The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, October 19, 2016 — 5A

ACROSS
1 Unlike this clue,
obviously
5 Driving force?
10 Bar regulars, and
then some
14 Bible book before
Romans
15 One-named
singer with 10
Grammys
16 William of
“Broadcast
News”
17 Does well at the
casino?
19 On
20 URL ending
21 Bridge call
22 Hang loosely
23 Star’s statuette
25 Cereal box
factoid
28 Mushroom cloud
makers
30 Pale
31 __ shadow
32 Tip to one side
33 Etiquette expert
Baldrige who
was Jackie
Kennedy’s social
secretary
37 Concert finale ...
and what 17-,
25-, 50- and 60-
Across have in
common
41 Comes back with
42 Hardly scads
44 Beer choice,
briefly
47 Part of un mes
48 Ready for the
piano recital
50 Opera house
level
54 “Ugh!”
55 Climbed aboard
56 Some Neruda
poems
58 Hawaiian tuna
59 Snack since
1912
60 Bullied
63 Musée Marc
Chagall city
64 Ancient Greek
region
65 Conversation
piece?
66 __ chair
67 Minute
68 Archer of myth

DOWN
1 Researcher’s
garb
2 Puzzle with a
quote
3 Recent medical
research subject
4 Org. operating
full-body
scanners
5 Prepare, as
avocados for
guacamole
6 Ancient theater
7 “Tradition” singer
8 “Bravo!”
9 “You eediot!”
speaker of
cartoons
10 Ventriloquist
Lewis
11 Delighted state?
12 Prize in a case
13 Fla. city
18 Go-__
22 Overalls material
24 Financier aboard
the Titanic
26 Strong string
27 1960s dance
29 Add sneakily
34 China’s Zhou __
35 “In Here, It’s
Always Friday”
letters

36 Diminish
38 Enterprise
choice
39 Academic figure
40 Southwestern
farm owner
43 Rear ends
44 “See ya!”
45 Everycity, USA
46 Tenochtitlán
natives
49 Where to see
IBM and JNJ

51 Deschanel of the
musical duo She
& Him
52 Whom to trust, in
“The X-Files”
53 Astronomer
Hubble
57 PayPal’s former
parent
60 Morsel
61 Salmon eggs
62 More than
impress

By Bruce Haight
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/19/16

10/19/16

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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TV REVIEW

Riding on the success of “Mr. 

Robot,” USA has delivered a new 
series that capitalizes on the 
same eerie sweet 
spots of the net-
work’s 
break-out 

hit. From produc-
er Gale Anne Hurd 
of “The Walking 
Dead” comes sci-
ence-fiction thrill-
er “Falling Water,” 
where dreams are 
not random mani-
festations of the 
subconscious but, 
instead, fated to reveal a world-
shattering truth. The premiere 
offers a first taste of the mys-
tery that promises to unravel 
throughout the season and sets 
up potential for the the series to 
become remorselessly addictive.

Three seemingly unrelated 

individuals are connected by 
their 
dreams, 
each 
holding 

answers to the others’ recurring 
subconscious 
improvisations. 

The premiere first introduces 
Tess (Lizzie Brocheré, “The 
Wedding Song”), a trendspotter 
looking for the next big thing, 
who dreams of a son she does 
not remember having. She is 
sought out by Bill Boerg (Zak 
Orth, “Wet Hot American Sum-

mer”), a scientist whose inter-
est in her dreams are shady at 
best. Bill promises Tess answers 
about her son if she cooperates 
with his experiments, in which 
he asks her to walk into other’s 

subconsciouses. 
Interwoven with 
Tess’s story are 
corporate 
busi-

nessman 
Burton 

(David Ajala, “The 
Dark 
Knight”), 

who dreams of an 
elusive 
Woman 

in Red, and Taka 
(Will 
Yun 
Lee, 

“The Wolverine”), 
a detective with 

horrific dreams of his catatonic 
mother. 

It’s nearly impossible to dif-

ferentiate between their reality 
and sleep, as the pilot waltzes 
in and out of the vivid dreams 
of the three main protagonists. 
The 
storyline 
is 
purposely 

constructed to be convoluted; 
perhaps the difficult to follow 
plot intends to trick the audi-
ence into sticking around for 
some answers. But confusion 
breeds frustration in a restless 
audience, and nobody is going 
to wait around too long before 
completely giving up on a direc-
tionless story. “Falling Water” 
runs the risk of alienation in a 
premiere so oversaturated with 

questions that even the audience 
doesn’t know what’s real and 
what’s not. 

Comparable to “Mr. Robot” 

in look and feel, “Falling Water” 
is visually intriguing from the 
opening sequence. The series 
stays true to a consistent aes-
thetic: muted colors and an 
eerily silent soundtrack blan-
ket the screen as the characters 
move through a cold, urban set-
ting. A few thematic elements 
make frequent appearances; for 
example, running water, often 
played in reverse, recurs in both 
the protagonists’ dreams and 
realities, perhaps to provide an 
origin to root the show’s title. 
Yet there is a great deal of inno-
vation and versatility in the 
visual construction, as lighting 
and shadows create personality 
in a show that is objectively col-
ored by grays and diluted tones. 
In fact, most of the pivotal plot 
points lie in the visuals rather 
than extensive dialogue or nar-
ration.

