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Arts
Monday, February 6, 2017 — 5A
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
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ACROSS
1 Most musicals
have two
5 Start to faceted
or purpose
10 Modern
organizers, for
short
14 Countenance
15 In front
16 Wine prefix
17 First chip in the
poker pot
18 Football with
scrums
19 Songwriter
Kristofferson
20 Player who
shoots par
regularly
23 Malted relative
24 Magnolia State
school, familiarly
27 Baseball
misplays
31 Calendar page
32 Floppy disk
backup device
35 Forest official
36 Angsty rock
genre
37 Michelangelo
statue
39 R&B’s __ Hill
40 Changes gears
43 Ballad for a
valentine
46 Start of a Poitier
film title
47 Seek
ambitiously
48 O. Henry works
50 Mexican dip
54 Virtually zero,
and where the
ends of 20-, 32-
and 43-Across
are literally
situated
58 Slick-talking
60 Jokes and such
61 Cupid
62 Save for binge-
watching, say
63 ’50s nuclear trial
64 Dressed in
65 River of Hades
66 Barcelona
babies
67 Joint commonly
replaced
DOWN
1 Accumulate, as a
fortune
2 Easy-peasy task
3 Aquarium fish
4 Moved stealthily
5 Artist Chagall
6 “Nah”
7 __ Mason:
investment giant
8 No-nos
9 Poem of rustic life
10 Critters hunted
with a hugely
popular 2016
mobile app
11 Heroic exploits
12 Young Darth’s
nickname
13 Distress signal at
sea
21 La. or Dak., once
22 Disaster relief org.
25 Titanic rear end
26 “So what”
shoulder gesture
28 Fabric flaws
29 Egg: Pref.
30 Fishing line
holders
32 Thin citrus peels
33 Words spoken by
a sweater?
34 Plant responsible
for much itching
35 Sitarist Shankar
38 High side
41 Locomotive
furnace
42 Cereal coveted
by a silly rabbit
44 Former “formerly”
45 Seattle football pro
47 Sharp as a tack
49 Wharton’s Frome
51 Chihuahua citrus
fruit
52 Boring lecture, for
example
53 Share the same
opinion
55 Dark clouds,
perhaps
56 Aroma detector
57 Leftover bits
58 Classic sports cars
59 Set fire to
By Jake Braun
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/06/17
02/06/17
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Monday, February 6, 2017
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
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Argentinian
author
Samanta
Schweblin’s debut novel “Fever
Dream” is titled after the vivid,
hallucinatory
dreams
that
accompany
an
illness.
Except
“Fever Dream” isn’t a dream. It’s
a nightmare, one that glows with
taut, sinister energy.
“They’re like worms,” it begins.
Amanda lies dying in a hospital
clinic, speaking to David, the son
of her friend from her vacation
hometown.
He
questions
her,
prodding her to recount her
experience getting acquainted with
him. He seems to be searching for
something, but doesn’t explain
what the worms mean, nor what
sparks their importance.
Told entirely in sparse dialogue,
“Fever Dream” leaks out just
enough detail needed to invoke
a sense of dread. Hints of evil
permeate its pages, but its nature is
undefined. “Nina!” Amanda often
calls out for her daughter; “Where
is Nina?”
There is no answer.
David dodges her questions, and
tells her there isn’t much time left,
to keep going, to keep telling the
story. A sense of urgency pulses
throughout, keeping the reader in
a constant state of the unknown.
“That’s
not
important,”
he
interrupts. “What happened next?
What did she say?” Amanda wants
to stay in her memories, wants to
tell the story to completion. David
impatiently shoves her forward,
and we whip our heads backward
in confusion, trying to grab hold
of quickly vanishing details before
we’re forced to fly on to the next.
Through
their
unsettling
conversations, pieces of the story
eventually emerge. After drinking
water from a poisoned stream,
David falls ill and his mother
begs a witch healer to transplant
his soul into another body. She
warns that though he may survive
physically, his soul will be split in
two, leaving something “unknown”
to fill the void. At David’s urging,
Amanda recounts how her and her
daughter, Nina’s lives change after
encountering the new David.
Amanda
obsesses
over
the
“rescue distance” between Nina
and herself, the physical proximity
she must maintain to protect her
daughter if something goes awry.
