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By C.C. Burnikel
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/21/18

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

11/21/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, November 21, 2018

ACROSS
1 Plane engine 
housing
4 Hindu philosophy
10 “Don’t leave”
14 Previously
15 Signals for 
firefighters
16 Only state with a 
non-rectangular 
flag
17 Big beverage 
server
18 Church official
20 “I’m game!”
22 Business abbr.
23 Singer Mann
24 Vermont senator 
since 2007
28 Gambling city on 
the Truckee
29 Golden Delicious, 
e.g.
30 Hosp. recovery 
area
32 Prepared
33 Add to the staff
37 With 39-Across, 
seed money ... or 
what 18-, 24-, 48- 
and 58-Across 
each has
39 See 37-Across
41 Jedi master with 
pointy ears
42 Twaddle
44 Business losses, 
figuratively
45 Biting desert 
lizards
47 Buddhist temple 
bell
48 “Thus with a kiss 
I die” speaker
53 Amazon Echo’s 
voice assistant
54 Youthful fellow
55 Difficult journey
58 Baked pasta dish
62 “__ you alone?”
63 Flood-anticipation 
precaution, briefly
64 Was nearly empty
65 Fabric flaw
66 Dollars for 
quarters
67 Word from a 
poser
68 Thus far

DOWN
1 Folklore 
lumberjack 
Bunyan

2 Fantasy meanie
3 “Chin up!”
4 Touch lightly
5 Harlem 
Renaissance 
writer Locke
6 C.S. Lewis’ 
fantasy world
7 Bench press 
beneficiary
8 White House’s 
132: Abbr.
9 Firepit detritus
10 Three-
dimensional
11 __ park
12 Broadcaster
13 Oxen 
connectors
19 Stick for a walk
21 Nissan sedan
25 Ginger or 
ginseng
26 Builder’s 
guideline, briefly
27 Ring exchange 
place
28 __-Rooter
30 “Gangnam Style” 
musician
31 Festival in the 
month of Adar
33 Holed up
34 Travel plan

35 Hit the bell
36 Caribou cousin
38 Sport for 
equestrians
40 Simon who 
co-wrote and 
co-starred in 
“Shaun of the 
Dead”
43 Sun worshiper’s 
mark
45 Nanny __
46 Bread or butter

48 Not so well-done
49 Salade niçoise 
morsel
50 Fox of 
“Transformers”
51 Precise
52 “Until next time”
56 Cleveland’s lake
57 Held on to
59 Tolkien monster
60 “Don’t think so”
61 Little lamb’s 
mom

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20TH CENTURY FOX

FILM REVIEW

Running down the “Widows” 

cast list is like running down 
a who’s who of in demand 
Hollywood 
talent. 
There’s 

dramatic powerhouses like Viola 
Davis (“Fences”) and Carrie Coon 
(“The Post”), action genre favorites 
like Michelle Rodriguez (“The 
Fate of the Furious”) and Liam 
Neeson (“The Commuter”), major 
TV players like Brian Tyree Henry 
(“Atlanta”) and Jon Bernthal 
(“Marvel’s The Punisher”) and 
spotlight newcomers like Daniel 
Kaluuya (“Black Panther”) and 
Cynthia Erivo (“Bad Times at the 
El Royale”). It’s an insane group 
of insanely talented performers 
director Steve McQueen (“12 
Years a Slave”) has assembled, 
one that could easily could have 
gone undeserved, as any number 
of stacked casts do every year. The 
foundation of “Widows” isn’t in 
its cast, though; it’s in the script 
written by McQueen and Gillian 
Flynn (“Sharp Objects”).

