The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, November 16, 2015 — 5A
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
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ACROSS
1 Honolulu “howdy”
6 Cozy eatery
10 Exasperated
sound
14 Access the
Internet
15 Word-of-mouth
16 Merely
17 *Malicious prank
19 Memo writer’s
“Pronto!”
20 White Monopoly
bills
21 Church recess
22 Sarcastic in a
mean way
23 Approximately
3.26 light-years
25 One doing simple
math
26 Written in few
words
28 Has __ for news
30 Flood
31 Trumpeter Alpert
33 Spanish eyes
36 House cat, e.g.
37 *Winter storm
school closing
40 Cries of pain
41 Part of IRA: Abbr.
43 Corrida cheers
44 Like the old
bucket of song
46 The __ Boys:
fictional
detectives
48 Moorehead of
“Bewitched”
49 Last Greek letter
51 Speak sharply to
54 Fall guy
55 Japanese
detective Mr. __
56 Director Kazan
60 Bombeck of
household humor
61 Employment
opportunity, and
a hint to the first
word of the
answers to
starred clues
63 Iranian currency
64 Similar (to)
65 Govt.-backed
investment
66 Ill-fated Boleyn
67 George Eliot’s
“Adam __”
68 Boat with an
outrigger
DOWN
1 Gucci of fashion
2 Pork cut
3 Storybook
meanie
4 Trendy club
5 “ ... have you __
wool?”
6 The “C” in USMC
7 Get up
8 Kings, queens
and jacks
9 Antlered grazer
10 Son-of-a-gun
11 *Humor among
friends
12 Forest clearing
13 Really keyed up
18 Small fruit pie
22 __ Paulo, Brazil
24 Greek war god
26 Design detail,
briefly
27 *Employee who
does the firing
29 L.A. Clippers’
org.
30 Place for a mani-
pedi
31 “Gee whiz!”
32 Barnyard female
34 Has obligations
35 Govt.-issued ID
38 Drop (off)
39 Discipline using
mats
42 Bric-a-brac
disposal event
45 Rabbit ears
47 Unit of hope or
light
48 Per person
49 “Aida,” for one
50 County on San
Francisco Bay
52 “I pass”
53 Make amends
57 Animal Crackers
feline
58 Really digging,
as a hobby
59 “A Death in the
Family” author
James
61 Quick poke
62 List-ending
abbr.
By Robert E. Lee Morris
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/16/15
11/16/15
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Monday, November 16, 2015
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
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FILM REVIEW
‘Sushi’ not political
Muddled cross-
cultural dialogue
impedes new drama
By VANESSA WONG
Daily Arts Writer
With the current media land-
scape facing increasing pressure
to depict issues of diversity in
art, “East Side
Sushi,” featuring
both high-defini-
tion shots of food
and a challenge
to
traditional
interpretations
of race, seems
promising.
Unfortunately,
the film suffers
from a predictable script that shies
away from controversy, rendering
the film ineffective.
Enthralled by the artistry of
sushi, Juana (Diana Elizabeth
Torres, “Private Number”) aban-
dons her fruit vending cart in
favor of working at a Japanese
restaurant. One of the chefs, Aki
(Yutaka Takeuchi, “Letters from
Iwo Jima”), notices her agility with
the knife and takes her under his
wing. Aki teaches her how to pick
fish, make sushi rice and, eventu-
ally, champions her talent. How-
ever, Juana faces backlash from Mr.
Yoshida (Roji Oyama, “Mumford”),
the stern restaurant owner who
refuses to promote her to her right-
ful position as a sushi chef.
“East Side Sushi” could have
used this story to make power-
ful criticisms of racial stereotyp-
ing in America, but unfortunately,
it plays it safe and oversimplifies
the issues for feel-good activism.
Though recognizably true to life,
the characters are distilled only to
their ideologies — the oppressed
minority fighting for her rights
to career advancement, the rac-
ist villain, the ally, etc. — and dull
scriptwriting leaves little room
for character development. Its
storyline unfolds mechanically,
following a pattern of inspira-
tion, problem, hard work, repeat,
making the scenes predictable
and leaving viewers antsy for the
credits to roll.
The scope of “East Side Sushi”
is inherently microcosmic, but
its specific issue — Japanese res-
taurants keeping Latino workers
hidden in the back to maintain
“authenticity” — fails to feel rel-
evant to the current national dia-
logue about racial profiling.
Mr. Yoshida’s character lacks
nuance. In general, “East Side
Sushi” ‘s melodramatic dialogue
veers into the contrite, making it
impossible for tropes to mature
into multifaceted characters. The
ending’s racial tension is resolved
too neatly to be impactful — Mr.
