The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Arts Thursday, April 14, 2016 — 6 ACROSS 1 Tousle 5 F and G, e.g. 10 Soaks (up) 14 Bad thing to be caught in 15 Spells 16 Virginie, par exemple 17 “Need You Tonight” band 18 Start of an old news announcement 20 Frequent Lemmon co-star 22 Chimney 23 Dublin-born poet 24 AWOL trackers 26 Tiny 27 Shine, in Cambridge 29 Ammunition dumps 31 Request to Sajak 32 Stipulation on le menu 34 Numerical prefix 36 Progressive pitcher? 37 When there’s no turning back 41 Where gas and lodging may be found 46 Tulsa sch. 47 Brings to light 50 Pitcher, for one 52 Cambodia’s Lon __ 53 Enzyme suffix 54 Moisten, in a way 55 Northeastern octet 57 Old but coveted 60 Nachos, e.g. 64 Peach __ 65 Landed 66 Ken Jenkins’ “Scrubs” role 67 CVI halved 68 Old map divs. 69 “Dallas” Miss 70 North-of-the- border gas DOWN 1 Injure badly 2 Radius neighbor 3 Historic Chicago- to-Santa Monica route 4 Largish combo 5 Proctor’s concern 6 Infiniti competitor 7 No. after a phone no. 8 Not agin 9 Fed. benefits agency 10 Stimulating message 11 Senators’ home 12 Part of UPS 13 Betting specifications 19 County bordering Suffolk 21 Dwell annoyingly (on) 24 “Fantastic” Dahl character 25 Initials on a radial 27 “Well, __-di-dah!” 28 Lyon article 29 Weigh station counts 30 Composer Rorem 33 “__ shoe fits ... ” 35 Literary assortment 38 When translated to English, beer brand that hints at the common feature of the five other longest puzzle answers 39 “We __ Marshall”: 2006 film 40 Brynner of filmdom 42 Wipe off 43 Some Cadillacs 44 Scott classic 45 Try 47 Hall of Fame Colts quarterback 48 Grisham output 49 Potion 51 Suppress 54 Low voices 56 First responders, initially 58 Israeli arms 59 Opera star Pinza 61 Classic Jag 62 “Small Wonder” state: Abbr. 63 In need of treatment By Mike Peluso ©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 04/14/16 04/14/16 ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: RELEASE DATE– Thursday, April 14, 2016 Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis xwordeditor@aol.com HAPPY THURSDAY! 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The Island House Hotel and Ryba’s Fudge Shops are looking for help in all areas beginning in early May: Front Desk, Bell Staff, Wait Staff, Sales Clerks, Kitchen, Baristas. Housing, bonus, and discounted meals. (906) 847‑7196. www.theislandhouse.com SUMMER NANNY NEEDED Newborn Boy, West Ann Arbor home References req., erikamowers@gmail.com FOR RENT SERVICES SUMMER EMPLOYMENT The best lessons of a Screen Arts degree By LAUREN WOOD Daily Arts Writer This could be the last time I write about film. After four years of film studies, I’m left feeling a bit lost. Looking out into the real world, I see a wide range of careers that are exciting and bright and possible — I see many less that match up with the knowledge base I’ve spent my col- lege career building. So I’m left wondering, where is the value in what I’ve spent my time in Ann Arbor learning? When will I find the purpose in watching every single movie with a (maybe too) Freudian lens? Is it worth four years of tuition to be able to detect the Truffaut reference in a Child- ish Gambino lyric? Do I sound pre- tentious when I refer to movies as “films?” Boiling down all of the test- cramming, paper-writing, big-book-reading and class-dis- cussion-navigating, I can really only come up with two main ideas. One: Film is everything around us, all-encompassing and reflective. Two: Our opinions are the most and least important part. It’s an upside-down and inside- out and very non-deductively valid argument. But I’m going to try. Premise one: Everything we are is reflected in film. Give people a camera, a projector and time, and they have the tools to explain to anyone watching what makes up the important stuff of their lives. We tend to think of the world from our classic, Hollywood-centric bubble, but there is a national cinema to represent nearly every country and an identifiable impor- tance in doing so. In the 1960s, the French government initiated a program that paid screenwriters big money just to write a script and potentially shoot it. Documenting their young people’s voices and exporting them to the world as an image of what it was to be French was a national priority. In Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and early Communist China, propaganda film schools sprung up with gov- ernment funding. The power