For a story that, at times, is 

almost intimately focused on the 
internal lives of its leads and even 
its side characters, thematically 
“Widows” is an epic work that 
examines inequity in all its forms, 
from racism to class to the pitfalls 
of capitalism. The world is founded 
on viciously abusive cycles, it 

argues. Everyone is indebted 
to someone higher up the food 
chain. In what is destined to be the 
movie’s most memorable moment, 
McQueen mounts a camera on 
the hood of a car to make his 
film’s heart manifest and shoots 
a tracking shot that takes viewers 

from a poor, predominantly Black 
neighborhood 
to 
ritzy, 
white 

mansions in the space of just a 
few blocks. It’s a breathtaking 
bit of filmmaking not just for its 
technical merits, but for what it 
says without saying anything at 
all.

This is also a crime film, 

however, one sold on car chases 
and 
gunplay, 
and 
from 
the 

immediately 
visceral 
opening 

scene, “Widows” establishes itself 
as a thrill ride just as concerned 
with the character beats in 
between the heists as it is with the 
heists themselves. We’re treated 
to quiet, idyllic shots of Davis and 
Neeson in bed together, juxtaposed 
without warning with scenes of 
frightening 
violence, 
cracking 

gunshots and screaming. The rest 
of the movie proceeds in much the 
same way; even at its most internal 
moments, the specter of a bloody 
death – personified with terrifying 
psychotic energy by Kaluuya – is 
never far removed from the minds 
of the characters. It takes its time 
establishing its story and its huge 
cast of characters, which only 
makes the breathless second half 
that much more enthralling.

It’s on this foundation of 

smart writing and direction that 
McQueen’s cast soars. It would 
be easy to imagine Davis, one of 
the most wildly talented actresses 
alive, stealing the show, and while 
she’s as commanding a presence 
as ever, the spotlight just as often 
belongs to Elizabeth Debicki 
(“The Cloverfield Paradox”) as 
Alice, a woman struggling to claim 
her own agency after the death of 
her abusive husband forces her to 
find work as an escort. For how 
brutal and cold “Widows” can be, 
in Alice’s arc there is an ounce of 
catharsis without which the film 
may have proven too bleak.

And make no mistake, for all the 

popcorn thrills that are promised 
and eventually delivered upon, 
“Widows” is a hard movie, one 
that forces its viewers to look at 
society and reckon with its flaws 
and injustice. You’ll gasp at its 
twists and turns just as you’ll sit 
back and think long and hard 
about what you’ve just seen. 

JEREMIAH VANDERHELM

Daily Arts Writer

‘Widows’ soars with one of 
the best casts of the year

“Widows”

Ann Arbor 20 + 
IMAX, Goodrich 

Quality 16

20th Century Fox

Had Desiree Akhavan not 

explicitly said that she dislikes 
being 
called 
the 
bisexual 

Lena Dunham, I might have 
compared her excellent new 
show on Hulu, “The Bisexual,” 
to HBO’s “Girls.” It’s a difficult 
comparison to resist — there’s 
something 
awfully 
familiar 

about 
the 
pithy, 
neurotic 

dialogue, fumbly sex scenes 
and skittish, scruffy characters 
who straddle the line between 
being in on the joke and being 
the punchline.

But 
“The 
Bisexual” 

manages to do what so many 
introspective 
mumblecore-

type shows — “Girls” included 
— often struggle to pull off: It 
finds something to say. Despite 
having all the trappings of a 
show about nothing, it’s very 
much a show about something; 
it’s a new sort of coming-out 
story that muses thoughtfully 
on 
intergenerational 
and 

cultural tensions.

Leila (Akhavan, “Appropriate 

Behavior”) 
is 
an 
Iranian-

American woman living in 
London with her longterm 
girlfriend 
and 
business 

partner, Sadie (Maxine Peake, 
“Silk”). 
Together, 
they’re 

working on an app they market 
as “Shazam for clothing.” But 
just before the app’s launch, 
Sadie 
proposes, 
and 
Leila 

gets cold feet about the whole 
relationship. They decide to 
take a break, and Leila is left to 
reflect on her own history and 
identity.

We know from the show’s 

beginning that Leila is the 
titular bisexual — following 
her breakup with Sadie, she 
begins to explore her attraction 
to men. But it’s Leila herself 
who is most afraid to adopt 
the label. “It’s tacky,” she says, 
balking at the term when a 
new roommate uses it. “It’s 
gauche, it makes you seem 
disingenuous, like your genitals 
have no allegiance. Like you 
have no criteria for people, just 
an open door policy.”

