6 — Tuesday, September 19, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

ACROSS
1 “More or less”
suffix
4 Rose and fell on
the waves
10 Tax pros
14 Cohort of Larry
and Curly
15 Not widely
understood
16 Boffo review
17 Extemporaneous,
as a speech
19 Theater honor
20 “Firework” singer
Perry
21 Near-perfect
bridge feat
23 Amigo
26 Liam of “Michael
Collins”
27 Appointed 
White House
overseer
32 __ Vegas
33 Peaceful
34 Dalai Lama’s
homeland
38 Planets, in
poems
40 Not suitable for
military service ...
or an apt
description of 
17-, 27-, 49- and
64-Across
43 Thick book
44 Salami type
46 Nevada senator
Harry
48 Red wine choice,
for short
49 Laundry service
option
53 ’60s dance 
craze
55 Opus __: “The
Da Vinci Code”
sect
56 DJ known for
playing novelty
tunes
59 Surrealist
Salvador
63 Geological age
64 Beanstalk giant’s
chant
67 Unclothed
68 Like bears
69 Alias, on police
blotters
70 List of appts.
71 English writer
Edward 
Bulwer-__
72 “Oedipus __”

DOWN
1 “Didn’t hurt a bit!”
2 Living room seat
3 Lift with effort
4 Scoff from
Scrooge
5 Calif. neighbor
6 Covertly sends
an email dupe to
7 “The Wizard of
Oz” author
8 __ terrible: difficult
child, in French
9 Rid of parasites,
as a dog
10 Multi-discipline
strength-training
program
11 Painter Picasso
12 Like many nest-
builders
13 Look (like)
18 Tap out a text, say
22 Departed
24 N.Y. Jets’ org.
25 Bread shape
27 Bathtub blockage
28 Cocksure
Aesopian racer
29 Library ID
30 Mel’s Diner
waitress
31 Blue toon
35 Memorable
clown

36 Disney’s “__ 
and the
Detectives”
37 See to
39 Began to melt
41 Stephen of
“Michael Collins”
42 Locate
45 Grad
47 Pres. before JFK
50 Beneficial
51 Fancy duds
52 Pal of Rover

53 Perpetrate, as
havoc
54 Love to pieces
56 Pats gently
57 Exam
58 “Think nothing __”
60 Many miles off
61 “Use the 
Force, __”
62 Big-screen format
65 Masculine Italian
suffix with bamb-
66 Marshland

By Matthew Sewell
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/19/17

09/19/17

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

Arts

KNOCK KNOCK. WHO’S THERE? 
OPPORTUNITY! OPPORTUNITY IS 

KNOCKING! THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE 

FOSTER YOUR EGOTISTIC AND PRETENTIOUS 

TENDENCIES!

Interested? Join Daily Arts, maybe. Email arts@michigandaily.com 

for a copy of our application.

HBO

Social watching in the 
age of ‘Game of Thrones’

It’s Sunday night. Everyone 

gathers in a room too small 
for the party size. Beers are 
cracked 
open. 
Snacks 
are 

passed around. The group 
squishes, squeezes and finally 
settles into their seats. It’s 
Sunday night, and “Game of 
Thrones” is about to begin.

The anticipation in the room 

is palpable. In the moments 
leading 
up 
to 
9:00 
p.m., 

theories are thrown around the 
room as to what bomb will be 
dropped this evening. Reddit 
is referenced. Someone says 
something outlandish that the 
rest of the group pretends not 
to hear. Two watchers engage 
in a heated debate about the 
parentage of a certain bastard. 
Another reminds the room 
of the significance of a two-
minute scene three seasons 
ago. The host silently worries 
something will go wrong with 
the sound or live-stream and 
he or she will face the wrath of 
the guests.

At 8:58 p.m., the host logs 

into his or her parent’s HBO 
Go account and pulls up the 
home page. The room tenses. 
Then, at 9:00 p.m. the new 
episode appears on the site. 
It begins. The “previously 
on” rolls, signaling what will 
be 
significant 
this 
week. 

Eyebrows are raised when 
a moment from Season One 
shows up. One member of the 
group fist bumps the air when 
the two-minute scene from 
three seasons ago re-appears. 
Collective sighs are heard 
when 
a 
now-deceased 

character graces the screen.

