HAPPY
TUESDAY!

Classifieds

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

ACROSS
1 Greek sandwich
5 Happy
gatherings
10 Baby cow
14 Control for an
equestrian
15 In full view
16 Buckeye State
17 Horse feed
18 TV’s “The
Practice,” e.g.
20 “Bummer!”
22 Ford fiasco
23 Provides staff for
24 “That makes
sense”
26 Champagne
stopper or
popper
27 Genius Bar pro
29 JFK’s successor
32 High-card-wins
game
33 Enjoy
35 Submitted tax
returns with a
click
38 Door holder’s
witticism
41 Part of Congress
42 Somali-born
supermodel
43 Wide shoe size
44 Frat. counterpart
45 Aid in a felony
47 Traps in an
attic?
49 Deborah of “The
King and I”
51 Fictional
Hawaiian police
nickname
52 Rage
55 Procter &
Gamble laundry
detergent
60 Australia’s
“Sunshine State”
... or where you
might find the
ends of 18-,
20-, 38- and
55-Across?
62 “Go back”
computer
command
63 Sch. near the
U.S.-Mexico
border
64 Tweak, say
65 Raise a big
stink?
66 Pops a question
67 Outlaw chasers
68 Hours next to
flight nos.

DOWN
1 Branch out
2 “Okey-dokey”
3 Second actress
to win an Emmy,
Grammy, Oscar
and Tony
4 GM system with
an AtYourService
app
5 Helps with the
laundry
6 Happily __ after
7 Maker of the
Genesis game
system
8 Like many
Shakespeare
plays
9 MLB Cardinal’s
cap letters
10 Lear’s youngest
daughter
11 “I get it” cries
12 Green citrus fruit
13 Baby horse
19 Lousy grade
21 Sock that covers
the joint it’s
named for
25 Biblical
queendom
26 Pet store
enclosures
27 Ref’s ring decision
28 Spine-tingling

30 Margarine that
shares its name
with Texas’ state
flower
31 Ballet leaps
32 “Now, where __ I?”
34 “Sadly ... ”
36 Red Sox ballpark
37 Hair coloring
39 Cocktail makers
40 Ambulance fig.
46 S.O.S shelfmate
48 Make certain of
50 Fish-eating eagle

51 Rapper with a
title
52 Poolside shade
53 Pecans and
cashews
54 Nerdy type
56 37-Down
containers
57 Singles
58 Binged (on), as
snacks
59 Pans for
potstickers
61 Maple extract

By C.C. Burnikel
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/31/17

01/31/17

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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FOR RENT

6 — Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

In the summer of 2014, sixth-

graders
Morgan
Geyser
and

Anissa Weier lured their friend,
Payton Leutner, into the woods
and stabbed her 19 times. When
they were arrested, they claimed
they committed the act in an
attempt to become proxies, or
servants, of the Slenderman, a
fictional demonic entity with its
roots in Internet forums and fan
fiction. The story dominated the
news for weeks, and for many the
incident raised questions of the
impact that the Internet can have
on children. It is from this story
that the new documentary from
Irene Taylor Brodsky (“The Final
Inch”), “Beware the Slenderman,”
emerges, using its terrifying base
story to explore both the events of
the “Slender Man Stabbing” and
the effect of loneliness on young
people.

From
its
opening
scenes,

the strengths of “Beware the
Slenderman” become apparent.
Its
story
is
as
consistently

engrossing as any true-crime
tale, and in many ways, it recalls
“Making a Murderer” and fellow
HBO documentary “The Jinx.”
Its story is inherently interesting
and horrifying, and Brodsky does
well in threading the initial police
interviews with the girls through

the film to produce a constantly
eerie
atmosphere.
The
girls’

description of the events leading
up to the stabbing, as well as the
stabbing itself, provide some of
the most chilling material of the
feature.

It also becomes immediately

clear what the pitfalls of the
project
are.

Both
of
the

aforementioned
documentaries
were series. They
had an episodic
format that assisted
in expositing every
aspect
of
their

stories. “Beware the Slenderman”
has to get the same amount of
information across, but it only
has a two-hour runtime to do so.
It is trying to tell so many stories
at once that something always
inevitably gets lost, causing a
disjoint, especially in the first
act. Here, much of the crime is
explained, but the lack of info on
the titular monster which would
take the brunt of the blame in the
media, leaves this part feeling
unfinished. Without motivation, it
is hard to completely understand
the story Brodsky is trying to tell.

After the loads of exposition

that bog down the first act, the
second portion dives into both the
lore of the Slenderman and the
themes of the documentary. One of
the variety of experts interviewed

states that the Internet “can serve
as a peer or peer group” to those
with few friends of their own,
and that the Slenderman itself
gains his followers through their
own loneliness. It is the picture
of this isolation that “Beware the
Slenderman” paints that begins
to tie the thing together, as it

draws
parallels

from the allure of
the Internet, and
Slender
Man
in

particular, to the
solitude of Weier
and
Geyser’s

personal
lives.

It never seeks to

make excuses for their actions,
but it does seek to explain them,
and in this, it succeeds.

