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Arts
Monday, January 9, 2017 — 5A
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purchased
the
Football
Book
yet?
Do the
crossword,
then order
one.
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ACROSS
1 Rides for hire
5 Rapids transports
10 Toothed tonsorial
tool
14 Treaty partner
15 Open courtyards
16 “So that’s what
you mean”
17 Shakespearean
king
18 “Just handle the
problem!”
20 Jam session
jammer
22 Signs of sadness
23 Upstage one’s
co-stars
26 Tavern brew
27 Some
motorcycles and
pianos
32 Lawn-wrecking
pests
36 Sewn edge
37 __ president
38 Big sale, where
you can find the
starts of 18-, 23-,
49- and 60-
Across
42 Mongolian desert
43 No-frills sleeper
44 Fire pit particles
45 ’70s-’80s band
with a steering
wheel on their
debut album
cover
47 Google success
49 Employ stalling
tactics
55 Pro on camera
59 Like some rays
outside the
visible spectrum
60 Take into
account
63 Fill fully
64 Qatari ruler
65 British unit of
length
66 Hall of Famer
Musial
67 Relaxed gait
68 Old West search
party
69 Narrow-bodied
swimmers
DOWN
1 Brings peace to
2 Native Alaskan
3 Having a been-
there-done-that
attitude
4 War-torn country
since 2011
5 Goodyear offering
6 “Relax, soldier”
7 Pre-euro Metz
money
8 Up to, in ads
9 Got a look at
10 Use as a
reference
11 Workplace
standards org.
12 Israel’s Golda
13 Puts money (on)
19 To-do list entry
21 Envelope fastener
24 Looked at closely
25 Birth certificate
datum
28 “We Try Harder”
car rental chain
29 Air conditioner
setting
30 Suffer from
overexertion
31 Goes below the
horizon
32 Senior NCO
33 “Oops!”
34 Place for an
earring
35 Grand-scale
poem
36 Pres. between
FDR and DDE
39 Sandy shade
40 Flushed, as
cheeks
41 Down the road
46 Magician’s
syllables
47 Pays tribute to
48 “My schedule is
wide open”
50 Works with flour
51 Cup for café or
thé
52 Blowing one’s top
53 Lead or zinc
54 Blissful regions
55 Cain’s victim
56 Commando garb
57 Stumble
58 Kiddie lit monster
61 Mischief-maker
62 Modernist’s
prefix
By Gail Grabowski and Bruce Venzke
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/09/17
01/09/17
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Monday, January 9, 2017
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
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Take the common icebreaker
question: if you were the last
person on earth, what would
you do? Except now consider
that you are no longer on Earth,
but the commercial spacecraft
Avalon,
travelling
hundreds
of
years
through
space
to
a
faraway
colonial planet.
With slick CGI
backdrops,
“Passengers”
hurtles an age-
old question of
loneliness
and
humanity into a
new age.
Due to a technology hiccup,
Jim (Chris Pratt, “Jurassic
World”) is jolted awake from
his hibernation pod ninety
years before expected. With
the rest of the five thousand
passengers still asleep and no
other hope of rescue, he reads
Aurora’s (Jennifer Lawrence,
“Joy”)
background
papers
and falls in love with her and
wakes her up. Meanwhile,
the
spacecraft
continues
malfunctioning
and
the
problems eventually become
too big to ignore.
For a movie about loneliness,
“Passengers”
is
too
self-
conscious of its own quiet.
The
beginning
starts
off
promising: Jim’s voice echoing
against
deserted
hallways,
caustic montages of him sitting
alone in large rooms full of
unoccupied chairs.
Then, hearing the pause,
it panics and sputters out
unnecessary
dialogue,
bringing in robot bartender
Arthur
(Michael
Sheen,
“Masters of Sex”), who looks
like a human and speaks like
one, dispensing wisdom and
serving as Jim’s emotional
rock. Though arguably the
most
interesting
character,
his friendship interrupts the
silence needed for the gravity
of the situation sink in. At no
point does it ever
feel like Jim is
truly alone. Pratt’s
beard growth is
the only indicator
that
a
year
in
complete solitude
has passed.
