Swept Away by You, Me, and Tuscany
A Black woman centered in a box office rom-com with a happy ending and no struggle love.

Moving Picture World categorized the film as “a nonsense number”, but Normand's Won in a Closet, her second as director, displays her burgeoning talent. Mabel’s father, the country constable, is smitten with the mother of the boy Mabel imagines “her ideal”. The young couple’s romance is disrupted first by two rival “cut-ups” and then by misapprehension that a tramp is hiding in a closet at the mother’s home. In reality, the mother herself takes refuge in the closet to escape the constable’s attentions.
A Black woman centered in a box office rom-com with a happy ending and no struggle love.
“Candyman ain't a 'he.’ Candyman is the whole damn hive." Candyman represents all Black victims of white supremacy, and this art form narratively conveys it in a succinct, adulatory way, the history of which is rare to find.
Gritty and bleak are the best words to describe this film. There’s nothing happy about it.
At first glance, one wouldn't think John Carpenter's cult classic would be a thematic double-billing - or that Free Guy would be worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as They Live - but the two films of vastly different genres have more similarities upon further examination.
Everyone needs a BFF and a "wing person" like Yumi (Chloris Li). Li brings the "straight person" persona, literally and figuratively balancing James Aaron Oh's perfectly timed comedic delivery as the unlucky-in-love.
If you enjoy the bizarre, silly and entertaining world of the horror B-movies and want a break from the nuanced and poignant big budget horror releases, I have a list of gore-fests from the last ten years to enjoy this October.