Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
By Norfleet Pruden
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/27/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
03/27/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, March 27, 2019
ACROSS
1 Sow chow
5 Sport with clay
disks
10 “House Hunters”
channel
14 Kind of
curriculum
15 Mural prefix
16 Nécessité for a
soufflé
17 Food thickener
18 Anti-wrinkle
option
19 Hearty bowlful
20 Shenanigans
23 Wrinkly little
dog
24 Gore and
Green
25 Defunct
supermarket
chain that once
had nearly
16,000 stores
27 Lines on a list
29 Thick slice
32 Break bread
33 Adds bubbles to
36 Tropicana Field
MLB team
37 “Nonsense!”
40 Cry under a pop
fly
41 Shiraz resident
42 Find a job for
43 Organic
compound
44 Freeways and
parkways
48 Store in a queue
for printing
50 Like some pkgs.
52 India-born author
Santha Rama __
53 Nabisco product
whose package
formerly
displayed circus
cages
58 Soon, long ago
59 Baby’s ailment
60 Oodles
61 URL connection
62 Tiny amount
63 Beekeeper
played by Peter
Fonda
64 Deck quartet
65 Underground
home of the Ninja
Turtles
66 Surname of the
stars of 20-, 37-
and 53-Across
DOWN
1 Shrimp dish
2 Leave a chat
room, say
3 Grand Marnier
flavor
4 Central __:
“Friends” coffee
house
5 Female oracle
6 Drawer handles
7 Words to a traitor
8 Love god
9 Roll to the
runway
10 Biblical prophet
11 Comes close to
12 When general
U.S. elections
are held
13 Ex-GIs’ gp.
21 Makes less
difficult
22 Catch red-
handed
26 Qt. halves
28 Stable mother
29 Base runner’s
ploy
30 Like tough
economic times
31 Wine province
near Turin
34 Free __: carte
blanche
35 Jackson 5 hairdo
36 City that aptly
rhymes with
“casino”
37 From Latin
America
38 Like a typical
therapy session
39 Capital of
Canada?
40 Juilliard subj.
43 Shade tree
45 Colorful ring
46 Quick mover
47 English Channel
county
49 Sty chorus
50 Haggling focus
51 Indiana NBA
player
54 Show parts
55 Handed-down
stories
56 Crab’s grabber
57 “America’s Got
Talent” judge
Heidi
58 Miss. neighbor
EFFICIENCY ‑ 1 & 2 Bdrm Apts
Fall 2019/20 Rents range $875 ‑ $1850
most include heat and water.
Showings scheduled M‑F 10‑3
734‑996‑1991
STUDENT SUMMER STORAGE
Closest to campus, Indoor, Clean,
Safe. Reserve now at annarborstor‑
age.com or (734) 663‑0690
FOR RENT
SERVICES
A few months ago, the writer Rachel Syme asked
on Twitter, “Who is a woman, who, growing up,
you always thought of as kind of a public joke but
upon getting older you realized her story wasn’t
so funny after all.” Thousands of replies poured
in: the elderly woman who sued McDonald’s in
the famous hot coffee case, Monica Lewinsky,
Judy
Garland,
Tonya Harding,
Yoko Ono. It was
a
discomfiting
reminder
of
all the women
unfairly written
off, left to the
wrath
of
a
vicious
public
and
an
even
more
vicious
tabloid press.
Among
the
more
popular
answers
to
Syme’s
prompt
was
Marcia
Clark, the lead
prosecutor
in
the O.J. Simpson
trial, who, for
a few months in 1995, was subjected to the most
derisive, intrusive media coverage imaginable.
Her sartorial choices were mocked, her marital
troubles dissected for entertainment. When
the O.J. case was revisited in the form of two
spectacular TV shows in 2016 — an eight-hour
documentary on ESPN and an FX miniseries — it
only seemed right that Clark be reappraised with
it.
And she was. When Sarah Paulson won an
Emmy for her thoughtful portrayal of Clark
in FX’s “American Crime Story: People v. O.J.
Simpson,” the actress took the opportunity to
offer a personal and symbolic apology: “The more
I learned about the real Marcia Clark … I had to
recognize that I, along with the rest of the world,
had been superficial and careless in my judgment.
And I am glad to be able to stand here today in
front of everyone and tell you I’m sorry.”
But Clark’s redemption is only a recent
development.
The
first
season
finale
of
“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” had Tina Fey
doing a particularly cruel impression — bumbling,
inept, unfortunately-permed — as late as 2015.
A little empathy now hardly makes up for two
decades of ridicule. Can you really blame Marcia
Clark for wanting a do-over?
She gets one on ABC’s new drama “The Fix,” if
only a fictional one. The show, executive produced
by Clark, imagines a maligned prosecutor being
given a second chance to convict the beloved
Black celebrity who got away. Maya Travis (Robin
Tunney, “The Mentalist”) is living a quiet life
on a ranch in
Washington
State eight years
after failing to
convict the actor
Sevvy
Johnson
(Adewale
Akinnuoye-
Agbaje,
“Lost”)
of
the
double
homicide
of
his
wife
and
her friend. But
Maya
springs
back into action
when her former
co-prosecutor
(Adam
Rayner,
“Tyrant”)
shows up on her
doorstep to ask
for help: Sevvy’s
girlfriend has been found bludgeoned to death on
a beach, and this time, the Los Angeles County
DA’s office wants to win.
