Page 2 August 16, 2018
Check It Out Film Review
Reviewed by Tommy Vinh Bui,
MLIS, Associate Librarian,
Inglewood Public Library
School starts anew soon and we’re challenging
young readers to squeeze in one more book
before the riot of homework and assignments
squanders away any remaining free time. Hark,
summer is slipping through our fingers. So let’s
sit back and read one more leisurely literary
offering for the road.
Pablo Cartaya’s The Epic Fail of Arturo
Zamora is just the curious confection to
sate the readerly appetites. Here is a foodfocused,
civically-strong and family-centric
story featuring young Arturo as he dodges
and weaves the harrowing jabs of adolescence.
Arturo is working at his family restaurant and
finds himself irretrievably smitten with Carmen,
who is visiting for the summer from Spain. To
compound his already fraught and confused
feelings, the beloved community restaurant is
also under jeopardy of being razed to make
way for a new housing development. The
neighborhood is in jeopardy of being rapidly
gentrified and Arturo must mobilize and muster
the courage to take action.
The book is multilayered and rich in relevant
themes that draw in the reader. Themes
of cultural displacement and immigration,
intergenerational strife and youth activism
are all approached and broached with a wide
range of emotions. We root for Arturo dearly
throughout and hope that he can find the
resolve to rekindle his community’s sense of
Entertainment
identity and to not be swayed by the bells
and whistles and artifice of luxury apartment
rentals. But also to remember that family and
community are intertwined and commemorating
past generations is imperative to empowering
future ones.
Food plays a pretty prominent role in this
narrative. It informs and propels the story and
acts as the cultural crux of the Zamora family.
The aromas of the kitchen waft from these
pages and the knees buckle and go brittle at
the descriptions of Cuban cuisine crafted with
an abuelita’s care. The writer really welcomes
us with open arms into the tight-knit Zamora
family, heaping piles and piles of vividly
flavorful food paragraphs onto our plate. We’re
certainly well-nourished in that regard.
An appreciation for poetry is also front
and center here. Arturo finds himself absentmindedly
grasping at evaporating words
whenever Carmen is around. Luckily, he has
the stanzas of Cuban revolutionary Jose Marti
at the ready to stoke the embers of young
love. The writer captures every pirouette and
flutter of butterfly wings wreaking havoc
inside Arturo’s stomach whenever Carmen
enters the room. It’s an authentic depiction
of youthful fumbling in the face of unspoken
adolescent affection. Awkwardness and selfdoubt
is ably conveyed and really strikes a
personal chord with any reader who has ever
been mired in the mud of unrequited love.
This YA book boasts it all: Compelling
conflict, an authentic bilingual voice and a
strong message of community togetherness.
I found it fine reading to bid adieu to the
summer whiling and steel you to wade back
into the argy-bargy of school again. A pinch
of poetry, a second helping of arroz con pollo
and the comforting thought of a summer
well-spent at the library...
Buen provecho. •
The Epic Fall of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya.
Skate Kitchen Brings Female Focus
to World of Skateboarding
By Morgan Rojas
for www.cinemacy.com
In director Crystal Moselle’s highly anticipated
sophomore film, the fierce young females
of Skate Kitchen show that heroes come in all
shapes and sizes, ethnicities and ages. Known
in real life as skateboarding collective “The
Skate Kitchen,” these newcomers to the big
screen take commanding roles that champion
not just women, but women skaters who are able
to kick-flip boards as easily as they kick butt.
Growing up in the New Jersey suburbs with
her single mother and no close friends, Camille
(Rachelle Vinberg) is a lone wolf searching for
a community of like-minded chicks to skate
and hang with every day. When she stumbles
upon an Instagram profile called “The Skate
Kitchen” –an all-girl skater group – Camille
is intrigued: they are all talented, tough and
only a short distance away. She leaves her
hometown for the unknown skate parks of New
York City’s lower east side and is immediately
enamored with the girls of “The Skate Kitchen,”
as each has her own vibrant style. Camille
feels right at home with her new chosen family
and the girls proceed to skate around the city,
experiencing the highs and lows that make up
budding female relationships.
With her second feature film, Crystal Moselle
proves that one of her biggest strengths
as a director is her ability to blend into her
surroundings and capture the essences of her
real-life subjects, which she did in 2015’s
award-winning documentary The Wolfpack.
And here, Skate Kitchen feels no different.
While Moselle infuses a loose script into Skate
Kitchen, the strengths of this movie are the
more observational and improvised moments
that straddle the line between documentary
and narrative.
Impressively, where The Wolfpack showed
a group of young brothers claustrophobic
in their apartment-confined existence, here
Moselle is let loose in the city and flexes her
artistry even further, displaying a visual style
that captures the electricity and grittiness of
the concrete jungle bustling with danger and
possibilities. Seen from the point of view of
these young women, there is a high energy
and honesty that especially shine in the skate
sequences and hangout sessions that evoke
feelings of Kids and Lords of Dogtown for
this generation.
However, for all of the aesthetic praise
that Skate Kitchen receives – which is entirely
due – I feel like there are a few missed opportunities
in not developing the story even
further, which ends up largely getting through
by cashing in on its currency of cool. I was
hopeful that Skate Kitchen would set out to
provide more insight and hardships into what
being a female skater is like in the maledominated
sport of skateboarding. We do see
moments like this, such as when the girls’ spots
get overtaken by the boys at the skate park,
but more personal moments of womanhood
feel awkward and out of place (for example,
a hangout that turns into the girls discussing
their menstruation cycles feels weirdly slotted
into the movie).
That said, it’s undeniable that Moselle has a
magic touch when it comes to finding the subjects
for her films. Just as she struck cinematic
gold when she discovered the Angulo brothers
of The Wolfpack, Skate Kitchen sees Moselle
bring a new set of fresh female talent to the
screen in this energetic and entertaining film.
Skate Kitchen is rated R. 100 minutes.
Opening this Friday at ArcLight Hollywood. •
Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
Morgan Rojas.
“Skateboarding is a poetry of motion.”
– Stevie Williams
The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora
Serves Up Familial Simpatico
Tommy Vinh Bui.
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