The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, September 27, 2019 — 5A

This week, ABC’s “LOST” celebrated 
the 15th anniversary of its pilot. Originally 
pitched as a cross between “Survivor” and 
“Gilligan’s Island,” “LOST” at one time 
boasted the most expensive pilot in television 
history and was one of the first shows to 
capitalize on the burgeoning internet-
person desire to intensely dissect every last 
frame of every episode that ever aired. The 
show featured a diverse ensemble cast, and, 
through the use of its flashback structure, 
could go from a cop drama to a hospital soap 
opera to a sci-fi thriller episode to episode. 
It also took place on a mystical island with 
polar bears and smoke monsters and hatches 
buried underground. It was crazy and it 
was beautiful; there hasn’t been anything 
remotely like it since it ended.
When “LOST” originally came to a close 
in May of 2010, its end was met with an 
intense amount of scrutiny and criticism not 
unlike the ending of our current decade’s 
cultural juggernaut, “Game of Thrones.” 
Both shows captured the imaginations of 
million of people. Both had long-running 
serialized stories that relied on cliffhangers 
and shocking twists to keep the audience 
engaged. And while both ended in finales 
that are not always thought of highly, the 
endings themselves were criticized for very 
different reasons. “Game of Thrones” was 
critically savaged for turning its characters 
into cardboard cutouts of themselves and 
racing to an ending that didn’t feel earned. 
“LOST” ending-haters tended to focus more 
on the mysteries that were left unanswered 
and the decision by show runners Damon 

Lindelof and Carlton Cuse to focus their 
ending almost exclusively on the character 
arcs at the expense of the sprawling 
mythology they had created.
A lot of a show’s legacy is tied up in its end. 
Over the past nine or so years since “LOST” 
ended, whenever the show is brought up 
its ending is almost always brought up as 
well. They say that time heals all wounds, 
and that is certainly the case in terms of 
the “LOST” finale. As the years have gone 
on, the decision to focus the ending on the 
characters instead of the plot has proven 
prescient. As peak TV has become more 
and more character focused in the decade 
since “LOST,” audiences have come to 
expect satisfying endings to character’s 
journeys. The wrap-ups of “Breaking Bad” 
and “Avengers: Endgame,” widely regarded 
as solid for their respective stories, both 
choose to focus their ending around their 
central characters.
The ending of “Game of Thrones” was torn 
apart by fans, critics and audiences alike. It 
was compared to the ending of “LOST” and 
this comparison was used as a sign of scorn. 
But time has been kind to “LOST”s finale, 
and it’s possible that time will be kind to 
“Game of Thrones” as well. As people forget 
the immediate pain and disappointment of 
a favorite series coming to an end, the good 
memories that they have of the show begin to 
take precedence in their mind. Humanity as a 
species tends to look more fondly on the past 
as a way to justify the present. Everything 
looks better when you’re comparing it to 
what’s going on now. The ending of “LOST” 
looks great in comparison to the ending of 
“Game of Thrones,” and the ending of “Game 
of Thrones” could look great compared to 
the ending of whatever the next big thing is.

How the ending of ‘LOST’
explains most endings

IAN HARRIS
Daily Entertainment Columnist

ENTERTAINMENT COLUMN

YOUTUBE

MUSIC REVIEW

Former member and heart and soul of Blink-
182 Tom DeLonge is often found at the buttend of 
jokes. How could he not be, though? He originally 
left the band so he could attempt to “change the 
world” with his influence and his various business 
ventures. Now, he claims to be the military’s chosen 
vessel to share information regarding UFOs and is 
the executive producer and star of a mini-series on 
the subject. On the outside, DeLonge appears to be 
completely delusional.
The same goes for the rest of Blink-182. Mark 
Hoppus, Travis Barker and newest member Matt 
Skiba are all in their mid-to-upper 40s, and they’re 
still singing about the same shit. Blink used to be 
all about youth culture, toilet humor, the endless 
pursuit of girls and the struggles that go along 
with it, and unfortunately, that’s still the band’s 
main focus on their ninth album, the cleverly titled 
NINE. Just look at a recent promotional video 
starring Travis Barker and pornstar Riley Reid as 
she attempts to recreate the near-iconic “What’s 
My Age Again?” video. The band feels they have 
an image to maintain, and on NINE, they’re trying 
their very best to maintain it.
Lead single “Blame It on My Youth” tells listeners 
everything they need to know about NINE. On the 
song, Hoppus and Skiba explain a little bit about 
their upbringings, with Hoppus stating that he 
“started off with plenty of nothing at all” and Skiba 
belts on the chorus, “You could never kill my high 
/ I’m the ink and you’re the headline / Blame it, 
blame it on my youth / Blame it, blame it on my 
youth / You could never block my shine.” It bears 
repeating that these men are in their 40s and, 
somehow, they still feel the need to justify how 
they became the men that they are.
The rest of the album follows a similar trajectory. 
The songs are largely uninspired, riffing on the 
usual tropes, and there isn’t much musical range 
between them. The one song that deviates from 
the norm is “Generational Divide,” a fast-paced 
barnburner, especially when stacked up against 
the rest of the album. It is a quick rumination 
on the cultural division between generations, 

