WHISPER
puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com
By Andrew Linzer
©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/07/20
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
02/07/20
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Friday, February 7, 2020
ACROSS
1 Component of an
Olympic bronze
medal
5 Off-road vehicle
maker?
10 Peddle
14 Brand in a studio,
maybe
15 Chooser’s choice
16 Onetime capital
of the Mughal
Empire
17 Seats facing the
altar
18 Alley button
19 Genesis problem
20 Soiree for
woodchip
manufacturers?
23 Energized
25 Inspection
26 Soiree for certain
divers?
30 Govt. stipend
31 Angel dust letters
32 Neural transmitter
34 Powerful 2017
hurricane
37 Soiree for
spreadsheet
creators?
41 Solo number
42 Gear for Lindsey
Vonn
43 Service reward
45 PETA concern
47 Soiree for fake
coin makers?
50 Need for big dos
54 Spherical
extremities
55 Soiree for army
enlistees?
59 Green hue
60 Louvre Pyramid
architect
61 Chatroom
spammers
64 Manipulates
65 Really funny
ones
66 City-
circumventing
road
67 Hot message
68 American in
Paris, perhaps
69 One of 11 for
Julia Louis-
Dreyfus
DOWN
1 12345, for
Schenectady, NY
2 Turner on a
turntable
3 Times, at times
4 Spirited toon?
5 Actress Hatcher
6 “Top Chef” set
piece
7 Building project
for cranes?
8 Get down to
earth?
9 First pro team to
play on artificial
turf
10 Samurai ritual
11 Lab gelatins
12 Pen
13 GOOD Music
record label
founder
21 Cholesterol
letters
22 Presume
23 Common 99-cent
purchase
24 Hajji’s destination
27 Potter’s creation
28 Plot lines
29 Imitates
derisively
33 “American Gods”
author Gaiman
35 Traveler’s
overnight spot
36 Seasoning seed
38 Buoyant
protection
39 Actress Dern of
“Twin Peaks”
40 Sch. with a
Harrisburg
campus
44 NBA stat
46 Hang up the
spikes
48 2.3, perhaps:
Abbr.
49 Slight character
flaw
50 2.3, roughly
51 Come up
52 Big name in
stopwatches
53 Compilation
album add-on
56 Per item
57 Spanakopita
cheese
58 Solidarity
symbol
62 First of a generic
trio
63 Expert on bugs?
SUDOKU
“60 characters.
Bare your soul.
Get featured in the Daily!”
WHISPER
Introducing the
“I be farting on people’s
desks.”
SUNDANCE FILM REVIEW
Sundance 2020: ‘Minari’ is brilliant
TRINAL PAL
Daily Arts Writer
The opening scene of “Minari” is simple yet
telling. The Yi family drives their moving truck
through rural Arkansas, hesitant disgust on the
mother’s face, eager expectation on her husband’s.
They stop in the middle of a grassy enclosure and
the camera pans to what the family sees — a mobile
home, covered in drab gray and brown paint. The
children run out, exclaiming, “Look! Our house
has wheels!”
What better symbol of false hope, the American
Dream thrown into disarray, than a shabbily
painted mobile home in the middle of nowhere?
As the children frantically jump into the house
to start exploring, their mother hides her face
with her hands, wisps of her black hair barely
concealing the tears in her eyes. This wasn’t what
she was promised. Dull resignation settling over
her face, she clumsily climbs inside.
“Minari” — directed by Lee Isaac Chung
(“Munyurangabo”) — follows the Yi family,
Korean immigrants who move from California
to Arkansas for hopes of better pay for their
profession, chicken sexing (sorting female
chicks from male chicks for
egg production). Jacob (Steven
Yeun,
“Burning”)
dreams
of
starting a farm, and convinces
his wife Monica (Han Yeri,
“Worst Woman”) to come along,
disguising his grand schemes
under the pretense of a “garden.”
Their children, David (Alan S.
Kim in his debut film) and Anne
(Noel Cho in her debut film) are
enthusiastic about moving, but
bored out of their minds when they finally reach
Arkansas. Monica’s mother Soonja (Yuh Jung
Youn, “Woman of Fire”) moves from South Korea
to stay with them, and the tale of the chaotic and
hilarious Yi family kicks off.
