6 — Thursday, October 24, 2019
Arts
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©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/24/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
10/24/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Thursday, October 24, 2019
ACROSS
1 Dermatology
issue
5 Sources of
foreign aid?
12 Learned
14 Sacagawea’s
people
16 Aquarium growth
17 “Are we done
here?”
19 Rio neighborhood
of song
21 “Me Talk Pretty
One Day” writer
David
22 Takes turns?
24 Coarse cloth
25 When an early
voyage may start
28 Metal giant
31 “Tsk tsk”
33 Harsh cry
37 Light touch
38 Chocolate treat
40 Letter before
sigma
41 __ song
43 “Might be able to
help”
45 “... let’s play two!”
ballplayer Banks
47 Set of
chromosomes
48 Avalanche
51 Din
53 Traveling tot’s
spot
56 Sounded
indignant
60 “Not hungry, but
not not hungry
either”
62 Of service
63 A-ha hit that won
six MTV Video
Music Awards
64 Assisted through
difficulty, with
“over”
65 Macy’s logo
feature
66 Bottomless buffet
acronym spelled
out by the ends of
17-, 31-, 43- and
60-Across
DOWN
1 Tazo choice
2 App with many
pans
3 “Star Wars,” for
one
4 Classic Pontiac
5 Malay or Mongol
6 Stammering
syllables
7 Kettles and kitties
8 Second African-
American
inducted into the
Tennis Hall of
Fame
9 “There was no
other choice”
10 Disintegrate, as
old wood
11 Drum kit item
13 Area that’s hard
to find while
surfing?
15 “A Jew Today”
writer Wiesel
18 Trip letters
20 Study on the side
23 Pouring
instruction
25 Well of Souls
threats in
“Raiders of the
Lost Ark”
26 Soften
27 Info
29 Actress
Anderson
30 Bringing up to
speed
32 Formal “It wasn’t
me”
34 With the bow, in
music
35 “Pow!” relative
36 Fried Dixie bread
39 Just makes
42 Kimono sash
ornament
44 Subject of
Newton’s first law
46 Nearly fell
48 Poli __
49 Agreement
50 Like a cheering
crowd
52 JusSimple juicer
maker
54 Foofaraws
55 Camping gear
57 Orderly
58 Power co. output
59 “__ Dinah”:
Frankie Avalon
hit
61 Doc’s org.
FOR RENT
SERVICES
Remember 2009? “Zombieland: Double Tap” does.
When its predecessor, “Zombieland,” was released,
zombies still felt fresh. “The Walking Dead” hadn’t
premiered yet and its deluge of ripoffs were still years
away. The early 2000s’ “28 Days Later” and “Dawn of
the Dead” had just resurrected the genre by introducing
sprinting zombies, which “Zombieland” made good use
of.
“Zombieland” was an amusing horror comedy with
just enough bite to raise it above mediocrity. The gory
zombie sequences were fun and Jesse Eisenberg (“The
Social Network”), who plays the main character in both
films, hadn’t become annoying yet. It was 2009’s best
Halloween movie.
But it’s not 2009. It’s 2019, and “Zombieland: Double
Tap” has lost its edge. Obscenely violent slow motion
montages, apocalyptic sitcom style humor and meta
references are a dime a dozen these days. Einsenberg’s
voiceovers are also groan-inducingly on the nose. Even
if the occasional joke hits its mark, there is nothing
memorable.
Practically every character is defined by a simple
characteristic.
Characters
that
exist
solely
as
stereotypes
(arguably)
may
have been alright
in 2009, but they
aren’t so easy to
forgive in 2019,
especially
when
these stereotypes
lean towards the
problematic. There’s the weed-loving hippie and the
dumb blonde, characters even 2019’s prime time TV
would deem overly simplistic and offensive.
Most of the characterization issues involve the film’s
women. They all are obsessed with finding boyfriends,
even though society itself has collapsed. Nevada, played
by Rosario Dawson (“Rent”), is treated as a sexual
object, argued over and literally compared to a driveway
to be parked in, and she doesn’t seem to mind too much.
