100% agree on this, and that quality is what really draws me to Schoenbrun’s work. It’s interesting that this theme is approached from a sort of nostalgic orientation in both movies. Of course, both films focus on adolescent protagonists, but there’s more to it than that. When We’re All Going to the World’s Fair came out, I felt like its portrayal of internet community and socialization was spot-on… for the internet of 7-8 years before. And of course this new one is about late 90’s TV fandom culture.
At the Q&A I saw, Schoenbrun said they don’t really spend much time on the internet any more, but they used to be online all the time when they were younger. I got the sense that they’ve been through some pretty serious personal reckonings and transformations, and both of these films are explorations of those periods of intense introspection and growth (with I Saw the TV Glow presenting a sort of cautionary tale of what can happen if you back out before you finish your transformation).
oh yeah I think these parts are super well done, like they strike this really tense balance of not being so close to their reference points that they feel like stand-ins, not being so far off that they read as commentary, but just distant enough that they’re lensed (there must be a better word for this). and then when & how they’re dropped in the sequence of events does this perfect thing of recreating the cold water bathos of revisiting something nostalgic
so in a way I feel like this makes world’s fair safer? like it’s dealing with material squarely in the nostalgia zone, whereas tv glow does that in subject matter while actual the aesthetic of it sometimes reaches this like, fully 2010s prestige indie thing that isn’t yet far enough gone for tastefully safe consumption. idk if that makes it better or worse but to me ig it’s more challenging or something.
Orion and the Dark is the new Charlie Kaufman-wriiten movie. about a neurotic young boy and the anthropomorphised concepts that make the night work, and how he is afraid of them (specifically, the Dark). the solution, presented in a plodding three-act structure, is: telling stories with your children and grandchildren (Kaufman is 65)
this was the most elderly millennial work I’ve ever seen
there was a joke where Orion, desperate to delay bedtime and the turning off of lights, pleads his parents to read a bedtime story & grabs the biggest book off his bookshelf “here’s a good one, nice and weighty”. jester’s cap on the cover, title covered
“um, I’m not sure we have the time for David Foster Wallace tonight”. my eyes rolled out of my head, eldest’s eyes rolled to the bookshelf to spot my copy
‘Starburned and Unkissed’ feels like a big dumb movie song compared to anything off Desire… but it’s been growing on me if i just let myself enjoy the funny vocal effects
i also like the take of ‘Psychic Wound’ on the soundtrack it’s so bassy that my guy almost fainted in the car when he put the album on
the actual movie probably isn’t going to come out here for several months but i got the synopsis from @Bee so i feel like i’m in the conversation
The hapless american tourists were one of my favorite parts of this comedy about a bunch of nazis with a scheme to go back in time and give hitler a nuke
Strongly recommend this 30 minute documentary about a Connecticut hobo. Just a delight. Any SBers from the area please confirm if you took a field trip to see a cave that a hobo lived in before your parents were born.
ever since the local theater switched to digital projection (2012, prometheus) the picture’s looked like a pixelated jpg. I don’t know if it’s a trash projector or they just don’t know what they’re doing or what.
projection quality in smaller towns vs cities that have a much bigger rep film culture has definitely gotten a lot more variable since digital projection became widespread though; analog projection used to be teachable and involve enough discrete parts that you could expect to find enthusiasts doing their jobs well anywhere, whereas digital projection is both a) much shittier and less improvable on low end equipment and b) less likely to compel 16 year olds to try
One reason for the lack of urgency in resolving the projection crisis could be that the people who make movies see them differently than we do. Before industry screenings for members of the directors and writers guilds, an army of technicians attends to every projector, bulb, and screen to ensure that films look perfect. Meanwhile, the loudest proponents of the theater experience — Nolan, Scorsese, Spielberg, Tarantino — have custom-built cinemas in their homes that surpass any of the fleapits where you or I can see Tenet or The Fabelmans.
