@michigandaily
NOW.
2 & 3 BDRM APTS IN A HOUSE
South Campus Fall 2015‑16
1015 Packard ‑ $1370‑$1930 + Utilities
Call 734‑996‑1991 to sched a viewing
UNIVERSITY
TOWERS:
$799
UNITS GOING FAST $100 PRICE
DROP ON SELECT TWO BED-
ROOMS VIST www.u‑towers.com
NOW A
V
AIL. FOR FALL 2015!
Spacious fully furnished 1 & 2 bdrm apts‑
heat, water, and parking included. A/C
and laundry avail. Contact 734‑904‑6735.
EFF, 1 & 2 Bedrooms Avail Fall 2015‑16
$750 ‑ $1420. Most include Heat and
Water. Parking where avail: $50‑80/mo.
Coin Laundry access on site/nearby.
www.cappomanagement.com
Call 734‑996‑1991
4 BEDROOM HOUSE Fall 2015‑16
North Campus: Off Fuller by UM Hospital
2 Baths, Wshr./Dryer, 3 Prkg spaces, Pet
& Smoke free. $2300 + utilities
1010 Cedar Bend Dr. 734‑996‑1991
PARKING 2015-16 at “Prime” locations
734‑761‑8000 primesh.com
ONE BEDROOM APARTMENTS
now available close to Ross & Law
School 1 year lease May 2015 ‑ April
2016 $875 utilities included.
Call: (734)834‑5021
! NORTH CAMPUS 1-2 Bdrm. !
! Riverfront/Heat/Water/Parking. !
! www.HRPAA.com !
2 BED. A
V
AIL. April 1st‑August 21st
Furnished, Heat & Water & Free Internet
734‑761‑8000 primesh.com
WORK ON MACKINAC Island This
Summer
–
Make
lifelong
friends.
The
Is‑
land House Hotel and Ryba’s Fudge
Shops are looking for help in all areas be‑
ginning in early May: Front Desk, Bell
Staff, Wait Staff, Sales Clerks, Kitchen,
Baristas.
Housing,
bonus,
and
discounted
meals.
(906)
847‑7196.
www.theisland‑
house.com
I EDIT THESES & ACADEMIC
papers. OntheMarkEditing.com or
loismah@comcast.net. Modest rates
STUDENT SUMMER STORAGE
Specials ‑ Closest to campus ‑ Indoor
Clean ‑ Safe ‑ Reserve online now
annarborstorage.com call 734‑663‑0690
THESIS EDITING. LANGUAGE,
organization, format. All Disciplines.
734/996‑0566 or writeon@iserv.net
LANDMARK APARTMENTS SUB-
LEASE available for one person in a
quad.
14th
floor,
includes
workout
room,
parking
available.
Spring/
Summer
dates
and price negotiable. 248‑417‑7510.
ARBOR PROPERTIES
Award‑Winning Rentals in Kerrytown,
Central Campus, Old West Side,
Burns Park. Now Renting for 2015.
734‑649‑8637. www.arborprops.com
PARKING
FOR RENT
SERVICES
SUBLETS
SUMMER EMPLOYMENT
WARNER BROS
“Which one of you is Gucci Mane?”
It’s hard to get into
offensive ‘Get Hard’
By LAUREN WOOD
Daily Arts Writer
Though it’s not always clear
where
the
line
is
between
offensive
jokes
and
funny,
boundary-
pushing
ones
lies,
“Get
Hard”
falls
definitively
into the former
category,
relying
on
overdone
acting
and
a
questionable plot structure to
confront issues much larger than
it can handle.
The film’s premise revolves
around one rich white banker’s
fear that he will be raped when
he goes to prison. James (Will
Ferrell, “Step Brothers”), a well-
off hedge fund manager who
seems completely ignorant to
the working class around him, is
falsely accused of laundering funds
from his company and is sentenced
to 10 years in the worst prison in
Los Angeles He employs Darnell
(Kevin Hart, “Ride Along”), the
owner of the car washing service
in his office parking garage, to
teach him how to survive in
jail, assuming that because he
is Black, he must know his way
around an Los Angeles County
maximum security prison. James
is wrong; Darnell is a straight-
edged, hardworking father, but
because he needs money to move
his family out of their dangerous
neighborhood, he decides to teach
James about prison survival, or
at least what he thinks prison
might be like. The two enter into
a month-long training program,
and finally end up working to solve
who set James up and clearing his
name altogether.
