By Kristian House
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/05/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
09/05/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Thursday, September 5, 2019
ACROSS
1 Isla surrounder
5 Real cutup
10 Italian volcano
14 TV series that
had flashbacks,
flash-forwards
and multiple
timelines
15 Kemper of “The
Office”
16 Truant GI
17 *Brain trust
member
19 Meander
20 Afflicted with
illness, say
21 Gastric woe
22 *Nixon’s cocker
spaniel
25 PC key
26 Reel Big Fish
music genre
29 Pigs out (on)
30 Flying frenemy of
Godzilla
32 “Beaten” ways
34 One who is rotten
to the core?
37 Quartet member
38 *Influential record
company named
for co-founding
brothers Leonard
and Phil
40 Serb or Croat
41 Went over again
and again
43 Razz
44 Geometric given
45 Ox tail?
47 Hankering
48 Toward the stern
50 *Playful question
spoiled by caller
ID
53 2010 Supreme
Court appointee
55 Shows derision
for
59 Boast
60 *The USS Iowa,
e.g.
62 Toon mail-order
company
63 Be of use to
64 Sty sound
65 Swamp stalk
66 “Aw, fudge!”
67 Corddry of TV’s
“Mom”
DOWN
1 Help for the needy
2 Animal on the
Cubs’ 2016 World
Series rings
3 Space Race
inits.
4 Room often with
a slanted ceiling
5 Pulled quickly
6 Early Mexicans
7 “Hogan’s
Heroes” colonel
8 German article
9 Crimson, e.g.
10 Bluegrass legend
Scruggs
11 With 28-Down,
words to a
cheater ... or an
honest hint to
the answers to
starred clues
12 Original
13 At the ready
18 Heart
sonograms,
familiarly
21 Food safety
agcy.
23 Paleozoic and
Cenozoic
24 Retina cells
26 Exchange barbs
27 Curly cabbage
28 See 11-Down
31 Church area
33 The Cardiff
Giant, notably
34 __ Bath &
Beyond
35 Zap with a
beam
36 Equally
matched
38 __ En-lai
39 Iron-rich blood
pigment
42 Portent
43 Giggly sound
45 “Don’t you
agree?”
46 Resides
48 1556-1605 Mogul
emperor
49 Screwball
comedy
51 Celestial red
giant
52 Director Welles
54 Like good Scotch
56 LaBeouf of
“Transformers”
films
57 Informal
contraction
58 Toll rd.
60 Prohibition
61 “__ Maria”
Since
1969,
the
nation’s
most popular blues and jazz
musicians have made a stop in
Ann Arbor to take part in the
now-historic Ann Arbor Blues
Festival. B.B. King, Buddy Guy
and Muddy Waters, among
others, introduced the Ann
Arbor population to true blues:
the blues of Chicago and the
Mississippi Delta.
As a dedicated blues fanatic
myself, I was thrilled to be able
to attend the 2019 Ann Arbor
Blues
Festival,
which
took
place Aug. 16 through Aug. 18 at
the Washtenaw Farm Council
Fairgrounds.
After finishing up at work,
I made the short drive to the
Fairgrounds, going against the
flow of the congested traffic
eager to leave Ann Arbor for the
weekend. With the windows
down, listening to “Lightnin’
Hopkins”and “Otis Rush” live
in Ann Arbor in 1969, my Camry
hopped onto a gravel road
leading into the Fairgrounds.
It does not require a deep
study of music to understand
that the blues are not as
popular as the genre once was.
The biggest names in present-
day blues are some of the
smallest names in the grandeur
of the modern music industry.
Whether this can be attributed
to a change in taste or a
systemic decline of the genre is
difficult to understand, but the
fact is the blues, specifically in
the style of Chicago or Delta
blues, is a rather niche musical
interest.
And “niche musical interest”
is exactly the feeling I got as I
sat down in the matted grass
in front of the stage. It was
clear that outside of those
brought unwillingly by parents
and fellow press from other
nearby university publications,
I was the youngest member of
the audience by a significant
number of years. Somehow,
I felt out of place, out of
touch, as I waited for the first
performance to take the stage.
The
first
performance
was Thornetta Davis, a jazz
and
blues
musician
from
Detroit.
Her
performance
and demeanor struck me. She
was certainly talented, but
there was something else in
her that injected some serum
of liveliness and happiness
into the veins of the seasoned
audience.
