ACROSS
1 Drain problem
5 GI sought by
MPs
9 Jewish authority
figure
14 Fallon’s
predecessor
15 “Get a __!”
16 Estate measures
17 Like single-malt
scotch
18 Superfluous
individual
20 Food from
heaven
22 Long-necked
bird
23 Ivy League
school
24 Compilation of
wacky outtakes
28 Pioneer Carson
29 PC key near Z
30 Eastern path
31 Police warnings
33 Some deli
breads
35 Part on the stage
38 Stable female
39 Summer blouse
42 Steer clear of
44 iPhone voice-
activated app
45 Hunk of bacon
49 Like many warm
sweaters
51 Snaky fish
53 Miner’s discovery
54 Little terror
55 Olympian’s
achievement
59 Have to have
61 Flight connection
word
62 Capital of
Senegal
63 Ride around ... or
what the ends of
18-, 24-, 39- and
55-Across can do
67 Single
68 Occupied
69 Currency
symbolized by € 
70 Coffee holders
71 Fax forerunner
72 Zipped
73 Editor’s “Leave it
in”

DOWN
1 Seaside eatery
2 Within the law
3 Without variation,
musically
4 “Please tell me
that’s not true”
5 Sitcom E.T.
6 PlayStation 3 rival
7 Put on the
market
8 “I’ll handle this”
9 Word before data
or deal
10 In need of aspirin
11 Crashing wave
12 Direct route
13 Lands in the sea
19 Shades
21 Abbr. in many an
urban address
25 __ of Sandwich
26 Tree anchors
27 Airport waiter
32 Performs hip-hop
music
34 Synagogue
36 Polynesian
wreath
37 Blundered
40 From square one
41 Concert ticket
info

42 “__ to Watch
Over Me”
43 Optimistic
46 “Watch it!”
47 Orchestrate
48 Recuperation
advice
49 Proceed without
preparation
50 Smoked salmon
52 Showed the 
way

56 Hemingway’s
“The Sun Also __”
57 Really enjoy, as
praise
58 Allays the fears of
60 Prescription
amount
64 Bills coach Ryan
65 Wrath
66 Buddy of
Wynken and
Blynken

By Gary Cee
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
04/14/15

04/14/15

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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6 — Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Neal Gabler talks 
criticism’s future

By BENJAMIN ROSENSTOCK

Daily Arts Writer

Neal Gabler is not a person 

who can be described with only 
the epithet “writer.” Maybe 
it’d be more accurate to call 
him 
“writer-journalist-critic-

professor-broadcaster 
Neal 

Gabler.” Gabler, who came to 
the 
University 
of 
Michigan 

on April 9 to give a lecture on 
whether film criticism is truly 
necessary, may not write much 
criticism himself anymore, but 
he certainly has a broad wealth 
of knowledge on the subject.

“Many people talk about this 

as a post-critical age,” Gabler 
said before the lecture, in an 
interview. “Are we in a post-
critical age, where we form our 
judgments for ourselves and 
we don’t need that other layer 
in between ourselves and the 
film?”

Gabler was invited to give 

the lecture by professor Hugh 
Cohen of the Screen Arts and 
Cultures 
department. 
Gabler 

and Cohen became “friends 
in film” when Gabler attended 
the University as a student and 
joined a film society in which 
Cohen was the adviser. After 
years of talking about movies, 
seeing movies and traveling 
to hear major directors speak, 
Cohen asked Gabler to leave law 
school and become one of the 
first GSIs for his new course, 
which became the preliminary 
course for all Screen Arts and 
Cultures majors: SAC 236, The 
Art of Film.

“I was fully entrenched in 

the film community here, and 
it’s all because of Hugh Cohen,” 
Gabler said. “He was best man at 
my wedding. He was my friend 
and my father and a lot of other 
things.”

Gabler said, at that time, 

though film was important to 
culture all across the country, 
Ann Arbor was the best place to 
be a film connoisseur. Having 
edited the daily newspaper at 
Lane High School in Chicago and 
feeling alienated in Ann Arbor, 
Gabler decided to write film 
criticism for the Michigan Daily.

“I was writing very, very 

long pieces,” said Gabler, who 
was inspired by the long pieces 
of Pauline Kael, the acclaimed 
New Yorker critic. “I was told, 
‘You wrote more column inches 
for The Michigan Daily than 
any person in the history of the 
paper.’”

Before the lecture on Thursday, 

Gabler stopped by Cohen’s class 
on writing film criticism to have 
a discussion with the students. 
Each student shared their interest 
in film criticism and their reasons 
behind it. Gabler noted that there 
was no single critic who everyone 
in the class reads — evidence of a 
growing divisiveness in the film 
community.

