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Arts
Monday, December 14, 2015 — 5A

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ACROSS
1 Main idea
5 Seniors, to
juniors
9 Pizza party
drinks
14 A whole bunch
15 Skip past
16 __ Jeane
Mortenson:
Marilyn Monroe’s
birth name
17 Six-sided state
18 Cares
20 Superfan to the
max
22 For each one
23 Org. that created
American Hunter
magazine
24 BBC time traveler
26 Ginormous
amount
28 Girl who lost her
sheep
31 Lawyer’s org.
32 Enjoy the pool
33 Narnia lion
37 Beauty goop
38 Get cracking
41 Cubes in a tray
42 Canonized fifth-
cen. pope
45 “Very funny!”
47 VCR format
48 Short online
message visible
only to approved
followers
52 Important
Colonial cash
crop
55 Carrying a gun
56 “The Simpsons”
Squishee seller
57 Parka part
59 Awards for Helen
Hunt and Holly
Hunter
62 Get lovey-dovey
65 Sunburn soother
66 German pistol
67 Expel
68 Really anger
69 Revise, as text
70 Makes a choice
71 __-dish pizza

DOWN
1 Wearing a long
face
2 Greek letter
before kappa

3 Display
confidence and
pride
4 Top with a
slogan
5 Canine gnawing
toys
6 “__ hearing you
right?”
7 Prima donna
8 Answer the call
9 Salad veggie with
an edible pod
10 Fireworks
reaction
11 Stingless bee
12 Valentino’s
valentine
13 The devil
19 Vague amount
21 Beltmaking tools
25 Memorial news
item, briefly
27 Adorns with
Cottonelle,
informally
28 Falls behind
29 “Yeah, whatever”
30 Nebraska city
associated with
steaks
34 Pretended to be
what one isn’t
35 Tooth woe

36 Home in a tree
39 Pro __: in
proportion
40 Jimmy Fallon’s
longtime house
band
43 Org. concerned
with pesticides
44 Apple tree
grouping
46 Emer. money
sources
49 Desktop image

50 Ritualistic kind of
doll
51 “This convenience
store checks IDs”
52 Blackjack surface
53 Poppy narcotic
54 Jut out
58 Bra spec
60 Audition goal
61 Ooze
63 Quarterback
Dawson
64 East, in Essen

By C.C. Burnikel
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
12/14/15

12/14/15

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Monday, December 14, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

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FILM REVIEW
‘Sea’ a shipwreck

By MADELEINE GAUDIN

Daily Arts Writer

“In the Heart of the Sea” 

is a beautiful trainwreck, or 
perhaps its better to call it a 
beautiful ship-
wreck. Visually 
stunning 
and 

painfully 
bor-

ing, the latest 
from 
director 

Ron 
Howard 

(“Rush”) is a 
film 
adapta-

tion 
of 
the 

true story that 
inspired 
Her-

man Melville’s 
“Moby Dick.” It’s not a “Moby 
Dick” movie but it’s also not not 
a “Moby Dick” movie.

The film begins with a young 

Melville, played by Ben Whishaw 
(“Spectre”) approaching Thom-
as Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson, 
“In Bruges”), the lone survivor 
of the whaling ship Essex, in the 
hopes of uncovering the secrets 
of the ship’s final voyage. Told 
mostly in flashbacks, Thomas’s 
story revolves around the ship’s 
first mate Owen Chase (Chris 
Hemsworth, “The Avengers”), 
a shift in main characters that 
can be confusing if you, like me, 
can’t understand every word of 
Gleeson’s scruffy accent. I spent 
the entire film thinking that 
Owen Chase was narrating the 
story to Melville — oops.

The facts of the story are pret-

ty incredible. A mythic whale 
singlehandedly taking down a 
ship full of men should be cin-
ematic gold, but “In the Heart 
of the Sea” manages to make the 
extraordinary painfully ordi-
nary. It could be the only film 

to ever make an audience think, 
“Cannibalism? Mass destruc-
tion? So what.” The characters 
are underdeveloped and difficult 
to care about — to the point that 
you might find yourself rooting 
for the whale to end things as 
soon as possible.

Literary snobs in coffee shops 

across America (myself includ-
ed) breathed a collective sigh of 
relief upon discovering that “In 
the Heart of the Sea” isn’t really 
a “Moby Dick” movie. But mak-
ing a movie about the true story 
that inspired a book is not only 
confusing, it’s limiting. There-
fore, the film is defined not only 
by what it is, but also by what 
it isn’t. It isn’t a literary epic. It 
isn’t a known story. Then, what 
is it? Because ultimately it is as 
much about “Moby Dick“ as it 
isn’t. The captain isn’t named 
Ahab but that doesn’t really mat-
ter because the audience knows 
it’s the same person, only a sim-
pler, less compelling version. “In 
the Heart of the Sea” is an origin 
story that desperately does not 
want to be an origin story.

