Let’s talk about three short movies featured in this year’s Oscars. The winners If Anything Happens I Love You and Two Distant Strangers and the nominee A Love Song for Latasha.
Hello, there! I’m dos Santos, and this is Ulven Reviews, with Movies and series from all over the world and all eras. Today we’ll do things a little differently. We’ll talk about three short movies.
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A Love Song for Latasha by Sophia Nahli Allison was nominated for Best Short Documentary (won by Colette). It loosely tells the story of Latasha Harlins, murdered because of a bottle of orange juice. We already mentioned this case here in the review of the documentary LA 92.
It’s the weakest of the three we’ll be reviewing today. It’s nice to know a little more about who Latasha was, besides the victim of a horrendous crime. However, the movie was way too shallow.
We have Latasha’s friends and family giving beautiful comments about her personality and dreams, mostly in voice-over, while the image consists of random animations and shots that resemble more stock footage than an actual representation of what is being said.
I feel like the story of Latasha is a perfect demonstration of how the American justice system is racist, especially against its own black people. I genuinely believe her story must be properly told. Maybe a full-length documentary would fulfill it, while A Love Song for Latasha is more of a tribute to her memory.
“If Anything Happens I Love You” by Michael Govier and Will McCormack was the Best Animated Short Film winner. It’s about a couple mourning the loss of their child.
The animation is cute, and it looked even better on the screen of my computer than on the TV screen, don’t ask me why. The story is very emotional, and It also has an extremely fundamental message that I wasn’t expecting at all, and it’s kinda hard to get me off guard.
I guess the only thing I dislike was the awful pop song that plays around the 3-minute mark. I didn’t dislike it only because of my musical taste. Unless I missed something, the lyrics had nothing to do with the story, and the mood was too upbeat for a tragedy.
Anyway, besides this little issue, I can say I really like the short animation and recommend it, especially for its message.
Lastly, Two Distant Strangers by Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe, the Best Live Action Short Film Oscar winner.
Carter (played by Joey Bada$$) a black man, is killed by a cop (played by Andrew Howard) when trying to go back home to his dog, Jeter. However, every time he’s killed he wakes up in Perri’s home (played by Zaria)(Perri is played by Zaria, not her home).
I liked it a lot. It has funny moments, but also some really tense and serious ones. It’s also technically perfect and has a present and very fundamental theme and message.
Sometimes it gets a little too silly and even ludicrous, but I think it’s just the style of the filmmakers, not taking their art way too rigidly. Instead of passing their message in a pretentious way, they decided to make it fun, and it worked for me.
That’s it for now.
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Dos Ratos 