Yoshida finally learns to do the
right thing and ends the problem
of racial stereotyping when real-
ly he is taking a stand and joining
Juana and Aki in the fight.
Despite avoiding charged state-
ments, the film does show an
appreciation
for
cross-cultural
awareness. In a key moment, Aki
calls Juana “Konnichi-Juana”
and the camera zooms in on their
two cups toasting to each other.
Juana brings Japanese food to a
wider audience by adding Mexi-
can flavors, leading her initially
disapproving father to support
her interest in a new cultural cui-
sine over the course of the film.
Another great decision: unlike
many films meant for an English-
speaking audience, “East Side
Sushi” uses almost exclusively
Spanish (with English subtitles)
spoken in Juana’s home. This
bilingualism is a crucial aspect
of the multi-generational immi-
grant experience that rarely finds
its way on screen.
However,
the
impact
of
these moments still can’t shine
through
the
dull
character
development. The film serves up
sound bites of popularly accepted
ideas, content for the audience
to vigorously nod their approval
at and quote on Facebook when
they return home, but nothing
substantial. Not acknowledging
how the full spectrum of race
relations obscures the nuance in
character motivations that would
have made “East Side Sushi” the
robust statement it wanted to be.
C+
East Side
Sushi
State Theater
Blue Sun Pictures
BLUE SUN PICTURES
“I got wasabi in my eye!”
FILM REVIEW
‘Suffragette’ suffers
By MADELEINE GAUDIN
Daily Arts Writer
The more things change, the
more they stay the same, right?
That seems to be the resound-
ing message in
Sarah Gavron’s
(“Brick Lane”)
latest,
a
dull
British
period
piece about the
women’s
suf-
frage movement
in
England.
The film fol-
lows four working class women as
they become foot soldiers fighting
(often literally) for the right to vote.
Told in the manner of a PBS special
screened for high school history
courses, the film loses the punch it
could pack.
Carey Mulligan (“An Educa-
tion”) is a dream as Maud, a young
laundress who finds herself in the
middle of the suffrage movement.
Her performance is full of emotion-
al intensity, which is no surprise
because Carey Mulligan is always a
dream. Held against the lackluster
performances of the other actress-
es, Mulligan is not enough to give
“Suffragette” the heart it so greatly
lacks. That heartlessness extends to
Gavron’s palette, which, like many
films in its genre, is characterized
by blues and greys that scream,
“This is London! It’s drab and drea-
ry!” Unfortunately, that message
applies to the entire film.
We must watch “Suffragette”
through the lens of the modern
world — a world in which many of
the issues acknowledged (but not
addressed) by the film still exist for
women. The factory scenes seem
oddly modern in the way work-
place sexual harassment is swept
under the rug. Maud’s boss (Geoff
Bell, “Kingsman: Secret Service”)
gropes her in front of her husband
Sonny (Ben Whishaw, “Spectre”)
without causing Sonny much con-
cern. The women of “Suffragette”
are at the same time powerless and
powerful, an oxymoronic state that
feels familiar even in 2015.
“Suffragette”
falls
into
the
recently expanding genre of social-
justice historical dramas (a genre
categorized by powerhouse films
like “Selma” and “Milk”). If histori-
cal dramas are responses to modern
social movements, “Suffragette”
would appear to be a response to
the ever-dismissed, ever-important
fight for women’s rights. However,
“Suffragette” isn’t completely rep-
resentative of feminism today. The
early stages of the suffrage move-
ment were not interested in racial
equality. Therefore, the film is
forced by nature of its subject mat-
ter to present a completely white-
washed version of feminism, a
portrayal that alienates a large por-
tion of its target audience. We need
a movie about the feminist move-
ment, but this is perhaps the wrong
historical moment to try to make
relevant to 2015 feminism.
In light of recent events, the
treatment of the “militant” activi-
ties of the suffragettes is difficult to
watch, mainly because what these
real women did, and what their
fictional counterparts are doing in
“Suffragette,” is a form of terrorism.
They cause no physical harm, but
all their destructive actions hold
the threat of harm. Explosions in
mailboxes, bricks thrown through
windows, the destruction of an
entire home in the country all capi-
talize on fear (also known as ter-
ror) in order to make change. Why
then are they called militants and
not terrorists? That word choice is
key because when labeled as mili-
tants their actions are dismissed
as acceptable — acceptable because
we agree with their cause. What
“Suffragette” highlights, seemingly
accidentally, is the fact that some-
times the “good guys” and the “bad
guys” have the same strategies.
“Suffragette” didn’t come out on
the wrong weekend, it came out in
the wrong world, a world in which
terrorism controls the lives of a con-
stantly growing number of people.
