Classifieds Call: #734-418-4115 Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com ACROSS 1 Vanna’s cohort 4 Smidgens 9 Thicket 14 Boston Marathon mo. 15 Meat and greet patio party? 16 Skylit courtyards 17 Yes, to a cowboy? 20 Sunday service providers 21 Switz. neighbor 22 Pollen carrier 23 “M*A*S*H” Emmy winner for acting, writing and directing 24 German autos 26 Women’s undergarment, briefly 27 Yes, to an architect? 31 __ joint 32 Cracker with a scalloped edge 33 [uh-oh] 34 Provides with a soundtrack 35 Components of many tips 37 Give in to wanderlust 39 Shakespeare’s river 40 Stockholm carrier 43 Yes, to a traffic court judge? 47 Author Rice 48 Final, e.g. 49 Medicine Hat’s prov. 50 Shoot the breeze 51 Org. for docs 52 Exited quickly, in slang 54 Yes, to the Magic 8 Ball 58 “Divine Comedy” poet 59 “Fun, Fun, Fun” car in 1960s hit 60 Make faces for the camera 61 Labor day doc 62 Church chorus 63 Mini-albums, briefly DOWN 1 Choose paper over plastic? 2 Ill-fated 1967 moon mission 3 Made even, to a carpenter 4 “__ your pardon” 5 Cheerios descriptor 6 “Give it a go” 7 Blood-typing letters 8 Kick up a fuss 9 Uber competitors 10 Platte River tribe 11 The majors 12 Online guide 13 Enter gradually 18 Muffin mix additive 19 Con job 24 Orders with mayo 25 “Les __”: musical nickname 26 PCs’ “brains” 28 Karen Carpenter’s instrument 29 Member of the fam 30 One who helps you find a part? 34 Prom partner 35 Fallopian tube traveler 36 Rejections 37 Drink on credit 38 Noise from a 55- Down 39 Multi-platinum Steely Dan album 40 “I was so foolish!” 41 Pays for cards 42 Old salts 43 Get hitched 44 Viral Internet phenomenon 45 Two-horse wager 46 Go up in smoke 51 Yemeni port 52 Capital near Zurich 53 Supplements, with “to” 55 Type of pen 56 Tech giant 57 Cube that rolls By Bruce Haight ©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 03/30/16 03/30/16 ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, March 30, 2016 Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis xwordeditor@aol.com 5 BEDROOM APT Fall 2016‑17 $3250 + $100/m Gas & Water + Electric to DTE, 3 parking spaces 1014 V aughn #1 ‑ multilevel unit w/ carpet CALL DEINCO 734‑996‑1991 4, 5 OR 6 BEDROOM FALL 2016‑17 Central Campus House ‑ 335 Packard $2800 ‑ 3500 based on # of ppl Parking, Laundry, Lots of Common area www.deincoproperties.com 734‑996‑1991 4, 5 OR 6 BEDROOM HOUSE 1119 S. 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(734) 995‑5575 ATTRACTIVE WOMEN For Semi‑Nude Victoria’s type lingerie photography. Great $! For interviews call the studio 734‑369‑5300 or email photos to crimsonapplestudios@gmail.com NOW A V AIL. FOR FALL 2016! Hill & State, fully furnished 1 & 2 bdrm apts w/ heat, water, parking, laundry & A/C ‑ 734‑904‑6735 or 734‑497‑0793 SERVICES SUMMER EMPLOYMENT HELP WANTED FOR RENT A s far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a superhero. When I was younger, I read a few comics, but mostly I played superhero video games and watched cartoons (my favorites were “Batman: The Animated Series” and the 1994 “Spider-Man”). With my boundless imagination extrapolated into reality, I believed it was possible to receive superpowers. When I was seven or eight I was at a playground and saw what was probably a small mosquito bite on my wrist, but managed to convince myself that it was, in fact, a bite from a radioactive spider. It would only be a matter of minutes, I thought, until I collapsed from exhaustion as the new spider DNA worked itself into my own, and I would be reborn as the wall-crawler himself. I was incredibly disappointed when this did not happen. I own two superhero Under Armour dri-fit T-shirts (Superman and The Punisher, if you were curious), and when I wear them I feel just a little bit stronger and more powerful. But that’s about as close as I can get to realizing my superhero dreams. Anything more must be lived vicariously through the never-ending string of superhero movies that get pumped out each year. I’m hooked on this genre, along with a huge proportion of American filmgoers. I saw a Rolling Stone article the other day titled “How Superhero Movies Became Too Big to Fail,” and, though I did not read the article given this publication’s track record of embodying the worst parts of pop culture journalism, the headline is not wrong. This genre is so safe because the sizeable population of people like me will continue to throw gobs of money at it, regardless of the quality of the product. “Batman v Superman” represents the pinnacle (or perhaps the nadir, depending on one’s perspective) of the superhero event movie phenomenon. This