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THE MICHIGAN DAILY
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ACROSS
1 Your business is
her business
6 Tiny cut
10 Jeans line
14 Spreadsheet
program
15 Comes to the
rescue of
16 “The Time
Machine” race
17 Like a cowboy in
denial?
20 Emotional wound
21 “At __, soldier!”
22 Quartet in
“Whose woods
these are I think I
know”
23 Fodder for
Forbes, initially
25 Play a part
26 Like an eager
cowboy?
35 Riveting icon
36 Overplay a part
37 Mission lead-in
38 Potentially
offensive, for
short
39 Tends to the
sauce
40 Nerve
41 Early 16th-
century date
42 Earthquake
43 “Impression,
Sunrise” painter
44 Like a cowboy
out of retirement?
47 Ky. neighbor
48 Show stoppers
49 Limoges product
52 Entertainment
show VIP
55 Builder’s map
59 Like a cowboy in
charge?
62 Area behind an
altar
63 Wonder
Woman’s friend
__ Candy
64 Temporary tattoo
dye
65 Get weepy, with
“up”
66 State openly
67 More curious
DOWN
1 Trees that sound
like sheep
2 Corporate VIP
3 Final Four letters
4 Marvelous
5 “Hidden
Figures” actor
Mahershala __
6 Epic tale
7 They may be fine
points
8 Sit in traffic
9 Tire gauge no.
10 Tranquil
11 Periodic table
listing: Abbr.
12 Limited choice
13 Fail to see
18 Vegas illuminator
19 Nook or cranny
24 Peach dessert
25 Many “Suits”
characters: Abbr.
26 Busser’s target
27 Maker of Clarity
alternative fuel
cars
28 Jelly made from
meat stock
29 “Capisce?”
30 Anabaptist
descendants
31 Velvet-voiced Mel
32 Like most books
33 Recon goal
34 Palate
39 FedEx, say
40 “Safe travels!”
42 Egyptian
peninsula
43 Satiric magazine
since 1952
45 Less harsh
46 Fill and then
some
49 Converse
50 Partner of pray
51 Ingrid’s
“Casablanca”
role
52 “Tiny House
Hunters” cable
channel
53 Bart and Lisa’s
bus driver
54 Professor
Higgins’ creator
56 Swedish soprano
Jenny
57 Hathaway of
“The Intern”
(2015)
58 Winter Palace
resident
60 Org. for teachers
61 17th Greek letter
By Amy Johnson
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/21/18
02/21/18
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
A few days ago on his blog
“Not a Blog,” George R.R.
Martin wrote to a commenter
that “Fire and Blood” will be
the next book he publishes.
“Fire and Blood” is to be a
history
of
the
Targaryen
family, who are the central
dragon riders of Martin’s “A
Song of Ice and Fire” novels
and feature prominently in
the immensely popular HBO
series
“Game
of
Thrones.”
For fans of the book series,
though, this was not cause for
celebration. Beginning in 1996
with “A Game of Thrones,”
for over 20 years Martin has
strung readers along with the
promise of a conclusion to
his expansive saga, a journey
that has become all the more
agonizing in the past decade
with the emergence of “Game
of Thrones” as a pop culture TV
phenomenon. The fifth volume
“A Dance With Dragons” was
published in 2011, the same year
the TV series began. Since then,
Martin’s readers have waited
patiently for the sixth book in
the planned seven-book series.
Readers have openly wondered
whether Martin, at the age of
69, writing a book every six to
eight years, will die before he
reaches the end. Many have
criticized
these
demanding
readers for acting as though
Martin owes them something.
In my eyes, he absolutely does.
When you begin telling a
story, you sign a social contract
with the people listening. You
agree to an unspoken rule that
you will tell them how the story
ends. The only way you can
escape from this agreement is
if something external happens
that makes it impossible for you
to continue the story. A TV show
being canceled, for example.
No such situation exists for
Martin. It does not matter how
long it takes him to write. He
has had time to write “Game
of Thrones” spin-off books, so
surely he has had time to write
the main saga. Fans don’t want
the history of the Targaryens,
or at least, they don’t want it
as much as they want the next
book in the series. If Martin is
simply no longer interested in
finishing the story, he should
just come out and say so. Better
to announce that the series will
never be concluded than to
continue stringing his devoted
readers along for years on end.
It is becoming increasingly
likely that in the time between
Martin publishing “A Dance
With
Dragons”
and
the
forthcoming “The Winds of
Winter,” HBO will have told the
entire story in eight seasons of
“Game of Thrones.” Certainly,
no one could have predicted
when the show started how
popular it would become and
certainly no one could have
predicted that by the time
the show ended Martin still
wouldn’t have released his next
book, but that is where we are.
