6 — Friday, October 13, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ACROSS
1 Yanks’ foes
5 Operation
designed to hurt
10 Shipboard
resident
14 CFO, e.g.
15 Not as likely to
mess up
16 Walk without
getting
anywhere?
17 TW ...
20 Shoelace site
21 Shipboard chums
22 Tenn. neighbor
24 Apartment listing
abbr.
25 DCYC ...
34 Nice with?
35 Gobs and gobs
36 Cart for heavy
loads
37 Filly’s brother
38 Fighter eulogized
by Bill Clinton,
among others
39 Old-time teacher
40 “The Grapes of
Wrath” figure
41 Beams
43 Prime real
estate?
44 CI ...
47 Downed a sub,
say
48 In-law’s wife,
possibly
49 Refrigerates
53 One of a biblical
ten
58 AGT ...
62 Like quality beef
63 One “sitting
lonely on the
placid bust,” in a
classic poem
64 Course with
relevant tangents
65 Regular guys
66 Finals, e.g.
67 Spot
DOWN
1 “Star Wars”
warrior
2 Nerve cell part
3 Cravings
4 Ewan McGregor,
for one
5 They’re often free
6 Sched. question
mark
7 Kind
8 Once called
9 Sir Georg Solti’s
record 31
10 Rotating rod
11 Conduct
12 Hurting
13 Puts money (on)
18 Dash
19 Not at all
reflective
23 On the lam
24 Backs up a
videotape
25 Cobb salad
ingredient
26 Bring to mind
27 Composer
Mendelssohn
28 Good-sized
wedding band
29 Prefix for “sun”
30 Madison Ave.
pitchers
31 Carpentry, e.g.
32 Worries
33 Church numbers
41 Reacted to an
arduous workout
42 Shoes without
laces
45 Gymnast’s
powder
46 Ibiza, por
ejemplo
49 Key of the finale
of Brahms’
Symphony No. 1
50 “Les Misérables”
author
51 “Now it’s clear”
52 Old Fords
54 Hard-working
colonizers
55 Spice Girl
Halliwell
56 Second, e.g.
57 Sharp side
59 Reach capacity,
with “out”
60 Actress
Mendes
61 President pro __
By Morton J. Mendelson
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/13/17
10/13/17
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Friday, October 13, 2017
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
WARNER BROS. RECORDS
‘Lil Pump’ delivers hype
despite lack of substance
Lil Pump is neither meaningful
nor innovative. It has no message
or theme, and Lil Pump very
clearly has nothing of substance
to say — but if you
are listening to Lil
Pump
expecting
something
meaningful,
you
are listening to Lil
Pump for the wrong
reason.
17-year-old Lil Pump emerged
out of Miami, a member of the
South Florida wave that includes
rappers such as xxxtentacion,
$ki Mask the Slump God and
wifisfuneral. These artists have
in common varying degrees of
manic-depressive
tendencies,
hedonistic worldviews, disregard
for convention and raw energy.
Lil Pump tends toward the latter
three, his lyrical themes never
delving beyond the debaucherous.
He
first
gained
fame
on
Soundcloud with the single “D
Rose,” accompanied by a fantastic
music video shot by visual artist
Cole Bennett (whose videos are
a veritable who’s who of up-and-
coming
rappers).
Follow-up
releases “Boss” and “Gucci Gang”
helped propel him to further viral
fame, half of which stemmed from
an appreciation (more often than
not ironic) of his wild and rowdy
aesthetic, while the other half
stemmed from unbridled hatred
of everything about him.
Lil
Pump
is
certainly
a
controversial
figure.
Many
feel that he is furthering the
devolution of rap music with
his
shallow
lyricism;
others
appreciate the mindless hype.
He has become something of a
running joke on the internet due
to his songs and persona at times
feeling like an astute parody of
Soundcloud-rap culture.
No matter if you love him or
hate him, you can’t deny that Lil
Pump goes hard. Every song is
as intense as the
last — Lil Pump
does
not
take
breaks.
South
Florida
rapper
and
frequent
collaborator,
Smokepurpp, has
repeatedly described the music of
Florida as “ignorant,” and Lil Pump
certainly fits this description. The
instrumentation is dominated by
chilly dissonant bells and piano
floating on top of bass that sounds
like the producer turned the
volume to eleven. This blown-out
style is characteristic of producer
Ronny J, a big influence on the
South Florida sound, responsible
for hard-hitting tracks such as
“Ultimate”
by
Denzel
Curry
and “Gospel” by Rich Chigga.
