Nightalk (2023)

You can have the best filmmaker and cast in the world, but if the script is lacking, you’re in a troublesome state. Such is the case with Gemini Man, a film full of tremendous artists.

A Black woman centered in a box office rom-com with a happy ending and no struggle love.

As a huge fan of Sean Baker’s Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket, I’ve wanted to watch Anora since before it even was released. But life got in the way, my watchlist grew, and honestly, the fact that it was marketed as a romantic comedy put me off. Even with all the critical praise and the five Academy Awards it won last year, I just kept postponing it indefinitely.

The Vietnamese perspective is not only completely ignored in 'The Greatest Beer Run Ever', but it is blatantly whitewashed and disrespected. 

Outer Banks (2020-) knows its audience: young adults in a country that can’t stop romanticizing good ole’ treasure hunts. Add a little of Riverdale’s (2017-) sex appeal, and no one can look away. Forty years after The Goonies (1985) America’s consciousness hasn’t strayed from the same tropes: treasure hunts, a vulnerable white male lead, and the whitewashing of a racially segregated setting.

The problem isn’t that it’s bad. It's good. But it fails to stand out from a crowd of similar films.