I Saw The TV Glow (2024)

While I wasn't as big a fan of We're All Going To The World's Fair as some people, there was no doubt that writer-director Jane Schoenbrun had put forward a case for them being well worth keeping an eye on. A unique and intriguing new voice, I was keen to see what they would do for their second narrative feature (and I should also remember to head back and check out A Self-Induced Hallucination, a documentary about the very real horror and tragedy stemming from the internet legend of the Slender Man). I Saw The TV Glow is a huge step up, in my view, and shows a film-maker who is using their platform to deliver impressively unique thematic content wrapped up in some familiar genre trappings.

Ostensibly the tale of Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Jack Haven) forming and navigating a friendship that is then interrupted by one of them being absent for a number of years, this is also about people being strongly attached to a TV show that speaks to them, bonding with others over that shared interest, and then looking back on everything with an adult perspective that shows it in a slightly different light. It's also about the "egg crack", according to Schoenbrun, which is a term given to the moment in the life of a trans individual when they realise that their exterior body doesn't align with their gender identity.

Schoenbrun does a very good line in subtle and unnerving horror, easily creating and maintaining an atmosphere that will have many viewers sitting uncomfortably (or, as mentioned just above, seeing their own past or present discomfort and pain presented in a way not often seen onscreen). Allowing the plot to focus on something that so many of us can identify with, that TV show you found at the time in your life when you needed it most, one that felt as if it was speaking directly to you, allows it to have that paradoxical kind of specificity that also seems universal. Some people will feel as if this is uncanny in how it captures their feelings, but everyone should at least take something meaningful away from it.

Smith and Haven are both very good in the lead roles, but it's the former who will linger in your mind long after the credits have rolled, thanks to a third act that allows for one of the most heart-breaking and raw depictions of despair I have seen in a long time. Fred Durst is effective in his supporting role (playing Owen's father), and the casting of Amber Benson is a double bonus, considering how good she is onscreen and how she was a part of the beloved cast of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (a major influence on the film, and the fictional show within it).

I watched a full movie here, something with a real journey and emotional arc for the characters, but I also fell under a spell. The visuals, the music, the building sense of oppression, it all made me think back to those nights when I was young and sometimes feeling lost within the familiar surroundings of my own bedroom. I Saw The TV Glow is disorientating and discombobulating in a way that is impressively unique and powerful. It gave me the feeling that I was hoping to get from Skinamarink, and I don't know if anyone else will read this and understand what I mean.  

How do you release a full-blooded primal scream when your own body is working to keep you gagged? That's what I keep wondering when I think about I Saw The TV Glow. And I think about it more often than I think about many of the other movies I have watched throughout the past year.

8/10

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Prime Time: Strictly Sexual (2008)

I was fortunate enough, if you can call it that, to spy this title when I was browsing Amazon Prime for a viewing choice this week. Wondering if it would be some kind of sex comedy based in the world of shows like Strictly Come Dancing, I decided to look at some of the details. I saw that it starred Amber Benson, a name that rang a bell. "Oh," said my wife, who had been watching me in amusement as I rushed to my usual stance of firm indecision, "she was Willow's girlfriend in Buffy, and she was in that film you watched that had her mourning Ron Jeremy." My wife retains some bizarre snippets in her brain, and is rarely wrong. Today was no exception. I had enjoyed Benson in both Buffy The Vampire Slayer and One-Eyed Monster. And so the decision was made.

It was a bad decision.

There's a core idea here that could have been decent. The basic plot concerns two women (Donna, played by Benson, and Christi Ann, played by Kristen Kerr) who decide to head out and pick up a couple of male prostitutes. They end up picking up Joe (Johann Urb) and Stanny (Stevie Long), two men who ARE NOT male prostitutes, but could do with the money when it comes up in post-coital conversation. This leads to the women agreeing to an arrangement that should benefit them all. They will let the men stay in their pool house, where they can enjoy an easy life in between any time they are called upon for sex. But, as we've seen explored in movies many times before, can sex without feelings ever really last as a good thing?

I'd be interested to see what this material could have looked like, filtered through a female gaze. Director Joel Viertel doesn't manage to keep things balanced, although he's definitely held back by the script, which was written by Long (something that seems so obvious now, considering how his character is viewed throughout the film . . . let's just say that he's most definitely packaged as the wise alpha male). One or two amusing exchanges aside, Strictly Sexual does nothing to make the characters engaging enough, or even make the conversations and dynamics more interesting.

Benson does okay, hampered by the fact that her character quickly turns into someone who turns on those around her, especially when she suspects that she's about to catch a dose of icky feelings. She's the best of the bunch anyway. Kerr and Urb are a bit weak, but it's Long who really throws off the balance. If his writing is . . . problematic, to put it as kindly as I can, then his acting makes it all a lot worse. Although far from the worst actor I have seen in movies, the combination of his poor performance and poor dialogue makes almost every minute that he's onscreen slightly painful.

In summation, Strictly Sexual is a film that desperately wants to present itself as something honest, modern, and risqué. Unfortunately, it begins to spiral early on, nosediving into a mire of overdone melodrama and false-sounding attempts to sound cool and progressive that it never recovers from.

3/10

There's an overpriced DVD that Americans can buy here.

One-Eyed Monster (2008)

Ron Jeremy - actor, porn star, bit of a legend. It's no overstatement to say that the rise of Ron Jeremy through the ranks of adult entertainment to become a household name and someone more like a cuddly, hairy uncle that you wouldn't want to have to hug TOO tightly at family parties (like a sleaz(y/ier) version of Robin Williams) was something that nobody saw coming. No pun intended.

He's the main star here despite the fact that he's barely onscreen for a third of the runtime. That's irrelevant. The whole movie revolves around Ron Jeremy's most famous attribute. Yep, as you could probably have guessed, while shooting an adult sex movie out in the middle of nowhere a ray from space hits Mr. Jeremy and ends up taking control of his penis. This leads to the penis causing all kinds of problems when it detaches itself from Ron and starts inserting itself into anyone it can find, and doing so with such force that they end up dead. As the snow keeps falling outside things are definitely heating up inside but not in the way that was intended when the crew first arrived on location.

One-Eyed Monster is completely ridiculous, full of bad taste gags and doesn't even have all that much nudity, considering the central premise. It's also very funny and entertaining from start to finish.

The cast may be a mixed bag but the good performances far outweigh the bad, despite how silly the material is. Alongside Ron and colleague Veronica Hart there's also some screentime for another starlet from the adult entertainment industry, Carmen Hart, and then the rest of the cast includes Amber Benson (probably best known to everyone from her turn in the Buffy TV show), Jason Graham, Charles Napier, Jeff Denton (grabbing most of the best lines), Bart Fletcher, Jenny Guy and John Edward Lee.

Director Adam Fields (who co-wrote the movie with Jordan Fields and Scott Fields) does a great job of walking a fine line between outright absurdity and self-aware fun. Hell, I'd give a beer and a pat on the back to whoever came up with the great line "we're gonna need a bigger tampon" that manages to, of course, reference Jaws and keep things amusingly distasteful.

If you enjoyed the dubious delights of Pervert! then you should also enjoy this. And if you don't think this kind of thing would entertain you in any way whatsoever then . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . well, I guess you're reading the wrong reviewer.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Eyed-Monster-Amber-Benson/dp/B002WVCRIS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336769921&sr=8-1