She describes it as the “invisible
thread” connecting them, one that
tightens around her stomach to
signal danger. It is through charting
the ever-evolving length of this
“rescue distance” that we circle
closer to the truth.
With two unreliable narrators
acting as the only portal to
understand
what
happened,
Amanda’s bewilderment and fear
becomes the reader’s own. How
much of the story is real, and how
much of it is Amanda’s imagination?
David sometimes corrects her,
moves her to different places. Can
we trust him? Everything about
“Fever Dream” is dizzying, with
the only certainty being the visceral
need to protect one’s child.
It’s this uncertainty that makes
“Fever
Dream”
so
horrifying.
Amanda knows just enough to
realize that something is terribly
wrong but cannot fix it. She’s stuck,
a bystander in history, trapped in
the sands of her own fate, with
nothing to do but yield to her terror.
“Fever Dream” harnesses the power
of instinct, throwing its characters
into
a
poisoned
dreamworld,
dissolving their social pretenses
in the face of desperation, so that
what’s left is the primal relationship
between mother and child.
“Fever Dream”
Samanta Schweblin
Riverhead Books
January 10, 2017
‘Dream’ a vivid nightmare
BOOK REVIEW
VANESSA WONG
Daily Arts Writer
Perhaps more than any other
sub-par horror movie released
recently, “Rings” aspires for a
quality viewing experience. The
filmmakers behind it are clearly
passionate about their project,
and
while
that
enthusiasm
doesn’t stop the film from being
mostly forgettable, it makes it
more digestible than one would
assume. It’s creepy more often
than not, and Director F. Javier
Gutiérrez (“Before the Fall”)
is skilled at the atmosphere-
building that made “The Ring”
such a huge hit fifteen years ago.
However, in many ways, this
competency behind the camera
makes the reliance on genre
clichés all the more frustrating.
The
atmosphere
is
well-conveyed,
but
the
same
jump
scares
and
pointless
dream
sequences
that
pervade
modern
horror still make
their
presence
known.
The
fact
that it takes the
more difficult road three times
out of ten doesn’t make the other
seven times it takes the easy way
out any less infuriating.
This frustration applies to
the story, as well. As with the
original film, “Rings” feels like
a horror movie disguised as a
mystery, and it’s a genuinely
interesting mystery that only
becomes more involving as the
plot moves along — until the end,
that is (but there’ll be time for
that calamity later). Its potential
is squandered as the storytelling
behind
“Rings”
becomes
progressively more muddled. It
can’t seem to choose between
being a reboot or a sequel, and
it settles for something halfway,
alternatively
following
and
changing series canon to suit
the scene.
In addition, the story relies
on a series of contrivances and
plot holes to work, especially
at the beginning. Characters
frequently make decisions that
make no sense, but they move
the plot forward, so audiences
are expected to accept them
with
no
questions
asked.
Almost every moment feels
manufactured, instead of letting
the natural fear that drove the
original do the talking.
With the exception of Johnny
Galecki (“The Big Bang Theory”)
playing against type, the cast
doesn’t do particularly well with
what they’re given, either. The
central couple, as portrayed by
Matilda Lutz (“Summertime”)
and
Alex
Roe
(“The
5th
Wave”), is one of the most self-
righteously pretentious couples
in recent horror memory. Any
relationship
between
two
ostensible teenagers — both
portrayed by twenty-six-year
olds — that begins with them
reciting
the
Greek
tragedy
of Orpheus as a thinly veiled
metaphor for the
plot is doomed to
be
unbearable,
and
Julia
and
Holt make this
rule. They are
so
obnoxiously
self-important
both
in
the
performances
and
in
their
relationship
that
they
are
insufferable. They strive to be
likeable to such an extreme,
off-putting extent that they’re
anything but. The dialogue
is wooden, sure, but it can’t
shoulder all the blame.
All of this doesn’t add up
to a bad movie, though. If
“Rings” had ended five minutes
before it does, it would have
been
anticlimactic,
and
it
would have left some plot
threads
unresolved,
but
it
would have been an average,
even moderately likeable flick
with positives to balance out
its
negatives.
Then
comes
the “twist,” a lazy possession
plotline that makes no sense —
both for what the audience has
been shown so far and for the
new “rules” it sets up — and
which damages the movie the
longer it lasts. It is the kind of
lazy, tacked-on non-sequitur
that buries the merits of the
film and elevates the flaws,
ultimately resulting in a film
more memorable for its failures
than
for
its
commendable
ambitions.
