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Page 2 July 19 , 2018
Check It Out Film Review
Blue Dog Ably Endears Readers to
an Array of Australian Antics
Reviewed by Tommy Vinh Bui,
MLIS, Associate Librarian,
Inglewood Public Library
Summer continues to sear and we’re all still
just dazed and dry-mouthed and looking for
somewhere cool to wait out the sun’s slow
and Celsius-slopped trajectory across the sky.
But the Inglewood Public Library is always
serving up the literary equivalent of a frosty
tall glass of lemonade. So swig deeply and full
and find yourself refreshed with the bookly
Blue Dog by Louis de Bernieres.
offerings on our shelves.
A quaint and quenching book just in, Louis
de Bernieres’ coming-of-age Blue Dog is just
the story to alleviate any temperature-induced
angst. Young Mick is marooned in the Australian
Outback and forced to reside with his roughliving
and hardened grandfather after a family
tragedy. Lonely and out of his element, he has
a tumultuous first few weeks adjusting to this
new environment and inhospitable clime. It’s
a tough acclimatization for the lad. Lonely
and desolate is the landscape of Pilbara but,
luckily, just the right conditions for a fledgling
go-getter to earn some sage life lessons and
undergo a journey of self-discovery.
The descriptions of the rough-and-tumble
Aussie Outback are rendered here vividly
and in full color. The heat emanates from the
page and all thermometers in the vicinity tick
up a few degrees as the story progresses. The
writer has a real gift for vivifying a far-flung
locale for a reader. The perspiration and dust
of rural Australia gets into your eyes and pores
and roosts ruefully. The writer has a knack for
Entertainment
kneading rich imagery into your head. It just
takes a few paragraphs to find yourself panting
from heat exhaustion and scrambling for
a canteen to slake your building thirst. That’s
just solid writing, I say.
Despite the unforgiving brutality of the
Outback weather and rural hardships, Mick
manages to find and befriend a young puppy,
Blue, and they become fast companions and
go about braving the trials and travails of
adolescence together. It’s a well-wrought tale
of endurance and learning things the hard way.
Mick is living a very unconventional childhood
and must recruit a motley of eccentric
and unique characters along the way if he’s
to survive and thrive in his new home. These
are characters that provide guidance and flair
to the narrative. From the reclusive hermit
living on the outskirts of town (and margins
of society) to the wisecracking indigenous
Taylor Pete with a talent for motorcycle repair
and storytelling, this is an excellent array of
supporting characters that prod Mick along
his road of personal growth.
The dialogue is a complete and utter delight.
Pitched in regional Australianisms and distinct
Antipodean patois, it’s undiluted music to the
ears. The vibrant phraseology and Outback
witticisms will tickle you to no end. There’s
a catchy back-and-forth rhythm to these exchanges
that ruffles your ear cilia just right. The
words enter your skull and boomerang around
awhile and then exit the other ear, taking with
it rhyme and reason but leaving ample helpings
of humor and off-kilter eloquence.
All said, a fine read and just the tome to chase
away the summer enervations. A dose of My
Dog Skip, Free Willy and Rabbit-Proof Fence all
comingle together to form a daring didgeridoo
of delectations. So waltz on over to the library
and have a readerly walkabout in our YA section.
It’s fair dinkum. •
Coming of Age in
the Internet Age
By Ryan Rojas
for www.cinemacy.com
Bo Burnham is an eighth grade girl. Well,
it would be more accurate to say that not
only is he an eighth grade girl – although his
understanding and portrayal of this confusing
time in adolescent life is astoundingly spoton
– but reveals that we all are eighth grade
girls, or once were. Which is to say, that at
one time or another, we’ve all felt the same
shared sense of awkwardness -- that of
identity confusion and a general longing for
love that unites us all, no matter our gender,
age or generation.
Eighth Grade, the directorial debut of
comedian Bo Burnham is, on the surface, a
modest movie. Essentially, we follow a teen
in the last week of her middle school year,
along with all of the important and trivial
life events that pop up. But that summary
alone would be like saying last year’s Best
Picture nominee Lady Bird was just a movie
about a high school senior. Specifically, what
these movies have in common is a theme
that is most noticeable: one of authenticity,
identity and the general nature of who we
are by how we choose to live.
Perhaps no one knows this better than
Burnham himself, who dealt with crafting
an identity in the age of the Internet. He
cultivated a fanbase by creating pop piano
hits on YouTube that eventually resulted in a
successful standup comedian relationship with
Netflix specials and tours. So yes, this movie
is about Kayla (Elsie Fisher), an introverted
and reserved eighth grader without a best
friend, and whose superlative awarded by
her class is “Most Quiet.” But below that,
it’s really about identity and insecurities that
we all have. Those are never more relevant
than at this time, in this age of social media
and online living.
Eighth Grade shines a light on the
anxieties of growing up in the social media
generation like a front-facing flash of a camera
selfie. It’s not news that the suffocating
artificiality of pop consumerism is such a
large part of kids’ lives. The content they
take in is then recreated and re-stylized
in a feedback loop that results in being either
so out of touch with reality or hyper in
touch with a false one. This is what stirs
Kayla, who is introverted and reserved at
school but comes to life online making
inspirational and self-help videos to an
audience of none.
Where Burnham’s directorial effort,
which he also wrote, truly shines most is
the examination of the duality of “being
yourself.” Burnham’s stand up specials –
what. and Make Happy (available to watch
on Netflix) – showcase the young millennial,
all of 27 years old himself, as a metamaddening,
self-aware artist consumed by
the idea of creating who you are, as well
as living naturally to the rest of society’s
confirmations. Eighth Grade is successful
because Bo Burnham has the eye and mind
and insecurities of Kayla, and it doesn’t ring
false or sappy – it just feels like he gets it!
Eighth Grade is 94 minutes. Rated R for
language and some sexual material. Now
playing at Arclight Hollywood and the
Landmark. •
Eighth Grade, Courtesy of A24.
Ryan Rojas.
Tommy Vinh Bui.
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