EL SEGUNDO HERALD January 24, 2019 Page 11
Entertainment
Check It Out
The Hate U Give
by Angie Thomas
Reviewed by Jasmine Rahman,
Library Assistant
Angie Thomas’ New York Times bestselling
young adult novel The Hate U Give
won honors for both the Coretta Scott
King and Michael L. Printz awards in
2018. It’s an explicit political read that
advocates for many different subjects
and characters faced with emotional and
complex situations. This novel was inspired
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.
by a real-life event where an unarmed
African-American teenager was shot by a
police officer. The book covers many topics,
including race, grief, friendship, addiction
and the way the media portrays the African-
American society.
The Hate U Give is a novel about a teenage
girl, Starr Carter, who is stuck in two
different worlds. One involves her school
where everyone is white, rich and privileged.
The other world, her neighborhood where
she grew up, is poor and black. She never
thought her two worlds would collide until
her childhood best friend, Khalil, was brutally
shot by a police officer. Khalil’s death goes
viral in the African-American community,
which then protests the death of the young
teenager. The death of a close friend is emotionally
traumatizing, to say the least. Starr
finds herself caught between the protesters in
her community and her new group of friends
at school. The author does an excellent job
breaking down the importance of confronting
a system that is working against you by
utilizing your voice.
This novel isn’t just a good read -- it is
a must-read. Thomas portrays a great level
of humanity for the victims who have experienced
this injustice. If you choose to
read at least one book this year, I would
recommend this socially relevant, culturally
important and educational novel. This book
can be found at the El Segundo Library in
the Teen Zone section.
To check out The Hate U Give, or to browse
our extensive fiction collection, please visit
the library to apply for your free library card.
For further assistance, including helping to
discover your next great read, please contact
the reference staff. •
Jasmine Rahman
What Cinemacy Will Watch at
This Year’s Sundance Festival
By Ryan Rojas
This week marks one of our favorite annual
events, the Sundance Film Festival, and
Morgan and I couldn’t be more excited! Being
our third year covering the fest for Cinemacy,
we’re more than ready to be back in Park
City, Utah taking in all the incredible films
that range from directorial debuts to special
screenings to world premieres. Here’s a list
of films that we’ve secured tickets to see
-- and we can’t wait to report back to you
about them.
Native Son directed
by Rashid Johnson
A few things to be excited about here:
this is the feature film debut from Rashid
Johnson, one of today’s renowned visual
artists whose work spans multiple mediums
(sculpting, drawing, painting, you name
it). Native Son, a contemporary reworking
of Richard Wright’s 1940 novel, starring
Ashton Sanders (teenaged Chiron from last
year’s Best Picture winner Moonlight) as a
young African American man caught up in
an accidental death that has him navigating
through complex social forces.
Honey Boy directed
by Alma Har’el
As a former child star-turned-blockbuster
leading man, Shia LaBeouf has challenged
not only Hollywood conventions, but the
art world as a whole. This is why we can’t
wait for Honey Boy, LaBeouf’s screenwriting
debut that tells the story of young child
star – Otis – who, after making it big on a
popular children’s television show, still has
to live under the control and abuse of his
father’s guardianship (with LaBeouf starring,
we see autobiographical elements at play).
There are intense performances by Noah Jupe
(A Quiet Place) and Lucas Hedges (Ben is
Back), who both play Otis at different stages
in his life. This one’s sure to be one of the
buzziest of the fest.
The Nightingale directed by Jennifer Kent
The Babadook was absolutely one of
the scariest movies to come out in recent
years. So it’s without question that I’d be
seeing whatever film was next from the
nightmarish mind of Jennifer Kent, and this
one sounds just as ghastly. The Sundance
website describes The Nightingale as such:
“With horrors around every corner, Jennifer
Kent’s new nightmare will traumatize the
weak of heart, but those willing will discover
a majestic achievement most striking in its
haunting moments of grace.”
Velvet Buzzsaw directed
by Dan Gilroy
Dan Gilroy and Jake Gyllenhaal are reteaming
after the unnerving psychological
thriller that was Nightcrawler, and this film
looks even more insane. A hallucinatory
nightmarish satire of the elitist art world,
Velvet Buzzsaw is no doubt one of the mustsee
movies of the fest. It will be available
to stream on Netflix starting February 1).
Love, Antosha directed
by Garret Price
You may know Anton Yelchin from such
movies as Star Trek, Like Crazy and Charlie
Bartlett. I knew Anton Yelchin from the improbable
yet incredible experience of being in
the same philosophy class with him at Santa
Monica College years ago. During that short
time that I would see him in class, where he
displayed incredible intellect and curiosity and
it was clear that he was a caring and bright
person. I -- like the rest of the entertainment
industry -- was devastated to hear of Yelchin’s
untimely passing in 2016. This documentary
looks to celebrate the life of this beloved
Sundance standout and I know it will be one
of the more sobering but special screenings
that will leave me both moved and inspired.
Be sure to follow Cinemacy on Instagram
(@cinemacy) and Twitter (@cinemacyspeaks)
to you get the real=time ground reporting
on everything Sundance…we’ll be updating
non-stop. •
Film Review
Ryan Rojas.
All images courtesy of Sundance Institute.
“For me, the Sundance Institute is just an
extension of something I believed in, which is
creating a mechanism for new voices to have a
place to develop and be heard.”
– Robert Redford