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Arts
Monday, April 17, 2017 — 5A

Classifieds

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

ACROSS
1 Drop a line from
the dock, say
5 Normandy battle
town
9 Massage targets
14 Together,
musically
15 Chips __!: cookies
16 Formal-sounding
will?
17 Friends of man’s
best friend
19 Columbus craft
20 For each one
21 Diving lake bird
22 Knight’s title
24 Sport involving
some rolling on
the grass
28 QB-to-receiver
six-pointer
30 Rent-a-car giant
31 Landed
32 TV show shown
before
34 Banned bug
spray
37 Forgetting the
unpleasant parts
41 “Good”
cholesterol initials
42 Wishes
43 Sitting on
44 List of computer
options
45 “Movin’ right
along ... ”
47 Tidy sum that
doesn’t sound
like much
52 Overhead trains
53 Steak order
54 Contemporary
radio station
named for its
former “easy
listening” playlist
56 Leaves out
58 Highway
segment for
slower traffic ...
and, literally,
what 17-, 24-, 37-
and 47-Across
each has
61 Used up
62 “So THAT’S what
you mean”
63 Physics particle
64 Bacon work
65 Lysol target
66 Drive-__ window

DOWN
1 Craze
2 Knot-tying words
3 Drug test
placebo
4 Beatles’ second
film
5 File-renaming
command, at
times
6 “Supernatural”
network
7 Oscar winner
Sophia
8 Kvetching cries
9 Nile snake
10 Flu symptoms
11 Asian capital
12 “Tiny Dancer”
singer John
13 Much street talk
18 Many
Rembrandts
22 Squirrel away
23 Loafed
25 Exposes
26 Reproductive cell
27 Cellar reds and
whites
29 Gobbled down
32 Tear to pieces
33 New Year’s __
34 “Duh ... figure it
out!”

35 Slobber
36 Printing goofs
38 Newscaster
Huntley
39 Broadway award
40 Possibly will
44 Medit. volcano
45 Song before the
game
46 Vladivostok veto
47 Narrative writing
48 Boat launching
aids

49 Great Lakes
natives
50 Beethoven
dedicatee
51 Algeria neighbor
55 London
apartment
57 Muddy pen
58 Fix, as a fight
59 Neither here __
there
60 Down Under
bird

By Bruce Haight
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
04/17/17

04/17/17

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Monday, April 17, 2017

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

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AUTOMOTIVE

HBO

The Leftovers returns tonight at 9 p.m.
‘The Leftovers’ presents
a miraculous final season

HBO series returns for its third immaculate and visceral season

Think
about
endings.

They’re necessary, of course,
but suffocating. An ending
is a constraint; scripts need
third acts, series need finales.
That’s the convention we’ve
accepted, and it’s one we’ve
adhered
to,
fastidiously.

But to consider the thrilling
possibility of ambiguity — that
maybe not every event needs
a logical conclusion, not every
question needs an answer —
is to entertain the taboo. Is a
television show’s final season
worthwhile if, by the end of
it, some threads remain loose?
Does a purposefully reticent
final act render the entire
journey, well, pointless?

Here’s the thing, though:

“The
Leftovers”
is,
in

every
sense
of
the
word,

art. And its final season is
nothing short of stunning.
It’s thrilling and ambitious,
frustratingly
brilliant
and

emotionally
draining,
an

artistic achievement that both
celebrates and challenges the
medium in equal measure.
With my sincere apologies to
“The Americans,” “Veep” and
“Fargo,” “The Leftovers” is
unquestionably the best show
on TV.

So, in short, no — I don’t

really care to find out where
everyone went on October 14.
I’m more challenged by the
innumerable
new
questions

the
series
poses
than
its

original, big one. And by all
available accounts, so too is
the
show.
Perhaps
Damon

Lindelof learned from “Lost”
’s infamous firestorm of an
ending. Maybe he, like Kevin
(Justin Theroux, “The Girl On
The Train”) in last season’s
awe-inspiring
“International

Assassin, ” had to endure some
sort of narrative purgatory
to come out on the other side
renewed, invigorated, ready to
confront his demons.

