Classifieds

Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

ACROSS
1 Arafat’s
successor
6 City near Yorba
Linda
10 Brief responses
to common
concerns
14 Composer of a
seven-movement
work that
excludes Earth
15 Tach count
16 “... even now / __
myself to thy
direction”:
“Macbeth”
17 “What’s My
Line?”
comedian’s craft
brewery?
19 Sail support
20 R.E.M.’s “The __
Love”
21 Heifetz’s 
teacher
22 Present
23 Pop diva’s fruit
stand?
27 City of northern
Spain
29 David and Bird
30 American Idol
winner’s
amusement
chain?
34 In a blue state
35 Nile reptile
36 Corvallis sch.
39 Rapper’s
shopping 
center
properties?
45 Equally 
speedy
48 Forest bovine
49 Guitarist’s cash
register
company?
53 Collate
54 Film on water
55 Toddler’s drink
58 Farm opening?
59 “Whose Line Is It
Anyway?”
comedian’s
flooring store?
61 Número de
Mandamientos
62 Frank of 1950s
Broadway
63 Basketwork 
fiber
64 Bone-dry
65 Hwy. crossings
66 Jai alai basket

DOWN
1 “Understood”
2 Windfall
3 Symbol of
happiness
4 Had ambitions
5 Mess
6 Big name in
coffee makers
7 Civil War
signature
8 __ other:
alternating
9 Sancho’s “steed”
10 Pole users
11 Materialize
12 Slate source
13 Burnout cause
18 Squelched
24 Forest’s 2006
Oscar-winning
role
25 35mm camera
option
26 Where the Indus
flows: Abbr.
27 IHOP orders
28 U.S. news source
since 1942
31 Slump
32 Tire pressure
meas.
33 Parody
36 Veterans of the
briny
37 __-pitch

38 Steel giant, as it
was known from
1986-2001
39 Cleanse
spiritually
40 Book ending
41 Co. merged into
Verizon
42 Moves in a
school
43 .001 of an inch
44 Omniscient
45 Syrian ruling
family

46 Cheap smoke
47 “Cyrano de
Bergerac” Best
Actor (1950)
50 “Bye Bye Bye”
band
51 Meager
52 iPod contents
56 Shoemaker’s strip
57 Where to find 
36-Down
59 British rule in India
60 Hold ’em tell,
maybe

By Darin McDaniel
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/28/16

10/28/16

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Friday, October 28, 2016

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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6 — Friday, October 28, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Classifying movies as “bad” or 

“good” is hard to do. It’s difficult 
not only because movies are high-
ly subjective, indi-
vidual experiences, 
but also because 
most movies don’t 
fit into a binary. 
In the era when 
opinions regarding 
every piece of pop 
culture under the 
sun litter the inter-
net, we like to decry 
movies as either being so offen-
sively horrible that they should 
never have been made in the first 
place, or seminal masterpieces too 
perfect for words. The reality is 
that most movies aren’t failures or 
masterworks — they’re just okay.

Despite this, every once in a 

while there comes a movie like 
“The Dressmaker,” which tran-
scends all these labels. Not exactly 
“bad” or “good,” it’s a profoundly 
bizarre mess of a film that’s sort of 
amazing in a “the whole is greater 
than the sum of its parts” kind of 
way, but mostly terrible in every 
other respect.

“The Dressmaker” (directed by 

Jocelyn Moorhouse) is an early 
1950s period piece that tells the 
story of Tilly Dunnage, played by 
Kate Winslet (“Steve Jobs”). Tilly, 
a glamorous and worldly fashion 
designer, returns to her home-
town, the Australian outback town 

of Dungatar, to take care of her old, 
sick mother Molly (Judy Davis, “To 
Rome With Love”). Tilly is blamed 
by the town for the death of the 
town councillor’s son, branding 
her as an outcast at the age of 10. 

Her return to Dun-
gatar 
results 
in 

shock and intrigue 
from 
the 
nosy 

townspeople. 
Til-

ly’s only allies are 
the secretly cross-
dressing chief of 
police played by 
the 
impeccably 

cast Hugo Weaving 

(“The Hobbit”) and the dashing 
young Teddy (Liam Hemsworth, 
“The Hunger Games”).

There’s plenty of good to be 

found in the movie. Winslet is an 
excellent femme fatale, and even 
though Liam Hemsworth’s char-
acter doesn’t have any defining 
traits apart from his physicality 
(also known as: abs), he rises to the 
challenge admirably. The movie 
looks very pretty, with intricate 
period costumes and a desolate 
Australian landscape. But at its 
core, this is a deeply confused 
movie — confused about what it 
wants to be and how to tell its story 
in an effective way.

“The Dressmaker” has a tone 

problem. It’s equal parts melo-
drama and black comedy, and if 
it seems like that’s an impossible 
combination to work effectively, 
that’s because it is. It wants to be 
both a sincere, devastatingly sad 

film about mob rule and a troubled 
woman who loses everything and 
a wacky adventure where death 
means little because the charac-
ters and storylines are told too car-
toonishly to elicit empathy from 
the audience. It’s audacious, but 
it doesn’t really work.The result 
is a movie that leaves the viewers 
not laughing or crying, but rather 
looking around in confusion, ask-
ing if it really just happened.

