The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Arts Wednesday, November 15, 2017 — 5A ABC “Grey’s Anatomy” is still alive and well unlike most of its original cast ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ in critical condition after 14 seasons As it hits the 300 mark, it’s time for ‘Grey’s’ to pass on quietly After watching approximately one episode of “Grey’s Anatomy,” most feel as though they could perfectly execute a coronary artery bypass surgery (yes, I had to look that up). The show has been around for 14 seasons, and last week marked its 300th episode. Through all of the medical jargon, sexual scandals, dramatic deaths, complicated familial relationships and job competition, Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo, “Doc McStuffins”) is still, as they say, saving lives. The episode made sentimental remarks on past characters, the deceased Dr. George O’Malley (T.R. Knight, “Genius”) and the two that left Seattle Grace Hospital, Dr. Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh, “Catfight”) and Dr. Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl, “Doubt”). Both characters were the main focus of the show until they were written off. “Grey’s Anatomy” revolved around these four, and Meredith is currently the only one left. Well, that depends if you count Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers, “Broken City”) or not. He never seemed as close with the core four. The main catastrophe plaguing the hospital in this episode is a roller coaster accident, in which two individuals remind the entire staff of George, Cristina and Izzie. Mini George and Christina are injured in the roller coaster crash, and Izzie’s look alike is their pregnant friend. All three of them surprisingly require serious medical attention. Although the nostalgia of past characters makes both Meredith and the viewer hold onto emotional feelings, the plotline was forced. It doesn’t feel natural; if anything it’s coaxed. It felt like a last-ditched attempt to make viewers reflect on past seasons, and in doing that it reminded me of how “Grey’s Anatomy” used to be entertaining. This flashback is a reflection of how the old Greys worked, and the current one doesn’t. Now it’s just over-the-top and exhausted. The medical drama has passed its expiration date. There are too many subplots, unrealistic health concerns and overplay of sexual promiscuity. The theatrics are laughable and very predictable. A patient cannot simply have one medical issue, instead he or she has 12 and there is always a heightened moment of fear. The on-edge and tense medical procedures are only interesting when they are warranted. It’s agitating watching all of these diagnoses come out of the woodwork when it was already exciting enough. The Izzie look alike is pregnant and passes out. So naturally, the doctors test and find her placenta has a tumor on it. They immediately go to surgery, and then they have to perform an emergency c-section when the baby is premature. The plot would have worked if they had her simply pass out. Not to mention her friends are on the verge of death after their serious accident. “Grey’s Anatomy” piles on the drama to the point where it only serves to convolute and overload. The amount of sexual relations makes the show hard to follow. At every turn, someone is sleeping with someone else, not to mention during the workday. All the sex can make the show more interesting, but once again, it just feels overdone. Dr. Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone, “The November Man”) walks in on her old flame, Dr. Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd, “Tulip Fever”) and Dr. Carina DeLuca (Stefania Spampinato, “Two Wolves”) making out, naked. Dr. Andrew DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti, “Race”) gets it on with his ex-girlfriend, Dr. Sam Bello (Jeanine Mason, “Criminal Minds”), in the supply closet when their bosses, Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson, “Frankie & Alice”) and Dr. Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr., “For the Love of Ruth”) can hear them. Then see them come out. Awkward. The predictability of both radical medical diagnoses and character decisions makes “Grey’s Anatomy” typical and spent. Meredith is up for a prestigious medical award, the Harper Avery Award. Instead of attending the ceremony, she stays behind to help with the roller coaster accident. Although the intention of this plot line was to show dedication, it largely fails. Of course, she didn’t go to the awards even though there were plenty of other qualified and capable surgeons to take care of the injuries. Not only does she miss the ceremony, but, spoiler, she wins. No surprise there. The series began with Meredith and her friends as mere interns, and now they are full blown surgeons. The show used to follow their tribulations trying to prove themselves, sleeping at the hospital and working endless shifts. They used to camp out at a very specific location—a hallway removed from the intense environment of the hospital. After Meredith wins her award, she celebrates with one of the only interns from the first season to still be around, Dr. Alex Karev, on the very gurnees they started off on. They also kick the current interns out of their spot which is pretty cute. In addition to Karev, Cristina calls from Switzerland. The memorabilia should serve as a sign that “Grey’s Anatomy” was a good show while it lasted, but it’s time to wrap it up and move on. 20TH CENTURY FOX Anyone else remember Masterpiece Mystery Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on PBS?? ‘Orient Express’ manages to entertain despite flaws Branaugh succeeds in his retelling of the aged Poirot mystery “Murder on the Orient Express,” both directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh (“Dunkirk”) is simultaneously a sleek re-mastering of a classic story as well as a throwback to a bygone era. Branagh stars as Hercule Poirot, one of Agatha Christie’s most memorable characters, along side an all- star cast that includes Penélope Cruz (“Loving Pablo”), Willem Dafoe (“The Florida Project”), Judi Dench (“Victoria and Abdul”), Johnny Depp (“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales”), Josh Gad (“Beauty and the Beast”), Derek Jacobi (“Cinderella”), Leslie Odom Jr. (“Hamilton”), Michelle Pfeiffer (“mother!”) and Daisy Ridley (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens”). With witty dialogue, interesting characters and a mystery that is just as engrossing today as it was when Christie first wrote it, “Murder on the Orient Express” is a grand old time. Opening in Jerusalem in 1934, the film introduces Poirot with a prologue sequence that does an adequate job of setting the stage for the puzzle solving to come, without resorting to heavy-handed exposition to explain who Poirot is and why he does what he