5. Lovecraft Country

“Lonely World” by Moses Sumney

I’ll admit it: I’m a huge mark for musical sequences about the power of dancing. I remember Spike Lee’s Scorsesean serial-killer movie Summer of Sam as much for Mira Sorvino and John Leguizamo dancing to “Got to Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye than for anything involving the actual Son of Sam; I’m the guy who remembers the short-lived Vinyl for the “Wild Safari” scene, period. As such, I’m primed to appreciate the scene in Misha Greene’s ambitious but uneven Lovecraft Country in which Michael K. Williams’s closeted Montrose loses himself to the music of Chicago’s underground gay ball culture. (It’s just where I live, musically speaking.) But the moment here isn’t whatever song Montrose and his drag queen boyfriend Sammy (John Hudson Odom) are actually listening to — it’s Moses Sumney’s gorgeous, tremulous song “Lonely World,” an exceptionally beautiful paean to the place we all live in before human connection carries us away. Sumney is a soundtrack staple in recent years, and for good reason. You don’t need to recognize the music, this sequence seems to say; you need only recognize the need for music, and the rest takes care of itself.