Hm. I have mixed thoughts. On one hand its too clean-cut and slick for its gritty subject matter. On the other hand, I can feel a punk sensibility (really liked the anachronistic needle drops) and audaciousness under the surface that is clawing to come to the forefront. Immediately we're plopped into a world where Lee is immersed in a small community of other queens that give him a buzzing social life and ease of access to transactional sex + drugs,…

The ruse of connection within suburban domesticity thrown into crisis by your creepy neighbor. I can understand why this isn’t as highly regarded as Kurosawa’s Cure, it is essentially a re-telling of the same story: a police procedural inverted on its head to examine control and interpersonal dynamics within the nuclear family unit. It’s different though, the formal characteristics are more bland and well, sinister in their presentation. Entire colors & mood shift as conversations divulge. I was initially caught off guard…

Ryan Destiny & Brian Tyree Henry are absolute lightning in a bottle in this. They both bring such a lived-in grit, vulnerability, and prowess to their performances — two of the best of the year for sure. I was enamored with how their bond of adversity and mentorship ebbs and flows. Cried a few times. Though the script/storytelling doesn’t quite rise above cliché sports biopic melodrama (you can tell this is a Barry Jenkins script all day), there’s some wonderful needle-drops,…