Starting with season six, the
show entered territory that few
book to screen adaptations have
ever had to face, continuing
the story without the original
source
material
to
draw
upon. Now your mileage may
vary as it comes to the post
season four/five episodes of
“Thrones.” The show continues
to be enormously well received,
but amongst the most hardcore
of book readers and show-
watchers, the tides have slowly
shifted.
The most recent season was
widely and rightly criticized
for ridiculous storytelling that
at times asked audiences to
suspend every ounce of disbelief
they
had
left.
Characters
made
the
distance
across
continents looks like a walk
across the street. Long awaited
revelations and moments were
handled in the clumsiest of
fashions.
Main
characters
appeared to have death proof
shields that allowed them to
survive even the most unlikely
of circumstances. “Game of
Thrones,” the show that built
its reputation of the death of its
first season main character, had
suddenly become safe. If you
ask the average show-watcher,
they might tell you that this
season was a disappointment,
but if you ask a book-reader,
they will tell you that the
problems began long ago.
Without Martin to go on,
it became clear to me that
D.B. Weiss and David Benioff
had no idea what they were
doing. As far back as season
five, they began making story
and character decisions that
seemed to defy even basic
reason or rationale. A lot of the
characters (Jaime Lannister in
particular, but also Ayra Stark,
Sansa Stark and to an extent
Tyrion Lannister) no longer
bear almost any resemblance
to the people portrayed in
Martin’s books. The story has
veered so far away from not
just the events Martin was
portraying, but moreover the
themes that he was writing
about, that it’s hard for anyone
who has read the books to see
how “Game of Thrones” can
ever end in a way that will leave
those still waiting for Martin’s
next tome satisfied.
It’s hard to say why George
R.R. Martin appears to be
writing at the pace of a snail.
It’s possible that he’s become
uninterested in the story and
has been for some time. It’s
possible that he lost a significant
amount of motivation when he
realized that the show would
beat him to the punch. It’s
possible that he just writes slow.
Regardless of the reason, one of
the greatest fantasy stories of
all time seems destined to have
an unsatisfying ending. Fans of
the book series will likely never
see what Martin intended for
his final volumes and fans of the
TV show will get an ending that
is based on Weiss and Benioff’s
late-season blunders, not what
was promised in the inherent
premise of the show when it
began in season one. For many
involved, the story will end
happily. Benioff and Weiss have
a future making “Star Wars” to
look forward to. Many actors
from the HBO series have
jump-started
their
careers
and will have many more great
performances to come. HBO
itself will continue pumping
out “Game of Thrones” spinoffs
for as long as they make money.
Audiences will move on to the
next thing. But for Martin and
his fans, the ones who began
reading his books at any point
between 1996 and now, this
story will sadly end like the late
Robb Stark’s, with a betrayal
from his allies and in a personal
tragedy of his own for failing
to finish what he started. Valar
Morghulis.
The tragedy of George R.R.
Martin and ‘Thrones’
ENTERTAINMENT & MEDIA COLUMN
IAN
HARRIS
COMMUNITY CULTURE
‘The Last Days of Judas
Iscariot’ is darkly funny
The play opens on a judge sitting
with a gavel behind a makeshift
bench calling to his bailiff. At first
glance, this is a standard courtroom
drama. After the opening lines,
however, the impression is broken —
this is not a legal court, but a quasi-
religious court of judgment in which
lawyers and a judge deliberate over
the guilt or innocence of Judas
Iscariot. This was last week’s
Department of Musical Theatre
production of “The Last Days of
Judas Iscariot,” a dark, humorous
and thought-provoking production
full of modern cultural references
and absurd juxtapositions.
The play features a diverse
array of important cultural figures:
everyone from Satan and Caiaphas
the Elder to Mother Teresa and
Sigmund Freud. Saint Monica, for
example, was played by SMTD
freshman Mikaela Secada in a Cardi
B-esque fashion, a humorous blend
of hip hop and Biblical culture.
These juxtapositions also raise
new questions about these Biblical
figures; Mason Reeve’s depiction of
Jesus in modern, casual attire, for
example, undercuts the inherent
Westernized perception of Jesus.
He probably did not appear divine
at the beginning of his life. The
play suggests him to have instead
been a revolutionary, if not outright
rebellious leader.
While
these
juxtapositions
can be extremely comedic, this
energy quickly loses focus against
the serious backdrop of the trial
occurring onstage. The first act of
the play was extremely humorous,
the
outrageous
comparisons
between
popular
culture
and
Biblical culture leading to some
truly memorable jokes. The humor
was extremely dark, though — I
found myself regretting the fact
that I had laughed at certain
points. While I was never outright
uncomfortable,
the
humor
definitely lent the play a shocking
quality that carried through the
entire act.