It’s about as O.J. as you can get without it being
the real thing. There’s an oily, coiffed Robert
Kardashian-Robert Shapiro wannabe defense
lawyer, a floppy-haired Kato Kaelin analogue
living in the pool house, rumors of a dalliance
between the prosecutors. To its credit, “The Fix”
doesn’t try to pretend this is anything other than
what it is: pure wish fulfillment, a postmortem
revenge fantasy. Beyond that intrigue, there
isn’t much here. There’s some slick production,
self-important lines about carrying out justice
and some very good-looking people delivering
them — ABC is a perfect home for it. It’s mostly
entertaining, with one caveat: A story about a
white woman on a revenge crusade to lock up a
rage-filled Black man plays a little awkwardly in
2019. And if we learned anything from the O.J.
revisiting in 2016, it’s that telling one side of a
story doesn’t do anyone much good.
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia
TV REVIEW
MAITREYI ANANTHARAMAN
Daily Arts Writer
The Fix
ABC
Pilot
Mondays @ 10 p.m.
Following
the
unqualified
success of “Wonder Woman,”
the equally unqualified failure
of “Justice League” and that
time they let James Wan dose
the entire world with a cocktail
of crack cocaine, LSD
and seaweed, it’s safe
to say that the future
of the DC films slate
is somewhat in flux,
to say nothing of the
numerous
behind-
the-scenes
shake-
ups. The burden was
on “Shazam!” (along
with “Aquaman”) to
shine a light on where
things are going next.
Are they going to keep
trying to chase that
most elusive of white
whales, the Marvel-
style shared universe?
Or
are
the
rumors
true
that they’ll focus more on
individual stories rather than
risk another “Justice League”-
caliber cinematic belly flop? If
“Shazam!” is any indication,
its definitely the latter, but that
doesn’t necessarily result in
a better movie, as DC shows
that even with a brighter coat
of paint, they are committed to
doing little more than the bare
minimum in search of superhero
success.
“Shazam!” has been billed as
a classic sort of family movie in
the vein of “Big,” and not just in
terms of story — we’ve been told
it’ll pack thrills and laughs for
parents and children alike, and
to an extent it does just that. In
the title role, Zachary Levi (“The
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) brings
the youthful enthusiasm and
boundless, likeable energy that’s
made him a nerd icon to a role
he was born to play: a teenager
with the ability to transform
into an adult superhero. Again,
the parallels to “Big” almost
write themselves. The message
about the importance of family
is a nice touch, as well, and if
the movie is anything more than
the sum of its parts, it’s because
of the emotion Levi and costars
Asher Angel (“Andi Mack”) and
Jack Dylan Grazer (“It”) wring
out of their scenes as foster
brothers.
“Shazam!” is an old-fashioned
movie in another way, though
— like last year’s “Venom,” it’s
the kind of superhero movie
that was getting made before
we knew they were capable of
more. It feels like it’s from a
time where it was enough to
cast a couple likeable actors,
put one of them in a supersuit
and have them punch bad guys
with the exact same power set
as them, but it’s 2019, and the
genre has moved on. “Black
Panther” just won three Oscars
and got nominated for Best
Picture. “Into the Spiderverse”
was one of the best movies of
last year and opened an entire
multiverse of possibilities for
animation going forward. DC’s
own “Wonder Woman” dragged
the genre kicking and screaming
into an era it should have entered
long ago, but two years later, DC
is back to playing catch-up, not
with Marvel, but with superhero
filmdom itself.
I’m not saying that every
superhero movie has to be a
success on the level of those
films; that would be deeply
unfair. But a little effort outside
of the bare minimum is a
necessity at this point. Write
a three-dimensional cast, or a
villain worthy of the actor you
cast in the role or something
interesting. That’s where these
movies — where any movies
— live and breathe. “Ant-Man
and the Wasp” doesn’t have a
good story, but what it
does have that makes
it easy to return to is a
great cast of characters.
Outside
of
Billy
Batson
(Angel/Levi)
and Freddy Freeman
(Grazer) not a single
member of the cast
of “Shazam!” gets a
personality outside of
their one quirk: the one
who plays video games,
the one going to college,
the one who … talks,
etc. Then there’s Mark
Strong
(“Kingsman:
The Golden Circle”) as
Thaddeus Sivana, a villain who
stops the film cold whenever
he appears. His requisite CGI
cohorts, despite ostensibly being
the driving force of the plot,
apparently don’t even merit the
effort it would take to animate
their mouths moving when they
speak.
“Shazam!” isn’t necessarily a
step backward for DC, because
at
the
very
least,
they’ve
stopped mucking around in
monochromatic
doom
and
gloom, but it’s representative of
something just as bad: stagnation.