The only thing keeping the 

film afloat is its cinematography. 
In shots that resemble Turner 
paintings, the sea is a power-

ful beast, churning with color 
and life. Storms sweep violently 
across the water and sunsets 
burn against the massive sky. 
In that sense, the sea is the best 
character in the film, more com-
plicated and compelling than 
any of the humans. The camera 
moves vertiginously, allowing 
the audience to empathize with 
the character’s seasickness — the 
closest thing to an emotional tie 
in the film. During a particularly 
nasty storm, the camera alter-
nates between sweeping aerial 
shots and underwater shots at 
deck level, spinning and cutting 
at nauseating speeds. Similarly, 
the whale is a masterwork of 
CGI. A while speckled monster 
covered in scratches and bar-
nacles, the whale is as beautiful 
and is it terrible. It’s complicat-
ed and mysterious in ways that 
none of its human counterparts 
are. Nature brutally defeats man 
in “In the Heart of the Sea,” but 
the audience is glad that it does.

Ultimately, visual aesthetics 

can’t save “In the Heart of the 
Sea” from being a dull and emo-
tionless attempt at telling (or 
sort of telling) one of the great-
est stories in history.

C+

In the Heart 
of the Sea

Rave & 
Quality 16

Warner 

Brothers Pictures

ALBUM REVIEW
Rozay does it

By SHAYAN SHAFII

Daily Arts Writer

When 50 Cent exposed Rick 

Ross as a former correctional offi-
cer, it seemed his career as a rapper 
was irreparably 
fucked. Instead 
of just taking the 
loss and picking 
up a new hustle 
(competitive 
eating?), 
Offi-

cer Ricky Rozay 
vacuum-sealed 
his echo cham-
ber 
and 
took 

his delusions of 
grandeur to the next level. The 
rest is history.

He hit his peak with the 2012 

release of Rich Forever (one of the 
greatest titles in recent rap his-
tory), where for the first time it 
seemed he was actually crazy 
enough to believe his own fan-
tasies. While Rick Ross and his 
“untouchable” Maybach Music 
Empire have since taken more than 
a few stumbles, the only thing that 
has remained unscathed is Ross’s 
intense desire to be something in 
between El Chapo and Jay Z.

What makes his latest effort, 

Black Market, particularly inter-
esting is a noticeable shift in narra-
tion. We finally get some insight on 
William Roberts: the man behind 
the cardboard Scarface mansion. 
The lush multimillion-dollar beats 
are present as usual, but Black 
Market isn’t another cookie-cutter 
mafia movie. Instead of the traitor 
in our midst, we get Mariah Carey 
on a surprisingly pop-y track 
(“Can’t Say No”) that Ross sounds 
right at home on. Instead of the 
wall of henchman blocking the 
head Bawse, we get a song where 
Roberts 
contemplates 
quitting 

promethazine cough syrup for the 
sake of his mother (“Smile Mama, 
Smile”). Hardly the thoughts and 
actions of a real kingpin, but that’s 
a good thing.

It seems in attempt to paper 

over the cracks in his façade, 
Black Market also hits some of the 
brightest peaks in Ross’s career 
from a technical perspective. “One 
of Us” sees Ross trade verses with 
Nas and actually keep up. When 
he says “You getting money, got 
a body? / Then you one of us” it’s 
easy to forget that the closest he 
has ever been to murderers is 
when he monitored them from the 
outside of a prison cell.

There’s also “Free Enterprise,” 

where Ross alternates between his 
classic luxury rap bars and outra-
geous threats. He likens “beefing 
with broke n****s” to pulling teeth 
just moments before addressing 
his dreams of assassinating Don-
ald Trump “like Zimmerman” — 
A line so absurd, the first time I 
heard it I laughed loud enough for 
someone to come to my study car-
rel and tell me to quiet down.

The most infectious track on 

the album is “Crocodile Python” 
(no such animal or material exists, 
but again, we’ll let it slide), where 
Ross levitates over a beat made of 
yak’s wool and chinchilla fibers, 
or some other expensive sounding 
shit. Point being, this is Ross at his 
smoothest. “Rims on my whip got it 
lookin hypnotic / Stuffing money in 
my pockets as you n***s watchin,” 
is about as Rick Ross as it gets. He 
also compares the size of his chain 
to the girth of a python. Say what 
you will about his fraudulent per-
sona and one-dimensional verses, 
but his ear for beats and steadfast 
commitment to character has to be 
considered admirable.