Ronny J is credited on three
tracks across the album, sharing
production with an assortment of
lesser-known producers such as
Mr. 2-17 and Bighead. 808 Mafia
member TM88 is responsible for
the eerie “Foreign,” one of the
album’s highlights. The beats are
often poorly mixed and cheap, but
always fun and energetic. Joining
Lil Pump are an assortment of
big ticket rappers, most notably a
cosign from fellow Miami rapper
Rick Ross. The songs featuring
these artists are the high points
of the album (not including the
singles) as they tend to actually be
properly mixed, and the features
provide some respite from Lil
Pump’s rather repetitive nature.
With that being said, the featuring
artists never steal the show — Lil
Pump does a surprisingly good job
of holding his own, and you never
forget that you’re listening to his
album.
Lil Pump has major faults
— while Lil Pump does not
intend to convey much meaning
through his songs, his lyrics are
still impressively bad. No matter
how much unruly charisma Lil
Pump possesses, there are only
so many times he can repeat the
phrase “Gucci Gang” before it
gets boring. It is possible, as Lil
Pump’s guests remind us, to make
a song go hard without the lyrics
beginning to feel like some sort of
sacrilegious, barred-out mantra.
The repetitiveness is at least
tempered by some surreal bars:
Across the span of the album Lil
Pump turns down Harvard, sells
cocaine to your grandma and has
a stroke — not necessarily in that
order. While it’s likely Lil Pump’s
intention to embrace the lo-fi
aesthetic dominating Soundcloud
rap now, most of the tracks on this
album sound like ersatz Ronny
J beats, often terribly mixed
(looking at you, “Boss”). This
combination of mind-numbingly
stupid bars and often chintzy
beats becomes increasingly more
difficult to stomach as the album
grinds on, and it doesn’t help that
Lil Pump spends the whole time
reminding the listener that he
has had sex with seemingly every
member of your extended family.
If you want to turn your brain
off and feel the pure hype of Lil
Pump course through your veins,
listening to Lil Pump is a good
move. If that doesn’t appeal to you,
you’re going to really hate this
album.
JONAH MENDELSON
For The Daily
Lil Pump
Lil Pump
Warner Bros.
Records
KOCH MEDIA
‘Wadjda’ is a rousing tale
of female empowerment
In “From the Vault,” Daily Arts
takes a new look at old films.
It’s your 18th birthday. Your
parents generously hand you the
jingling keys to a 2006 Subaru. This
is the most momentous moment of
your adolescent life thus far. You
are a woman.
Unfortunately, for women in
Saudi Arabia, this rite of passage
has never been a reality due to
strict laws that divide genders in
the country — creating two very
separate spheres of life. On Sept.
26, 2017, however, those harsh lines
began to blur when Saudi Arabia’s
King Salman issued a decree that
now allows women to drive for the
first time in the nation.
In
2012,
the
first
Saudi
Arabian female director, Haifaa
al-Mansour
(“Mary
Shelley”),
directed “Wadjda” and instilled
in her titular protagonist (Waad
Mohammed) a desire that Saudi
Arabian women alike shared: to
drive. No, not drive a car, because
al-Mansour understood that this
was not a possibility, but rather
drive something else: a bike.
Al-Mansour imbued her story with
the sentiment that these women
wanted to be able to drive, or to
take control, of the even smallest
parts of their lives without a male
voice dictating how they could
transport themselves. This notion
of female driving is not new; in
Paula Vogel’s 1997 play, “How I
Learned to Drive,” the notion of
driving a car means much more
than physically steering, but rather
assuming agency over one’s goals,
desires and maturation.
When Wadjda puts her mind to
something, she gets it. She sticks
out as funky and unconventional
— her coarse, espresso-rich, mane-
like hair is always unruly (she has
better things to do than sit in front
of a mirror for hours and straighten
her locks until they become burnt
ends like her mother’s), and her ear
lobes are lined with sparkly studs.
So when Wadjda decides that she
will win her school’s Koran contest
to win money to pay for a bike —
for her first ever opportunity at
freedom — she really does it.
“Wadjda” opens up with Wadjda
and her fellow schoolgirls singing
verses from the Koran, as the
camera traces their Mary Jane
loafers in a tight close up until
Wadjda’s scuffed, gothic Chuck
Taylors with violet laces stand out
from the rest. She is no ordinary
girl.
