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Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

By Mark McClain
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
12/05/18

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

12/05/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, December 5, 2018

ACROSS
1 Insurance
submission
6 Spars on the
briny
11 Spanish I verb
14 Vital body vessel
15 Choristers who
are usually
women
16 Young bloke
17 Get increasingly
steamed
19 “Diary of a Wimpy
__”: Jeff Kinney
book series
20 Home of the
NHL’s Blues
21 Scrape off
22 Radio hobbyists
23 Rickie Fowler’s
org.
24 One way to travel
26 Provocative
social media
tactic
32 Old Italian bread?
34 Jai __
35 Forearm-related
36 Wee hr.
38 Approves
39 Disciple’s query
40 “Am not!” retort
41 Spa treatment
43 Bullet __: list
highlight
44 Battlefield order
47 __ Mode,
designer voiced
by Brad Bird in
“Incredibles 2”
48 Strive
49 Skinny
51 Sleeping bag
closer
55 Getting stuff
done, initially
58 “Who, me?”
59 Striking white
stripe between a
horse’s eyes
61 From A to Z
62 Venue with
skyboxes
63 Expected
64 Animation frame
65 Venomous snake
66 Hindu spiritual
writing

DOWN
1 Despicable
dudes
2 Ransack

3 Depleted sea
4 “__ Quiet
Uptown”:
“Hamilton” song
5 Spanish dessert
wine
6 Bryn __ College
7 Goya’s “Duchess
of __”
8 It may be ear-
piercing
9 Bullfight figure
10 ID gradually
being omitted
from Medicare
cards
11 Water’s
capability to
neutralize acid
12 Injure badly
13 Track ratios
18 President who
appointed two
women to the
Supreme Court
22 Sledding spot
23 “Yes, fine by me”
25 Pierre’s “his”
26 Second cup at a
diner, e.g.
27 Unite on the sly
28 Spoken for
29 Stairway
element

30 Statistician Silver
31 Dire
32 Bakery unit
33 Cross inscription
37 Like harvested
hay
42 Video game
stage
45 Black ice, e.g.
46 Boeing rival
49 All-in-one Apple
50 Florida State
player, familiarly

52 Secured, as a
win
53 Source of cones
54 Early late-night
TV host
55 Lacking slack
56 Business
magnate
57 Olympics coach
Karolyi
59 Tower authority:
Abbr.
60 The SEC’s Tigers

More than almost any movie
released this year, “Instant Family”
wears its heart on its sleeve. Early
on, as Mark Wahlberg’s (“Mile
22”) Pete and Rose Byrne’s (“Peter
Rabbit”) Ellie walk through a
foster care center, the camera
lingers on a poster announcing
“November is National Adoption
Month!” Throughout the movie,
characters work to make clear the
plight of youth in the system and
the importance of finding them
loving homes. Before the credits
roll, websites are given for viewers
to find out more about fostering
adopting
children.
“Instant
Family” is a message movie, and
it’s not a terribly subtle one.
There’s a cynical side of me
that’s driven to criticize the film for
this ham-fistedness — it’s the same
side that’s led to my cementing a
reputation as someone who likes
to, or at least has a knack for,
writing negative reviews — but
if it’s cool with you, I’d like to do
something different. Instead of
lambasting “Instant Family” for
its cheesiness, I’d like to focus on
how fundamentally good-hearted
it is, and how genuine emotion
driven by strong performances
and a terrific sense of humor earn
it every ounce of its schmaltz.
So many films try and fail for
this sort of touching story. They
go their entire runtimes tossing

out cheap, predictable emotional
moments sandwiched between
equally
dull
jokes.
“Instant
Family” director Sean Anders is
no stranger to this, having helmed
“Daddy’s Home 2” — a truly sad
attempt at a Christmas comedy
— but here he strikes gold. Where
“Daddy’s Home 2” seemed nearly
incapable of landing a punchline,
“Instant
Family”
establishes
early on that it knows how to set
up a great joke and how to follow

through with it. It may be too early
to say that Anders learned from
the mistakes of his earlier films,
but at the very least, he’s clearly
learned to let the jokes breathe
and allow the chemistry between
his performers to speak for itself.
Wahlberg and Byrne head up the
cast and play off each other well.
The relationship between them
that forms the core of the movie is
easy to believe as a result. There’s
little
time
spent
establishing
them; we’re just thrown into their
marriage and expected to follow
along. The stand-out of the cast
is Isabela Moner (“Sicario: Day of
the Soldado”) as Lizzy, the oldest
of the foster siblings Pete and Ellie