As
Davis
sang,
audience members got up from
their lawn chairs and shuffled
to the stage to dance along with
her. My jaw dropped as I saw
80-year-old
people
dancing
and singing along to the music.
The music was loud, and this
elderly audience was loving
it, and I began to love it too. I
was out of my usual place, out
of touch with my usual life, but
creating that environment in a
positive and invigorating way
is precisely where this festival
triumphs. I was out of my
comfort zone in a way that was
beneficial to me.
Another performance that
piqued my interest was that
of Bernard Allison. As he took
the stage, a mass of bodies
again waded to the edge of the
stage to sway along with his
guitar. I learned that Allison’s
father was a performer at the
Ann Arbor Blues Festival in
its early years, and Bernard
had attended at the young
age of seven. He continued to
play the blues since, and upon
returning to Ann Arbor to show
what he had learned, Allison
was greeted by a warm and
welcoming Ann Arbor audience
that indeed remembered him
and his father.
Despite
the
widespread
falling-off of the genre over the
years, I was delighted to see
that the blues were alive and
well in Ann Arbor, kept afloat
by the love of its audience.
When one of the hosts asked
how many original audience
members from the 1969 festival
were present today, I was
shocked to see so many hands
rise. Perhaps these lovers of the
blues are what keep the genre
alive. The blues artists and
their audience trade a musical
love that keeps the heart of the
blues beating and the lungs of
the blues breathing.
Ann Arbor Blues Festival
continues to invigorate
ZACHARY M.S. WAARALA
Daily Arts Writer
COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
THE ALLMAN BETTS BAND
The concept of a “suburb”
has always been a pop culture
staple — from the cult classic
“Heathers”
to
2016’s
“Bad
Moms,”
these
enclaves
of
society are a thing of intrigue.
Rational
conversations
and
enriching activities are thrown
out the window only to be
replaced by raging mothers and
parent-teacher
conferences
over a child’s mild cough. Based
on the book of the same name,
“Where’d You Go Bernadette?”
follows Bernadette Fox (Cate
Blanchett, “Ocean’s 8”) as she,
and her life, seem to unravel
underneath
the
artificial
pressure of suburbia.
As a movie, “Where’d You
Go Bernadette?” is perfectly
average. As a book-to-movie
adaptation, however, it leaves
much to be desired. Especially
given the fact that much of
the important plot points and
character development occurs
between the lines of emails
and messages sent between
characters. The kind of nuance
that sets apart “Where’d You
Go Bernadette?” as a book
doesn’t lend itself to an easy
transition to the big screen.
Bernadette
herself
is
a
well-developed character —
her long-winded monologues
to
Manjula
(her
online
“assistant”)
capture
the
manic energy of Bernadette
in the book. Sadly, she is the
only character that receives
this kind of treatment. Her
daughter, Bee (Emma Nelson,
“Margaret and the Moon”),
is left to occupy the movie
solely
as
the
stereotypical
“nerd” at her school, with
little exploration into how her
childhood heart issues might
have affected her or even
the lengths to which her life
was affected by her mother’s
disappearance.
What
little
emotion that came from Bee
was the result of Nelson’s
acting — no credit can be given
to
the
less-than-impressive
screenplay.
The “Galer Street Gnats,”
as Bernadette so lovingly calls
the other mothers at Bee’s
school, fail to incite the kind of
strong hatred these characters
should garner in any situation,
fictional or otherwise. Audrey
(Kristen Wiig, “Bridesmaids”)
and
Soo-Lin
(Zoe
Chao,
“God Particles”) are pivotal
characters in the book, with
each woman going through
some intense changes in their
relationship and their personal
lives. Yet we see none of that in
the movie. On top of that, their
relationship with Bernadette
changes
dramatically
as
well. There seemed to be an
attempt at showcasing this
change between Bernadette
and Audrey. However, without
many of the details from the
book, it seems far-fetched that
in a moment of vulnerability
Bernadette would go to one of
her sworn enemies for help.
If we recognize that there
is a difference between the
kinds of details included in a
movie compared to those in a
book, this abrupt change could
potentially be warranted, but
that would be a hard argument
to make.