“There are no venues for 

(film criticism),” Gabler said, 
explaining why he rarely writes 
criticism anymore. “There’s no 
place to write criticism, certainly 
not the kind that I like to write: 
long, sustained, analytical pieces. 
Secondly, when you’re an active 
working critic, you’re reviewing 
everything. I was seeing five 
movies a week. Every year, if 
you’re really lucky, maybe you 
get three or four movies that are 
worth engaging.”

Gabler 
still 
occasionally 

writes about movies, but his 
interests have broadened. He is 
currently writing an expansive 
biography of Edward “Ted” 
Kennedy.

Gabler also teaches one class 

a year at the State University 
of New York at Stony Brook. 
He has taught classes on film 
criticism, creative nonfiction, 
biography and the essay.

“My interest is twofold,” 

Gabler said. “I try to teach them 
how to become professionals. 
I’m never interested in just a 
skill set. I try to teach them 
how to think about the world in 
interesting ways. I get up every 
day and I say to myself, ‘What 
interesting thing do I have to say 
about the world today?’ That’s 
what I try to get my students to 
do: to think about the world in 
interesting ways because you 
can sell that kind of work, and 
it’s worth writing.”

Though Gabler calls himself 
 

“a writer who teaches” instead 
of “a teacher who writes,” he 
cares deeply about education 
and encouraging his students to 
explore new points of view.

“I’m not just teaching how to 

write an essay,” Gabler said. “If 
I’m good at what I do, I’m trying 
to teach you how to think about 
the world. You take that little 
piece, and you put it into your 
own sensibility, and then you’ll 
have another teacher and plug 
that into your sensibility. By 
the time you’re through with 
your education, you’ve got all 
these things out of which you’ve 
formed your own sensibility. 
That, to me, is the whole 
function of education.”

In both Cohen’s class and 

Gabler’s lecture Thursday night, 
Gabler emphasized the danger 
of aggregate scores from sites 
like Rotten Tomatoes. He also 
explained that criticism should 

be more about exploring new 
perspectives on a piece than 
completing a checklist about 
what strengths and weaknesses 
a film does and does not have.

“It’s 
an 
instantaneous 

culture, 
and 
you 
want 

something 
instant,” 
Gabler 

said. “I’m an extremely strong 
believer that you adjust to the 
film; the film does not adjust to 
you. I don’t have some sort of 
critical rubric that I apply to a 
movie. Never.”

Gabler occasionally misses 

the days when film had such 
a prominent role in culture. 
In his view, the proliferation 
of Internet criticism, social 
media and a constant stream 
of information have led to a 
drastically different — if not 
objectively worse — role for 
film.

“Individual movies matter, 

but the movies (of the canon) 
don’t 
matter,” 
Gabler 
said. 

“They don’t dominate our lives 
in the same way they once did. 
They don’t rouse passions the 
way they once did. And if the 
movies 
don’t 
matter 
much, 

neither does film criticism.”

Still, 
Gabler 
does 

acknowledge 
that 
criticism 

may still hold great power. 
In 
Gabler’s 
view, 
common 

objections to criticism, like that 
reading criticism takes away 
from the magic of the film, are 
often misplaced.

“(Reading criticism) is not, I 

emphasize, mutually exclusive 
with any other movie-going 
pleasure,” Gabler said. “It’s an 
addition to the pleasure. Why 
would anyone want to deny 
himself or herself that pleasure? 
Why would anyone want to 
shrink the movie?”

One 
of 
the 
issues 
with 

widespread Internet criticism, 
Gabler said, is its inaccessibility.

“The 
object 
is 
not 
to 

demonstrate how smart you 
are, but how generous you are,” 
Gabler said. “Do we really need 
film criticism? Yes, I think we 
do. I think we need this kind 
of criticism: a criticism that 
enables us to see what we might 
not otherwise have seen, that 
enables us to learn something 
about ourselves, others and 
the world that we might not 
otherwise have learned.”

In the 1970s, when film and 

criticism flourished together, 
there was a symbiosis between 
filmmaker 
and 
film 
critic, 

Gabler said.

“Every so often, I see a 

film, and I really wish there 
was a critic to analyze it in 
some interesting way, a critic 
against whom I could weigh my 
own interpretation, a critic to 
challenge me and illuminate the 
film,” Gabler said, comparing 
Pauline 
Kael’s 
widespread 

accessibility to lesser-known 
modern critics. 