“Passengers”
also attempts to
untangle a bevy
of
philosophical
questions: the idea
that
emotional
connection
distinguishes
human and robot, whether
love is fated to be, the ethics
behind hurting another to save
oneself.
Though
it’s
clear that the
film’s intent for
mixing
humor
and love with
danger
is
to
find
moments
of
humanity
in
hopeless
situations,
it
doesn’t execute
either well. To
pull off either a “Titanic”-
style
doomed
romance
or
an
intellectual
challenge
successfully, the movie had to
pick between one or the other.
It doesn’t.
The
ethical
dilemmas
complicate Jim and Aurora’s
romance (if it could even be
called that) and “Passengers”
fails to finish answering what
it started. It doesn’t adequately
contextualize
that
their
relationship was born out of
loneliness
and
desperation,
not chemistry. It incorrectly
misrepresents
Aurora’s
forgiveness as stemming from
love, not necessity. Portraying
their
relationship
with
a
typical
romance
storyline
brainwashes us to think Jim’s
disturbing actions are okay.
Based
on
its
marketing,
“Passengers”
should
have
succeeded as a thriller alone,
but even the action sequences
fell flat. It dedicates screen time
primarily to Lawrence and Pratt’s
relationship, only adding thrill
in its final quarter, almost as an
afterthought.
Everything
feels
too easy and ends too quickly. The
ship’s commander is awakened,
for no reason other than to grant
access to critical areas. Then, every
problem follows a pattern of Aurora
wailing, “what do we do?” and Jim,
who is a mechanic, telling her the
solution and immediately fixing
it himself. Aurora’s only role is to
look distressed and repeat “this
is bad,” as if the
flashing red lights
and sirens weren’t
enough to clue us
in.
Jumping
between
action
scenes,
philosophical
questions,
jest
and
romance,
“Passengers”
aims
for
grandeur,
trying
to pack in love and life and
everything
in
between,
following
the
style
of
its
obvious inspirations “Titanic”
and “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
But
it
overreaches,
trying
for everything and offering
nothing. Though Jim has no
shortage of time, the way
“Passengers” hurriedly chokes
each half-baked idea by the next,
the movie acts like he does.
VANESSA WONG
Daily Arts Writer
C+
“Passengers”
Columbia Pictures
Rave, Quality 16
‘Passengers’ disappoints
us, our families, the world
Highly anticipated space romance fails to present anything
new or interesting in the depiction of its principle relationship
THEO KATZMAN
How uncomfortable does this make you feel? Submit emotions below!
Katzman perfects the
pop song on ‘Heartbreak’
There’s
this
feeling,
this
sensation, that wells up in my
chest when I hear a great song.
It’s what I would like to believe
is the purest expression of art
affecting body and soul.
What’s beautiful about this
is that the feeling ranges across
genre. It could be a symphony
or a pop song that causes this
ballooning
of
emotion,
and
when it happens my body
tenses, my insides turn and my
core tightens. It’s a peculiar
sensation of wanting to cry and
desperately scream at the same
time. It’s a tingling, a pressure,
that permeates every nerve
in the body as your mind tells
your heart: “This is something
spectacular, but unbearably so.”
In other words, I listened to
Theo Katzman’s second solo
album Heartbreak Hits. With
each song I wanted to dance,
shout and cry all at once. But
I’ve maxed my limit on crying
publicly in Espresso Royale,
so the only other option is to
put pen to paper instead to
unravel the emotional wreckage
inflicted by Heartbreak Hits.
Because that’s what it’s about
— upbeat or slow, heavy electric
or light acoustic, this album
unravels the intricacies of a
broken heart while breaking
the listener’s with every passing
second.
“Hard Work,” the first song
on
the
album,
was
released
months
ago
as
the
premiere
single, but time
hasn’t diminished
its rock ‘n’ roll
appeal.
When
placed
next
to
the
other
fast-
paced rock songs
on Hits, it mainly
reassures us that
Katzman, by some
divine
power,
has perfected the
rock song. “My
Heart is Dead,”
“As the Romans
Do” and “Lost and
Found” all push this sound even
further, and leave us with songs
to shamelessly jam to for hours
without any disruption in their
power and appeal. They’re pop-
rock meets pure, unadulterated
talent. Cringe away from that
word and genre if you’d like, but
when done right — as Katzman
has here — it’s formidable.
