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Utah writer's debut novel brings beautiful specificity to a teen girl's journey as a burn survivor.
Contemporary young-adult fiction often finds protagonists dealing with a broad range of real-world challenges—family strife, substance abuse, discrimination, questions of identity.
Abominable **1/2
It’s a story about a young person heartbroken by a father’s absence, who finds companionship in the form of a mysterious creature with the magical ability to rejuvenate dying plants, and which is hiding out from research scientists; the young person then undertakes a risky journey to get the creature back home. If that sounds familiar, it’s because you can’t spell “yeti” without “E.T.” Writer/director Jill Culton (Open Season) sets her animated variation in China, where teenager Yi (Chole Bennet) is the young person, and a young yeti she calls Everest is the creature she wants to get back to his Himalayan habitat, even as she grieves for her dad.
Activists block off traffic at the Utah Capitol to call for action on “climate emergency.”
"We insist that our leaders act now. If nonviolent direct action is the only way to get them to listen to the people, so be it," Extinction Rebellion coordinator said.
Out of Liberty, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice
Adam **1/2
Gender farce boasts a rich comedic legacy running from Shakespeare to Some Like It Hot to Tootsie; it’s hard to know what to do with a take on that genre that isn’t particularly interested in the comedy. Director Rhys Ernst and screenwriter Ariel Schrag adapt Schrag's novel set in pre-marriage-equality 2006, when baby-faced, sexually-frustrated high-schooler Adam (Nicholas Alexander) heads to New York to spend the summer with his gay older sister, Casey (Margaret Qualley), among her LGBTQ cohorts.
SATURDAY 9/14
GRLwood
With a name that is not even as provocative as their bombastic, no-bullshit, call-out-heavy punk that oscillates between Bikini Kill-era shrieky garage grunge and stripped, surf-punky song constructions, GRLwood is a band to keep an eye on. This should be easy to do, since they’re rolling through the Urban Lounge in support of Portland-based freak folk legend Man Man, and playing with locals Palace of Buddies.
The Cat Rescuers ***
There are half a million abandoned and feral cats in New York City; this charming documentary introduces us to four volunteers who spend their own time and money trying to fix this inhumane situation in their own little corners of Brooklyn. Kickstarter-backed, this movie is, in many ways, the very epitome of the notion that we have to be the change we want to see in the world, in its depiction of a small-scale example of how the human relationship with nature damaged it, and the little things that can be done to make it all right again.