specifically between Hoppus and his son. It feels a 
bit like a return to form that was stopped short for 
some reason. This glance backwards is especially 
depressing as the album moves forward.
For some reason, Blink’s members decided 
it would be a good idea to start playing with 
elements of electronic music and vocal processing 
techniques like autotune. The biggest offender of 
this crime is “Ransom.” It starts off questionably 
with some glittering keys, and then turns to shit 
as soon Hoppus’s autotune drench voice comes in. 
It’s sprinkled in sporadically throughout the song, 
and it’s wince-inducing every time. The song soon 
bursts into typical Blink fare, but by that point, the 
damage has already been done.
On NINE, the members are beyond disillusioned 
with themselves. They seem to think that they’re 
still the tastemakers of the pop-punk world. But 
alas, they are not. They are grown men who are 
still bitter about the women that spurned them 
(see “Hungover You” for further elaboration). Had 
the band taken a darker turn and explored the 
downfalls of their lives, perhaps NINE would have 

been more interesting. Instead, the album feels 
repetitive and out of touch, with no new ground 
broken.
On the other hand, things are beginning to 
look up for Tom DeLonge. His show Unidentified: 
Inside America’s UFO Investigation has been well 
received by viewers. What is even more notable, 
however, is the US Navy’s verification that videos 
released by DeLonge on his television show are 
indeed real. This, honestly, is a very big deal 
for him. It legitimizes his previous claims and 
validates DeLonge’s research group, To the Stars 
Academy of Arts and Sciences, as the leaders of the 
field of UFO identification and research. 
Who’s the delusional one now?

Blink’s ‘NINE’ is just shitty

JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer

NINE

Blink-182

Columbia

YOUTUBE

There’s this moment, about halfway through 
“Hustlers,” when Ramona (Jennifer Lopez, “Second 
Act”) is taking a photo of her young mentee Annabelle 
(Lili Reinhart, “Riverdale”) to lure a Wall Street guy to 
meet them. “Turn around baby,” she tells Annabelle. 
“You know what he wants.” Annabelle turns around, 
looks over her shoulder, and touches her index finger 
to her lip, smiling coyly. Ramona snaps the picture and 
within seconds, the guy asks her when and where she 
wants to meet. 

It’s not a particularly important moment in the grand 
scheme of the movie, but it’s emblematic of a sense in 
“Hustlers” that women are experts of their own bodies. 
They know exactly how to calibrate the shape of their 
hips and the curves of their smiles to get what they want. 
They understand intimately the currency their bodies 
provide, and exactly how volatile that value exchange 
can be. “Hustlers” is a complicated story that navigates 
friendship, stripping, the financial crisis of 2008, sex 
and power. But if there’s a central conceit at the heart 
of the film, it’s about how women navigate that tricky, 
constantly moving target that is the intersection between 
their bodies and the profit they can extract from them. 
It’s a singularly American story, about how women 
shoved to the margins of society claw and fight their 