Abigail Breslin’s (“Little Miss Sunshine”) Little Rock
leaves her sister to die for the first man she meets. Even
the fiercely independent Wichita, played by Emma
Stone (“La La Land”), makes choices that come from a
writer who believes that all women want to do is shack
up with the only available man.
Tallahassee’s (Woody Harrellson, “The Hunger
Games”) controlling, aggressive attitude isn’t funny
anymore, especially not when women are involved. His
love of guns hasn’t aged well and, even in the context
of a zombie apocalypse, rings a little tone deaf. After
the violence of the last decade, scenes of Tallahassee
worshipping automatic weapons just aren’t as funny as
the movie wants them to be. No scenes in “Zombieland:
Double Tap” are, in fact.
Stone and Harrellson’s talent is wasted on an
unoriginal script that never reaches even the modest
highs “Zombieland” did. Everything effective about
the movie was done better in the first — every “Zombie
Rule” and “Zombie Kill of The Week” gimmick just
seems stale now.
The film meanders from zombie set piece to zombie set
piece and from bad joke to bad joke, shambling around the
same overworked ground “Zombieland” trod a decade
ago. Instead of Bill Murray’s house, it’s Elvis’s. Instead
of a climatic zombie battle at a carnival, it’s at a colorful,
carnivalesque
hippie
commune.
The only scene
worth watching
is
after
the
credits,
when
Bill
Murray
returns for a
wild
zombie
killing
spree
that has more
laughs than the entire movie itself. Check it out on
Youtube.
“Zombieland: Double Tap” is an exhausted,
forgettable misfire from the eternally churning
blockbuster sequel machine. It has just enough frivolous
violence and juvenile humor to live on through the
nighttime TV circuit, buried between “Simpsons”
reruns, coming back to yearn for the one thing it doesn’t
have: brains.
Keep ‘Zombieland’ dead
ANDREW WARRICK
Daily Arts Writer
AMAZON VIDEO
FILM REVIEW
A few lines from Mount Eerie’s “Distortion” is
the most concise way to explain Ames Hawkins’s
pilgrimage in her book “These are Love(d) Letters.”
“… In the same way that my descendants will squint
back through a fog / Trying to see some polluted
version of all I meant to be in life / Their recollections
pruned by the accidents of time / What got thrown
away and what gets talked about at night …”
What doesn’t get thrown away are twenty short
letters written in the mid ’60s. Hawkins’s father, a
closeted gay man at the time, wrote these letters to her
mother. After meeting at summer camp, the two kept
a correspondence between New York and Michigan.
Years later, after a divorce and her father’s fatal battle
with AIDS, her mother would hand her these letters
in an Ann Arbor coffee shop. She doesn’t know why
she kept them.
The book annotates these letters with every
relevant detail, even when her descriptions must cross
massive gaps between genres and subjects. Different
colored text, sometimes with no other transition,
marks a change in the literary style. It sometimes reads
like a literary magazine: True stories are blended with
essays on Derrida and Cixous, phone transcripts and
drawings.
Hawkins
pinpoints
subjects
embedded
in
the letters that are as complicated and varied as
real life should be. Sexuality is one such subject,
simultaneously treated analytically and emotionally.
In one paragraph, she counts the 49 times her father
says he loves Hawkins’s mother in the letters. In the
next, she laments it wasn’t 50.
Literature is another area of focus. The book is
as interested in writing, as you can expect from
such a skilled author. The closing chapter stops to
reflect on how endings in general should be written.
Hawkins attempts to expand the boundaries of what
is considered literature to letters. In a list of reasons
why, she notes the range of uses for letters. Letters can
be sent for young love or for declarations of war. And
Hawkins intends to include as many as possible.
The only whiplash from subject and style changes
are from discussions that take some philosophical
knowledge for granted. But the academic approach
doesn’t filter out the emotion in the book’s hard truths,
especially in regard to Hawkins’s father’s health.
The love letters ground the book in the mundane.
Being reminded of the reality of death or trauma can
feel like “waking up” to a world outside the one where
you stand in line for the bus or check your email. But
Hawkins ties them all together to one linear timeline.
