Hot Entertainment Picks for January 2012
Film: Pariah
To risk heartbreak. To risk rejection. To risk it all. What would you risk to come out of the closet? Set in Brooklyn, the upcoming film, Pariah, is about more than just a coming out – it’s a poetic coming-of-age story told from the perspective of a teenage girl struggling with her own identity.
Writer/director, Dee Rees, and executive producer, Spike Lee, collaborated in turning her 2007 short film, of the same name, into a full-length movie. Pariah is beautifully shot, as evidenced by its win for Best Cinematography at Sundance in 2011.
Alike (pronounced ah-lee-kay), played by young actress Adepero Oduye, is a bright 17-year-old student and a blossoming poet. She is also coming to terms with being a lesbian and experimenting with transgressing gender norms, all while watching her parents’ relationship deconstruct.
She discovers a new gentlemen's club and moonlights as a man to watch the dancers. By day, she conforms to her role as a traditional teenage girl for the sake of her parents, especially her conservative mother, Audrey (Kim Wayans). Parts of her true identity surface as she wears more masculine clothing to church and avoids going to prom. Alike's father, Arthur (Charles Parnell), is more supportive, though he keeps a cautious distance from his suspicions.
When the issue of Alike’s gender and sexual identity become impossible to hide, she finds escape through the written word. Her soul-rich poetry cushions her internal conflicts, using her words to justify her pain: "I'm broken, I'm broken open. Breaking is freeing. I'm not broken. I'm free."
Pariah promises to be an original take on coming to grips with our personal demons, only to find out that they aren’t demons at all. They’re just our own fears of what others will think of us.
Pariah is now showing in select theaters. For more information, visit focusfeatures.com/pariah.
Music: Amy Winehouse, Lioness: Hidden Treasures
Few artists have ever been as scrutinized as Amy Winehouse.
But it wasn’t always her music that kept her in the spotlight.
Lioness: Hidden Treasures is her first post-mortem album since
her passing last year.
Lioness is filled with what we love from Amy Winehouse – a classic style infused with her 21st century flair. Some of the songs are covers with that trademark Winehouse twist – jazzy and too cool for mainstream.
“Between the Cheats” is about sticking with her man despite his infidelity. “Body and Soul,” the duet Winehouse recorded shortly before her death with the legendary Tony Bennett, is another one of the album’s undeniable highlights.
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