While the series may be con-

fusing narratively, it’s far from 
boring, allowing the cinematog-
raphy to tell most of the story 
instead of the screenplay. So if 
the audience can stay engaged 
long enough for “Falling Water” 
to establish solid footing, USA 
might have a new hit on its 
hands.

USA’s ‘Falling Water’ narratively 
sinks, but aesthetically stays afloat

DANIELLE YACOBSON

Daily Arts Writer

Two Door Cinema Club have 

always been a band known for 
their originality. I remember 
hearing 
“Ciga-

rettes In The The-
atre” for the first 
time and thinking, 
“WOW! This is 
something 
really 

special!” Yet, their 
newest offspring, 
Gameshow, comes 
off like Saint Motel 
and Daft Punk had 
a child that grew 
up to be exceptionally boring. 
The album does little to show-
case their prior penchant for 
soaring, enticing guitar melodies 
and catchy synth hooks, replac-
ing them with a more standard 
techno vibe.

Two Door’s debut album, 

Tourist History, was a defini-
tive album in my love affair with 
music, but Gameshow snuffs out 
that flame under bass-heavy 
beats and frankly unoriginal mel-
odies in context of what can be 
expected from Two Door’s music. 
The music itself isn’t horrendous, 
but its lack of characteristic flair 
causes the album to fall flat from 
the band’s past electricity.

A fairly blatant detriment to 

the album is its length. The deluxe 
edition is over an hour long, with 
the inclusion of two remixes and 
a live recording, and a majority of 

the tracks feel like they overstay 
their welcome. Lengthy portions 
of songs seemed like they were 
written with the intent of forcing 
concertgoers to dance at a perfor-

mance, and not to 
enjoy on their lone-
some with a record-
ing. If anything, the 
duration 
created 

confusion 
during 

my 
first 
listen, 

and then just pure 
boredom and frus-
tration on my sub-
sequent attempts to 
enjoy it.

“I’m a present danger to my 

health,” 
sings 
Alex 
Trimble 

on the opening notes of “Good 
Morning,” in true summation of 
the album. He sings of contradic-
tions that are perfectly analo-
gous to my experience with this 
album: conflicted feelings of con-
fusion and desire to thoroughly 
enjoy my listen. Yet, the track 
only calls to mind Two Door’s 
past glory; it’s indicative of their 
previous sound while coming 
across as outdated in today’s 
indie music scene.

The album burns slowly, and 

few songs are able to truly hold 
attention or emotional invest-
ment for longer than a minute, 
which makes the inclusion and 
placement of the last two tracks 
even more confounding. “Gaso-
line” and “Sucker” close out the 
album, one of the most artistical-

ly befuddling choices I’ve heard 
in music. Both are strange and 
slow, leaving literally nothing but 
a bad taste in the listener’s mouth. 
It really causes the album to lack 
a reasonable sense of closure.

However, Two Door doesn’t 

totally fail on every track. Title 
track “Gameshow” blurs the line 
between indie and rock, provid-
ing a much needed incidence of 
vocal and instrumental variation. 
Trimble desparately shouts, “Just 
give me something, anything to 
live by / my blood is pumping so 
fast I forgot why I try.” It feels 
like a cathartic release among the 
relative normativity of the rest of 
the album. Another solid track is 
“Je Viens De La.” It’s similar to 
the classic Two Door tone, and 
brings back the much needed 
fire that characterizes their most 
successful creations. Its chorus 
is shrill and captivating, and the 
track isn’t long enough to make 
me want to hit the skip button.

Gameshow, despite its spar-

ing highlights, feels like a let-
down. Individually, the tracks 
aren’t terrible, but as a collective 
album, it induces a confusing, 
underwhelming listen. Gone are 
the days of the tight pop tracks 
on Tourist History, along with 
the incredible songwriting on 
“Changing of the Seasons,” one 
of the best indie tracks from this 
decade. Two Door set their bar 
too high for their third album to 
be a true success.

PARLOPHONE

One trip to Urban and suddenly you’re an indie-pop band.

DOMINIC POLSINELLI

For the Daily

‘Gameshow’ is a disappointment to fans of the band’s early work.

C-

Gameshow

Two Door Cinema 

Club

Parlophone

Two Door Cinema Club 
can’t continue its success

ALBUM REVIEW

B

“Falling Water”

Series Premiere

USA

Thursdays at 10 

p.m.

N

othing ever ends when 
it’s supposed to. Espe-
cially not movies.

Last weekend, the lovely 

and talented Community Cul-
ture Edi-
tor, Natalie 
Zak, and I 
went to see 
“American 
Honey.” 
We tucked 
the outing 
neatly in 
between 
dinner and 
an evening 
of singing 
Alanis Morissette at Circus. 
We never made it to Circus, 
however, because “American 
Honey” refused to end.

Around the two-hour mark, 

I sat in the theater fidgeting 
and doing something I (almost) 
never do — covertly checking 
the time on my phone.

