ACROSS
1 Fancy parties
6 [This is gonna be
really bad!]
10 OutKast rapper
Big __
13 Hi in Hawaii
14 Senior golfer Aoki
15 Lends support to
16 Likely to speak
out
17 *Vodka cocktail
often served with
a sugared rim
19 Text update from
an Uber driver:
Abbr.
20 Trippy ’60s drug
22 Milked for all it’s
worth
23 Mai __: rum
drinks
25 Post-CrossFit
woes
26 With 49-Across, it
keeps repeating
itself ... and,
based on the first
and last letters,
an apt
description of
each answer to a
starred clue
28 “__-ching!”
29 Down with the flu
32 NFLer again in
2016
33 Early American
furniture style
36 Casino cash
source
37 Oft-injured knee
part, for short
40 Bit of texting tact
41 Sine __ non
42 Interest-arousing
promo
45 More accurate
47 Mud bath offerer
48 Night before
49 See 26-Across
50 Burton of “Star
Trek: TNG”
52 Wild swine
53 Win out
56 Tiny drink
57 Go wrong
60 *Largely bygone
penal colony
62 “Paper Moon” girl
64 Notable times
65 Mideast dignitary
66 Brownish gray
67 Susan of “L.A.
Law”
68 Fix, as a feline
69 Promoted heavily
DOWN
1 Conceded, with
“up”
2 Tons
3 *Store website
feature
4 “I thought so!”
5 Education
financing
company,
familiarly
6 Coat, as
jewelry
7 Put in the game
8 *Shari Lewis
puppet
9 Place for a
break?
10 Dove or robin
11 Campfire
attraction
12 Kids’ game for
car trips
15 Includes
18 Maiden name
intro
21 Nine-digit ID
24 Wanted poster
letters
25 Duke’s conf.
26 Cry from a
sheep
27 Motel postings
30 *Totally drunk
31 “Today” co-host
Matt
34 Manipulative
health care
practitioner
35 Pie crust fat
38 Mountain
climber’s piton
spots
39 *Light source
with hypnotic
bubbles
43 Artillery bursts
44 Essen article
46 Electronics giant
49 Hitter’s stat
51 Sound-detecting
organ
53 Claimed in court
54 Hard to find
55 “Buy It Now” site
56 Agile
58 Like orange or
red persimmons
59 Marsh plant
61 Athletes for Hope
co-founder Hamm
63 Calendar square
By C.C. Burnikel
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/04/17
10/04/17
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
8 — Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Like
“The
Witch,”
“Chainsaw” treats it’s monster
— Leatherface — with an
unexpected tenderness.
Every minute is amazing,
but it’s worth sitting through
even if you’re horror averse for
the final shot. It’s poetry spun
from what could have been
just
a
dirty
bloodbath.
Hooper’s eye is
unmatched and
the
emotional
core of film is
unrivaled
in
modern horror.
This is master
class
horror.
This is why I
love movies.
“Texas
Chainsaw
Massacre”
is
available
to
stream on Amazon Prime.
It Follows
“It Follows” is just further
proof of what I hope has
already been made clear at this
point: Horror can be beautiful.
This movie does to home
invasion narratives what “The
Witch” and “Chainsaw” do to
their respective subgenres. It
reimagines what it means to be
followed while playing within
the rules.
A not-so-subtle metaphor
for STIs, “It Follows” tracks a
demonic spirit that manifests
itself as different people, visible
only to the person possessed,
who follow you until they can
reach and kill you. The only way
to pass the demon off to someone
else is by having sex with them.
It’s eerie and terrifying and
a surprisingly poignant portrait
of teen culture. Filmed in and
around
Detroit,
it’s
beautifully
dark. This is the
kind
of
horror
that sits with you,
crawls under your
skin and unsettles
you for days after
it ends.
“It
Follows”
is
available
to
stream on Netflix.