This ambitious experiment in literary forms and ideas
might be jarring in many circumstances.
The book undertakes the impossible job of showing
others how some seemingly small detail reverberates
in all parts of life. Everything seems authentically
connected. The complex overarching narratives
Hawkins draws out are never forced. In the hands
of a less skilled writer, such comparisons might have
broken down like fever dreams that make sense until
recounted to others. For instance, Hawkins finds a few
lines in one letter regarding her father’s anxiety about
teeth falling out that form a grim foreshadowing of the
effects of AIDS on his oral health. This book gives the
reader the impression that if they study anything with
enough care, they’ll find a fractal — any small detail
containing the whole.
Her father didn’t mind Hawkins’s previous
writings about him. And still, she treats these letters
like sacred text, but it’s hard to feel that way for long.
Moreover, some of the most delicate information
comes from Hawkins herself. Through these letters,
Hawkins maps the roots of herself and her happiest
and worst memories. She delves into the hard truths of
herself and her trauma’s origins. In this way, Hawkins
paints these letters as equally relevant to her life’s
context as her birth.
Yet, the book can be simultaneously nonchalant.
One can almost see the shrug as the author admits
she doesn’t know why, for instance, more love letter
anthologies have been published recently. These shifts
in style don’t hurt the flow. Like the best anthology
records or essay collections, the fast transitions keep
each page a surprise.
Moreover,
these
complexities
reflect
the
complicated, grey, and conflicting experiences
embedded in these letters. One passage, retold here
without font changes, breaks the fourth wall to give
reader instructors:
“And now, Dear Reader, use your breath … Notice
where your mind goes as you follow my finger pointing
out over the horizon. Recognize me, there: Ah, yes!
And now your eyes really find focus: Ah-ha.
Look hard.
If you do, I am sure that you’ll see yourself there,
too.”
In “These are Love(d) Letters,” Ames Hawkins
doesn’t just squint back to see what her parents
meant to be. In the mundane objects of the past’s
fog, Hawkins finds a mirror reflecting herself. Many
find their reflection in their favorite books or movies.
But standing in a different place will bring a unique
reflection, even in the same mirror. It takes a writer
like Hawkins to make one see reflections of both
themselves and the author.
‘Love(d) Letters’ & more
BOOK REVIEW
Rex Orange County gave fans a taste of his
upcoming album Pony, set to release on Oct.
25, with his new single “Pluto Projector.” The
singer-songwriter surprised fans a day before
dropping the single by tweeting out his phone
number, allowing fans to hear a snippet of the
tune via his voicemail.
Rex released his first single off the new
album, 10/10, back in early September, and
while he still maintains the level of sincerity
he was able to capture in the previous single,
“Pluto Projector” is more soulful and organic
with its relaxed vocals and clean drum beats.
The song starts off with a quiet guitar riff as
Rex confesses his love to his significant other
and ends each line with a casual vocal scale.
Like many of Rex’s songs, the single doesn’t
have a clear structure, as it runs start to finish
without any repetition of lines; however, the
song starts to pick up in the middle with the
introduction of a piano riff laced between
the lead vocals and a collection of haunting
harmonies lingering in the background. Rex
imagines himself in wedlock, singing “I hope
the encore lasts forever / now there’s time for us
to spend,” a sweet ode to the beauty of a timeless
love. “Pluto Projector” reminds us of the joy
found in sharing life’s journey with someone
you love and showcases Rex’s craft for creating
heartfelt intimacy through songwriting.
Rex Orange County wears
heart on sleeve in ‘Pluto’
MUSIC SINGLE REVIEW
REX ORANGE COUNTY
Pluto Projector
Rex Orange County
AWAL
LUKAS TAYLOR
Daily Arts Writer
KAITLYN FOX
Daily Arts Writer
These are
Lov(ed) Letters
Ames Hawkins
Wayne State University Press
Sept. 9, 2019
Zombieland: Double Tap
GQT Quality 16. Ann Arbor 20 + IMAX
Sony Pictures
DESIGN BY EMMA CHANG