Y2K (2024)

I admit that I expected the worst when I pressed play on Y2K. I hadn't heard many people saying good things about it, and I wasn't sure I could trust the praise that came from some people who seemed to revel in the nostalgia inherent in the premise. Thank goodness I never let such things put me off though, and now I can be one of the few other people encouraging others to give this one some time.

It's a very certain New Year's Eve. The new century is approaching, and the news has a lot of talk about the millennium bug, with some people warning about it and others reassuring everyone that all will be well. Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison) are two high-school friends who are more concerned with spending some time at a cool party, where Eli can hopefully spend some time in the company of the cool and gorgeous Laura (Rachel Zegler). The partying and celebrations end up rudely interrupted, however, by a "glitch" that causes all computers, and any piece of tech, to rise up and attack the humans, aiming to ultimately enslave them as a power source.

The directorial debut of Kyle Mooney, who already has years of acting experience under his belt, this is a horror comedy co-written by himself and Evan Winter that can be nicely summed up as the result of people rewatching Maximum Overdrive far too many times before then wondering how it would play out if the laughs were intentional. It's very light and silly from the very first scenes, setting up an onscreen world akin to any seen in John Hughes movies of the 1980s, and just gets sillier when the robo-carnage begins, which is all well and good when the film-makers themselves know how wonderfully absurd the whole thing is.

Martell and Zegler are decent leads, and Dennison delivers another performance that ensures he'll keep being cast as the young man who can be relied upon to deliver a healthy dose of fun and self-confidence. Daniel Zolghadri and Lachlan Watson play two supporting characters who start off feeling a bit too underdeveloped and mildly irritating before turning into people you don't mind spending some time with, Eduardo Franco continues to be someone I now enjoy popping up in anything, Mason Gooding cements his "scream king" reputation with another solid turn, and there's a fantastic cameo appearance I won't spoil here, despite the fact that most of you will already know all about it.

The pacing works well, especially as the characters desperately try to escape one threat after another, the soundtrack is full of some great tracks from a quarter of a century ago, the practical effects are entertainingly lo-fi and absolutely in line with the tone of the whole thing, and this is entertaining fun for those who go into it with an open mind. I laughed more times at this than I have laughed at some recent outright comedies, and the third act delivered a level of cheesiness that will work on those who retain any fondness for the music and memories of the turn of the 21st century. In fact . . . I kind of loved it. 

8/10

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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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The Fanatic (2019)

I'd heard a hell of a lot about The Fanatic before finally getting the chance to check it out for myself, and most of it wasn't good. Some people were talking about it as if it was one of the worst films ever made, and mocking the central performance from John Travolta as being akin to that of the character playing "Simple Jack" in Tropic Thunder (you know the phrase, I know the phrase, I'm just not going to use it here in the main text of my review).

The Fanatic is quite bad, I don't think anyone is really going to stand up and make a case for it being a misunderstood modern classic, but it's nowhere near as bad as many have tried to make out. I'd also have to say that it has real moments where it tries to do something unexpected and interesting, especially when you think of the movies it seems to be following, films that have the same initial idea but take the characters down a much different road.

Travolta is Moose, a huge film fan who also has some clear mental health issues. If you encountered him in any social setting then you'd immediately be able to guess that he was somewhere on the autism spectrum that made him unable to pick up on standard social cues and body language. His favourite actor is Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa), and it looks like Moose is about to be very happy as he is all set to get Dunbar's autograph on an expensive prop. But events conspire to stop that from happening, which leads to Moose planning some way to encounter Dunbar and take up one minute of his time. Every encounter just ends up making Dunbar angrier, however, and makes Moose look more and more like a stalker, which is exactly what his friend, Leah (Ana Golja), warned him about.

Directed by Fred Durst, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Dave Bekerman (his first feature), The Fanatic is an uneven mix of right and wrong. The weird thing is that sometimes the wrong stuff doesn't seem so wrong as the film plays out in a surprisingly effective third act. Okay, Travolta's performance is a consistently bold one, for better or for worse, and the dialogue throughout can be painfully clunky, but the shading of the two characters who provide the heart of the picture, the ungrateful star and the fan being too invasive, is really well done, and allows for moments in which the film lays bare the problematic paradox at the heart of the relationship. There's usually a divide, and lines should be kept between public personas and their personal lives, but it's impossible to deny that people who become famous are only lifted to, and kept in, their position through fans.

I'm still really trying to decide what I think about Travolta's turn here. It's sometimes terrible, especially in the scenes that show him practicing his street artist routine as a British policeman, but sometimes surprisingly spot on. He has no filter, and no real sense of how others may be feeling as he stomps around and pursues something that he has set as some symbolic pinnacle of his own happiness. Sawa is great, and the fact that his character may seem like a stereotypical asshole who just happens to be a movie star feeds very much into the main points that the film is making. Moose is surrounded by those kinds of characters elsewhere (Todd and Slim, played by Jacob Grodnik and James Paxton), but he doesn't give them any respect because he can see them for what they are when they aren't covered by the dazzling cloak of stardom. And Golja does well as a friend who makes some strange choices, or glaring errors, and then has to simply bide her time elsewhere until she is ever needed again, if ever.

I started this review without my final thoughts being fully formed. That happens sometimes. Writing down my reaction to various elements in the film can help me decide on where I want to place it in any basic rating system. There are things working against this. The score isn't great, the Limp Bizkit song being pointed out as it appears on the soundtrack, and the whole thing is visually flat and messy.

It's got something though. Not enough to make it worth a rewatch, or to rate it as something good (cinematically), but certainly something to save it from being talked about as one of the worst things you could ever watch. For that reason, I end up rating it bang in the middle.

5/10

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