Still, Gabler hopes modern 

criticism 
can 
overcome 
its 

limitations 
and 
regain 
the 

power it used to hold.

“(Critics) are vital to our art, 

and they are vital to us,” Gabler 
said. “You don’t analyze a movie 
to death. If you are a good critic, 
an essential critic, you actually 
analyze it to life.”

“There are 

no venues for 
film criticism 

anymore.”

ARTS INTERVIEW
ALBUM REVIEW
Storm feels stale

Despite some new 
tricks, Halestorm’s 

newest album is 
achingly familiar

By CHRISTIAN KENNEDY

Daily Arts Writer

Halestorm’s newest record, 

Into the Wild Life comes three 
years after The Strange Case 
Of ... ; howev-
er, after their 
break, 
they 

seem to have 
lost some of the 
chic 
pseudo-

rock touch that 
breathed 
life 

into their work.

Opening 

with “Scream,” 
Halestorm 
presents low-laying verses over 
a consistent drumbeat, which 
soars into the chorus only to 
fall flat as lead singer Lzzy Hale 
repeats a synthesized “scream.” 
In the same vain, “I Am the 
Fire” builds and builds, but 
once the chorus arrives it feels 
hollow.

About eight minutes into the 

album, there is finally some 
semblance of the Halestorm 
infectiousness on “Sick Indi-
vidual.” The verses consist of 
quick, evenly delivered lines 
over a repeating guitar riff and 
parley themselves seamlessly 
into the chorus. This track, 
unlike its predecessors, doesn’t 
aim for a climactic chorus, and 
the result is the fluidity that is 
absent on “Scream” and “I Am 
the Fire.”

Even though the climactic 

rock chorus approach failed in 
the first two tracks, Halestorm 
perfects it in “Amen” — it’s 
catchy, maybe a tad unorigi-
nal. But when a song makes you 
scream and bang your head, 
who cares if it feels like you’ve 
heard the lyrics before? This 
is the first song that makes me 
want to give an amen.

“Dear Daughter” marks the 

beginning of Into the Wild Life’s 
slump. If “Amen” felt familiar 
in the best way, “Dear Daugh-
ter” feels so in the worst way. 
The production fails to keep the 
edge of rock that normally char-
acterizes Halestorm’s slower 
songs. It’s emotional, but not 
powerful; and, in the end, it’s 
boring. It just makes me think 
how 
much 
better 
Martina 

McBride’s “This One’s For The 
Girls” is. Also in the slump, 
“New Modern Love” sounds 
like the score of an unevent-
ful western movie. “Mayhem” 
lures listeners in with its pre-
chorus whisperings, but soon 
Hale is screaming and, for the 
first time in her discography, 
it feels as though she’s scream-
ing about nothing. “Bad Girls 
World” is a less cohesive “Dear 
Daughter,” but it isn’t as upfront 
with its badness. The hook has 
some grit, but after about half 
the song you can’t help but 
think to yourself, “Is this worth 
my time?”

The album somehow finds its 

way back on “Gonna Get Mine.” 
This is what Into The Wild Life 
should be. It’s gritty, in your 
face and takes no prisoners. 
Here, the subtlety of “Mayhem” 
’s pre-chorus gets a full show-
ing in “Gonna Get Mine” ’s tit-
illating chorus. The transition 

into the low-tempo “The Reck-
oning” is rough. Maybe “wild 
life” refers to the ups and downs 
present on the record because 
not after long the album’s lead 
single, “Apocalyptic” slams lis-
teners down and makes them 
listen. From the first verse to 
the final beats, “Apocalyptic” 
is without a doubt the album’s 
shining star. The verses and 
chorus soar lyrically and inter-
mingle perfectly with guitars 
and drums. The rhymes are 
subtle enough to avoid sounding 
cheesy, but prominent enough to 
wrap Hale’s delivery in a slick-
ness that has been missing for 
most of the LP.

The record ends on one of 

its strongest notes — “I Like It 
Heavy.” The slight synth heard in 
the verses creates a strong contrast 
with the brashness of the chorus. 
It captures the aura of Hale and 
leaves listeners with one lyric: 
“Hallelujah motherfucker, take me 
to church.”

Halestorm’s 
experimentation 

on Into the Wild Life resulted in 
a mix of glossy rock songs, some 
pointless screaming and a few 
tracks that aren’t recognizable as 
Halestorm at all. Experimenta-
tion aside, Halestorm has added 
another handful of head-banging 
rock songs to their ever-evolving 
repertoire.

B

Into the 
Wild Life

Halestorm

Atlantic Records

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“Hallelujah 

motherfucker, 

take me to 
church.”