adopt. Moner already proved that
she can partially salvage even a
flat script with her work in the
“Sicario” sequel, and with the
stronger script present in “Instant
Family,” she shines in a role that
finds her perfectly portraying
a teenager who has been in the
system long enough to become
jaded by it. The young actress’s
work in the past year alone has
proven her to be a talent to watch
as her career continues.
For
all
the
well-deserved
praise there is to be heaped upon
the main cast, a word must be
spared for the supporting players.
Octavia Spencer (“The Shape of
Water”) and Tig Notaro (“Dog
Days”) play Karen and Sharon,
the two social workers who help
Pete and Ellie as they enter the
world of foster parenting, and they
both lend vibrant performances
to
characters
that
another
script may have left devoid of
personality. Here, they become
comedic highlights of the film,
an odd couple that never fails
to get a laugh. As Pete’s mother
Sandy, perpetual scene-stealer
(and University alum!) Margo
Martindale (“Sneaky Pete”) gets
perhaps the most emotionally
resonant moment of a film chock-
full of them. Everyone, onscreen
and off, gives their all, and the
finished product reflects that over
and over again. “Instant Family” is
a film with a goal, gooey edges and
all; it’s a rousing, funny and deeply
moving success.

JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

FILM REVIEW

‘Instant Family’ is a fun
and wholesome delight

In a recent interview with
Vulture, rapper Earl Sweatshirt
reflected on the sound of his
most recent third studio album
Some Rap Songs, stating that,
“(the album) is infinitum. It’s
the snake eating its tail.”
As the quote suggests, Some
Rap Songs brings to mind
an image of the ouroboros.
Each song is built solely off of
loops — segments of endlessly
repeating
warped
beats,
stripped-down instrumentals
and muffled audio clips. Each
track’s end eats the beginning
of the next, creating a sort of
timeless vacuum both within
the
songs
themselves
and
within the album as a whole.
In this nebula, Earl Sweatshirt
floats,
allowing
his
verses
to
unravel,
free-form
and
purposefully
off-beat.
The

resulting sound is markedly
different
from
the
sharp
technical perfection of any
of Earl’s past projects, yet to
produce something polished
doesn’t seem to be the point.
Within
the
hypnotism
of
intense loops, Some Rap Songs
constantly
redefines
itself,
creating a layered meditation
on where Earl Sweatshirt has

been, on how he is now and
on where he could go in the
future.
In
the
ouroboros,
it
is
impossible to arrive at the
end without simultaneously
stumbling upon the beginning.
In
the
same
sense,
it
is
impossible to appraise this

album without first looking
back.
Earl Sweatshirt made his
official debut in 2010 with the
release of the “EARL” music
video. “I got nuts to bust,
and butts to fuck, and ups to
shut / And sluts to fucking
uppercut / It’s O-F, buttercup,
go head, fuck with us,” he
raps over scenes of him and
other members of Odd Future
(see:
OFWGKTA)
loitering
around various locations in
Los Angeles. Under a fisheye
lens, they drink a suspiciously
brown concoction that is equal
parts
prescription
drugs,
cough
syrup,
malt
liquor
and marijuana. They end up
convulsing on the ground,
foaming at the mouth and
spitting
up
various
bodily
fluids.
This
offensively
grotesque
parody
of
body
horror matches the insolence
of
the
self-titled
mixtape
“EARL” emerged from. Here,

verses barbed with hostility
and cartoonish rowdiness land
like punches to the gut.
Earl
is
aimlessly
angry,
pushing
the
boundary
of
social acceptability without
any
substance
behind
the
drive.
Yet,
there
was
no
denying Earl Sweatshirt’s skill
—
heavy-handed
wordplay
unpacking
neatly,
precise
yet still unpredictable — and
he
soon
caught
attention,
especially after disappearing
shortly (spending a hiatus at
a boarding school in Samoa)
after Earl’s release, as the
rest of Odd Future adopted
“Free Earl!” into a rallying
cry. In this absence, Earl
Sweatshirt became a symbol
that Odd Future used in part
to catapult themselves further
into the public sphere, an
anarchic representation that
was discordant to the Earl
who ended up returning two
years later to L.A. Within his
time apart from Odd Future’s
chaotic world, he found space
to turn his attention inward,
changing perspectives as he
changed physical locations.
Perhaps a result of this
isolated period of discovery,
or perhaps not, in between
every
single
project
Earl
Sweatshirt has released —
from Earl to 2013’s Doris to
2015’s I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t
Go Outside: An Album by Earl
Sweatshirt to this year’s Some
Rap Songs — there has been a
progression: of technical skill,
of self, of forms of expression.
This growth is evident within
Earl’s music. Doris dismantles
Earl’s juvenile foundations and
builds them anew, grounding
songs in more personal subject
matter
and
showcasing
a
greater variation in sound
while still maintaining the
dense, twisting, MF DOOM-
esque
lyricism
he
became
infamous for in 2010.
I Don’t Like Shit takes
Doris’s
eclecticism
and
flattens it, focusing inward.
Sweeping samples and bright
jazz-infused chords are made
murky,
transformed
into
fragmented
instrumentation
and muddled melodies — a dark
backdrop that Earl cuts right
through. Oftentimes rapping
at a slower pace than he did
on Doris or Earl, his words
seem to be the biggest focus
of I Don’t Like Shit, diving
into his own psyche with a
heaviness that was never quite
as apparent before. If this was
rock bottom, then Some Rap
Songs arrives like the first
breath of air after emerging
from the waves. It cuts all
the previous deadweight to
effortlessly hang suspended: a