In a year that’s seen an increased 

focus on ghostwriters (I’m looking 
at you, Drake), Ross also opens 
up about his presence as a ghost-
writer himself on “Ghostwriter:” 
“Fat boy behind all of your favor-
ite flows, man.” For a guy who 
routinely lies about killing people 
and pushing enough cocaine to 
fill a Brinks truck, he takes great 
pride in having (allegedly) written 
all of his own rhymes. As if that 
feat alone warrants a victory lap, 
he spends the hook triumphantly 
shouting, “I be so lonely at the 
top!” for the bulk of the track.

Regardless of your preference 

for the more sinister-sounding 
Rick Ross from Rich Forever, this 
is about as good as a “Rick Ross 
album” can be. It’s filled start-
to-finish with some of the best 
beats this year (featuring manda-
tory production assistance from 
J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League), has some 
of his most memorable bars to 
date and is overall an aesthetically 
cohesive project.

Rick Ross is never going to 

make a life-changing album, and 
it would be stupid to expect him 
to; it’s simply not within him. The 
best he can do is make something 
that blows out your car speakers 
without you regretting how you 
blew them out, and that’s what he’s 
done here, again.

B+

Black 
Market

Rick Ross

Maybach 

Music Group

WARNER BROS.

Can you drown in CGI?

ALBUM REVIEW
Sensual ‘Late Nights’

By MATT GALLATIN

Daily Arts Writer

Jeremih’s music evokes a vel-

vet fantasy. The lyrics are almost 
exclusively and sexual, and the 
production 
mimics 
this 

implicit sensu-
ality. Take his 
enormous 
hit 

“Birthday Sex” 
— you know 
exactly 
what 

you’re getting. 
The 
genius 

of Jeremih is 
that he still manages to set him-
self ahead of the competition at a 
time when seductive and “alter-
native” R&B is everywhere.

Perhaps even more impressive 

is that he has done this without 
releasing a true album since 2010. 
But instead of coming across as a 
throwback, his new Late Nights: 
The Album, like all of Jeremih’s 
releases, is years ahead. The fea-
tures pull from some of the most 
in-the-moment artists (Migos, 
Ty Dolla $ign, Future and Jhené 
Aiko to name a few) and the pro-
duction feels as sharply smooth 
as ever. The result is an album 
so infectious and addictive that 
you’ll find yourself listening to it 
over and over and over.

Single “Oui” takes that addic-

tive quality to another level. It’s 
a diamond-studded work that is 
so perfectly crafted and layered 
that it demands to be replayed. 
It gives and sustains just enough 
to draw you in and make you still 
want more. Such is the strength 
of Jeremih, and this skill is used 
throughout Late Nights. “Impa-
tient” and “Remember Me” croon 
higher and higher, just grazing a 

climax before pulling off. This 
quality is what has allowed Jer-
emih to inhabit a strange space of 
being both viscerally associated 
as a “back-in-the-day” artist and 
still wield a radio-relevant force 
today. If you’re in college, “Down 
On Me” and “Birthday Sex” were 
likely played at your high school 
homecoming dances. Depending 
on your experience, they either 
evoke fond or regretful memo-
ries — but they certainly invoke 
memories. That Jeremih is still 
making songs that crystallize the 
times (“Don’t Tell ‘Em”) and that 
reveal a talent beyond just sing-
ing over catchy beats.

Part of this talent involves his 

ability to effortlessly integrate 
with so many artists. Recently, 
he appeared on the new Chance 
the Rapper track, “Somewhere 
in Paradise,” a bright, optimistic 
and trumpeting song. Jeremih’s 
voice 
is 
another 
instrument 

that weaves in with the orches-
tra. “Giv No Fucks” from Late 
Nights, on the other hand, seam-
lessly incorporates the Atlanta 
rap group Migos — the aesthetic 
antithesis of Chance the Rapper 

— and finds Jeremih leaning on 
the side of trap. Yet neither seems 
at odds with the other, a testa-
ment to the fluidity and ethereal-
ity of Jeremih’s croon.

Of all of the fantasy worlds that 

Jeremih has painted, Late Nights 
is certainly the most mature and 
brooding. His first two albums 
felt, rightly, more youthful and 
full of discovery. This ethos 
has been replaced with a confi-
dent and seasoned professional. 
“Know you probably worried 
what I’m used to,” he sings on 
“Impatient”; this isn’t the Jer-
emih fresh out of music school. 
He still surprises though, and the 
best moment comes as the album 
closes. After the long night of 
partying that the majority of Late 
Nights alludes to, “Paradise” is 
the moment when the sun comes 
up. The bass and synths fade to 
reveal a tender acoustic guitar 
with Jeremih’s voice as the main 
attraction. It’s a beautiful and 
disarming moment that sees Jer-
emih reflecting on the wonder of 
life. “And they say it gets better,” 
he sings. It seems the same is true 
for his music.

A-

Late Nights: 
The Album

Jeremih

Def Jam

DEF JAM

So sensual.