does. From there we are quickly introduced to a wide variety of characters, some of whom will play major roles in the drama to come, some of whom will play minor roles, one of whom will shortly be killed off, prompting the mystery, and all of whom are played by A-list talent. While some audience members might find this segment of the film to move at a ridiculous pace, with little time given for the audience to acclimate themselves to each new face before being whisked to the next scene, the story moves with such a sense of joy and excitement that this table setting doesn’t come across as such so much as it comes across as a fascinating roll-call of the passengers we are about to watch. Once the titular murder occurs and the interviews with the suspects begin, the movie never lets up. Apart from certain narrative beats relating to Poirot’s deceased wife, no revelation or twist falls flat. Poirot’s personal storyline feels half-hearted at best, but truthfully that’s not what we’re here for anyways, and the time it would’ve taken to more thoroughly develop Poirot’s back-story feels like time the film doesn’t have. There’s so much mystery to get through and so many characters with secret identities and false histories and long lost relatives to uncover that the movie doesn’t have time for the simple personal story surrounding Poirot. Because of this his final decision, meant to represent a big change for his character, feels slightly underwhelming, if only because the overall solution to the central mystery feels so satisfying in contrast. The production design and overall look and feel of the film couldn’t be more perfectly suited for the story being told. Cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos (“Denial”) makes creative use of the train setting to produce some seriously dynamic shots and sequences. In particular is the use of overhead shots to emphasize the “Clue”-like atmosphere that develops throughout the picture. The music by Patrick Doyle (“The Emoji Movie”) is suitably whimsical and mysterious in parts, fitting for the tonal shifts that occur during the length of the feature. “Murder on the Orient Express” might not reinvent the wheel, but it does what it does very well, providing an entertaining murder mystery with a wonderful cast who ham it up as much as they can. It’s clear that everyone involved with the picture was having a damn good time. By the time the credits roll, everyone in the audience will be too. IAN HARRIS Daily Arts Writer OLIVIA ASIMAKIS Daily Arts Writer TV REVIEW FILM REVIEW BOOK REVIEW ‘The Doll’s Alphabet’ an enjoyably grotesque read Grudova’s collection of stories leaves the reader’s skin crawling Camilla Grudova’s “The Doll’s Alphabet” is a deeply weird and completely brilliant book. You find its images replaying in your head on an endless loop long after turning the final page, and for good reason: It’s kind of terrifying. Women unstitch their own skin clean off their bones, they turn into werewolves and eat their own children, and they give birth to alien tubers (eyeless and mouthless, but nonetheless alive and squirming). There’s a sewing machine powered by the blood of the young seamstresses using it — and a grotesque half spider/half man obsessed with keeping the machine alive at any cost. The stories rarely follow a clear narrative path, but they make an awful visceral sense, pulsing with the internal logic of a nightmare. They’re distinct, but the stories share a world filled with rot, decay, rusty machines and bloody open wounds. Grudova’s characters are rarely heroes; they form dark fixations and obsessions that tear their lives apart. Sometimes they’re literal monsters, sometimes they’re just people in a bad situation — but they always feel real, lived-in. The characters are often just barely scraping by, living on carefully rationed food in tins and selling their very bodies to survive. There’s a vague dystopian atmosphere permeating the whole collection, but we never find out exactly what happened. In fact, a lot of the book’s world is sketched out through carefully- chosen but sparse details, where we’re left to fill in the rest ourselves. But this is intentional, a classic horror technique: There’s nothing scarier than the unspoken. Grudova’s writing has a rhythm to it, a perfectly even rise and fall that is equal parts graceful and hair-raisingly creepy. The first story in the book opens with a casual narration: “One afternoon, after finishing a cup of coffee in her living room, Greta discovered how to unstitch herself. Her clothes, skin and hair fell from her like the peeled rind of a fruit, and her true body stepped out.” As you keep reading, you find yourself simultaneously mesmerized by the cadence and meter of the writing, and completely repulsed by the contents. But Grudova is too smart to disgust her readers without a purpose. Every harrowing description, every piece of brutal body horror has a clear focus. At its core, this is a book about the danger and existential panic contained within women’s bodies. It’s a vivid externalization of female pain and anger. In “The Mouse Queen,” our protagonist starts transforming into a werewolf after her husband leaves her alone to raise their twin baby boys. She goes out every night, eating women and children and all the other vulnerable people she can find. There’s “The Sad Tale of the Sconce,” which starts with a wooden mermaid who has been carved into the masthead of a ship, until the sailors, “... ate her lips, her hair, her shoulders, and, using a knife, gave her the anatomy a mermaid does not have.” Or there’s “Unstitched,” the short tale that opens the collection, about women learning to tear their skin off to reveal a secret, more truthful self within. “Men were divided,” she writes, “between those who ‘always knew there was something deceitful about women’ ... and those who lamented ‘the loss of the female form.’” Grudova is angry, with the kind of anger that’s never quite made explicit. It boils under the surface of everything she writes. “The Doll’s Alphabet” is a tribute to the fact that women are brutally hurt all the time — and too often, nobody cares. It’s a testament to Grudova’s skill that it never feels heavy- handed, it only ever feels true. And that’s really what makes “The Doll’s Alphabet” induce goosebumps: it’s giving voice and form to a barely-contained rage, and a very real violence. “Do not come here by yourself again,” a man tells a young girl in “Edward, Do Not Pamper the Dead.” “Remember you are a vulnerable person.” It’s a familiar warning. ASIF BECHER Daily Arts Writer “The Doll’s Alphabet” Camila Grudova Coffee House Press October 17, 2017 It’s a tribute to the fact that women are brutally hurt all the time — and too often, nobody cares “Grey’s Anatomy” 300th Episode ABC Thursdays @ 8 p.m. “Murder on the Orient Express” 20th Century Fox Rave Cinemas, Quality 16