While there is some small seed-
ling of a good or funny idea deep
within this plot, “Get Hard” edges
past satire and into the realm of
offensive, working under the guise
of breaking down stereotypes
while actually relying on them for
its entire story. The film clearly try-
ing to make some statement about
wealth and the working class in
America, but it relies on rape jokes
and racist supporting characters to
make this remark, simultaneously
reinforcing the ideas it claims to be
subverting.
Although Hart’s character actu-
ally has some laughable moments
(in one scene he impressively acts
out an altercation in the prison
yard between three over-the-top
black, Latino and gay inmates,
playing three characters at once),
Ferrell falls flat, crafting a ridicu-
lous and unbelievable character
with little material to build on.
While this bit succeeds in movies
like “Anchorman” or “Step Broth-
ers,” where Ferrell’s impossibly
strange characters are the key to
the winning satire, his role in “Get
Hard” seems tired and overdone.
One of the most destructive
things that can happen to a
comedian is that they actually
believe themselves to be hilari-
ously funny; Ferrell has obvious-
ly fallen into this trap, with no
one brave enough to tell him he’s
gone too far. The film becomes
a long string of him laughing at
his own jokes, with Hart run-
ning around him in circles to
weave some kind of sense into
the story.
Although there are certainly
a few funny moments in “Get
Hard,” the film and its actors
approach sensitive topics with
a half-baked attempt to actually
make a statement. By trying
to take on the major issues of
race and class but grounding its
story in one long rape joke, “Get
Hard” turns its message into a
joke, and the entire film crashes
under the weight of the issues it
tries to confront.
The first part of this column
was published in The Michigan
Daily on Mar. 13.
A
nwar Kharral leers out a
bedroom window. Right
hand
hovering
over his
crotch, a
dusting of
peach fuzz
beading
sweat across
his upper
lip, Anwar
pauses
before pos-
ing a ques-
tion of seemingly profound
importance. “Wank? Or tell
group? … Wank? Or tell group?”
Masturbate at the sight of the
woman chopping wood outside
— a woman no one else believes
even exists — or point, shout,
show the world she’s not just
a hormone-addled figment of
his imagination? As George
Berkeley once wondered, if a
tree falls in a forest and no one
is around to hear it, should
Anwar rub one out?
This is the kind of question,
just stupid enough to stick
without risk of self-parody,
that is asked a lot in “Skins,”
the BBC TV series that secured
Dev Patel, Jack O’Donnell and
many
other
yuppie
British
actors their spot in Hollywood
casting
lineups.
Patel,
who
portrayed Anwar for the show’s
first two highly watchable if
not groundbreaking seasons,
approaches
those
questions
with an eye on the open,
often cringeworthy treatment
of
sexuality
they
imply,
a
certain candidness or, more
accurately, bluntness that lays
the foundation for characters
in soon to come American
counterparts like “Girls” and
“Shameless.”
Like the rest of the cast, Patel
is swinging for the fences in
every frame, but only because
the premise demands that kind
of self-aware outrage at the
faintest pin drop of a plot point.
It’s the Hollywood version of
“they broke up???” — a set of
character traits as enclosed,
petty
and
exaggerated
as
anyone who ever went to high
school remembers them being.
Audiences shovel through the
empty calories, writers wheel
through the smarmy sound
bites, and in this sense, the
window dressing serves its
purpose.
Soap
operas
have
been perfecting (peddling) the
formula for half a century, and
make no mistake: along their
deepest sinews, that’s exactly
what these shows are. Punched
up melodrama for millennials.
There’s no need for Patel or
any of the other actors to flex
subtlety, so why bother?
“Skins” only ever manages
to break the barrier and get
under skins when it’s dealing
with race, doing so in a way
that’s
both
glancing
yet
poignant. It offers answers,
sort of. In a scene where Patel
tries
to
stammer
through
the reasons behind Anwar’s
homophobia,
the
dialogue
settles the argument with a
four-word
explanation.
“I’m
just a Muslim.” The instinctive
response
is
“there’s
more.”
Much more, but the show’s
effectiveness
in
discussing
these issues stems from a
willingness to nick the jugular,
then leave whoever’s in front of
the camera to stanch the blood
with their hands.
The writing never changes
after that crucial scene, but
Patel’s performance takes a
shot of liquefied cocaine to
the face. In an introductory
screenwriting class, it could be
compared to finding oneself lost
at sea in a gale of subtext, only
an actor keeping the dialogue
from its insistence on dog-
paddling away from a shitstorm.