way to make it in a world that sees them as disposable. It 
would be a disservice to the complexity of the film to call 
it “empowering,” but it gives a voice to a group of women 
who are usually denied space or agency in Hollywood. 
Their story is remarkable.
Based on the real life exploits of a group of ex-strippers, 
“Hustlers” is centered on the perspective of young 
stripper Destiny (Constance Wu, “Crazy Rich Asians”), 
who joins with seasoned veteran Ramona to build a crew 
of fellow strippers who steal money from the high-roller 
finance guys who frequent their club. Ramona is a force of 
nature — charismatic and brilliant, sexy and sharp as all 
hell — and Destiny is entranced by her from the moment 
she lays eyes on her, working the pole to Fiona Apple’s 
“Criminal” as the stage under Ramona’s feet becomes 
awash with bills. 
Ramona wraps Destiny in her lush fur coat and takes 
her under her wing. She teaches Destiny how to give a 
proper lap dance, how to hoist herself up the pole, how 
to spot the men who will pay well. Mostly, she shows 
Destiny how to make real money in the exploitative 
system of New York City strip clubs, where the girls 
are the draw but all the profit ends up in the pockets of 
scummy managers who take 40% cuts of all the dancers’ 
earnings. Ramona has a daughter to take care of, Destiny 
has a grandmother. They bond over the ferocity of their 
protectiveness over their dependents and over their need 
to be self-sufficient. Destiny starts making good money 
under Ramona’s tutelage, and she finds community 
among her fellow dancers who have a warm, familial 
banter in the club’s dressing room. 
Then Destiny gets pregnant, and she leaves the club. 
A couple years pass, and suddenly it’s 2008. The market 
has crashed, her baby’s father leaves her, and Destiny 
starts dancing again. Except now the rules have changed, 
the clubs are empty of clients and the warmth among 
the dancers is gone. Ramona and Destiny have to start 
getting creative. 
“The game is rigged,” Ramona says. “And it does not 
reward people who play by the rules.” So they recruit a 
couple of other girls, Annabelle (Reinhart) and Mercedes 
(Keke Palmer, “Pimp”), to help them “go fishing,” or find 
rich men at high end New York bars to lure back to the 
strip clubs. Once they get them to the clubs, they get 
the men as intoxicated as possible, and start racking up 
the credit card charges. Destiny becomes the CFO to 
Ramona’s CEO, or the Kobe to her Shaq, as the women 
themselves put it in the film. It doesn’t take long for them 
to up the stakes. They concoct a new drug cocktail to 
slip into the men’s drinks to make them more malleable 

and willing to give up their cards. They graduate from 
taking $5,000 a night from one of their marks to $50,000. 
Together, they’re absolutely ruthless in the influence they 
exert over the other girls in their crew, and over the men 
they steal from. It’s modeled off of classic mob cinema, 
but this mob is a matriarchy, specifically run by and for 

women of color. Like any pair of good mob bosses, Destiny 
and Ramona’s relationship builds to a Shakespearean 
intensity in a swirl of designer clothes, money, blood and 
sweat. The highs are intoxicating. The lows will gut you. 
It’s difficult to overstate how deeply excellent this story 
is. Watching it feels like a zap of electricity, like you’re 
made privy to the very best of what entertainment can do. 
Granted, it would be very difficult to make a bad, or at the 
very least non-entertaining movie based off of a story this 
intrinsically strong. But everybody involved in “Hustlers” 
knocks it out of the fucking park, and every aspect of 
production is as brilliant and careful as it possibly could 
be — from the pitch perfect casting, to the rhinestoned 
costumes, to the legitimately transcendent soundtrack. 

Make no mistake, this movie is a masterpiece. There isn’t 
a wasted second or a dramatic beat that’s not earned. 
“Hustlers” is already a huge commercial success, 
which is unsurprising given how much unadulterated 
fun it is to watch, with all its delicious sleaze and 
sparkle, punctuated by a slew of sexy dances and 
shopping montages set to early 2000s pop and rap. This 
accessibility as a piece of pop art is crucial to the film’s 
urgent, glittery genius. The legibility, the sleaze, the sheer 
joy of watching “Hustlers” allows it to act like a Trojan 
horse for one of the sharpest commentaries on the post-
recession economy to ever hit the theaters. 
In that way, “Hustlers” is a lot like the women 
themselves, hiding their incisive intellect and business 
acumen under layers of fake lashes and contoured 
cleavage. But then, maybe they prefer it that way. Maybe 
it’s in their best interest to be underestimated, because 
after all, these are powerful men they’re targeting. 
Executives. Hedge fund managers. The high rollers at the 
tops of skyscrapers directly responsible for the poverty 
and desperation of the people below. But it doesn’t 
matter how weighty his gold watch is, or how diverse his 
stock portfolio. Each man they choose is utterly leveled, 
not only by the women’s bodies, or the sprinkled drug 
cocktail, but by the precision with which they expertly 
construct a fantasy that reduces him to a lolling, drooling 
mess at their feet. They’re too smart, too hot, too good at 
what they do — experts in the politics of money and the 
body. He never stood a chance. 

‘Hustlers’ is precise, powerful and psychotically good

ASIF BECHER
Daily Arts Writer

Hustlers

Gloria Sanchez Productions

Quality 16

YOUTUBE

June 19, 2016
June 1, 2017