Her reluctance stems from 

a few places: her judgmental 
social 
circles, 
her 
own 

insecurities and, most of all, 
the fact that she has only 
identified as a lesbian her 
entire life. “Everyone under 
25 thinks they’re queer,” Leila 
explains to a college student 
who can’t understand why 
identifying as bisexual is such 
a big deal. “When you have to 
fight for it, I think that being 
gay can become the biggest 
part of you. You’re gay or you’re 
straight and one comes with an 
entirely different lifestyle than 
the other, like different clothes 
and different friends, and you 
can’t do both.”

And indeed, to Sadie, who 

is several years older than 
Leila, 
Leila’s 
bisexuality 

comes as a kind of betrayal, 
a flippant position to take on 
something loaded with trauma 
and struggle. “Have you any 
idea what it takes to be a dyke 

growing up in the ’80s?” Sadie 
yells.

Though “The Bisexual” is 

steeped in raw, uncomfortable 
vulnerability, 
it 
is 
also 

intensely, 
mordantly 
funny. 

We’re 
given 
some 
comic 

relief in Gabe (Brian Gleeson, 
“Love/Hate”), Leila’s painfully 
straight roommate who goes 
to dinner with Leila’s lesbian 
friends and immediately asks 
them what they thought of 
“Blue is the Warmest Color.” 
The 
show’s 
best 
zingers, 

though, are reserved for Leila’s 
friend Deniz (newcomer Saskia 
Chana), who compares Leila to 
a girl in a Judd Apatow movie 
when she begins socializing 
with straight people. “I didn’t 
realize you were so familiar 
with his oeuvre,” Leila snipes 
back. In another episode, an 
employee accuses Leila and 
Sadie of filling the office 
bathroom’s 
Aesop 
bottles 

with Imperial Leather. It’s 
the sort of reference you’ll 
only 
understand 
if 
you’re 

well-versed in the world of 
expensive hand soaps, but the 
joke’s unapologetic nicheness 
almost makes it funnier.

It’s the humor that lends 

“The Bisexual” its emotional 
authenticity, with motivations 
that feel real and lived-in. 
Despite being the sort of people 
who could easily be unlikable 
— the type that goes to bizarre 
performance art shows and 
buys plantains at the farmers 
market — everyone on “The 
Bisexual” is endearing and 
appealing. Careful plotting and 
Akhavan’s own tender writing 
let each character have their 
own awakening, big and small. 

MAITREYI ANANTHARAMAN

Daily Arts Writer

Hulu’s ‘The Bisexual’ is the 
new mumblecore queen

TV REVIEW

“The Bisexual”

Hulu

Thanksgiving is a time for 

family. A holiday with no religious 
affiliation, a day filled with food 
and pie and football. The day 
begins with cooking and ends with 
cleaning. Somewhere in there 
the Lions will probably lose and 
someone will proclaim that Jim 
Harbuagh “really hasn’t been given 
enough credit.” Tears will be shed, 
a toddler will hit their head on a 
foosball table and the family will 
take their collective ability to talk 
at the speed of light and use it to 
verbally berate some politician or 
ghost of the family’s past. Once the 
tryptophan starts wearing off and 
everyone has woken up from their 
mid afternoon naps, only one thing 
remains: choosing a movie to watch 
that night.

Choosing a movie to watch with 

any group larger than two can be 
difficult. Studies have shown that 
the more options human beings 
are given the more difficult it is for 
them to make a decision. When 
faced with only two options it is 
much easier for our brains to weigh 
the pros and cons of each and by 
directly comparing the two come to 
a decision. This is why sometimes 
you find yourself having analysis 
paralysis when staring at your 
Netflix, unable to make any kind 
of decision. It’s hard enough for a 
single person to decide on a movie 
to watch when the entire history 
of cinema is available to them at 
the touch of a button, but throw in 
10 more people of varying ages and 
dispositions and you’ve just created 
the perfect recipe for endless 
arguing.