of moving images was recognized as an invincibly strong force in regimes known most for their extreme violence. Writing with your camera, referred to in some theory as the caméra-stylo, gives a somewhat invisible strength to those filming, wielded both posi- tively and negatively. Premise two: Our opinions towards a given film are the most and least important part. No type of movie is objectively better than another, and no matter what you think, it’s impossible to distill what we see on screen in terms of what’s “good” or “bad.” I’m one of the worst offenders of this. As a film critic, I spend my movie-watching time judging what works and what doesn’t, what you should like or disown, what letter grade to give a work that people have spent years of effort and millions of dollars on. But in the end, everyone’s a critic. The reasons you like or dis- like a movie are entirely personal, and it’s futile to judge those that have won awards or had successful runs at the box office as inherently better or smarter. I once watched acclaimed writer Nick Delbanco be unable to control his loud laugh through an entire screening of “Clueless.” I’ve learned my most valuable lessons from professors who spend years analyzing big ideas, like the impact of nations’ underground cinema movements on colonialism, and then easily turn around and geek out over the latest “Transformers” blockbuster. Films hold the value we impart on them. They give us a lens into ourselves, and yes, maybe some are uncomfortable and scary and weird. But there’s a reason you feel this way, so let’s explore it. Filmmaking is such an exciting mix of the most basic, traditional storytelling and the wildest, most advanced technology, so let’s do whatever we want with it. There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure movie, so let’s watch everything. Looking at these ideas, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that, like many degrees, the value in studying film lies primarily in the ability to learn. The film major at the University of Michigan is not called a film major; it’s deemed “Screen Arts and Cultures.” It took me a while to figure out why this was. Film teaches us that there is no sense of normal in the world, and that our personal backgrounds each represent only one of a world of experiences. By watching and digesting the images on screen, we learn how to learn from other cultures, people, lives. We revise our idea of what it is to see, we dip through different time periods and nations on screen, we spin into trails of thought and connec- tion we never before thought to try and understand. And hopefully, all this watching equips us to handle an equally unexpected world. I’m pretty sure I’m ready for that. FILM NOTEBOOK ‘Shameless’ finale can’t tie the knot Sixth season of Showtime series ends on down note By SHIR AVINADAV Daily Arts Writer “Shameless” doesn’t shy away from darkness. In fact, it embrac- es it. The Gallagher family’s mis- fortune, and their abil- ity to bear it in some of the most unimagi- nable ways, is central to the series. The season finale is no exception to this theme. How- ever, the execution falls flat. With each finale comes time to reflect on the trajectory the lives of each character have taken. And this season, their stories have diverged quite a bit from one another, furthering the narrative from what holds it all together — the family’s relationship. Lip (Jeremy Allen White, “Afterschool”) works his way down a self-destructive path at college. Frank (Wil- liam H. Macy, “Fargo”) is pre- occupied with his old flame Queenie (Sherilyn Fenn, “Twin Peaks”). Ian pursues a career as an E.M.T. alongside his new, surprisingly normal boyfriend Caleb (Jeff Pierre, “Drumline: A New Beat”). Debbie (Emma Ken- ney, “Epic”) veers out on her own to look after her baby. The fam- ily has become a decentralized unit with Fiona (Emmy Rossum, “The Phantom of the Opera”) left desperately trying to anchor it down in time for her wedding. Every once in a while, Fiona catches a break — an opportu- nity to be happy without having to consider anyone else’s needs but her own. Sean (Dermot Mul- roney, “The Grey”) serves as not only her break, but as a source of comfort to guide Fiona through the aftermath of her imprison- ment, arguably her lowest point in the series. Though his pres- ence provides a sense of stability in the constant flux that is the lives of the series’s