“Rings”
Rave Cinemas,
Goodrich Quality
16
Paramount
Pictures
JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer
‘Rings’ is abruptly uneven
NETFLIX
Drew Barrymore stars in “Santa Clarita Diet”
Marriage is messy — especially
when mom has an insatiable
hunger for human flesh and dad
is trying hard to rock the suburbia
lifestyle. At least, this is what
“The Santa Clarita Diet” reminds
us when real-estate agents Sheila
(Drew Barrymore, “Blended”)
and Joel (Timothy Olyphant,
“Justified”)
navigate
a
new
normal as Sheila makes a sudden
departure from the land of the
living.
In a time when most couples
face the demons of menopause
and the infamous midlife crisis,
Sheila seems to experience the
opposite — her sex drive has
tripled, she’s less uptight about
parenting and she begins to
experience the joys of clubbing.
After all, the show is a satirical
look at the zombie phenomenon.
Where zombies drag themselves
aimlessly, Sheila is excitable,
rejuvenated with the newfound
energy that accompanied her
sudden death. Her complete one-
eighty in regards to personality is
what makes a zombie, ultimately,
a
zombie.
This
phenomenon
is noticed most by her teenage
daughter Abby (Liv Hewson,
“Before I Fall”), who notes the
transformation
on
multiple
occasions.
Where Sheila once worried
about her daughter’s SAT scores,
she now couldn’t care less if Abby
were to drop out of high school
altogether. Though at first she
enjoys the more carefree side to
her mom, as the series progresses,
Abby’s distress regarding the
current situation continues to
grow. Her tough-girl exterior
around neighbor and resident geek
Eric (Skyler Gisondo, “Vacation”)
slowly begins to shatter when she
comes to realize the true extent
of her mother’s condition. While
they’re all eating spaghetti, mom
is eating human brains. Hewson
does
remarkable
work
in
the
emotional baggage
department,
balancing acts of
badassery
with
background
depression as her
cries for normalcy
begin
to
make
cracks in her stony exterior.
At the same time, as Sheila
slurps
on
her
blood-flavored
protein shake, Joel just manages
to keep it together. A former jock
who has never fully adjusted
into the suburban lifestyle, Joel
struggles even harder to find
balance when his wife joins the
ranks of the undead. Perhaps it’s
because of his insecurities that
he chooses love over ethos, but
Joel’s inability to get over the past
is what ultimately drives him to
agree to harvest people for food.
As high school sweethearts, he
can’t imagine, nor function, in a
world without Sheila. Extremely
protective,
he
spends
most
episodes desperately searching
for
a
cure
whilst
dragging
his
sweetheart
off
hapless
pedestrians. When neighbor and
police officer Carlos (Ricardo
Antonio
Chavira,
“Desperate
Housewives”)
becomes
suspicious,
Joel
pushes
the
nervous smiles and half-thought
out excuses with a fervor.
At times, however, Olyphant’s
performance can feel forced and a
tad overplayed, as his normal role
as the Hollywood villain is tossed
aside for the nervous and obedient
husband. However,
his
chemistry
with
Barrymore
is more believable
than
most
on-screen couples.
Practically picture-
perfect, the two
complement
one
another
in
a manner that evens out their
polarized
personalities
well,
an aspect that many network
shows spend episodes to even
out. With the chemistry of the
show constantly shifting from one
episode to the next, “The Santa
Clarita Diet” is a show that, though
not binge-worthy material, will
keep viewers coming back for
the satirical sarcasm. Once the
initial overkill, both literal and
figurative, of the pilot passes, the
series develops a steady rhythm
accentuated by a passionate cast
and the irresistible draw of brain
smoothies.
The first season of “The
Santa Clarita Diet” is currently
streaming on Netflix in its
entirety.
‘Diet’ revives zombie tale
MEGAN MITCHELL
Daily Arts Writer
Barrymore’s new series proves watchable, not binge-worthy
TV REVIEW
FILM REVIEW
PARAMOUNT PICTURES
Gutiérrez’s ruins potential in disappontingly sporadic film
“Santa Clarita
Diet”
All episodes
streaming on
Netflix