Black and White (1999)

This current year, as well as the past several, has seen a slowly building increase in something the horror genre has required for quite a while in this critic's opinion...originality. I've stated before that I am very hard to please when it comes to this vein of the film industry's offerings, always leaning more towards that which sends chills through my very being in lieu of buckets of blood and gore.

As one of the women said in the film, friendship in your teens is “as important as any lover” and it’s clear they lived that philosophy throughout their early adult lives as well.

True crime media is notoriously obsessed with the “missing white woman” trope, and yet the vast majority of American murder victims are male, and well over half are people of color.

Alongside A Drowning Man, I Signed The Petition, 3 Logical Exits, and A World Not Ours, A Man Returned continues to paint a realistic portrait of the Refugee Crisis that eschews the Western gaze and stereotype. These are real portraits painted by a director with lived experience, cultural connection and an amazing eye for visuals.

The trouble with Yara (2021) is that in its attempt to tell the whole story, it struggles to tell a consistently engaging story.

'Ms. Davis’ Close Friend' will make you think about the meaning of death and what it means to be alive, and if there’s really a race to be run with one's inevitable demise.