It’s good for a chuckle here and
there and anything that gets
Levi’s name on a marquee will
always be somewhat welcome to
me, but its overly simplistic story
and underwritten characters
are reminiscent of an era comic
book movies are quickly leaving
behind. If DC wants a chance
at keeping up, they need to
understand that adding a few
jokes isn’t the solution, it’s
taking a page from the superhero
handbook
and
becoming
something more.
DC continues their losing
game with latest ‘Shazam’
FILM REVIEW
JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer
Shazam!
Warner Bros. Pictures
Early Screening
This
past
weekend
MUSKET,
the
University’s
student-run musical theatre
organization,
presented
“Legally Blonde,” directed by
School of Music, Theatre &
Dance senior BFA directing
candidate Bruna d’Avila and
produced by a team of all
female producers.
The
musical
has
some
serious undertones, which in
the “Me Too” era takes on a
different face. d’Avila set out
to reinvent what we think of
when we think “Elle Woods”
and her connection to modern,
third wave feminism. As I
watched the musical play out
on that glorious Power Center
stage, no longer was Elle a
breezy, materialistic blonde
on the hunt for a man. Instead,
in MUSKET’s world, Elle is a
fierce feminist in a universe
that
pushes
back
against
her integrity, proving that
surface level judgements don’t
aggregate in truth.
d’Avila’s
direction
was
thoughtful
and
poignant,
with an astute lens on the
political implications of the
text and how it can stretch
and resonate with audiences
today. She focused not only
on aesthetic, but substance,
giving
audiences
spoonfuls
of what they remember from
the film along with added
layers of depth. The happy-go-
lucky dialogue and impressive
ensemble
dance
numbers
choreographed
by
SMTD
junior
Maya
Alwan
read
as nothing short of a party
you just can’t help but want
to join and married nicely
with a strong consideration
on the true themes of the
story. d’Avila dug into the
text, finding the exceptional
moments to highlight amidst
the zeal and the sequins.
Mikaela
Secada,
SMTD
sophomore
BFA
musical
theatre candidate, who took
the stage by storm as Elle
Woods, is nothing short of a
star. She vocally carried the
show — her clear, strong belt
filled the Power Center, which
is not an easily accomplished
feat. She proved herself a
triple
threat,
mastering
Alwan’s choreography in three
inch heels, riffing her way
through act one finale “So
Much Better” and bringing
a new light to Elle Woods.
She managed to render Elle
as something more than the
charming ingenue we’re quick
to see her as. Secada’s Elle was
as a passionate young woman
with
motivated
choices,
nuanced
thoughtfulness,
a
selfless
energy
and
peppy
resilience — even when the
world wants her to fail. Secada
took the stereotypes Elle could
be reduced to and subverted
them.
Secada’s Elle Woods isn’t
the Elle we picture in our
head — and that’s where
the magic comes from. As
a
Cuban-American
woman,
the possibility to play Elle
Woods was never on her
radar. It has only recently
become more common to see
members of the Latinx and
minority communities playing
traditionally white roles. It
takes directors like d’Avila
and young theatre makers
like Secada to blaze a trail for
more inclusive casting going
forward.
When
asking
d’Avila,
in an interview about the
casting choice, she said, “My
Elle Woods is Latina. In
discussions with her about
how we felt about that choice,
Mikaela Secada told me, ‘I just
never thought I could be Elle
Woods, it is an amazing role,
but I never considered it one
of my dream roles because I
didn’t look like her.’ It’s actors
like
Mikaela
Secada
who
expand young performer of
color’s view of what they can
do on stage.”
Along
with
the
nontraditional casting, which
comments on the trajectory
theatre is on toward a more
inclusive reality, d’Avila made
choices to open the piece
to
a
larger
socio-political
dimension as well. Professor
Callahan,
the
brusque,
misogynistic
law
professor
played by SMTD sophomore
Henry
Pederson,
another
strong
cast
standout,
was
dressed in a navy blue suit
and a red tie, appearing eerily
similar to a certain current
U.S. president, as he belittled
and picked on Elle to the point
of sexual assault in the climax
of the musical.
The
backbone
of
the
excellence was the imaginative,
multi-functional set. Rendered
by SMTD Bachelor Theatre
Art senior Emma Somers, it
consisted of moving walls to
exhibit multiple locations. This
innovative set design allowed
for
seamless
transitions
between scenes.
d’Avila truly outdid herself
with
MUSKET’s
“Legally
Blonde”, proving that she is
ready for a larger career in
pushing
and
illuminating
minority
stories
on
stage.
MUSKET’s
production
of
“Legally
Blonde”
was
a
sugar rush with no cavity, a
believe in yourself comedy
with a feminist protagonist
and
surprisingly
weighty
undertones. It is a perfectly
pink confectionary experience
which
leaves
you
winded,
thoughtful,
pleasantly
surprised and dancing straight
out of the theatre.
Remixing ‘Legally Blonde’
COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
ELI RALLO
Daily Arts Writer
6A — Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com