Within every average movie,
though, there are always a
few good moments. Take Cate
Blanchett, for example. Fox is
a force to be reckoned with and
Blanchett was the best person
to do it. Her rough bangs and
sharp features come together to
create the kind of intimidating
woman who really doesn’t
belong in a Seattle suburb.
Add to that a slight edge to her
American accent (Blanchett is
Australian, after all), and the
effect is complete.
“Where’d
You
Go
Bernadette?” is not a bad
movie, per se. It simply serves
as a reminder that not all
books need to be turned into
movies. Maybe this let-down
is my own fault because I
prefer to read the book before
I see the movie or because I
continue to see adaptations no
matter how many times I am
disappointed. All I really know
is, despite how fun it might be
to think about what my favorite
characters would look like on
the silver screen, some of their
stories are better suited to the
detail-oriented environment of
a book.
‘Bernadette’ needs to do
some real soul searching
EMMA CHANG
Senior Arts Editor
FILM REVIEW
ANNAPURNA PICTURES
I had not done any research
about Showtime’s “On Becoming
a God in Central Florida” before
sitting down to watch it, and
perhaps for that reason, I spent
the first half of the pilot trying
to figure out what exactly was
bothering me about it all. We
follow Travis Stubbs (Alexander
Skarsgard, “The Little Drummer
Girl”), a typical Orlando area
middle
class
working
man
whose life is consumed by the
insidious, omnipresent multi-level
marketing company FAM. In a
thoroughly engaging, bizarre and
surprisingly dark (yet charming)
pilot, the show sets up a world
in which rhetoric straight from
the playbook of capitalism-on-
steroids consumes and leads a
man to his end. But what really
bothered me for the first half or
so was the fact that I couldn’t
pin down why I recognized who
was
playing
Travis,
because
Alexander Skarsgard was wearing
a beautiful, glorious mullet.
But the real star of the show is
one if its own executive producers,
Kirsten Dunst (“Fargo”). She
plays Travis’s wife, Krystal, a
firm yet supportive woman who
works a minimum wage job at
the local water park. Travis’s
relentless ambition and desire to
become a millionaire leads him
to sacrifice nearly every waking
moment of his life to recruiting
for the FAM pyramid scheme,
leading to a simmering and rising
tension between him and Krystal,
as well as an unexpected, absurd
demise.
Travis
is
ultimately
an
endearing yet sad, pathetic fool.
Unlike the usual roles he gets,
Skarsgard plays one which is
dumpy and weak rather than
charismatic and godlike. His
full devotion to FAM takes on
the character of a cult member
or a religious zealot, leading
him to eventually quite his full
time J-O-B (FAM doesn’t permit
saying the cursed word out loud)
and submit fully to the company’s
cause.
However
creepy
and
dystopian FAM seems, it’s an
even creepier reality out there,
considering that about 100 miles
west of Ann Arbor lies the town
of Ada, headquarters of Amway,
one of the biggest multilevel
marketers
out
there
(created
by a DeVos, perhaps a familiar
name). Many struggling working
people are seduced in the same
way Travis Stubbs is, and while
Stubbs’s persona is hilarious, it
doesn’t completely mask how
pitiable it is.
Meanwhile
Dunst,
who
is
poised to be the main protagonist
after
the
pilot,
is
equally
stunning. Dunst season is indeed
in full swing, and her range is as
well in the pilot. Equipped with a
charming Floridian accent, braces
and rather delightful outfits, she
is nearly the polar opposite of her
husband: steely, firm and a long-
term thinker and planner. While
she is supportive of her husband
and even tries to help him in his
FAM ventures at one point, she
is rightfully exasperated by his
sheer stupidity and the danger it
poses to their young family.
“On Becoming a God in
Central Florida”’s pilot is a
promising
springboard
into
future explorations of capitalism
and the rehabilitating effects of
MLM companies. Oh, and maybe
Kirsten Dunst’s performance of a
lifetime.
Skarsgard and his mullet shine in
‘On Becoming a God in Central Fla.’
TV REVIEW
‘On Becoming a God
in Central Florida’
Series Premiere
Showtime
Sundays at 10 p.m.
“Where’d
Y
ou Go
Bernadette?”
Annapurna Pictures
The Michigan
Theater
The music was
loud, and this
elderly audience
was loving it, and
I began to love it
too.
SAYAN GHOSH
Daily New Media Editor
6 — Thursday, September 5, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com