ACROSS
1 Seize
6 Just slightly
10 Lip-__
14 Justice
nominated by
Barack
15 Buddy, in slang
16 Secure with 
lines
17 Cut most likely to
win a BBQ
competition?
19 TT automaker
20 Part of
21 Feminine side
22 Keyboard
shortcuts
24 TV scientist with
19 Emmys
25 Keurig coffee for
the big day?
27 Tear drier
29 Richmond-to-
D.C. direction
30 Hunk’s pride
31 Finishes second
34 Deli order
35 Rental to get the
twins to college?
38 Word before or
after pack
39 Nearly
40 Asian New Year
41 Harmless cyst
43 They’re tossed
up before they’re
made
47 Sports
competitions in
anti-gravity?
51 Uganda’s Amin
52 Ciudad Juárez
neighbor
53 It’s crude, then
refined
54 Bit of cabinet
hardware
55 Money box
56 Ring up a short
story writer?
59 Bering Sea
barker
60 Impromptu
modern group
pic
61 King Triton’s
mermaid
daughter
62 Poet __ St.
Vincent Millay
63 Boys, to men
64 Commencement
celebrants

DOWN
1 Org. that makes
cents
2 Woody’s wife
3 Repeals
4 It meant nothing
to Edith Piaf
5 Buddy
6 Chicago 7 first
name
7 Rodeo bucker
8 Writer/illustrator
Falconer known
for “Olivia”
children’s books
9 Stan “__” Musial
10 Big wet one
11 “I’m not making
that decision”
12 “For sure!”
13 Baked fruit
desserts
18 Rare blood
designation
23 Dogfish Head
brew
25 “Star Trek” role
for Takei and Cho
26 “To recap ... ”
28 Pick out of a
crowd
32 Bell tower sound
33 Long fish
34 Secretary of
Agriculture under
Nixon

35 Smartphone
arrangement
36 “Knock on 
wood”
37 Craigslist caveat
38 Wrote back
40 Fly around the
equator?
41 Actor Bentley
42 It included a
sweet, not
sorrowful, 
parting

44 Sunflower
relative
45 Doted on
46 Delphic diviners
48 Lily plant
49 “Not __!”
50 Cock and bull
54 Broadway’s
Walter __ Theatre
57 Classified ad
shorthand for
“seeking”
58 Folklore crone

By Ed Sessa
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/05/17

10/05/17

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, October 5, 2017

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

J

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A

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UNIVERSAL PICTURES

‘American Made’ bores

You may not know the name 

Barry Seal, but you know his 
story. You know Pablo Escobar, 
the Iran-Contra Affair, American 
paternalism 
towards 
Central 

America. You know 
the 
American 

Dream.

“American 

Made” tells a story 
not so much based 
on, 
but 
rather 

loosely inspired by, 
Seal’s life, who, as 
depicted in the film, 
was a commercial 
pilot-turned-CIA operative (Tom 
Cruise, “The Mummy”) tasked 
with taking aerial photographs of 
communists in Nicaragua, then 
with delivering captured Russian 
arms to the Contras in Honduras, 
who then became a drug runner 
for 
the 
Medellín 
Cartel 
in 

Colombia (serving a young Pablo 
Escobar). He was punished by the 
U.S. government not with prison 
but with a promotion, assigned 
to manufacture and capture 
evidence that the communist 
Sandinistas in Nicaragua were 
working in the drug trade with 
the Medellín Cartel. It was the 
’80s. And it was crazy.

And the film knows it. It draws 

heavily from its predecessors — 
black comedies that highlight 
episodes in capitalist power 
and collapse in recent history, 
like “The Wolf of Wall Street” 
and “The Big Short”— and 
appropriates 
the 
bombastic 

narrator, who addresses the 
audience with a sly satisfaction 

and promises if not warns 
that everything you see really 
happened.

That’s good enough for Cruise, 

whose recent roles (the last five 
of which are three different 
franchises 
and 
two 
science 

fiction action films) read more 
like the bad side of a big studio 
contract than a quality film guide. 

He’s in a different 
mode here (and, 
to note, at $50 
million, which is 
no small amount, 
this is the tightest 
budget 
of 
a 

Cruise movie in 
ten years). He’s 
got the charisma, 
sure, but at the 

film’s key moments, for better or 
worse (and it’s often the latter), 
Cruise seems locked into one 
emotion: 
effortless 
cool, 
yet 

astonished 
and 
bewildered. 

Every crest has a trough, and 
Cruise doesn’t sufficiently dive 
into depths of paranoia and 
despair that defines his life 
after his CIA career in the film’s 
denouement.