***
Okay, if you’re
still looking for an
ease-in to horror,
the teen fare of the 90s and early
00s is a good place to start. The
“Scream” franchise (especially
1 or 4) blend humor and horror,
and “The Craft” does horror-
lite unlike any other movie out
there.
Go forth, get scared and
please (please, please, please)
watch
“Texas
Chainsaw
Massacre.”
Please.
FILM
From Page 5
FILM REVIEW
SONY PICTURES
It’s unsurprisingly disappointing
‘Flatliners’ fails completely
The remake disappoints, just like everyone thought it would
Let’s get the lie at the center of
“Flatliners” out of the way first.
This 2017 film, billed as a sequel,
is just a remake of the 1990 film of
the same name. Despite comments
director Niels Arden Oplev (“Speed
Walking”) has made and the casting
of Kiefer Sutherland (“Designated
Survivor”), who starred in the
original, “Flatliners” does little
more than copy the original’s story
nearly scene for scene, occasionally
even line for line. What little novelty
there might have been in expanding
the original’s ideas is almost
completely drowned out by a story
that seems to go out of its way to be
a boilerplate imitation of an already
mediocre film.
For those unfamiliar with the
original, “Flatliners” tells the story
of a group of medical students who
— in a series of attempts to probe
the afterlife — kill themselves
temporarily
and
have their colleagues
resuscitate
them
after
an
allotted
time
has
passed.
Once they’re back
in the world of the
living, they begin
to
experience
hallucinations that
seem to imply some part of the
afterlife isn’t done with them yet.
Ultimately, this remake’s biggest
problem is the same one that
plagued the original: The central
conceit is too good for the movie
that follows. There is limitless
storytelling opportunity to the idea
of scientists proving the existence of
an afterlife, but neither the original
nor the remake go anywhere
particularly special
with it. There are
a
few
nebulous
definitions thrown
out (“It was like
pure
energy,”
“It
was kind of sexual”)
and an attempt to tie
into a greater story
about
redemption,
but everything about the afterlife
and its nature and capabilities is so
poorly defined that it’s impossible
for any stakes to develop.
That means that when it
comes to the horror, it’s hard to
be all that scared because it hasn’t
been established what audience
members are supposed to be
scared of. In “The Conjuring,”
we’re scared of the Bathsheba’s
hold over the Perron family. In
“It,” we’re scared of Pennywise
and the other forms It takes and
the way it feeds off peoples’ fear.
In “Flatliners,” we’re just scared
of the next inevitable blast of
loud noise. Oplev, who directed
the excellent “Mr. Robot” pilot,
wrangles some atmosphere into
a few scenes, but for most of the
runtime, the script seems to be
actively working against him.
To the movie’s credit, it tries
to set up characters with unique
problems
and
personalities.
There is an effort made to base
the story around the characters’
struggles.
One
character
in
particular is given an interesting
arc with a shocking ending,
and it’s no coincidence that this
storyline represents the biggest
departure from the original.
The cast does their best, and
while results vary — Diego
Luna (“Rogue One: A Star Wars
Story”) suffers through some of
the worst dialogue of the year
— it’s hard to say that anyone is
outright bad.
It’s not as if the original
“Flatliners” was a great movie,
or even a good one. It’s tediously
slow, features effects and scares
that have aged incredibly poorly
and is mostly notable for its
cast and being directed by a
pre-“Batman and Robin” Joel
Schumacher. Still, it’s hard not
to be disappointed at having
to watch this remake take the
same ingenious idea and waste
it in many of the same ways. A
good cast and a few moments of
atmosphere can’t overcome the
slavish devotion to the source
material without even an attempt
at reconciling that movie’s flaws.
DIRTY HIT
Wolf Alice’s new album wows
And for once, an Alt-Indie
rock band that isn’t sad
The latest from the band continues on what the last album started:
unexpected yet melodious arrangements of sound and feeling
In 2015, Wolf Alice burst
onto the British alt-rock stage
with their first album, My Love
Is Cool. With tracks like “Bros”
and “You’re a Germ,” the four-
member
band
effortlessly
blended
acoustic
riffs
and
melodious
vocals
with
pounding bass and grating
yells. A delirious explosion
of sound, My Love Is Cool is
flighty; it jumps from speakers
with vitality, spinning into a
kaleidoscope of emotion and
never lingering too long in one
place.