Despite all of this, “The Dress-

maker” may be one of the most 
entertaining movies I’ve seen this 
year. A character dies by jumping 
into a sorghum-filled silo to prove 
his manliness. The police chief is 
bribed into giving up confiden-
tial information about an ongoing 
investigation with a feather boa. 
A woman ruthlessly slashes her 
cheating, raping, lying husband’s 
tendons and leaves him to bleed 
to death in their spotless kitchen. 
Kate Winslet determines the out-
come of a football game by dis-
tracting the players with a bright 
red dress. Fire, Shakespeare and 
hash brownies all play key roles in 
the movie’s resolution. It’s ridicu-
lous. It’s terrible. It’s glorious.

It would be easy to say that the 

structural and tonal problems 
make this a bad movie. It would 
probably be the more respectable 
thing to say. And yet, “The Dress-
maker” defies all notions of logic 
and sound judgment. Is it bad? Is it 
good? Is it nonsense? The answer 
is yes, probably. But who cares? 
Just shut up, relax and watch.

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Spoiler Alert: She makes dresses.

ASIF BECHER

For the Daily

Technically, it’s a bad movie, but you’ll be having too much fun to notice
Wacky, fun ‘Dressmaker’

FILM REVIEW

The simile “like a moth to a 

flame” is criminally overused 
these days. Sure, we’re all drawn 
to things that tempt us — forces 
that stick out like 
some rosy beacon 
in an otherwise 
dark night — and 
sometimes 
we 

surrender to them. 
But a true case 
of moth-to-flame 
syndrome is rare. 
And 
beautiful. 

And you can feel the heat when 
it happens.

Lady Gaga is drawn to her 

piano like a moth to a flame. 
Recall the years of bubbly, bril-
liant pop: the 2009-onward 
Renaissance of meat dresses, 
disco sticks and disconnected 
telephones. Amid this techno 
blitzkrieg, Gaga never sacri-
ficed those crystalline pipes, of 
course, and every chance she got 
she had a piano by her side.

Arguably her strongest per-

formance, the 2009 VMA rendi-
tion of “Paparazzi,” went down 
in award show history for eye 
blood, chest blood and blood, 
well, everywhere. Despite the 
hoopla, Gaga found time to visit 
her piano on stage left for the 
second verse, slam a few keys, 
then sashay her merry way. And 
so it goes for nearly every SNL 
performance since, every con-
cert and acoustic set. The New 
York doll tickles the ivories. It’s 
just what she does.

Joanne is an album of this 

stripped-down 
flame-chasing. 

Not so much a return to form 
(2013’s ARTPOP took the osten-
tatious quirk as far as it could 
go), the pink suede LP unfolds 
instead like a smooth slide into 

some dive bar in Americana 
girl-land. It’s got a mournful 
core filled with lost loves — RIP 
Taylor Kinney — yet it fights 
with a certain gritty optimism, 
as Gaga leans on friends like 
Florence Welch (“Hey Girl”) and 

fermented grapes 
(“Grigio 
Girls”) 

for strength.

An 
introspec-

tive 
search 
for 

that 
ineffable 

oomph, 
Joanne 

starts 
off 
right 

with 
the 
tingly 

“Diamond Heart.” 

Gaga hits her growl right away, 
and the drums start: “I might 
not be flawless, but you know 
I gotta diamond heart.” It’s a 
driving number with powerful 
hopefulness, which also seeps 
into the sing-song poignancy 
of “Joanne,” the title track. She 
yawps notes of liquid silver 
in this ode to herself (Gaga’s 
birth name is Stefani Joanne 
Angelina Germanotta) and her 
deceased aunt, whom she con-
siders a major influence. “Girl,” 
she sings, “where do you think 
you’re going?”

Well, the girl’s dancing “Coy-

ote Ugly”-style on the scratchy 
countertops of some Mississippi 
pub on tunes like “John Wayne” 
and “Dancin’ in Circles.” Both 
are a frenzy of sexual energy. 
The first is a catcall to all the 
badass men in the world who 
think they can handle Gaga’s 
cowboy hat and/or libido. The 
second is one of the album’s best: 
a zany, almost Rasta-like jam 
that definitely has its place in 
the Songs About Masturbation 
canon. It’s also thrillingly remi-
niscent of The Fame Monster’s 
“So Happy I Could Die,” and for 
a little bit, it feels like we’re get-
ting the old Gaga back — and an 

even better one, at that.

“Grigio Girls” keeps the spirit 

alive with a cute chorus (“All the 
Pinot, Pinot Grigio girls / Pour 
your heart out / Watch your 
blues turn gold”). “Hey Girl” 
with Florence Welch is a stel-
lar, soulful duet that feels just 
as fun and kitschy as the rest, 
though it is seared with some 
sadness, some howling. “Million 
Reasons” addresses this grief 
directly. It’s almost country-like 
in its delivery: strong “r”s, rep-
etition and attitude. But it’s a 
deftly restrained twang, evident 
on “Come To Mama” and “Sin-
ner’s Prayer,” too. Toby Keith 
ain’t that welcome in Gagatown.