If there are other characters, 

they’re barely drawn. Excusable 
is Seal’s CIA contact, Monty 
Schafer 
(Domhnall 
Gleeson, 

“Brooklyn”), who serves as a 
plot driver, but inexcusable is 
Seal’s long-suffering wife, Lucy 
(Sarah Wright, “Marry Me”), 
who is given so little to do, it’s as 
if second-time screenwriter Gary 
Spinelli (“Stash House”) hasn’t 
paid attention to years and years 
of disappointment and anger over 
poorly written female roles. Lucy 
gets angry with Barry at first, and 
then takes the ride for the money, 
and we know nothing of how 

she’s really feeling.

The problem is that while 

antecedents of “American Made” 
are well directed and acted on top 
of a compelling story, “American 
Made” can only claim the last of 
those attributes. Doug Liman, 
the otherwise competent but 
not outstanding director behind 
“The Bourne Identity” and the 
more recent Cruise action film 
“Edge of Tomorrow,” is the weak 
link here. Handed on a plate 
an absurdly great plot, Liman 
mangles his film with utterly 
bizarre 
filmmaking 
choices. 

In order to ape the sort of faux 
documentary style promulgated 
by “The Big Short” and “The 
Wolf of Wall Street,” Liman 
features a number of cut-aways 
to photographs and historical 
footage, but none help move the 
story along. Cinematographer 
César 
Charlone 
(“Blindness”) 

escalates the shaky camera work 
of “The Big Short” to something 
much more dizzying, if not 
nauseating, though sometimes. 
The worst offense is a seemingly 
absent understanding of how 
shots ought to be constructed. 
Charlone’s cinematography is 
beyond chaotic: it’s an assault on 
spatial logic. It’s hard to describe, 
but the best analogy at hand 
currently is if the director were 
a spastic eight-year-old given a 
35mm camera and instructed to 
make a two-hour film in just as 
much time. All the more stranger 
is that Tom Cruise, one of the 
biggest movie stars of all time, 
appears in nearly every slipshod 
frame. Liman may have been 
visually uninteresting before, but 
with “American Made” he verges 
into visual repugnancy.

“American 

Made”

Universal Pictures

Ann Arbor 20, 

Quality 16

DANNY HENSEL

Daily Arts Writer

SALVATORE DIGIOIA, DAILY ARTS WRITER/DAILY

On A$AP Mob tour, Rocky 
is a circus ringmaster

When Yams and Bari first 

launched A$AP Mob more 
than a decade ago, their vision 
expanded well beyond the 
boundaries of rap: Together, 
the duo recruited a diverse 
collective 
of 
creative-types 

and took critical early steps to 
broadcast their Harlem-gone-
Hollywood style. Both imagery 
and aesthetic were vital to 
the Mob’s branding from the 
start, with fashion adding an 
extra vehicle through which 
music 
could 
be 
marketed. 

From this tradition stemmed 
popular hits, buzzy streetwear 
labels and short films, projects 
that often feel disconnected 
creatively, yet are united by 
their now-famous mantra.

But what exactly is the 

A$AP mantra, if not solely 
a 
promotional 
prop? 
It 

was once natural to view 
the 
group 
as 
a 
tight-knit 

fraternity, 
its 
members 
a 

#rare blend of neighborhood 
connections who, for obvious 
reasons, found it mutually 
beneficial to link and build 
beneath 
a 
common 
alias. 

Since 
Yams’s 
heartbreaking 

passing in 2015, though, unity 
among its members has felt 
opportunistic: It’s difficult to 
imagine Rocky — the Mob’s 
staple A-list celebrity, who 
models for Dior and has dated 
a Jenner — hanging out with 
his old pals when business isn’t 
involved. Plus, the addition of 
an out-of-towner — Atlanta’s 
Playboi Carti — best known for 
revitalizing East Coast hip-hop 
is rather diluting of its ethos.

Amid 
this 
mild 
identity 

crisis, A$AP Mob has released 
a new crew tape — Cozy 
Tapes Vol. 2: Too Cozy — and 
launched a North American 
tour. Both ventures aim to 
satisfy (or at least quiet) fans’ 
hunger for new music from 
Rocky, who has not released 
a solo album in almost three 
years. Yet, despite the rapper’s 
natural role as the traveling 
circus’s ringmaster, he is not 
its exclusive headliner: The 
Too Cozy Tour exists to bring 
lesser-watched 
members 
of 

A$AP — such as Twelvyy, who 
also released a solo album 
in 
#Awgest 
(read: 
August) 

— into fully packed theaters 
nationwide. 