So even though Anwar never
even deigns to look over his
shoulder while hiding behind
those feeble four words, Patel is
hand-delivered a role dripping
with moldable tension. And
the result is more human, real,
uncontrived than anything he’s
done since.
Watching “The Best Exotic
Marigold Hotel” is like being
stabbed in the part of the
brain that parcels out feelings
of national pride to the rest
of the body. There’s no pain
— it just coughs a little before
keeling over somewhere in
the broken pauses between
Dev Patel’s (playing Sonny
Kapoor) put-on Indian accent.
Of course, let’s not forget the
fact that, like his character,
the geriatric Brits Patel is
supposed to be palavering in
his quest for exoticity also
share the emotional density of
a hologram. Still, the indignant
asshole in me wavered. If I had
to be completely honest, I’d
be forced to admit there were
stretches in both installments
where I couldn’t help but crack
at least a few smiles — the films
are like two large spoonfuls of
concentrated sugar, saccharine
enough to make you beam in
discomfort,
water
running
down
your
face,
whenever
Dame Judi Dench exchanges
flirty glances with the locals.
“Marigold” ’s problems share
roots with “Skins” ’s strengths.
In both cases, Patel starts
encased inside scripts overladen
with
inflated
dialogue
but
lacking
any
weighty
plot
turns. In “Skins,” he breaks
out by gradually, wordlessly
poking holes in his character’s
homophobia while the audience
heaps sympathy in his direction
precisely because Anwar is
struggling
with
real
moral
dilemmas on screen, and he’s
so obviously doing it without
any help from the script. It’s a
home run that floats on Patel’s
acting chops, yet still manages
to arc alongside the cheap
melodramatic tics of its source
material.
“Marigold” never gets past
the window dressing.
The
most
disheartening
aspect of watching it swallow
up Patel and spit him out
as a tokenized caricature is
realizing how little anyone
cares, how often it’s heralded as
an insightful portrait of aging
— nothing more, nothing less.
Most Indians I know watch the
film because it’s a chance to see
versions of themselves in the
limelight, then laugh it off for
its hazy, unrealistic portrayal
of India. As long as old people
are
buying
matinee
tickets
and Rotten Tomatoes labels it
endearing, why not kowtow to
stereotypes?
When the credits rolled, I
wanted to continue seething in
that pit of outrage. I wanted to
keep my finger pointed squarely
at Hollywood. But the fact of
the matter is Patel is content to
pick a role that sees its entire
moral arc hinge around his
character’s preparation for a
wedding reception, the wedding
reception
during
which
he
will dance to the Bollywood-
themed song that will in turn
become the climactic musical
centerpiece for the film.
It’s work. And in a perfect
world,
there
would
be
no
inaccuracy in simply labeling
this as one of those “for the
money” jobs actors take to pay
off the mortgage on a fifth
house. Yet, in an industry with
little to no set roles for people
with brown skin — on either
side of the camera — it makes
sense why Patel would have
extra incentive to spend screen
time solidifying his image as
the face that most often comes
to mind when Americans think
“Indian.” This is the tradeoff
films like “Marigold” demand.
It’s fucking terrifying in
that “I feel bad for this filthy
rich celebrity” kind of way,
true, though more so when
one considers the bottleneck
glaring down any person of
color looking for an in, no
matter how small.
So when Aziz Ansari says
his last three roles were Randy,
Chet and Tom — not Kumar,
Vishnu and Sandeep — should
it be a point of pride, the ideal
end-goal? No. Because saying
so implies there is no space
for
Indian-American
stories
to fit through the bottleneck.
Because Aziz has never worked
with an Indian-American writer
or director in his entire film
career. Because the only Indian-
American writer-director Dev
Patel has ever worked with is M.
Night Shyamalan. And because,
in that case, the character he
played was a Chinese teenager
named Zuko.
Seth is rapidly running out of
shit, literally and metaphorically.
To send him some more,
email akse@umich.edu
FILM COLUMN
Scared Shitless:
Part Two
AKSHAY
SETH
‘Skins’ only
breaks the
barrier when it
deals with race.
‘Marigold’
never gets past
the window
dressing.
D
Get Hard
Rave and
Quality 16
Warner Bros.
“Wank? Or tell
group?”
Patel swings for
the fences.
FILM REVIEW