This line of thinking, one

of closure and acceptance,
extends
to
the
show’s

characters,
as
well.
Each

principal character — from
Kevin, who must now reconcile
with his bizarre Messiah-like
stature, to Matt (Christopher
Eccleston,
“Legend”),
the

preacher who seems constantly
put-upon by his own God, to
Nora
(Carrie
Coon,
“Gone

Girl”), from whom life seems
to be constantly taking away,
and without justification — is
grappling with his/her own
existential struggles. Just as
the show’s creators deny us any
form of concrete resolution, so
too do the writers refuse to let
their characters off the hook.

Since its first season, the

principals on “The Leftovers”
have been stuck in a world
that now makes no sense,
unforgiving
and
ultimately

devoid
of
meaning,
while

everyone around them tries
to continue their lives as
normally as they can. Death,
and dealing with its fallout,
is comparatively easy; what
do you do when there is no
body to bury and no biological
process as explanation? What
is the point of grief, of trauma,

of this condition of inherent
dissatisfaction, when you will
never find the answers you so
desperately seek? There are no
documented seven stages to
squeeze yourself through, and
“coping mechanisms” take on
new meaning. In the show’s
new season, we’re alternately
treated to people suffocating
themselves with plastic bags
and slamming car doors on
their own arms.
It’s all bizarre, and
it’s all just to feel
something.

And if that reads

as
unbearably

pretentious, don’t
worry. Beginning
with
its
second

season (for what it’s worth, I
still ride hard for the show’s
oppressively depressing first
season; never before has a
season of television so actively
explored and interrogated the
notion of grief as a human
necessity), Lindelof and his
team have found increasingly
creative ways to make the show
unassumingly, darkly funny.
The show laughs with you,
skeptical viewer, whenever it
gets the chance; its mastery
of tone is utterly jaw-dropping
and
downright
impressive.

Lindelof is fond of his winking
religious symbolism (the new
season premieres on Easter,
hilariously) and astoundingly
complex imagery, sure, but
there’s also a wordless, slow-
motion
sequence
featuring

Regina
King
(“American

Crime”)
and
Carrie
Coon

jumping on a trampoline set to
Wu-Tang’s “Protect Ya Neck
(The Jump Off),” and it’s one of
the best things I’ve ever seen.

The
third
season
of

“The Leftovers” also revels
in
the
second
season’s

radical
narrative
structure.

Season two was so tightly,
immaculately constructed that
it seemed almost impossible to
repeat, but season three proves
no different. The POV switches
and shifts in perspective still
manage to work wonders here,
and when characters get their
own
standalone
episodes,

they are, without fail, always
incredible.
The
change
in

setting, too, provides another
gorgeous visual backdrop for
Lindelof’s searching narrative;
Australia is a whole different
beast than Texas, and the
show produces a number of
surprises here, from another
stunning,
season-opening

vignette to the return of one
of the series’ most mysterious
characters,
who
transitions

from
the
shadowy
fringes

of last season’s plot right to
the center of our characters’
stories.

It seems as if there are

too
many
“best
on
TV”

designations to bestow upon
“The Leftovers” in its final
season:
Coon’s
consistently

heartbreaking
performance,

Max
Richter’s
magnificent

score (and Liza Richardson’s
music
supervision),
Mimi

Leder’s direction, Lindelof’s
toying
with
narrative

convention, etc. I could go
on forever. But what remains
“The Leftovers” ’s singular
achievement, to me, is its
ability to provoke some feeling

within you.

