Between Us (2012)

Not every film can make a shopping mall feel both magical and menacing, but Forbidden Fruits challenges that.

“It's not ghosts. It's not supernatural. It's... It's America. And it's everywhere.”

Taika Waititi writes, directs and co-stars in 'Boy', set in 1984 New Zealand. The film does just what Waititi dreamed of — it gave a great coming-of-age story to Māori people without making a story of the Māori people as an exotic other.

I didn’t love Expecting Amy, the mini-series following Amy Schumer’s pregnancy, but it brought up a lot of great unspoken side-effects of working and growing a human in America.

When diverse representation is featured on-screen, it oftentimes comes with strings attached that undermine the message they were trying to send. This can be attributed to the fact that behind-the-screen, the industry primarily does not reflect the breadth of diverse difference that is present in daily life. That’s why when something as powerful and authentic as Minari comes along, it is both incredibly wonderful and needs a large audience to witness it.

The differences in these films could not be more blatant, and yet Gus Van Sant has found a way to portray the same messages and use the same techniques in each.