movie was universally panned and still made $166 million at the box office in one weekend. Hell, I read some 10 negative reviews and had three different friends and my brother tell me to save my money, and I still went. I am a slave to this genre. And it is of course that very devotion to the idea of superhero films that will continue to generate mishaps like “Batman v Superman.” If there’s a profit to be made, then studios will simply throw together a half-thought-out story, give it a gimmicky little title and proceed to rip my heart out with its shoddy content. But for as much as I disliked “Batman v Superman,” one scene in particular stood out to me: the day “the world is introduced to the Superman,” the fight between Superman and General Zod that took place during “Man of Steel.” This first action sequence finds Bruce Wayne, clad in his pleated pants, vest and tie, frantically traversing downtown Metropolis as the city collapses around him in an attempt to save his friends at Wayne Enterprises. With the events of Brussels still fresh in my mind, I could not help but view the scene as a parable of urban terrorism. I’ve read a lot of criticism of this franchise because it attempts to ask the question: what would happen in a world where the Superman existed? These critics say a comic book movie is escapism and shouldn’t attempt to portray our world. While I find this assessment fair, it deprives us of a very captivating potential cinematic experience. This opening sequence very effectively captures the complete horror of the spectators of a cosmic death match, who peer up from the streets and catch two small figures wreaking havoc on our world. This scene, at least, is a superhero movie for a post-9/11 world, a world embroiled in seemingly never-ending terror. While the rest of “Batman v Superman” falls decidedly flat, this one scene possesses incredible power. Cartoonish fun and zany characters in “Ant-Man” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” can be enjoyable, and in fact I liked them very much, but they do not resonate on a more visceral level in the same way that this opening sequence did. The only other superhero film that accomplished this same visceral experience that I’ve seen is “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” This was less a superhero film, more an espionage thriller that happened to star Captain America, and it offered an overt metaphor for surveillance in the age of terror. Replace SHIELD with the NSA and replace hovering warships with surveillance programs and the result is, essentially, the modern world. This compelling take on the balance between liberty and security is and will continue to be relevant for years — the recent Apple v. FBI showdown was yet another example of the issue. Like the Western genre before them, superhero movies have become so pervasive that to simply see another good guy-bad guy showdown with explosions, or (god forbid) another origin story, wastes the very rich superhero framework that raises thought-provoking questions relevant to our world. Superheroes are not simple characters; often their motivations are ill founded, their actions are suspect and the consequences of those actions can be quite profound. To relegate them to the basic good guy framework flounders the potential to tell a modern cinematic allegory. I believe this is the direction to which superhero movies are starting to turn. The superhero movie as a closed-off comic book film (and the pulp and tone that the medium offers) was perfected by “Spiderman 2” and “Sin City,” and has since been run into the ground. This next series of superhero films will fall more in line with “Captain America 2” and the first “Iron Man” in that they can be fun but also tackle and reflect our real world. I know some will find this disappointing: as I said above many believe that superhero films are peak escapist entertainment. But entertainment should not mean unchallenging and unintelligent, nor should it mean naïve and ignorant. The best superhero film will have something to say and will execute its message strongly, while offering a compelling cinematic experience. This is the most important lesson of “Batman v Superman,” a film that had something to say but couldn’t execute its message or provide the entertaining experience. It takes a strong creative mind to balance these many aspects — not a director with an eye for visual flair — and studios would be wise not push out these minds in favor of a quick buck. Because though I enjoyed the eight-minute short film tucked into “Batman v Superman,” my blind devotion