The glorification of this type of
activism, then, reads not only as
insensitive but also elitist. “Suf-
fragette” could have possibly been
saved had it decided to address the
duality of the movement as both
progressive in 1912 and problematic
in 2015.
“Suffragette” could join the
ranks of throwaway British period
pieces (unique only by its lack of
Keira Knightley) but the film’s con-
text within the modern world pro-
vides the possibility for longevity
— it makes cultural points, but not
necessarily the right ones. Maybe
“Suffragette” will only be remem-
bered for what it does wrong, but at
least it will (unlike many of its peer
films) be remembered.
C
Suffragette
Michigan
Theater
Focus Features
ALBUM REVIEW
No direction
By DANIELLE IMMERMAN
Daily Arts Writer
Let me preface this by saying I
don’t like One Direction. I think
they’re an artificially manufac-
tured boy band
that has only
found
main-
stream success
because
their
bubblegum
pop
ballads
and
charm-
ing good looks
appeal to the
entire
teen-
aged female population of the
world. However, just because
I disapprove of their “X-Fac-
tor” origins and bland songs,
it’s important to note that One
Direction is relevant and their
name will always be known.
Their relevance ranges from the
fact that all four of their albums
topped the Billboard 200 chart
to their impressive worldwide
arena tours in support of each
album they released. Monetari-
ly, One Direction was the high-
est-earning band of 2015, raking
in $130 million. If a band can
find so much success with music
most critics would deem medio-
cre at best, you have to give them
a little credit.
Over the course of the band’s
five years of existence, they have
managed to pump out an album
every year accompanied by a
worldwide arena tour in support
of each album. 2015, however, was
a turning point for One Direction.
With Zayn Malik’s departure
mid-tour, the band scrambled to
reconfigure songs without the
support of their strongest vocal-
ist. As if Directioners weren’t
devastated enough, the new
quartet announced in August
that they would be taking an
extended hiatus after the release
of Made in the A.M. Of course the
charming band reassured the
heartbroken female population
of the world that they would be
back, but many have speculated
that this is the end of the British
boy-band. With such suspicions
circulating its way through the
music industry, special attention
has and should be paid to Made
in the A.M.
First, Made in the A.M. feels
like a goodbye. The only lyrics
that manage to make a state-
ment are those that bid some-
one (Directioners, maybe Malik,
maybe a girl) farewell. In “Love
You Goodbye,” the boys croon
“It’s
inevitable
everything
that’s good comes to an end /
It’s impossible to know if after
this we can still be friends.” The
hopeless message in “Love You
Goodbye” is then countered by
the promising lyrics, “This is not
the end / We can make it, you
know it, you know” in “History.”
Aside from the finality present-
ed in many of the lyrics, Made
in the A.M. has a gloomier feel
than their past albums; perhaps
this change in mood is meant to
mourn the One Direction they
once were.
Aside from the fact that Made
in the A.M. could be One Direc-
tion’s
last
album,
attention
should be paid to it because three
of the 17 songs are actually quite
promising. “Never Enough” is
by far the most unique song on
the album — when it first started
playing I legitimately questioned
whether or not Spotify was play-
ing the right song or not. “Never
Enough” features intense horns,
drums and bombastic a cappella
that’s reminiscent of everything
that was good about the ’80s.
The next promising song on the
album is “Olivia.” Recorded at
Abbey Road Studios, the band
made every effort to channel
The Beatles in this song, and it
paid off. Obviously, it’s nowhere
near The Beatles’s level of artist-
ry, but it’s definitely a milestone
moment for the boys who sing to
arenas full of 12-year-olds.
Unfortunately for 1D, aside
from the aforementioned songs,
there’s
nothing
different
in
this album. Once you’ve heard
one One Direction song, you’ve
heard them all. The same inno-
cent lyrics in one song carries
through to them all; the pre-
dominantly pop sound charac-
terized by unimpressive vocals
remains constant in each track
manufactured for profit. Though
you could argue that some songs
are more promising than oth-
ers, at the end of the day, I think
this could be One Direction’s
final album. Realistically, boy
bands have a shelf life of less
than a decade with only half
of those years as prime-time
years. Maybe this hiatus will
give the band time to individu-
ally mature as artists, allowing
for their fanbase to mature as
well. Who knows, in two years
we could all be marveling at the
new and improved One Direc-
tion, but for now, I am going to
say that this is the end of an era.
Made in the A.M. makes it clear
that the One Direction we know
today will not be the same One
Direction we know a year from
now.
That is, if they are even
around a year from now.
B-
Made in
the A.M.
One Direction
Columbia