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