My grandparents have a taste 

that consists almost exclusively 
of really bad romantic comedies 
from 2004. My uncle always 
wants to watch “Ferris Bueller’s 
Day Off.” Some people like action 
movies and some hate them. My 
mom won’t watch anything that 
doesn’t pass “the Mom scare test.” 
Harry Potter barely passes. I have 
a cousin who went through a long 
period of time where he would only 
watch Disney’s “Miracle.” Trying 

to find a movie that is suitable for 
everyone is a Sisyphean task not 
worth the trouble. Soon someone 
will tell me, “You’re the movie guy, 
Ian, find something everyone will 
like.” Right. Because that’s what 
they’re teaching me in my film 
classes, where to find the list of 

movies that are suitable for both 
70-year-old women and teenage 
boys. 

They used to make movies that 

fit this description. We’ve watched 
them all. “Back to the Future.” “The 
Karate Kid.” “Ferris Bueller.” There 
is a whole genre of what I like to 
call “true family comedies” that 
no longer exists. Films that have a 
real story and real characters that 
are funny and intelligent and can 
be enjoyed by all ages. There aren’t 
really movies like this anymore. 
Nowadays there are three kinds of 
comedies made and none of them 
check all the boxes. There are super 
raunchy R-rated films like “The 
Hangover” 
and 
“Bridesmaids,” 

there are movies like “RV” that are 
unwatchable if you’re over the age 
of nine and there is whatever Adam 
Sandler crapped out most recently. 
None of these appeal to everyone in 
my family.

The sheer number of options 

available today makes finding a 
movie an endless quest that will 
make you wish you had never 
suggested it. My grandfather has a 
penchant for scrolling mindlessly 
through the new releases on 
Comcast OnDemand. With no real 
knowledge of what any of these 
movies are about, you’ll often find 

him proclaim some R-rated raunch 
fest to “look kind of interesting” or to 
go “What is Ant Man? Is that a real 
movie?” Don’t even get me started 
on my dad’s strange obsession with 
Robert Downey Jr. despite having 
not watched anything starring the 
man in almost a decade. “I heard 
the new Robert Downey is good, 
maybe everyone will like that” 
he’ll proclaim before my brother 
reminds him that he wouldn’t 
understand 
“Avengers: 
Infinity 

War” if we gave him a Marvel 
encyclopedia to keep next to him 
the entire time. Inevitably someone 
will remember that “Cheaper by 
the Dozen 2” exists and will try to 
convince the rest of the family that 
we haven’t seen it a dozen times 
before.

In the end, a “Seinfeld” DVD 

will hit the back of the player and 
everyone will be more or less 
content. After an episode and a 
half the grandparents are basically 
asleep, my parents aren’t far behind 
them and the Wii is calling and it’s 
saying let’s play “Madden 2008.” If 
anyone reaches the third episode on 
the disk they’ve made it farther than 
any of us could have anticipated. 
Slowly the beds are filled. A last piece 
of pie is snuck out of the kitchen. An 
aunt laughs over a game of Scrabble 
as my grandfather tries to play 
the word “Hrot” claiming that it 
is an “obscure plant that can only 
be found in Thailand.” Discarded 
movies that had no chance of being 
chosen litter the ground. Tomorrow 
will see the usual criticism of Black 
Friday, 
bewilderment 
at 
how 

quickly the apple crumb pie was 
eaten and discussion of a possible 
trip to the movies. That might lead 
to an argument too. Most of the 
movies in the theaters are bad after 
all. Why not just stay in and watch 
something at home? What should 
we watch? No one knows. It all 
begins again. We don’t really care 
though, because it’s never really 
been about the movie. It’s just about 
being together. Year in and year out, 
that’s still something to be thankful 
for.

How to choose a 

Thanksgiving movie

DAILY ENTERTAINMENT COLUMN

IAN HARRIS

6A — Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