masterwork of efficiency.
In the grand scheme of
Earl
Sweatshirt’s
entire
discography (save for 2015’s
loosie “solace”), Some Rap
Songs stands out as a kind
of anomaly. Rather than the
clean organization of bars

delivered one on top of the
next in staccato bursts, this
album is more organic. It
glitches; it hisses; it loops
relentlessly over bars that
aimlessly
drift
off
into
a
multitude of directions. Take
opener “Shattered Dreams” —
the loop begins with a sample
from author James Baldwin.
“Imprecise words,” Baldwin
states and the beat haltingly
picks up, stumbling under the
drawn-out fuzzy repetition of
“dreams.” Beneath it all, Earl
ambles
into
nonsequiturs,
“Mask off, mask on, we trick-
or-treatin’ / Back off, stand-
offish and anemic / Yeah, my
n***a Ish, told him it’s a feelin’
/ Blast off, buckshot into my
ceilin’.” The result is a track
that sinks into an introspective
haze, and within its garbled
notes, Earl taps into a nearly
uncharacterizable sentiment:
a yearning, a searching and a
wistfulness for something just
beyond reach.
This
strange
abstraction
of mood and sound is due
in part to Some Rap Songs’s
collaborators. The crew of
young artists who worked on
the album with Earl — NYC
rappers MIKE and Medhane,
alongside
rapper/producer
Sixpress
and
innovative
collective Standing on the

Corner,
among
others
—
are all known for pushing
experimental
boundaries
within
their
own
music,
splintering apart traditional
aspects of jazz and hip hop
in order to create a more
unorthodox
form
of
soul-
searching. “I be with Mike and
Med / Nowadays I be with Sage
and with Sixpress, ya dig?” Earl
says on “Nowhere2Go,” and it’s
easy to see the effect of these
new relationships through the
album’s preference for feeling
over structure.
Most of the tracks on Some
Rap Songs hold some kind
of technical malfunction —
Earl Sweatshirt’s raps don’t
sit quite right on the looped
sample of Soul Superiors’s
1970 song “Trust In Me Baby”
on “Ontheway!” and his verses
in “Peanut” are chopped and
layered so roughly it becomes
difficult to discern the words —
yet it is these very cracks in the
album’s musical landscape that
allows the underlying emotion
to be so easily perceived. Much
like J Dilla brought a human
aspect to the mechanics of his
programming,
incorporating
aspects of swing and groove
into his hip-hop beats, the
flaws on Some Rap Songs make
the album feel more personable
as
the
unfocused
looping
samples give Earl Sweatshirt
an opportunity to wander into
self-reflection.
Some
Rap
Songs
is
an
attempt
to
reconceive
not
only what kind of music Earl
Sweatshirt creates but who
exactly Earl Sweatshirt is.
On “Playing Possums,” Earl
stitches together recordings
of an old speech his mother,
Cheryl Harris, gave at UCLA
and
his
recently
deceased
father, Keorapestse Kgositsile,
reciting an excerpt from his
poem, “Anguish Longer Than
Sorrow.” “To my son Thebe,”
we hear Harris say. “Cultural
worker and student of life,
whose growth and insights
inspire
me,”
and
in
the
background, Kgositsile slowly
echoes, “For some children /
Words like home / Could not
carry any possible meaning
/ But / Displaced / Border /
Refugee.” It is an effort to
reconcile two very strained
familial
relationships,
and
although
Kgositsile
passed
away before he could hear it,
the intent behind “Playing
Possums”
still
remains
strongly rooted within the
framework of Some Rap Songs:
a cathartic letter addressed
in the form of music, bringing
with it the belief that there
is always a chance to rebuild
anew again.

COLUMBIA RECORDS

ALBUM REVIEW

Thoughts on ‘Some Songs’

SHIMA SADAGHIYANI
Daily Music Editor

“Instant Family”

Ann Arbor 20 +
IMAX, Goodrich
Quality 16

Paramount Pictures

Some Rap Songs

Earl Sweatshirt

Tan Cressida

Some Rap
Songs is an
attempt to
reconceive not
only what kind
of music Earl
Sweatshirt
creates
but who
exactly Earl
Sweatshirt is

6A — Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com