By Roland Huget
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/02/18
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
10/02/18
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Tuesday, October 2, 2018
ACROSS
1 Gulf States
prince
5 Macy’s
competitor
10 Eucharist
celebration
14 See 62-Across
15 Boise’s state
16 Israeli airline
17 Tool for cutting
stone and
concrete
19 River of Cairo
20 Playing surface
surrounded by
boards
21 Access charge
23 Chinese menu
promise
25 Garden digging,
e.g.
26 Abandoned
building, say
28 Jules who
created the
Nautilus
29 Form a union
30 Passé reception
aid
34 Love personified
35 Richly
upholstered seat
37 Nobel Peace
Prize city
40 Toxic substance
41 Snapshot,
briefly
44 “SNL” alum
Cheri
46 Dancer Duncan
48 Prilosec target
52 Caught with a
lasso
53 Old-fashioned
printing machine
54 Champagne
brand
55 Got on in years
56 Carry on the
same way ...
and what the
ends of 17-,
25-, 35- and
48-Across do
60 __ majesty: high
treason
61 Diarist Nin
62 With 50-Down
and 14-Across,
fairy tale opening
63 Newspaper
section with
many reviews
64 Horizontal graph
lines
65 Enthusiastic
DOWN
1 Takeoff approx.
2 1002, to Caesar
3 Gun carrier’s
warning
4 Careless
5 Garden hose
obstruction
6 Unmatched
7 Welcomes to the
treehouse
8 __ apso: little
dog
9 Scattered, as
seed
10 Department
store section
11 Wing-shaped
12 Port near Naples
13 More
streamlined
18 Like an accurate
soccer shot
22 Gun, as an
engine
23 Just out
24 Santana’s “__
Como Va”
25 __-Croatian:
Slavic language
27 Do another stint
31 Here, in Haiti
32 Twain/Harte
play
33 Vientiane’s
country
35 Becomes rusted
36 Lined up
37 “C’est
magnifique!”
38 “The
Pawnbroker”
actor Rod
39 Least fatty, as
corned beef
41 Many a Top 40
song
42 Cork’s country:
Abbr.
43 Heel
45 Hairy Addams
cousin
47 Is moderately
successful
49 How some
documents are
sent
50 See 62-Across
51 Kick back
54 Forest floor plant
57 Golf ball position
58 Cocktail cooler
59 Down-for-the-
count count
Are you ready for a review
of this weekend’s most hyped
project? That’s right, today we’re
going to dive deep into The Rick
and Morty Soundtrack. I woke up
this morning, set my Spotify to
“Private Session,” and hit play,
fully expecting to wince through
the entire record.
The first track was the main
theme, a boilerplate sci-fi intro,
a pastiche of the “Doctor Who”
main title theme. The next song,
however, took me by surprise
— “Jerry’s Rick” is an elegant if
simple instrumental track that
was, somehow, quite good. I
began to take this soundtrack a
little more seriously after that,
having come in expecting to sit
through 40 minutes of shit like
“Get Schwifty.”
I came to find that there are
three broad categories of songs on
the soundtrack: The first consists
of vocal tracks with lyrics that
only function to advance the
plot within the show (these are
by-and-large pastiches of certain
specific genres or artists), the
second are instrumental tracks
that deserve to be taken seriously
on their own merits and the
third are original songs done by
outside artists — Chaos Chaos,
clipping. and Chad VanGaalen all
contribute songs inspired by the
show.
Most of the first category are
simply unlistenable outside of
novelty value. “Flu Hatin’ Rap”
comes to mind which, while
being a competent work done in
the style of the Sugarhill Gang,
carries no comedic value of its
own accord and is too dumb to
be taken seriously. Of course, a
lot of these songs are designed to
be bad as a part of a joke, but just
because they are intentionally
bad doesn’t make them any more
pleasant to listen to when the
music is isolated from the plot.
The one exception is “Goodbye
Moonmen,”
consisting
of
a
tasteful and restrained acoustic
chord progression and vocals
which straddle the line between
being an imitation or an excellent
parody of David Bowie. It’s
a shame that the lyrics make
most of these songs borderline-
unlistenable
outside
of
the
context of the show.
The second category is by-and-
large filled with impressive and
thoughtful works. The best song
on the record is “African Dream
Pop,” a genre of music invented
for the purpose of the show. It is
shockingly innovative, groovy
and atmospheric; it’s really the
only song worth returning to
in the future. “Jerry’s Rick”
and “Unity Says Goodbye” are
balanced, cinematic works of
composition that, while I don’t
think necessarily merit repeated
listens, certainly deserve to be
viewed as more than songs from
that one show with the alcoholic
pickle guy.
The third category is hit-or-
miss: “Stab Him in the Throat” is
the most memorable of the pack,
the experimental hip-hop group
clipping. laying down bars over a
reworking of the main title theme.
The instrumental is a great remix
apart from the overtaxed sample
of Rick burping. Daveed Diggs
comes with a hard flow, but
whatever momentum he manages
to build is sent crashing down
by lines such as “He looking
schwifty, man you shouldn’t
trust him,” “hopped up out the
whip, same color Pickle Rick” and
“that habanero have him leakin’
Szechuan right there on the
floor.” “Memories” is pretty but a
bore. The vocalist of Chaos Chaos
has a vulnerable, shoegaze-esque
voice that almost saves the track,
but it doesn’t quite do enough.