It’s easy to forget about the 

cathartic “Angel Down;” the 
ballad strove for anthemic but 
got its less-hot cousin, aimless-
ness. Joanne’s promotional sin-
gles also plummet into nowhere 
land: “AYO” is a schmaltzy, 
almost Disney Channel-esque 
pop tune lacking the fine-wine 
finesse brought about by Gaga’s 
many years in the business. 
“Perfect Illusion” is equally 
as formulaic — it builds, but it 
builds modern songwriting cli-
ché after cliché. This is the first 
time producer Mark Ronson has 
let our ears down, it seems.

But the final song, “Just 

Another Day,” turns it around. 
Sure, it’s a little cheesy, but 
Gaga’s been a little cheesy all 
along — a self-aware flair for 
dramatics that even permeates 
her songs about the mundanity 
of everyday life. “Just Another 
Day” is just another day. But 
that’s a damn good day if we 
have Gaga back by the piano 
churning out songs again, belt-
ing red velvet melodies that emit 
the warmth that first drew us to 
her — our tricky, inextinguish-
able flame of a woman.

INTERSCOPE

Is that a disco stick?
‘Joanne’ signals a country-soaked 
new direction for Lady Gaga’s career

New LP is not a return to form, but a stripped-down reinvention

A-

Joanne

Lady Gaga

Interscope

ALBUM REVIEW

MELINA GLUSAC

Senior Arts Edior

I wish I could say that in 

“Chance,” a new drama from 
Hulu, Hugh Laurie plays the 
same kind of sex-
ily 
disillusioned 

doctor who dead-
pans 
his 
way 

through an epi-
sode that he did 
in “House,” but 
I 
can’t. 
While 

his voice sounds 
exactly the same, 
his serious face is only slight-
ly grayer than it had been in 
“House” and the pilot is just as 
full of medical jargon, “Chance” 
is missing a few of the key com-
ponents that allowed “House” to 
run for eight seasons. The com-
parisons, though perhaps unfair, 
are inevitable.

Based on a book by the mys-

tery writer Kem Nunn and set 
in San Francisco, “Chance” fol-
lows Eldon Chance, a puppy dog-
eyed dad in the middle of divorce 
who can’t pay for his daughter’s 
private school. He’s a practicing 
neuropsychiatrist who writes 
reports but doesn’t treat the 
patients himself, and there are 
voiceover segments throughout 
the pilot in which Laurie reads 
over those reports. His disen-

chantment with his job — he 
feels like he can’t help people in 
a real way — provides the dreary 
framework for the first main plot 
device.

Chance appears to take only 

a 
cursory 
inter-

est in his patients, 
until 
in 
walks 

Jaclyn 
Black-

stone 
(Gretchen 

Mol, 
“Boardwalk 

Empire”), 
whose 

medical complaints 
are not as alarming 
as her confession 

of a police husband who hits her. 
Chance — of course despite his 
own better judgment and the 
judgment of his partner — gets 
too involved. This is complicated 
by Blackstone’s apparent two 
warring personalities.

Then there’s a slightly confus-

ing subplot, concerning a desk 
that Chance is trying to sell at 
an obscenely, fraudulently high 
price. This allows for the intro-
duction of two characters, an 
antiques dealer (Clark Peters, 
“The Wire”) and D (Ethan 
Suplee, “My Name is Earl”).

D, who becomes something 

of a sidekick to Chance, helps 
him stake out Blackstone’s hus-
band. There are opportunities 
for 
unconventionally 
darker 

buddy humor here that could 

and should be developed, as it 
would let Laurie’s comedic skills 
shine through the cracks of this 
glum plot — but the show seems 
hesitant to give up the tenuous, 
barely-there noir elements and 
somber atmosphere that prevent 
opportunities for lighter comedy.

Which is a shame, because 

while Eldon Chance might have 
the same tortured, soulful eyes 
that House did, he is missing 
House’s sardonic and apathetic 
sense of humour — the one thing 
that made the character digest-
ible, 
despite 
the 
sometimes 

shocking callousness.

The 
real 
plot 
points 
of 

“Chance” are slow to be mapped 
out, though the clichés roll out 
quickly — the tortured doctor 
who gets too involved in one 
damsel in distress, ignoring his 
marital and financial problems 
for her sake; an illicit café meet-
ing and alley brawl, blah blah 
blah.

“Chance” ’s supporting actors 

do their best with what they’re 
given, but it isn’t enough to 
compensate for the bewilder-
ingly slow pace and lack of driv-
ing energy. Even the haunting 
piano notes of the score feel flat. 
Laurie’s performance is still the 
strongest part of this show; he 
almost makes middle-aged adult 
angst intriguing. Almost.

SOPHIA KAUFMAN

Daily Arts Writer

Don’t take a ‘Chance’ on Hugh Laurie

TV REVIEW

C

“Chance”

Series Premiere

Hulu

C-

“The Dressmaker”

Michigan Theater

Universal Pictures