to the genre has its limits. Bircoll may be a superhero behind the glasses and journalist gig. Jamie doesn’t have a bat signal, so email him at jbircoll@umich.edu. FILM COLUMN A slave to the superheroes JAMIE BIRCOLL ‘Vogue’ a pop flop By SHIMA SADAGHIYANI Daily Arts Writer You would expect that an album titled More Issues Than Vogue would vaguely resem- ble Britney Spears in the early 2000s: fun, spon- taneous and fucking wild. Instead, K. Michelle’s lat- est 12-track album vague- ly resembles the terrain of Kansas: flat, repetitive and prone to causing drowsiness. K. Michelle begins her album with a trap; “Mindful” is upbeat, fast-paced, entertain- ing and completely different from the other sluggish songs on More Issues Than Vogue. The contrast between “Mind- ful” and the rest of the album is discerning at best and brings an unfinished, unconnected qual- ity to the album as a whole. Nonetheless, it’s not that the songs themselves are bad. On the contrary, K. Michelle’s voice brings a very Adele-esque quality to classic R&B beats, creating soothing, girl-positive, power ballads. For example, “Ain’t You” has an organic, hazy rhythm layered well under- neath lyrics like “Oh, I got my own shit, don’t want your money / Nope, I drop a hundred bands like it’s easy money.” K. Michelle’s honey-sweet voice makes you think she’s blowing a kiss when she’s really swinging a punch, which, when paired with the minimalist beat, pro- duces the perfect amount of likeable “fuck you.” The same persona is seen in “Night- stand.” K. Michelle proudly croons “just being honest I promise that jewelry you gave me / I never even wear it and I like Drake better than you.” Throughout More Issues Than Vogue, K. Michelle is unapolo- getically both a powerful singer and a powerful woman, creating compositions that are simulta- neously sensual and centered around female empowerment. However, there is no differen- tiation between different songs’ tempos, styles and rhythms. More Issues Than Vogue, when listened through start to finish, seems to be one behemoth song instead of a conglomeration of varying songs paired together in complementary ways. A major- ity of the album is structured the same way: a steady beat in the background supplementing K. Michelle’s soaring vocals. And while the individual songs are beautifully crafted, they are all beautifully crafted in the exact same way, resulting in a monoto- nous album that has no zing or any level of excitement. For example, from “Ain’t You” to “If It Ain’t Love” or from “Nightstand” to “Time,” are stretches of time in the album where the songs are so similar they all blend together to the point where you don’t know where one song ends and the other song begins. Accompany this unclear and uncertain dis- cernment between songs with a painfully slow tempo, and you get music to fall asleep to (or music you wish you were asleep to avoid listening to). K. Michelle, take a page out of Missy Elliott’s book and get ur freak on. The only two songs from More Issues Than Vogue that stray from the dreary norm are “Rich” and “Make The Bed.” With the help of both Trina and Yo Gotti, K. Michelle upped her game in “Rich” and produced an attention-grabbing song that stood out from its sea of sur- rounding tedium. Although “I got rich people problems / only way to solve ‘em / keep on get- tin’ rich” is a bit unoriginal, it at least provides some variation that stops the album from truly becoming the epitome of lack- luster. With the help of Jason Derulo, K. Michelle finally increases the speed of the dying tempo in “Make The Bed” as she asks the age-old question of “why do we, why do we, why do we / make the bed?” By the end of the song, she still hasn’t found the answer, but at least we, as listeners, are revived and energized enough to make it to the end of the album. Overall, K. Michelle is an amazing singer with a monu- mental voice, but she doesn’t push her potential or her tal- ents. Instead, she stays well within her comfort zone. While that ensures she doesn’t make any truly horrible songs, it also results in products like More Issues Than Vogue — an album uninspiring and unremarkable in its uniformity. ATLANTIC RECORDS Some people put their kid’s artwork on the fridge.... K. Michelle takes it a step further. ALBUM REVIEW C More Issues Than Vogue K. Michelle Atlantic Records THIRSTY FOR MORE ARTS CONTENT? QUENCH YO’ SELF AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM/SECTION/ ARTS My blind devotion to the genre has its limits. 6A — Wednesday, March 30, 2016 Arts The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com