characters, he brings his own set of prob- lems to the table. A former drug addict, Sean must deal with the consequences of his harrowing past while building a relation- ship with Fiona. Though Sean hired Ian (Cam- eron Monaghan, “The Giver”) when no one else would and helped Carl (Ethan Cutkosky, “The Unborn”) cut his ties with a neighborhood gang, Fiona’s fear that he’ll fall off the wagon lurks in the part of her mind that tells her she can’t have a happy, stable relationship. This anxiety is understandable, given her pat- tern of falling into doomed rela- tionships. When the two hastily decide to get married, we can’t help but feel that Fiona is headed towards yet another letdown. This feeling pervades the pre- nuptial bliss that Fiona and Sean artificially act out — buying wed- ding bands, taking dance les- sons and discussing their future lives together. Her eager wed- ding preparations seem stilted, almost too happy — as if we’re being strung along to believe their wedding will go as planned even though (given the show’s history), we know it likely won’t. This feeling defines the show’s appeal. Its ability to draw us into its story, forge our attachment to its characters, then snatch it all out from under us just often enough to instill a nagging sense that at any moment anything can take a turn for the worse. And then it does. Frank comes barreling in to the ceremony with the news that Sean is still using. Fiona’s devas- tated, Sean’s relationship with his son is irreparably strained and Frank is once again happily the root of all this. The subtle poignancy of this tragic moment for the show’s protagonist con- trasts with the building tension leading up to it — as we’re led to believe Frank is going to kill Sean when he buys a gun earlier in the episode. Even the beginning of the episode conveys a drasti- cally different tone through its slow camera movements, which slowly pan through the Galla- gher house as Frank urinates in Sean’s shoes and steals his money. Frank’s irrational longing to destroy Sean after a showdown between the two in Fiona’s home is like nothing we’ve ever seen of his character. His motivation, usually a greedy, alcohol-fueled lust for some self-serving out- come, is unclear. Whether he’s stung that his family is finally refusing to put up with his ego- tistical antics or has his daugh- ter’s interests at heart is blurry. Regardless, his actions carry the impact they always do — a mud- dled trail of heartbreak and devastation. And just like that, a relationship we’ve been root- ing for all season is curtly put to an end. The most disappoint- ing part of it is that Sean doesn’t even try to explain himself or win her back. He simply subsides into the long list of disappoint- ments that characterize Fiona’s love life. The finale ends with one of the most pivotal questions in the story: what’s Lip going to do? His slow decline down Frank’s alcoholic path culminates in a meltdown that’s been a long time coming. In each episode, we only glimpse a small misstep on Lip’s way to completely screwing up his life. The impending feeling that Lip is going to end up back where he worked so hard to get away from creeps up on us throughout the season. Though it isn’t surprising that Lip is the root of his own undoing, it raises the question: “why now?” His self destructive behavior has always been one of his most salient traits, one that is put to the test when his professor pays for him to go to rehab. However, we are left with him standing outside — whether he goes in or not is question to be answered by the next season. The season finale is a disap- pointing end to an even more disappointing season. The series seems to have run Frank’s course. The dramatic tension he provides is arbitrary, and at times even frustrating. By lead- ing Frank through the motions of preparing to kill Sean, then destroying his relationship with Fiona in one fell swoop instead, the show points to its own des- perate attempt to produce a compelling ending that leaves the characters reeling yet again. Rather than sharply honing in on a dramatic plot point with the greatest potential to develop into the next season, the show lazily repeats past narratives and kicks down its protagonist once again — this time, with seemingly nowhere to move forward. SHOWTIME “It’s okay. You can still watch season one on DVD.” FILM REVIEW B- Shameless Season 6 Finale Sundays at 9 p.m. Showtime