“Minari” may have a conventional plot —
immigrant stories of chasing the American
dream are plentiful in film — but this one is
executed to perfection. Dark, somber scenes
are complemented (often times immediately) by
heartwarming family shots, so much so that I felt
I was living right alongside the
Yi’s, watching everything play out
in real time. I walked out of the
theater knowing that “Minari”
would make it big, and it did,
winning the arguable top accolade
of Sundance, the U.S. Dramatic
grand jury prize and the Audience
Award. A24 plans to release the
film in theaters later this year,
where I’m confident it will win
over the hearts of many.
After a whole weekend of watching Sundance
films, the animated performances of the cast of
“Minari” set it apart from its competitors. Kim
may be one of the most talented child actors I’ve
seen.
‘Telsa’ is postmodern boredom
It was a full house at the screening of “Tesla”
I attended in Salt Lake City. Sundance attendees
filled up a magnificent theatre with a capacity of
well over a thousand. I wasn’t closely following
which films were the ones to look out for at
Sundance 2020, so I had no idea it would draw
such a huge audience. Bystanders clamored
outside the theatre for someone to give up their
tickets. But the excitement didn’t surprise me.
Everyone loves an underdog story, and festival
goers were appropriately amped to see a biopic on
the internet’s darling martyr of scientific history.
I’m not sure what I expected from a biopic
about Nikola Tesla, but the movie turned my
undefined expectation on its head. It is a wholly
weird, fourth-wall-breaking work of avant-garde
artistry. The film is narrated by J.P. Morgan’s
daughter Anne (Eve Hewson, “Robin Hood”), who
sets the scenes with a MacBook and a projector.
Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke, “The Kid”) and
Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan, “The House
with a Clock in Its Walls”) have a historically
inaccurate ice cream fight. Ethan
Hawke sings a karaoke rendition
of Tears For Fears’s 1985 hit
“Everybody Wants To Rule The
World,” all while in-character as
Tesla. I shit you not.
While “Tesla” is sometimes
hilarious — even if its intent is
sometimes ambiguous — it’s
mostly terrible. It is a genuinely
boring film through and through,
trading the constraints of logical
narrative for Aesthetic™. Much
of the film focuses on a rivalry between Edison
and Tesla that more accurately existed between
Edison and Westinghouse. There’s a lot of history
tied to the late-19th-century war of the currents
depicted in the film, including Westinghouse
powering a world’s fair in Chicago, New York’s
first electric chair execution and Tesla’s neurotic
experiments in Colorado. But, all of this layered
with artistic surrealism makes the whole thing
difficult to follow. It grasps at so many threads of
Tesla’s life, but fails to get anything
meaningful across about the man
himself.
The film acknowledges its
lack of historical accuracy about
Edison and Tesla’s relationship —
Anne Morgan chimes in with a
“it didn’t really happen like that”
after the aforementioned ice
cream fight — but it’s still overly
misleading. Especially in what all
my research indicates is a largely
speculative construction of Tesla’s
relationship with Anne Morgan and infatuation
with French actress Sarah Bernhardt. The film
does give a truthful depiction of Tesla’s insanity
toward the end of his life...
ENTERTAINMENT COLUMN
The 2019 Oscars:
I’m not watching
This Sunday will be the first
time I haven’t watched the
Academy
Awards
ceremony
live since I was a little kid.
Growing up as a film lover and
now pursuing film as my major,
the Oscars have always been
required reading in order to
understand and partake in the
discourse surrounding media
this time of year. This weekend is
also regionals for the Michigan
Mock Trial team, of which I
am a member. Consequently,
I will be driving home from
Northwestern University when
the Oscars air. I’ll have to check
Twitter or something to find out
the results. The Oscars used to
be like the Super Bowl for film
majors; I assume for many they
still are. But this year when I
realized the Oscars were the
same weekend as regionals, I
barely shrugged my shoulders.
Much has been said about how
out of touch the Oscars are with
the general public, how uniform
both the films and people
nominated are and how much
they fail to represent the growing
diversity in the film industry and
in the world at large. I agree with
all of these criticisms and don’t
believe I could add anything in
these pages on that front that
hasn’t been said by others in a
better and more compelling way.
But I will say that I don’t think
the Oscars really provide much
compelling
drama
anymore.
That is to say, they’re super
boring, both as an event and as
a subject for discussion. The age
of the “movie star” is more or
less over. Are there any actors
or actresses today who can
guarantee a film will not flop
simply because they are in it?
I honestly do not think so. The
rivalries and personalities that
used to capture the attention of
the nation just no longer interest
me. Turns out a lot of the people
promoting these things were
ReallyBadPeopleTM.
Which movie should win
Best Picture? What do I care?