It’s in this vein that A$AP 

Mob 
arrived 
at 
Detroit’s 

Masonic Temple on Fri., Sept. 
29th, luring a flood of mostly 
college and late-high-school-
aged kids downtown for a 
full night of hip-hop-inspired 
mosh pits. By 8:00 p.m., the 
general admission pit’s crowd 
was already spilling over its 
brims, its tightly-packed (and 
mostly intoxicated) attendees 
screaming along as recent hits 
like “Bodak Yellow” and “XO 
Tour Llif3” helped pass the 
time.

Once A$AP Nast emerged on 

stage, the show was underway. 
Despite 
lacking 
depth 
in 

his discography, Nast is a 
profound technical rapper true 
to the spirit of New York, and 
his performances of boom-
bap tracks “Nasty’s World” 
and “Trillmatic” allowed him 
to prove so. He was followed 
promptly by A$AP Twelvyy, 
who — coming off the heels 
of his long-overdue debut LP, 
12 — used his time to perform 
gritty solo cuts that wouldn’t 
otherwise fit into the night’s 
turnt-up setlist.

After 
opening 
with 

“Periodic 
Table,” 
Twelvyy 

warned 
Detroiters 
to 
“put 

(their) guns up,” then dove 
into 
ammunition-themed 

anthem “Strapped,” which was 
followed by “Ea$t$ideGho$t.” 
Before rapping the latter, he 
proudly announced that the 
Mob has been visiting the city 
since its inaugural touring 
effort —the Long Live A$AP 
Tour — in 2013, a notion 
that 
morbidly 
dated 
their 

joint 
shenanigans, 
at 
least 

slightly. He then closed with 
the inspiring “LYBB (Last 
Year Being Broke),” earning 
consistent 
feedback 
during 

its choruses, and departed 
from the stage, only to return 
shortly thereafter.

When A$AP Mob finally 

stormed the stage as a troop, 
walking 
out 
to 
epilepsy-

inducing 
flashes 
and 
the 

explosive 
“Yamborghini 

High,” it was Rocky who stood 
front and center, briefly by his 
lonesome, with an Off-White 
belt dangling in his trail, 
holding 
up 
paint-splattered 

jeans. In the background were 
two 
Lamborghini 
vehicles, 

parked and converted into 

luxury DJ booths, plus a parade 
of his cohorts, acknowledging 
of their sidekick statuses.

Though the songs performed 

across the next hour came 
mostly from the group’s joint 
projects 
(“Telephone 
Calls” 

and “Crazy Brazy” off the first 
Cozy Tapes; “Blowin’ Minds,” 
“Black Card” and many more 
from 
the 
second), 
Rocky 

managed 
to 
maintain 
the 

spotlight throughout, acting 
as a master of ceremonies. 
Before “Please Shut Up,” he set 
the tone by asking the crowd: 
“How many people got that 
boss or parent that y’all just 
want to smack the shit out 
of?” Then, backtracking only 
slightly, added: “But they got 
this thing called the law… So, if 
you don’t wanna go to jail, you 
can calmly, politely ask that 
person…”

“Please shut up!” the crowd 

gleefully roared in response.

“Bahamas” 
received 

a 
similarly 
enticing 

introduction, 
with 
Rocky 

probing fans to open up mosh 
pits through teases like, “Y’all 
niggas ain’t ever been to a 
A$AP Mob concert?” It was 
followed by Twelvyy’s “Hop 
Out,” then a brief ode to Ferg, 
who skipped Detroit despite 
being an otherwise regular 
part of the tour.

Even 
when 
sharing 
the 

spotlight, 
though, 
Rocky 

remained 
in 
total 
control, 

earning 
the 
night’s 
most 

emphatic reactions during his 
a cappella lead-ins to songs 
such as “Multiply” and “Feel 
So Good.” Appropriately, “Get 
That Bag” — which features all 
members of A$AP Mob — was 
one of the night’s final songs. 
However, as if the show simply 
could not end without a total 
acknowledgement of Rocky’s 
core status, it was followed by 
a raucous solo cut of his.

“We are not letting this 

nigga A$AP Rocky leave this 
stage. He’s too hot!” said 
someone, it barely matters 
who. 
Sure 
enough, 
Rocky 

swiftly returned for a final 
verse, one which everyone was 
expected to know.

“Who the jiggy nigga with 

the gold links?”

Who else but Lord Pretty 

Flacko Jodye, the leader — and 
still the primary selling point 
— of the entire A$AP Mob?

SALVATORE DIGIOIA

Daily Arts Writer

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& LIFESTYLE? LIKE PRETENTIOUSLY 

RUMINATING OVER YOUR FAVORITE 

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FILM REVIEW
CONCERT REVIEW

6 — Thursday, October 5, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

