The Arts Desk’s weekly picks for music, movies and more
By ADHITHI ANJALI — arts@theaggie.org
Game: “A Normal Lost Phone” (2017)
Play as a detective, searching through a lost phone in order to identify its owner. As you go through files, photos, messages and more, you slowly unravel more about the owner, retracing their steps and learning about their story. In a calm, low-stakes game like this, you can enjoy watching the phone’s owner form relationships and find community in a heart-warming exhibit of how technology can connect us.
Song: “True Trans Soul Rebel” by Against Me! (2014)
From the rock band Against Me!’s 2014 album “Transgender Dysphoria Blues,” this song, and the album at large, broadcasts lead vocalist and lyricist Laura Jane Grace’s angst and exuberance at coming into her own identity. Grace came out as a transgender woman two years prior to the release of the track and lets this song relay the difficulty of this experience for her. The song ultimately shows the necessity of living out your true identity despite the loneliness and anxiety of change.
Movie: “Tangerine” dir. by Shaun Baker (2015)
Filmed on just a couple of iPhones, “Tangerine” follows transgender sex worker Sin-Dee Rella (Kiki Kitana Rodriguez) as she sets out to scour Hollywood for her cheating boyfriend. With her friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) by her side, the film takes a tragi-comic ride through the city as it balances the humanity in its comedy and community with the danger and injustice that Sin-Dee and Alexandra live with. What more could you ask for from a Christmas movie brimming with the heat, neon and heart of L.A.?
Show: “Sort Of” (2021 – )
Renewed for a third season, HBO’s “Sort Of” comes from the minds of Bilal Baig, who also stars as the series’ protagonist Sabi Mehboob, and Fab Flippo. The show lets its characters make the best of an ever-changing life. Not quite incomplete, but never finished, “Sort Of” centers around the life of Mehboob and their friends. The character is nonbinary and Pakistani, and much of the show centers around a search for true understanding, including the elements of themselves that change as much as those that remain in spite of everything that happens in life. The show’s world is small and the consequences are limited: you care because you want to see them live as well as they can.
Written by: Adhithi Anjali — arts@theaggie.org