But it’s an album about love
and heartbreak, and despite the
upbeat rhythms of “My Heart
is Dead” and “Hard Work,”
the lyrics reveal a different
story. When layered with rock
and encouraged by Katzman’s
unyieldingly
energetic
stage
presence, an entire audience can
find itself screaming “there’s a
gaping hole in the front of my
chest” while smiling wildly at
the feel-good vibes. The music
lingers in the love, and the lyrics
revel in the loss.
Coming down from the heavy
rock is the upbeat, yet more
acoustically centric pieces; I
place “Break Up Together” and
“Crappy Love Song” in this
category. They are slow and
sad, adjectives which inevitably
belong together, but don’t have
the crushing weight of songs like
“Good to Be Alone” and “Plain
Jane Heroin.” “Crappy Love
Song” is reminiscent of Paul
McCartney’s “Silly Love Song,”
a song written in response to
Lennon’s dismissal of Paul’s
love,
love,
love.
But it’s not in the
same poppy vein
as
McCartney’s.
It
rests
in
sadness,
while
simultaneously
rejecting
it.
He
doesn’t want any
more “sad, sappy
love songs about
two people who
can’t get along”; he wants a happy
one, but will settle with a crappy
one. Still, his album is called
Heartbreak Hits and no matter
how heavy the rock is in some of
its songs, many are sad and about
love. Irony abounds.
This dynamic can be found in
the slower songs especially. “Good
to Be Alone” and “Plain Jane
Heroin,” are hauntingly beautiful,
their power only enhanced when
placed next to the heavy rock of
their surrounding contenders.
They tug at the heartstrings
and nostalgia of youthful love.
They dig into the little details of
loving and being loved, leaving
no detail untouched. And to add
to the genre-bending nature of
Katzman’s talent, “Good to be
Alone” is his self-proclaimed
country
song.
It’s thick with
situational
and
lyrical
irony,
yet
horribly
bittersweet.
It
recounts all the
little details of a
relationship that
are lost once all
ties are cut —
the
loneliness
that
assumes
the
space
companionship
once filled.
Empty spaces
are a recurring
theme
on
this
album,
and
maybe that’s where the power, the
emotional welling, can be located
— in profound absence. “Plain
Jane Heroin” exemplifies this the
best. The final song on the album,
“Plain Jane Heroin” begins slow,
sincere, with Katzman on guitar,
the notes echoing, untouched and
floating midair. Then the drums
come in and Joey Dosik enters
on keys. The song builds, electric
guitar introduced, and just as
Katzman is forever changed,
hooked on this metaphorical drug,
so are we. Because that’s what
music does. Whether it’s another
album we can dance or cry to, or
both, it inherently changes us. It
introduces us to notes and stories
that will stay with us far longer
than our own memories do. The
music, eventually, becomes a
cherished memory of our own
regard.
It’s art and its eternal struggle
of creator versus consumer. Who
gives it value? Who decides if it’s
earth-shattering genius or trash?
Who has the audacity to claim
that a bunch of crappy love songs
could change the world?
Not me, because crappy love
songs have and always will be
slowly but surely changing the
world. They are the breakup
songs and the songs that make
your chest well with conflicting
and indescribable emotion. They
are your parents’ wedding songs
gone sour — Ambrosia’s “Biggest
Part of Me” with
a twist. They are
what remind us,
at the end of a
37-minute album
or
four
minute
song,
that
the
world will indeed
keep on spinning.
Sometime
between
Katzman’s debut
and now, the poor man had his
heart broken either once or
several times. And it’s difficult
to empathize and pity his
broken heart when this was
the beautiful piece he so kindly
crafted in the wake of hardship.
It’s hard to feel badly, when the
music makes you feel so good.
“Heartbreak Hits”
Theo Katzman
Independent
Release
NATALIE ZAK
Managing Arts Editor
‘Heartbreak Hits,’ an album of love and loss, will leave
you feeling empty, broken, yet irresistibly happy
They are what
remind us, at the
end of a 37-minute
album or four
minute song, that
the world will
indeed keep on
spinning.
Everything
feels too easy
and ends too
quickly.
FILM REVIEW
ALBUM REVIEW