The
next
scene
shows
Wadjda counting up her riyals in
hustler fashion, as she listens to
Grouplove’s 2011 bubbly pop rock
song “Tongue Tied.” Al-Mansour
not-so-subtly depicts that Wadjda’s
desires stretch way farther than
the Arabian Peninsula, especially
those desires which make her
want to be seen as an equal to the
opposite sex.
Wadjda doesn’t ask for much;
she spends most of her time alone.
She doesn’t expect her totalitarian
headmaster, Ms. Hussa, to give
her any respect. When Wadjda
wins the Koran contest and Ms.
Hussa gives the funds instead to
Palestine and not to Wadjda, she is
disappointed but from surprised.
She doesn’t ask her negligent
father to give her attention as he
goes between his two families. She
doesn’t think of her male peers as
anything more than an immature.
When Wadjda’s mother tells her
that her father likes her hair long
and straight as a way to attempt
to seem attractive to him and save
their relationship, Wadjda rolls her
eyes, telling the audience that even
at a young age, she recognizes that
changing oneself to appeal to men
is foolish.
“Wadjda”
closes
with
bittersweet fireworks, as Wadjda
and her mother embrace. They
watch
her
father’s
marriage
ceremony
from
their
stucco
balcony, as if, finally, they are
both in sync that pleasing a man
is an impossible battle and that
female companionship is steady.
It is a tough pill to swallow, but
Wadjda persists nonetheless, and
the audience senses that in this
lonesome moment, she is not alone.
It is as if Wadjda helped initiate
the battle for equality and being
the driver of one’s own life, so now
Saudi Arabian girls like her can
ride their bikes (and cars) off to
freedom into the burning Middle-
Eastern sun.
SOPHIA WHITE
For The Daily
FILM REVIEW
‘Victoria & Abdul’ misses mark
WARNER BROS. RECORDS
“Victoria & Abdul” is the latest
entry in the surprisingly crowded
“British
imperialism
drama”
genre, following on films like
“Viceroy’s House” and “A United
Kingdom,” in which a white
English person finds themselves
in a type of Odd Couple-dynamic
with a person from a country
under colonialist rule and forms
a close bond with them. It is the
latest film to take a story that begs
to serve as a criticism of a power-
hungry system of governing and
instead uses it as a trite dramedy.
While certainly well-acted and
intermittently
endearing,
it
completely misses
and
sometimes
seemingly
intentionally
obfuscates
what
should have been
the thesis of its
entire narrative.
The film tells the true story of
the friendship between Queen
Victoria (Dame Judi Dench,
“Miss Peregrine’s Home for
Peculiar Children”) and her
Indian servant, Abdul Karim
(Ali Fazal, “For Here or To
Go?”). Historically, the two were
incredibly close, with Karim
acting as a sort of teacher to the
Queen on subjects
relating to Indian
culture. Before her
death, she would
have knighted him
as a Commander
of
the
Royal
Victorian
Order
despite the friction
it
caused
with
members of her house.
To state the obvious, Dench
is fantastic as Queen Victoria
– reprising the role she played
in 1997’s “Mrs. Brown” — and
she brings all the gravitas and
emotional complexity that one
would expect of an actress of her
regal reputation. The script is
rather ham-fisted in its treatment
of her, climaxing in the most
Oscar-baiting speech of the year,
but the flaws have nothing to do
with Dench’s work. As Abdul,
Fazal is perfectly charming and
shares a nice camaraderie with
Adeel Akhtar (“The Big Sick”)
in earlier scenes, but again
due to the writing, he comes
across
as
disappointingly
one-dimensional. He is all too
rarely given the opportunity to
do anything other than smile
and offer praise and wisdom to
Victoria.
It is clearly that script,
written by Lee Hall (“War
Horse”), which is the film’s
biggest
stumbling
block.
“Victoria & Abdul” is fine, if
all too slight in its first half
as it deals with the developing
friendship between its two
titular characters. It’s in the
second half that it devolves
into
a
series
of
blustery,
tittering
confrontations
between Victoria and her staff,
all but completely abandoning
the bond at the core of the
story and robbing Abdul of
all agency. He becomes a
background player in a film in
which he is ostensibly one of
the stars.
JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer
“Victoria &
Abdul”
Focus Features
Ann Arbor 20,
Michigan Theater
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
When Wadjda
puts her mind to
something, she
gets it
It is a tough pill
to swallow, but
Wadjda persists
nonetheless
MUSIC REVIEW
FROM THE VAULT