In the same way, Brodsky seeks

the origins of the Slenderman and
explores the role of the Internet
in creating web-based horror
stories, or “creepypasta,” like
the story of the creature. She
draws a line from “Slender” to the
Internet culture of memes to the
classic folk lore of the Pied Piper,
and makes it clear that while the
Internet provided a breeding
ground for these ideas to multiply
at a faster rate, the concept has
been around for centuries. In the
end, in the film’s most chilling
segment, it is revealed that Weier
and Geyser have themselves
become a part of the Slenderman
legend.

JEREMIAH VANDERHELM

Daily Arts Writer

“Slenderman”

True-Crime
Documentary

HBO

‘Slenderman’ chills bones

FILM REVIEW

Iranian-American director Ana’

Lily Amirpour once said she con-
ceived the idea for her debut film,
the vampire thriller “A Girl Walks
Home Alone At Night,” while
skateboarding down West Coast
streets one night. As her black
chador whipped behind her like
the wings of a bat, Amirpour had a
vision of heroine: A young Iranian
girl who skateboarded around the
streets of the fictional Bad Town,
her chador rippling behind her like
a cape.

Through combining traditional

and modern elements of Iranian
culture, as well as including both
Western and Eastern influences,
Amirpour creates a masterpiece
that transcends all previously
drawn boundaries. “A Girl Walks
Home Alone At Night” is a melting
pot of influences, seen in the pair-
ing of chador and fangs, seen in
the Iranian tattoos on a crass pimp
and, most importantly, seen in the
soundtrack itself.

Contrasting the stark, noir

aspect of the entirely black and
white movie, the soundtrack of
“A Girl” is an eclectic mash-up of
Iranian songs, both old and new.
Novel Iranian bands like Radio
Tehran and Kiosk stand next to
classic singers like Dariush; it’s a
playlist that not only beautifully
melds past and present, but also
shapes the fictional world of “Bad
Town.”

Much like its lack of color, “A

Girl” lacks excessive dialogue,
choosing instead to let its charac-
ters speak through the music that
fills the negative space.

The main character, The Girl

(played by Sheila Vand), is a point-
ed collection of contradictions:
She is mostly silent, entrapped in
shadows, yet the music that accom-
panies her pays homage to vibrant
‘80s synthpop. At the beginning
of the film, The Girl dances alone
in her room while Farah’s “Danc-
ing Girls” plays; the song contains
both Farsi and English lyrics, yet
the techno wave of its background
melody, along with the lone disco
ball The Girl sways back and forth
under, is reminiscent of American
bands like a-ha and Blondie. Far-
ah’s lyrics — “she’s just a normal
girl / dancing to her favorite song”
— create a sense of intimacy and
vulnerability at odds with the fan-

tastical vampire nightmare.

Even though the scene contains

no dialogue, it speaks volumes
about The Girl. Its contrasting
components
divulge
a
multi-

dimensional character who moves
past the flat trope of the stereo-
typical horror movie monster.
Instead, we get a vampire who puts
on makeup surrounded by muted
fairy lights and saves abused pros-
titutes, then brutally murders an
insolent pimp.

The soundtrack is not just a

voice for the characters, but a
shape for the movie as a whole.
The largely instrumental band Fer-
derale makes several appearances
throughout the film. The Amer-
ican-based ensemble is heavily
influenced by soundtracks from the
’60s & ’70s era of Italian “Spaghetti
Western” genres and, through this,
allows “A Girl” to transcend cultur-
al boundaries. Songs like “Sarcoph-
agus” and “Black Sunday” feature
dramatic orchestral declarations,
bringing to mind the theatrical
standoffs of iconic Old Westerns,
while the underpinnings of folk
melodies speak to conventional
Iranian films. A spectral woman’s
voice is often intermittently added
as a glossy layer over the entire
compilation; its echoing European
opera sound traces the barren des-
ert setting in fine lines of elegance.

Ferderale’s “Sisyphus” narrates

a relatively simple, but quintes-
sential, scene within the film: An
unnamed character in drag dances
with a balloon to music in a court-
yard. The fringe on her button-
down shirt and ostentatious silver
buckle of her belt is at odds with
the hijab on her head. It’s a strange
juxtaposition replicated in the song
as it weaves together musical ele-
ments from a variety of different
eras.

The band allows the fictional

Bad Town to exist within multiple
spheres, blurring the lines between
distinct movie genres and distinct
cultures. It’s a quiet gesture, this
remix of convention to include
input from other cultures, but a
powerful one. With “A Girl Walks
Home Alone At Night,” Amirpour
constructs a story without limita-
tions; instead, it masterfully tra-
verses the rift between Eastern
and Western ideals and finds a way
to mend the disconnect.

What it means to me as an Ira-

nian woman, more than just as
a good horror movie, more than
even a movie empowering Iranian

women, is that it celebrates the
power of opportunity. It’s doubtful
Amirpour would have been able to
create a movie of this magnitude if
her family had remained in Iran,
instead of taking the chance to
immigrate to Europe and, later, to
California.