The room obediently sings 

along to the melodic “buhm-
buhm- dum-dum- dum” of the 
theme song. Even after seven 
seasons, fans remain amazed 
at the theme as it takes them 
from Westeros to Winterfell 
to the Iron Islands. The magic 
of a map, scored by an intense 
instrumental beat, never gets 
old.

Then the show begins, and 

for somewhere in the range of 
60 to 90 minutes, the room is 
enraptured in pure cinematic 
bliss. Even after it ends, they 
spend days re-living those 
moments, anxious for next 
Sunday and fearful for the 
rapidly-approaching end.

In an age when television 

content is over-saturated and 
viewers can choose from 30 
different platforms to watch 
1,000 
different 
shows, 
a 

common viewing experience is 
almost as mythical as Khaleesi 
and her Dragons. It’s out there, 
but hard to find. Even harder to 
keep safe and sacred, if you can 
get your hands on it in the first 
place. Once this experience 
is harnessed, however, the 
sheer magnitude and power it 
holds is inimitable. It’s rare, 
endangered and on the brink 
of extinction.

People don’t set aside a 

consistent, weekly hour to 
watch a TV show anymore. 
They 
don’t 
gather 
their 

friends and family together 
for content that’s available 
anywhere, anytime. They don’t 
walk into a party, an interview, 
a classroom and feel confident 
that others will know anything 
about what they’ve just seen.

With the rise of streaming 

content 
came 
the 
fall 
of 

collective watching. That is, 
with the exception of “Game of 
Thrones.”

Disclaimer — I haven’t seen 

seasons four through seven 
of the show. My HBO account 
remains 
frozen 
on 
season 

three, 
episode 
nine. 
The 

infamous Red Wedding is one 
episode away. There are four 
seasons of secrets, betrayals 
and gruesome murders I’ve yet 
to see.

Despite 
this 
deficit 
of 

knowledge, however, I tuned 
in on Sunday, Aug. 27. to watch 
the season seven finale. Now. 
This is the point where die-
hard Thrones fans cringe. 
Where they print out a picture 
of my face and throw darts at 
it. Unfriend me on Facebook 
and unfollow me on Instagram. 
What I’ve done, what I’m 
doing, what I do, is a travesty 

to the narrative of the show.

Despicable, some might say. 

Why, they ask, would I choose 
to ruin the show for myself? 
My answer? I don’t want to 
miss out.

For roughly eight weeks of 

every year, this rare “collective 
watching” experience occurs. 
The opportunity to be a part 
of it is akin to Sunday Night 
Football. At the risk of over-
playing 
the 
importance 
of 

“Game of Thrones,” there is 
a sense of something greater 
than ourselves when watching 
the show. It captures the 
essence of what entertainment 
should be — an experience 
that brings people together 
and sparks discussion.

So, I choose to engage 

in a show I’ve only half-
watched. I don’t ask when 
an unrecognizable character 
enters. I keep my opinions 
to what I know. I try not to 
blow my cover as a dedicated 
“Thrones fan.” Because when 
shit hits the fan, when the 
dragons breathe fire, and the 
White Walkers wreak havoc, 
it doesn’t matter if you know 
everything there is to know. 
It’s about being there, in the 
moment, creating a collective 
memory.

I watch “Game of Thrones” 

socially. On the night of the 
season finale, I found myself 
sitting in a room with six boys 
I’d met just minutes before. 
Eager to watch Thrones in 
a group setting with people 
passionate about the show, 
I asked my new neighbors 
if they were watching. They 
were. There is no better way 
to get to know the neighbors 
than over dragons, incest, 
murder and the general fear of 
winter.

No other television series 

in recent years, in my opinion, 
has had the same widespread 
following and general public 
awareness 
as 
“Game 
of 

Thrones.” Maybe it’s because 
we’re desperate for something 
to bring us together. But also, 
maybe because at the end of 
the day, “Game of Thrones” is 
just an amazing fucking show.

EMILY BICE
Daily Arts Writer

MAGNOLIA

‘Whose’ is a call to arms

“It is our duty to fight for our 

freedom. It is our duty to win. 
We must love and support one 
another. We have nothing to 
lose but our chains.”

