“Red, White, Black and Blue,” which screens at Idyllwild CinemaFest 2013, is first a sports story that follows a traditional arc of inner city youth winning on the field and in their own lives, despite the odds stacked against them. But it goes beyond the playing fields and also chronicles the challenges these South Los…

Don’t expect “Murdering the Mom,” Duff Brenna’s latest work, to be a criminal confession of matricide, although a browser at one of his book signings asked Brenna’s publisher if it was a death row confession. Quite the opposite. Nearly 15 years after his mother’s death, Brenna is writing his paean to her. The title derives…