Even though Iran’s culture is

based predominantly around the
arts — seen in the timeless impact
of poets like Hafiz and Saadi — its
current political climate has an
iron grip around the advancement
of artistic expression; it places tight
restrictions over any creative pro-
duction, not allowing for deviation
from the established norm.

Many of the artists featured on

this soundtrack, though Iranian-
based, produce and perform their
music outside of Iran; the radi-
cal socio-political commentary
found in the lyrics of songs from
bands like Kiosk or Radio Teh-
ran is explicitly forbidden in Iran.
Instead of remaining silent, they
chose to immigrate to Europe,
Canada and (mainly) the U.S,
becoming the voice of a majority of
Iran’s younger generation and per-
mitting Iranian culture to continue
to progress.

In light of President Donald

Trump’s recent ban on travel on
seven Muslim-majority countries
(Iran being one of them), pieces of
art like “A Girl Walks Home Alone
At Night” and its soundtrack need
attention: The future of Iran lies
within the ideas of its youth. When
young Iranian citizens emigrate
to search for new prospects, they
are not fleeing from the historic
culture of their homeland. Rather,
their innovative ideas push the cul-
ture to evolve in order to accommo-
date new perspectives, redefining
what it means to be Iranian.

With
its
multifaceted

soundtrack, “A Girl Walks Home
Alone At Night” represents the
endlessly creative potential of the
Iranian youth.

It’s an ingenuity that I saw

whenever I strolled the streets in
Iran: Young artists with revolu-
tionary ideas on the brink of look-
ing to make a life for themselves,
many of them exploring the option
of moving to America. And even
though the ethnocentrism in the
continuing view of America as “the
land of opportunity” is a problem
in itself, it does not draw away from
the fact that, for many bright stu-
dents, closed borders means closed
opportunities as well.

SHIMA SADAGHIYANI

Daily Arts Writer

MUSIC NOTEBOOK
The voices of a generation:
‘A Girl Walks Home Alone’

PBS

“Divorced, beheaded, died,

divorced, beheaded, survived.”

“Secrets of the Six Wives,” a

new HBO historical documen-
tary series, begins with this
schoolyard rhyme that helps
remember the fates of the six
wives of Henry VIII. The pre-
miere
episode,
“Divorced,”

gives an account of the first
action Henry VIII takes once
crowned: marrying his late
brother’s Spanish widow, Cath-
erine of Aragon, born to Queen
Isabella and King Ferdinand.
The show alternates between
documentary
narration
by

historian Dr. Lucy Worsley
and dramatic reenactments of
scenes from the Tudor Court,
often
based
on
eyewitness

accounts. While Worsley her-
self is a captivating storyteller,
the style and format of the show
often pull focus from the actual
content.

“This is the ultimate true

story of love, loss and betrayal,”
Worsley begins, her tale chroni-
cling the anything but meet-
cute of Catherine and Henry
VIII. She details their relation-
ship’s arc from start to finish,
talking about the seven years
it took to nail down a marriage
contract
and
incorporating

the
successive
relationships

between the king, the “viva-
cious” Mary Boleyn and then,
more famously, her sister Anne.
She frames Catherine’s appeal
to the Pope during Henry’s bat-
tle for the annulment as an act
of brave defiance.

The historical reenactment is

slowly paced, with lots of smol-
dering glances from the king
and concerned facial expres-
sions from all the
ladies-in-waiting
surrounding
the

various
queens.

Worsley herself is
dressed as a maid
or lady-in-waiting,
in the background
of several of the
dramatic reenact-
ments before turn-
ing to address the
audience
directly

after
a
scene.

Much of the dialogue is cringe-
worthy, especially the parts
surrounding pregnancy.

“Secrets of the Six Wives”

breaks the norm of how this
story is usually told: Instead of
focusing on the whims and tan-
trums of Henry VIII, the show
attempts to tell the story from
the perspectives of the women
unlucky enough to be pulled
into his orbit. Worsley’s nar-
ration is succinct and insight-
ful; she offers well-thought-out

interpretations of interactions
and
events,
especially
sur-

rounding Catherine of Aragon’s
false, or phantom, pregnancy,
the truth of which is still up for
debate. She also offers insight
into aspects of 16th century
England that tie into the cur-
rent day, talking in front of
palaces and often using paint-
ings of the six wives as props
in her storytelling. However,

the
switching

between dramat-
ic reenactments
—
which
are

mostly
uncom-

fortable anyway
— and documen-
tary
narration

is
jarring
and

annoying.
I’d

rather watch an
actual documen-
tary or a fiction-
alized T.V. show

based on historical events.

While the subject matter is

interesting — and the title of the
series is perfect — the format
reminds me of the documen-
tary clips that history teachers
used in middle school. The six
wives deserve to have their sto-
ries told with a fresh voice and a
sharp eye, to escape the largely
skewed perceptions of them
that have been handed down
and embellished through the
centuries. But this isn’t it.

‘Six Wives’ premiere misses mark

Period piece fails to cohesively blend the factual with the progressive

“Secrets of the

Six Wives”

Season Premiere

January 22nd

PBS

TV REVIEW

SOPHIA KAUFMAN
Daily Book Review Editor