There were two major standouts at this past January’s Sundance Film Festival: Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain,” and Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow,” which screened in the festival’s Midnight section — the latter now has a trailer.
I was not a fan of Schoenbrun’s last one, “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” which struck me as a tad too elaborate for its own good — and a failed attempt at pulling off some kind of Lynchian spell on the viewer. If you read the reviews for “I Saw the TV Glow,” there’s again a lot of comparisons to Lynch as Schoenbrun again tackles possessed media.
Schoenbrun’s latest garnered all-out raves at Sundance. It has a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes (8.3 average score) and 86 on Metacritic. Some of the reviews are even using the “M” word (masterpiece). Unlike, “A Real Pain” (which is an exquisitely simple examination of trauma), I have yet to catch ‘TV Glow’ but very much looking forward to it.
So, what is “I Saw the TV Glow” about? That’s where things get a tad complicated as there really isn’t a clear consensus about what the accumulation of all of its mysteries results in. With that said, the trailer makes it look visually stunning. The use of the color purple is wonderful. There’s definitely some Lynchian vibes going, I also see some Cronenberg (“Videodrome”).
The gist of the plot has to do with a teenager struggling through life in the suburbs when suddenly his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own, reality and fiction start to blur.
A24 has set a May 3, 2024 release date for “I Saw The TV Glow.”
The judge in the antitrust suit against Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. has set the trial for March, rather than the November date Paramount requested. That is catastrophic for David Ellison.