It’s a visceral experience,

watching this show. Whether
you find it actively disturbing
or wondrously liberating, it’s
a series that is unafraid to
grapple with big questions
and uncomfortable ideas, in
ways that elicit only the most
buried of our emotions. It
confounds, but it frees. It’s
art that agitates; it’s television

that
actually

tries,
without

pretense,
to

be
something

more.
“The

Leftovers”
is

not a bingeable
experience.
It’s
not

comfortable, and it takes time
to digest. But what Lindelof
and his team have crafted
here, this inimitable artistic
achievement,
is
impossible

to ignore. However the show
decides to conclude, whatever
meaning we eventually derive
from its thorny questions of
religion and closure and the
lies we tell ourselves to keep
living, we can rest in knowing
that the journey has been,
without flaw, worth it.

NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT

Senior Arts Editor

TV REVIEW

Gaga Films

Still from “After the Storm”
‘After the Storm’ a simple
yet heartbreaking drama

Plain but stirring “Storm” presents a raw story of struggle

“After the Storm” is a plain

movie. It says what it means
without flourish or affectation,
tells its story with no stylistic
embellishments and really, it’s
all the better for it. Directed by
Hirokazu Koreeda (“Our Little
Sister”), “After the Storm” tells
the story of Ryota (Hiroshi Abe,
“Everest: Kamigami no Itadaki”),
a struggling detective who is
trying to relive his former glory
as a prize-winning novelist.
Ryota’s life is a bit of a mess: He
can’t seem to stop himself from
gambling away all his earnings,
and he subsequently can’t pay
for his young son’s childcare.
His father has recently died, so
he goes to visit his aging mother
Yoshiko (Kirin Kiki, “Sweet
Bean”) but Ryota’s sister suspects
that he’s only trying to sponge off
of her pension. Everybody likes
him, but nobody quite trusts him.

The movie is a slow burn.

We follow Ryota through the
most mundane parts of his days,
but this apparent slowness is
deliberate and careful. We watch
him buy a soda from the corner
stone, meet with his detective
partner to work on a case, go to

the racetrack and lose all his
day’s earnings. We watch him go
back to his apartment, the rent
for which he can rarely afford,
and watch him go to sleep on a
mattress on the floor. It’s all so
deceptively casual, even when
we see him meet with his son
and ex-wife, and try and fail so
hard at being a good and present
father. Koreeda films it all exactly
the same way, with
no judgment or
affectation. This is
just the way things
are, he seems to
say.

Really, it’s the

sharp writing that
ties it all together. Koreeda’s
script, like his direction, is highly
realistic, with the characters
speaking like actual people.
It’s easy to forget it’s a movie
at some points because of the
earnest authenticity. That’s not
to say that the story isn’t properly
dramatized because it absolutely
is. It’s just that there’s none of the
flash or the spectacle we’re used
to in family dramas.

The performances too are

spectacular. In his portrayal of
Ryota, Abe is simultaneously
beaten down and hopeful. He
can make the smallest action
devastating with a slight shift in

his eyes. There’s a heartbreaking
vulnerability to his performance
that permeates every scene,
whether he’s shouting at the
racetrack or sitting with his son
in a playground. With every
brilliant
flashing
smile,
you

can see exactly why Kyoko, his
ex-wife (Yoko Maki, “The Lion
Standing in the Wind”) fell for
him, and why she ultimately left

him.

Koreeda makes

absolutely
sure

that we see the
whole story, but he
also never lingers
too long over a
given
moment.

It simply unfolds in real time,
making the emotions hit that
much harder. “After the Storm”
is a slice of life drama, achingly
realistic in its portrayal of family
and expectations unmet.

It’s been a long time since

I’ve seen a movie this gentle
and careful. It never turns
into a trite morality play or a
melodrama. It has no cheap
plot machinations or unearned
emotional catharsis. It’s a lovely
little film, unglamorous and
unembellished. It is what it is,
nothing more, nothing less —
and that might just be why it’s so
great.

ASIF BECHER
Daily Arts Writer

FILM REVIEW

“The Leftovers”

HBO

Season 3, Eps. 1-3

Sundays at 9 PM

“After the

Storm”

Gaga Films

Michigan Theater