It’s a mantra spoken over 

and over again in “Whose 
Streets.” It’s spoken quietly 
and in screams, 
in loving circles 
of hugs and tears 
and in the face of 
hordes of police 
with 
machine 

guns. It’s spoken 
in 
the 
booming 

voices of massive 
crowds and by the 
lone cry of a girl who can’t be 
older than 11. To describe it as 
“powerful” would be an insult. 
To describe it at all would be a 
disservice — you need to see it.

This movie is essential. Made 

by Sabaah Folayan and Damon 
Davis in both their directorial 
debuts, the film was created on 
the frontlines of the Ferguson 
protests in 2014, following the 
shooting of unarmed black 
teenager Michael Brown by 
police officer Darren Wilson.

“Whose 
Streets” 
is 

cinematic, filled with striking, 
chilling images. We see a 
memorial of teddy bears and 
candles burned to the ground. 
We see an old woman pepper 
sprayed and dragged across 
the street. A baby who’s been 
arrested and tear gassed. A 
mother who is forced to explain 
to her little girl that she might 
get shot if she goes out there, 

but she has to do it anyway. A 
group of black men are told by 
police to “go home” as they’re 
standing in their own front 
yard, just before the police 
throw tear gas at them. A line 
of young people holding hands, 
armed with nothing but signs, 
repeating their mantra over 
and over again as they face off 
against rows and rows of police 
with guns and canisters of gas 

at the ready.

But 
perhaps 

the 
most 

striking decision 
on the part of the 
filmmakers was 
to 
spend 
very 

little time on the 
particulars 
of 

Darren Wilson’s 

case. His face gets maybe a 
minute of screen time. What 
we see instead of his testimony 
is a group of Ferguson residents 
and 
protesters 
outside the 

courthouse, 
surrounding 

Michael Brown’s mother and 
holding 
her 
as 
prosecutor 

Robert McCulloch announces 
Wilson would not be indicted 
by the grand jury. The look on 
her face is unfathomable.

“Whose Streets” insists on 

the fundamental humanity and 
pain of a community who is so 
often painted by the media as 
violent thugs and looters. “This 
is so sad,” says a woman taking 
a video of a convenience store 
being set on fire. “This is so 
fucking sad.” The film makes 
no space for the mainstream 
media’s 
discomfort 
and 

subsequent 
distortion 
with 

the movement’s method of 
resistance. As activist Kayla 

Reed says, “You can rebuild a 
building. You can’t resuscitate 
Michael Brown.”

The filmmakers don’t make 

their presence known in the 
documentary, but it’s obvious 
by the intimacy of the footage 
and the ease with which their 
interview 
subjects 
speak 

to the camera that Folayan 
and Davis are trusted and 
respected within the Ferguson 
community. And that really is 
the subject of the documentary 
— not the individual activists 
whose stories are told, but the 
city itself. It’s a film about a 
community that’s been living 
in fear for as long as they can 

remember, but that still has a 
fundamental hope for a better 
future. They wouldn’t continue 
fighting if they didn’t hope.

At 
its 
heart, 
“Whose 

Streets” is a call to arms. It’s 
impossible to watch this film 
and not feel pushed to show 
up, put in the time, the effort, 
the risk — because people are 
dying. There’s no space for 
anything but absolute urgency. 
“Whose Streets” is insistent 
to delineate between urgency 
and hatred, though. “We don’t 
do this because we hate the 
police,” says Reed. “We do this 
because we love each other. 
And love always wins.”

“Whose 
Streets” 
doesn’t 

look away. It doesn’t flinch. 
It’s hard to watch at times, 
and that’s on purpose — this 
reality is anything but easy. 
It’s a movie full of heart, anger 
and genuine abject horror. 
And yet, you leave the theater 
struck by the pulsing, beating 
heart of this community and its 
relentless energy. Because they 
don’t just believe in a better 
future — they’re building one. 

ASIF BECHER
Daily Arts Writer

“Whose 
Streets”

Magnolia Pictures

Michigan Theater

‘Whose Streets’ 
doesn’t look away. 
It doesn’t flinch

FILM REVIEW
TV NOTEBOOK