The
second
act,
however,
quickly dropped this comedic
tone in favor of more serious
subject matter, though this was
still delivered through a dark lens.
Satan’s second appearance as a
witness, for example, results in an
incredibly dark sequence in which
Satan (played by SMTD senior
Simon Longnight) quickly parses
through both lawyers’ characters
before
finding
and
provoking
their most vulnerable weaknesses.
He
criticizes
the
overzealous
prosecution lawyer (played by
SMTD senior Alexander Sherwin)
for caring more about his fame
than
his
reputation,
suddenly
proclaiming that he will amount
to nothing. And he criticizes the
high-minded
defense
lawyer
(played by SMTD senior Kat Ward)
for refusing to listen to others,
proclaiming again that she, at her
very core, is unsure of these beliefs.
Compared to the first act, this
second act moved slower and
lasted almost twice as long. It had
brilliant moments, but it took a lot
of development to reach them. It
seemed to move in a predictable
pattern
—
conflicts
between
characters would crescendo until
every character was yelling, then
they would slowly resolve. While
these conflicts were extremely
thought-provoking, this predictable
pattern took away slightly from
the
overall
experience:
The
predictability of the development
slowly overshadowed the impact of
the resolution.
At the end of the play, the
comedic references to modern and
Biblical culture had been stripped
away. It was this eerie focus on
the incnsistencies in our modern
understanding
of
the
human
condition that rang true.
SAMMY SUSSMAN
Daily Arts Writer
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
There’s
a
terrific
movie
somewhere in “Early Man” that
apparently got lost in translation.
The
latest
from
Aardman
Animation,
the
studio
most
well-known for their “Wallace
and Gromit” cartoons, boasts
an insane voice cast featuring
the likes of Eddie Redmayne
(“Fantastic Beasts and Where to
Find Them”), Maisie Williams
(“Game of Thrones”) and Tom
Hiddleston (“Thor: Ragnarok”),
as well as some undeniably
beautiful
animation.
At
first
glance, the idea of a group of
cavemen having to face Bronze
Age-invaders even seems ripe for
the kind of Monty Python-esque
humor that Aardman trades in,
but after an inspired first act,
the humor steadily spirals into
clumsy pratfalls and dragged-out
unfunny gags.
The argument will be made
that part of the problem is the
aforementioned poor translation
between the decidedly British
script and American audiences.
This is first and foremost a soccer
movie, a sport that doesn’t hold as
much water in the U.S. as it does
overseas. However, “Early Man”
is missing the one thing that every
underdog sports movie must have:
its heart.
For all its montages set to
inspiring music and “teamwork
makes
the
dream
work”
speeches, there’s nothing going
on beneath the surface to keep
viewers engaged. None of the
characters are interesting beyond
the ludicrous amounts of talent
behind them, even for memorable
quirks. Likewise, nothing about
the story takes advantage of its
unique prehistoric trappings after
the familiarity of the sports movie
tropes set in. It’s just a bore.
This goes double for the humor.
Every once in a great while,
there’s a funny line or artfully
constructed pun, but these are
drowned out by a painful series of
attempts at physical comedy that
lack any sense of timing or wit.
They’re simply not funny because
they either overstay their welcome
or aren’t any good to begin with.
The best moments are those when
writers Mark Burton and James
Higginson (“Shaun the Sheep
Movie”) lean into the insanity of
their core idea. There’s a hysterical
sequence involving a giant duck
that’s so unexpectedly brilliant it
dwarfs every aspect of the movie
around it. Instead of taking ideas
like this further, though, they
usually settle for, “Get it? It’s
funny because they’re cavemen.”
At the very least, the animation
is
consistently
dynamic
and
idiosyncratically dazzling. The
first scene alone features a perfect
combination of stop-motion and
CGI that the talented animators
at Aardman work to create a
grander sense of scale than any of
their previous productions. The
scenes set in the soccer stadium
may lack energy from the writing,
but the animation does lend it a
certain amount of liveliness. Even
when there’s nothing going on in
the foreground, the backgrounds
alone are almost gorgeous in how
they evoke the era in which “Early
Man” takes place. At several
points, they’re almost reminiscent
of the Academy Award-winning
production design from “The Lord
of the Rings.”
The vocal talent also exceeds
the
script,
with
Hiddleston
in particular donning a thick,
unrecognizable French accent,
but visuals and voices alone aren’t
enough of a substitute for stale
writing. Any intermittent charm
offered by the animation or brief
forays into smarter humor is
canceled out by a crippling lack of
heart and laughs.
‘Early Man’ falls a bit flat
JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer
STUDIOCANAL
“Early Man”
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6A — Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com