I want to highlight a short film that’s coming available on Netflix. “A Love Song for Latasha” is based on the death by shooting of 15 year-old Latasha Harlins, which was one cause of the 1992 civil uprising in Los Angeles. A store owner attacked Harlins under the belief she was trying to steal a $1.79 orange juice, despite video evidence later showing Harlins had money in her hand. Store owner Soon Ja Du attacked Harlins, and when Harlins defended herself and then tried to run, Du shot Harlins in the back of the head.
Despite a jury finding Du guilty of voluntary manslaughter and recommending the maximum sentence of 16 years, the trial judge Joyce Karlin sentenced Du to five years probation, 400 hours community service, and a $500 fine. The week before, Karlin had handed down a tougher sentence on a man who’d kicked his dog.
The Los Angeles D.A. disallowed Karlin from judging felony cases that involved violent crimes, but Karlin was elected a year later to California’s Superior Court. She would later be elected to the Manhattan Beach city council, and serve a term as the city’s mayor.
The 19-minute short film doesn’t focus on this, but it’s important to know and remember. Instead, “A Love Song for Latasha” remembers the girl and her dreams. It feels so difficult in the world we live in to remember both at once. The media overwhelms us in ways that pretend we can only choose accountability and the anger when it’s missing, or the memory of someone’s humanity and the love that demands that accountability and anger. Don’t believe someone telling you that you have to choose between them when they’re the same thing.
NEW SERIES
The School Nurse Files (Netflix)
directed by Kyoung-mi Lee
What would it be like if you were a grown-up magical girl who had to save the world in full view of everyone else? They can’t see the monsters you’re saving them from either. You’d just look like someone waving a neon sword and acting funny around your workplace. This is the fate of An Eun Young, a school nurse destined to save the world and look silly doing it.
“The School Nurse Files” is directed and showrun by Kyoung-mi Lee, a director and actress who started off as the script supervisor for the superb “Lady Vengeance”. It’s written by Serang Chung. (Apologies if I switch up first name/last name order at all here; I try to check but without knowing Korean, the information I have available isn’t always consistent.)
You can watch “The School Nurse Files” on Netflix with a subscription.
Utopia (Amazon)
showrunner Gillian Flynn
A group of comic book readers discover that they’re not reading fiction. The conspiracy in the pages of “Utopia” is real. They set out to defeat the corporation engineering the impending downfall of humanity.
“Utopia” has been under production on and off since 2014, first under HBO. Originally, David Fincher was set to showrun and direct. As happens with the majority of David Fincher projects, the series stalled due to budget disputes. Amazon picked up the rights, and in stepped “Gone Girl” novelist and screenwriter Gillian Flynn.
The long delay on the project really doesn’t help it right now. As Polygon critic Samantha Nelson notes:
“In different times #UtopiaTV would just be a mediocre conspiracy thriller. But in an era where some people genuinely believe COVID-19 is a hoax, airing a show about a plague engineered by a tech philanthropist and a global cabal feels irresponsible.”
Flynn also produced and wrote the novel and some teleplays for “Sharp Objects”, as well as the screenplay for “Widows”.
You can watch “Utopia” on Amazon with a subscription.
NEW MOVIES
Secret Society of Second Born Royals (Disney+)
directed by Anna Mastro
I have to admit to a high level of discomfort writing about a plot where the children of monarchs have special genes that make them superheroes. It seeks to legitimize too many concepts of aristocracy that have been used to wipe out indigenous cultures. There’s a mountain of my own cultural history that will never be recovered or accessible to me because it was systematically wiped out by eugenics justifications that looked a lot like this. The concept that only the aristocrats can keep the peace and they have an innate and inherent superior ability to do this – that’s the entire operational justification for colonialism. That’s the concept your fantasy is based on?
Oh, but it’s a kid-friendly movie, stop being so serious? Yeah, the notion that this is the logic we’re selling to children only makes it worse.
I want this feature to be primarily informational, and as a man writing about projects by women, I try to be conscious of limiting my own judgments and potential biases. When something steps into territory like this, where the core of it is centered on propagandist notions that have proven harmful and even today continue to cause harm, it’s not really a judgment anymore. It’s an open wound that has yet to be healed; it is an ongoing fight to be seen as equal in our humanity. As a Latino, I cannot mention something with this precept without speaking about how searing it is living with the long-lasting, generations-spanning pain of that concept, everything it took away, and anything that tries to legitimize the root cause of it even for a second.
The idea that royals have an ancestral, genetic superiority is a eugenecist concept. To world-build on that concept as the central theme of your story and a positive selling point we should cheer for is harmful. It’s insulting. It digs into that wound. If we’re going to be real about the criticism and bad intersectionalism of “Mulan” and at the very least the advertising for “Cuties”, then let’s be real about this one, too.
NEW DOCUMENTARIES
Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story (VOD)
directed by April Wright
“Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story” looks at the extensive work and history of stuntwomen in Hollywood. Stunt crews go without much praise for jobs that are incredibly dangerous and painful, and this lack of praise goes double for women who do those jobs.
Narrated by Michelle Rodriguez, “Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story” traces the industry evolution of stuntwomen in film. It also features a wide range of interviews with stuntwomen and women stunt coordinators about their experiences and the obstacles they’ve faced in the industry.
Director April Wright has balanced independent narrative film with documentaries. This isn’t the first time she’s examined the history of the movie industry either. Her series “Going Attractions” has featured histories on the evolution and near extinction of both the drive-in (“The Definitive Story of the American Drive-in Movie”) and the grand, ornate movie palaces that used to pack hundreds (“The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace”).
You can rent “Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story” starting at $4. See the streaming options here.
Fandango at the Wall (HBO)
directed by Varda Bar-Kar
One surviving Mexican tradition is an approach to folk music called son jarocho. In “Fandango at the Wall”, Arturo O’Farrill travels to Veracruz, Mexico to meet with those who continue and celebrate the tradition. He joins them traveling to a music festival that takes place in Mexico and the U.S. at the same time, on both sides of the border wall.
Director Varda Bar-Kar shifts between short-form and feature length documentaries, often with a special interest on regional traditions in Mexico as well as the U.S.
You can watch “Fandango at the Wall” on HBO Max with a subscription.
Kiss the Ground (Netflix)
co-directed by Rebecca Harrell Tickell
“Kiss the Ground” tackles a front on climate change that is seldom discussed. Soil health has been sapped by modern agricultural techniques. The literal ground on which plants are grown and animals graze doesn’t just lack health, it lacks productivity and resilience as well. Healthier, more bio-diverse farming techniques can actually save expenses while returning a great deal of carbon into plants and the soil itself.
This alone won’t heal climate change, but it is a factor that needs to be talked about more. Beyond this, greater abundance of food can contribute to easing other societal pressure points that keep us from tackling the bigger-picture fights like climate change.
Director Rebecca Harrell Tickell started out as an actress, and has since shifted more toward directing. Her directing partner is also her husband, Joshua Tickell. The pair are probably known best for “The Big Fix”, which examined the factors that contributed to and the effects that arose from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster.
You can watch “Kiss the Ground” on Netflix with a subscription.
Take a look at new shows + movies by women from past weeks.
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Gabriel Diego Valdez 