I haven’t liked a Best Picture
winner in years. The best movie
I saw was certainly Greta
Gerwig’s “Little Women,” but
I honestly haven’t seen many
of the other nominees. There
was much ado about “Joker”
back in October, but the movie
never interested me from the
start and post-controversy it
interested me even less. I liked
“Parasite” a lot but still thought
“Little Women” was something
I’m more likely to revisit in the
future. Either way, what does
it matter what I, or anyone else
really thinks? Did “The Shape
of Water” win last year, or two
years ago? I can hardly recall
what happened in it. All the
Oscars’prestige
pictures
—
the World War psychological
dramas and intimate character
studies — have blended together.
They’ve become as banal to me as
the endless stream of superhero
films that permeate cinemas.
And no, I don’t think they should
nominate
more
blockbusters
just to get more people to watch.
“Avengers: Endgame” is no more
deserving of Best Picture than
an Egg McMuffin is deserving of
a best breakfast sandwich award.
It’s good for what it is for sure —
maybe the best version of what it
can be — but it’s still covered in
grease and you’re pretty sure it’s
not good for you.
For a while now people
have been talking about how
TV has begun to outdo film
as
the
preeminent
visual
entertainment medium and it’s
pretty hard to disagree with that
when you look at the state of both
industries. The Oscars sadly are
another example of a problem
that has become systemic.
COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
DYLAN YONO
Daily Arts Writer
IAN HARRIS
Daily Entertainment Columnist
A 24-step guide
to breaking up
Each
month,
we
invite
Community Culture writers to
respond to a themed prompt in a
creative writing notebook. This
month, February, is the month of
love! But searching for valentines
is SO last year… this month’s theme
is breakups, bad dates and broken
hearts. — Zoe Phillips, Senior Arts
Editor
Realize. Something has shifted.
Tectonic plates in your heart grind
against each other ever so slowly
until, one day, you notice a crack
where there wasn’t one before.
The landscape has shifted.
Ignore the fuck out of it. The
shift is almost imperceptible,
so if you don’t focus too hard on
it, perhaps it’s not there. It was
probably just some stray hair
caught in your glasses. God knows
you never clean them enough. You
stay quiet, you keep your eyes wide
and unfocused.
Realize again. Before it was
a shift in tectonic plates, it was
massive ancient rock sitting far
below the crust of the earth. Now,
it’s closer to the surface. Now, it’s
a rumbling that’s rattling your
teacups in their saucers, toppling
over your cup of pencils and the
papers on your desk, waking you
from a sleep you weren’t even
unconscious for anyway. You have
to get up.
Seek council. There is a
moment of suspense before you
hit the call button below your
roommate’s contact info. Your
finger lingers over the blue-green
glow of your cell phone screen as
you realize that words have far
more power than they should.
Once you confide in someone,
you bring the problem into an
unignorable existence. Abstract
fears are now spun into audible
words, braided with tears and
“I don’t know’s.” You now have
a witness. The landscape has
changed.
Avoid him.
Become
incredibly
productive.
Fling
yourself
towards distractions because the
road ahead of you is thick with fog
and it’s safer to stay with what you
know.
Realize again. Fog doesn’t
clear without the scalding heat of
the sun to cut through it. Neither
will this. You have to do it.
Plan it. Now this part makes
you feel the dirtiest. You decide
on a walk because that’s what they
do in movies and you don’t want
to ruin anywhere for him. You do
it at night so there’s even less of a
chance he’ll attach this memory to
a specific spot.
Oh God, there’s gonna be a
memory.
Answer the door when he
rings.
Walk.
Walk.
Chuckle half heartedly as he
tells you a funny story from his
day.
Walk.
Stop walking.
…
...
It’s hard. Your words have
blown away and faded back into
abstract concepts and you’re just
starting to formulate them again
until you look up and—oh my god
his eyes, he knows he knows, he’s
known this whole walk (how long
has he known and hurt for this,
you don’t want to know) and his
eyes are the last silent plea before
you move into the world of words.
He asks you to please, please stop
what he knows is coming.
You speak.
He speaks.
You leave.
He stays.
You know his eyes are blue, but
you’re already forgetting if they’re
more blue or blue-green.
The landscape has shifted.
STEPHANIE GURALNICK
Daily Arts Writer
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
“Tesla”
Dir. Michael
Almereyda
Sundance 2020
“Minari”
Dir. Lee Isaac
Chung
Sundance 2020
6 — Friday, February 7, 2020
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com