“American Honey” felt like it 

was slowly ghosting me toward 
our end. It wasn’t going to 
come right out and dump me, 
instead it was going to spiral 
towards the end, suggesting a 
million points of closure and 
choosing instead to continue on 
despite them. That’s what made 
it so painful: its repetition of 
signs my movie-saturated brain 
recognizes as ending. Some-
thing dramatic and conclusive 
happens, the music swells and 
the camera lingers on some 
object of symbolic significance. 
Then, cut to black and roll the 
credits, right? Wrong.

Even when it did decide 

to end, within the context of 
its scene, it was too late. Star 
wades into the water — a clear 
callback to an earlier scene 
and a symbolic rebirth — she 
submerges and then bursts out, 
her hair arching dramatically 
overhead. That’s the end of the 
movie, but it’s not its ending. 
Instead, the camera lingers on 
the surface of the water and 
the moonlight catching on the 
trees. This return to stillness 
takes away from the power and 
movement created earlier in 
the scene.

In my film class last week, 

we were discussing “Shaw-
shank Redemption” and some-
one pointed out that it too ends 
after it ought to. It should have 

ended with hope — the driving 
emotion of the movie — in the 
form of Red riding in the bus, 
going up a hill on the other side 
of which the audience can only 
imagine is Andy and freedom 
and, you guessed it, redemp-
tion. But, instead, the camera 
follow Red there. We watch 
him get to Mexico and reunite 
with Andy. The film closes 
itself up neatly, so neatly in 
fact, that there is no room for 
lingering emotion. The hope of 
resolution is much more pow-
erful than resolution itself. In 
the world of the movie, once 
the two men are reunited, 
there is nothing left for the 
audience to want.

So many movies fall victim 

to the too perfect ending. Even 
my beloved “Heathers” is not 
immune. Instead of leaving 
Veronica covered in ash with 
a cigarette hanging out of her 
mouth — by far the standout 
visual moment of the movie 
— we have to follow her back 
into the school so she can make 
nice with Martha Dumptruck 
and reaffirm her status as 
the “nice” one. Much like in 
“American Honey” or “Shaw-
shank,” the movement away 
from the dramatic moment 
breaks the emotional spell that 
scene creates.

Maybe it’s because endings 

are the most artificial part of 
movies, of any type of story-
telling. They’re so hard to get 
right because there’s no real 
world model for how to do 
it. In life there are very few 
— maybe, depending on how 
much you like to overthink, 
no — things that end like the 
ending of a movie. Moments 
slip into one another in a messy 
and overlapping web. Noth-
ing really begins or ends, but 
rather continues.

Sometimes that endlessness 

is really frustrating. I think 
what frustrated me and Natalie 
so much about the slow death 
of “American Honey” was its 
resemblance to real life. It, like 
most ex-boyfriends, refused to 
let us go. It did the film equiva-
lent of texting us right when 
we were finally almost getting 
over it. It was so frustratingly 
realistic.

It refused to give into the 

artificiality of endings. Its 

length seemed to suggest that 
it equally could have ended 
at any point or not at all. The 
moment of conclusion was arbi-
trary. Because it wasn’t a story 
of something; it was a story 
about something. A something 
that stems from, and likewise 
flows into, a thousand other 
somethings without a clear 
beginning or end.

I’m glad Natalie and I — 

unlike some of our fellow mov-
iegoers — made it to the end. 
It was a challenge. “American 
Honey” tested our patience 
with an annoying lead, a grimy 
setting and Shia LaBeouf’s 
braided rattail (*gag*).

I’m not glad I made it to the 

ending because Star’s moment 
of self-baptism was particu-
larly revelatory or original, 
but because it wasn’t. It ended 
as silently as moments in life 
normally do, each one fading 
into the next. Its mundanity 
highlighted the construction, 
the falsity, of endings.

Nothing ever ends when 

it’s supposed to because noth-
ing ever truly ends. Someone 
much wiser than me once told 
me that it is impossible for the 
people we care about to leave 
our lives forever. Mortality 
aside, I’m beginning to under-
stand what she was saying. 
Sometimes it’s a text from an 
ex, a sweet email from your 
high school art teacher or a 
kid handing out fliers in the 
Diag who you swear you met 
at a party once freshman year. 
Nothing really ends — it only 
changes, becoming something 
new.

So although I had to spend 

almost three hours watching a 
movie where Shia LaBeouf had 
a rattail and missed singing 
“Ironic” with my Alanis-loving 
gal pals, I’m glad “American 
Honey” did what it did. I’m 
glad it frustrated me and made 
me fidget. Because it proved 
to me that the storyteller — 
regardless of the expectation’s 
of their audience — has power 
over when to end their story, 
if ever. 

Gaudin is here to remind 

you of the mess you left when 

you went away. To apologize, 

email mgaudin@umich.edu.

Overstaying our 

welcomes

How too many films fall victim to the allure of the perfect ending

FILM COLUMN

MADELEINE 
GAUDIN

New sci-fi thriller series could potentially follow the path of ‘Mr. Robot.’

