USA DAWN: NEWS AND UPDATES

Southside With You  premiered at Sundance on January 24 of this year, 10 days after the Oscar nominations were announced, 10 days after it was clear that the Academy had neglected to nominate any people of color in the acting categories for the second straight year.  Southside  must have seemed like a fresh breath in that thin mountain air, a progressive step away from the systemic Hollywood problems that the #OscarsSoWhite discussion decried. An imagining of how President Barack Obama and Michelle then-Robinson’s first date went down,  Southside  features a cast that is entirely black and spends much of its time as a showcase of a dialogue on race relations and blackness between its two principal characters (Barack is played by Parker Sawyers, Michelle is played by Tika Sumpter). The Sundance crowd received the movie fondly— many of the reviews that make up its current 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes date back to the Sundance screenings. Southsi...