Wolf Alice’s latest release,
Visions of a Life, introduces
nothing
new
but
rather
expands
on
their
debut’s
unpredictability. The album’s
songs
are
like
full-color
illustrations
of
different
moments in a person’s life. A
scattered collection of photos
faintly bound together by the
barest glimmer of thread, what
they lack in cohesivity, they
make up for in expressiveness.
The
initial
track,
“Heavenward,” begins in a
hazy nebula of ambient synth;
grey matter that transforms
into a rhythmic instrumental
background that rises and falls
under the line of lead singer
Ellie
Rowsell’s
voice.
The
echo of her vocals are almost
lost in translation: a nearly
indiscernible chorus of “Go
heavenward / As all Earth’s
angels should” unravels the
edges of the song. Frayed and
obscure, “Heavenward” sits at
the edge of consciousness — a
half-forgotten memory.
In contrast, the succeeding
track,
“Yuk
Foo,”
seems
to come from an entirely
different band altogether, one
that doesn’t give a “shit, shit,
shit.”
Rowsell’s
aggressive
screams backed by a raucous
medley of punk rock anger
gives the middle finger to the
modest
“Heavenward.”
As
“You bore me to death, well
deplore me / No, I don’t give a
shit” scratches nails down the
chalkboard of prepubescent
angst, Visions of a Life jolts
from one sentiment to another.
With little to no warning,
a
metamorphosis
occurs:
whimsical
experimentation
into belligerent rage.
Open up the fucking pit,
Wolf Alice.
The last lingering clamor
of “Yuk Foo” mellows into
“Beautifully Unconventional,”
and Visions of a Life takes
another turn, this time into
a more relaxed, slightly pop-
infused
composition.
The
muted simplicity of background
harmonies calls attention to the
bounce in Rowsell’s delivery
of “Hannah! She lives! She
breathes! / She’s beautifully
unconventional.”
Breezy
and unaffected, this song is
less
substantial
than
“Yuk
Foo” but more approachable:
superficially catchy.
The
rest
of
the
album
continues to leapfrog in the
same erratic manner. Breathy,
half-finished
speculations
stand next to relentless tempos
that oddly cut into the acoustic
pluck of “After the Zero Hour:”
Wolf Alice manages to fit a lot
into twelve tracks.
Although the songs rarely
falter in delivering originality,
each arrangement distinctive
and
multifaceted,
the
discombobulated
complexity
can
oftentimes
become
overpowering.
The
various
components
of Visions of a Life seem to
stand
independent
of
each
other; a spilled jigsaw puzzle
with mismatched pieces, it’s
hard to see the overall picture
with songs that just don’t fit
together.
It is almost impossible to form
the flurry of contrasting sound,
clashing harmonies and jarring
juxtapositions
into
sequences
that are easier to follow.
After
all,
in
choosing
to
focus
mostly
on
individual
track
development
rather
than
establishing
an
overall
coherent
flow,
Wolf
Alice
creates a labyrinth: A cacophony
of
disconnected
personal
exclamations that can be easy to
get lost in.
But even so, this isn’t an album
that is meant to lock neatly
together.
Within the disarray, each song
becomes an abstract mosaic of
Wolf Alice’s distant memories; a
chromatic jumble that transforms
Visions of a Life into a poignant
exploration of human emotion.
SHIMA SADAGHIYANI
Daily Arts Writer
JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer
“Flatliners”
Sony Pictures
Ann Arbor 20 +
IMAX, Goodrich
Quality 16
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Visions of a Life
Wolf Alice
Dirty Hit
ALBUM REVIEW
Open
up the
fucking
pit, Wolf
Alice
It’s eerie and
terrifying and
a surprisingly
poignant portrait
of teen culture