film review: Riders of Justice

 

 

film review: Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street

 

Directed by Marilyn Agrelo

ChinoKino score: A

Review by Allan Tong

Chances are you grew up watching Sesame Street and/or your children watch it now. Its blend of entertainment and education charms pre-schoolers into teaching them the alphabet and counting, and yet is smart enough to entice grown-ups. Sesame Street deserves to be a global phenomenon for the last 52 years and 4,561 episodes (and counting), and this superb documentary explains how this happen.

Circle back to the late-1960s when a TV producer named Joan Ganz Cooney and a Carnegie Foundation exec and psychologist, Lloyd Morrisset, were alarmed that children, especially Black ghetto kids, knew how to sing beer commercials before they could recite the alphabet. Why not use the power of TV to educate? That was a revolutionary idea, but also a gamble. Ganz gave free reign to free-spirited creatives, who were riding the experimental vibe of the sixties. They were led by director Jon Stone and puppeteer Jim Henson.

Stone was disillusioned with TV, but like Cooney was an activist and understood her vision for this show. Stone saw a PSA shot in the streets of Harlem and decided to set the series on those stoops, which gave the show an identity light years from any previous children's show. Going further, the show featured a multiracial cast of Blacks, Latinos and whites that was revolutionary for its time and (sadly) decades to come. Stone's masterstroke was inviting Henson to come on board. Actually, Henson had only done puppetry for adults on TV, but was game to adjust for children.

Throw in a mix of dazzling animation, Big Bird and hip musical guests from Stevie Wonder to Johnny Cash, and Sesame Street became an instant smash. Even folks like Muhammad Ali were signing its praises.

film review: Chinatown Rising

 

Directed by Harry Chuck & Josh Chuck

ChinoKino score: A

Review by Allan Tong

Though it was completed before Covid struck, Chinatown Rising couldn't be more timely. Racist attacks against Asians, particularly those of Chinese descent, have erupted across the United States and Canada. Asians are being scapegoated for the pandemic, but Asians are now fighting back, and they can draw inspiration from the earlier generation, depicted in this riveting documentary.

Co-director Harry Chuck was a film student and community activist in the turbulent 1960s. He was part of that generation that grew up after the Chinese Exclusion Act and were no longer afraid of keeping quiet. This younger generation was inspired by the Black Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. Their turning point came in 1965, when the U.S. liberalized immigration policies and many more Chinese were allowed into the country (the Exclusion Act had forbidden it). In 1969, the activists demanded a school at the San Francisco State College to teach the contribution of the Chinese community. Also, they wanted Chinese to be used in classrooms in order to teach younger immigrant kids. They clashed with the Six Companies, a group of Chinatown elders whom they felt were out of touch and ineffectual.

The activists demonstrated in the streets, sometimes battling the police, and they fought city hall. Victories came, but not easily. The activists also worked hands-on within the community, particularly to stem the rise of street gangs, fed by kids who didn't assimilate and turned to crime. Tragically, they likely killed the head of the Youth Services Center, Barry Fong-Torres (brother of celebrated Rolling Stone magazine writer Ben Fong-Torres). Also in the 1970s, activists demanded better housing for the elderly and young families. Thankfully, Chuck captured these squalid conditions on camera which were presented at a rancorous city hall debate.