The inoffensive song also has
the advantage of never invoking
“Pickle Rick.”
To be honest, if you aren’t
a massive “Rick and Morty”
fanboy, the only track worth
listening to off this soundtrack
is “African Dream Pop” (maybe
“Goodbye
Moonmen”
if
you
have strong feelings about David
Bowie). If you are a massive
“Rick and Morty” fanboy (more
power to you), you’ll probably
love the whole album. The show
has received a lot of probably
undeserved backlash over the
past year due to a particularly
toxic fanbase, so I came into the
soundtrack with certain off-
putting expectations. However,
much like the show itself, the
negative stereotypes surrounding
the work are based in reality but
largely exaggerated.
Defying expectations: ‘The Rick and Morty Sountrack’
doesn’t quite make you want to set yourself on fire
ALBUM REVIEW
JONAH MENDELSON
Daily Arts Writer
SUB POP RECORDS
Outside the theater where I
saw “Night School,” there was a
cardboard standee that depicted
star
Kevin
Hart
(“Jumanji:
Welcome to the Jungle”) trying
to climb out of a locker he has
presumably been shoved into
while an unimpressed Tiffany
Haddish (“Uncle Drew”) stands
outside with her arms crossed.
Walking in, I took it as a piece
of marketing and nothing more.
Walking out after two hours of
the sort of banal anti-comedy that
has come to define Hart’s movie
career, I’m not gonna lie, the image
of his character being shoved in a
locker took on a sort of cathartic
quality. I’m used to saying that a
movie wastes its cast, but this feels
like a different cast, one which,
especially the star and co-writer,
wastes the movie.
In order to give you an idea of
the sort of jokes “Night School”
has up its sleeve, let’s look at the
first scene that Hart and Haddish
share together. Hart rolls up to a
stoplight in his Porsche. Haddish
stops next to him. She’s yelling
about something raunchy over
the phone, because raunchiness is
innately funny. Hart tells her he
can hear her, and she starts yelling
because people yelling is innately
funny. He psshes her, she psshes
him back, and then they just start
making weird noises at each other.
This goes on for quite some
time.
This
should
probably
go
without saying, but taking a gag
that isn’t funny to begin with and
extending it to mind-numbing
lengths isn’t the very essence of
comedy, it’s the very essence of
sadism. For all Hart’s experience
as a comedian, this sort of scene is
alarmingly commonplace. It gets
to the point where these extended
riff sessions start to infringe on
the story. The godawful editing
is annoying on its own, but it also
clearly signals multiple important
plot points, subplots or character
arcs that are either montaged over
or cut entirely, presumably to make
room for the scene where Kevin
Hart makes baby noises. With the
theatrical cut already running an
overindulgent two hours, one can
only imagine the ego-stroking
excess of the original.
That’s the biggest problem
with the film. Comedies still have
to tell stories, but “Night School”
isn’t interested in all that. It’s just
interested in making things as
easy on Kevin Hart as possible. So
his character has flaws, but most
of his problems come from the
overblown villains in his life — like
his father (Keith David, “The Nice
Guys”), or his high school rival
turned principal (Taran Killam,
“Single Parents”). He’s a serial liar
who needs to change, but other
people are the real problem. This
keeps Hart from having to actually,
you know, act.
Even when the script touches
on something real, it can’t resist
going for the easy way out. There
are moments where it broaches
the subject of learning disabilities
and the shame that can come with
that, but it doesn’t actually engage
with these topics. It pays empty lip
service to the idea of Hart learning
differently, then cuts to a scene of
Tiffany Haddish’s stunt double
kicking the shit out of him in a
hexagon to teach him math. Get
it? Because it’s different. It’s short-
selling the message of the film for a
bad joke, but it’s different.
What’s most disappointing is
that we do see flashes of another
version of “Night School.” Take
a scene where we see Haddish
working with a child with a
learning disability and teaching
him math by playing cards with
him, for example. All I could think
during this scene was that a similar
scene between Hart and Haddish,
done right, would have given them
room to riff off each other in a
believable setting, developed their
characters and their chemistry
and actually confronted the reality
of people who learn differently.
Yes, this scene would have been
harder to write than, “Then she
suplexes him and farts on his face.”
Yes, the jokes would have been
less broad. And yes, it would have
been harder for Hart to sleepwalk
through this version, but it would
have been undoubtedly better than
settling for weird noises and a fart
joke.
‘Night School’ should be
shoved in a locker for good
“Night School”
Ann Arbor 20 + IMAX,
Goodrich Quality 16
Universal Pictures
JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer
FILM REVIEW
The Rick and
Morty Soundtrack
Rick and Morty
Sub Pop Records
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
I woke up this
morning, set
my Spotify to
“Private Session,”
and hit play, fully
expecting to
wince through
the entire record
Taking a gag
that isn’t funny
to begin with and
extending it to
mind-numbing
lengths isn’t the
very essence of
comedy, it’s the
very essence of
sadism
6 — Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com