I Saw The TV Glow

[Dicktar2023]

If you have a taste for David Lynch films, this might be for you. It's a surrealist parable about two high school students who form a folie a deux around a TV show and...stuff happens. The line between fantasy and reality blurs.

I don't know what else to say about it that doesn't potentially taint the experience, but suffice to say, I love that halfway through this movie, I had no idea where it was going or whether I liked it.

I ended up loving it more than any movie I've seen in a calendar year--but your mileage might certainly vary.

I highly recommend you read nothing about it, because there is defintely a "correct interpretation" forming in the media that makes the subtext text.

I'd really like to talk about that, if/when anyone sees this.

[todd-parker]

Saw this last weekend and concur that it had strong Lynch vibes and kept me engaged throughout the runtime. While I had some vague understanding of the final result, it wasn't until I read more about the film (Vanity Fair had a great write up) and about the filmmaker, especially, that put what I saw in better focus. This film seemed like a natural progression from the director/writer's previous work (We're All Going To The World's Fair) and definitely interested in seeing where they take us next.

My only real gripe about the picture was the use of nearly 30-year old actors to play high school freshman - though, not sure if that was deliberate to reinforce the idea that these characters were stuck in the "midnight realm" and it had some time manipulation effects.

A definite head trip, for sure.

Also, surprised to find out that the dad in the film was played by Fred Durst!

[3dender]

If you have a taste for David Lynch films, this might be for you. It's a surrealist parable about two high school students who form a folie a deux around a TV show and...stuff happens. The line between fantasy and reality blurs.

I don't know what else to say about it that doesn't potentially taint the experience, but suffice to say, I love that halfway through this movie, I had no idea where it was going or whether I liked it.

I ended up loving it more than any movie I've seen in a calendar year--but your mileage might certainly vary.

I highly recommend you read nothing about it, because there is defintely a "correct interpretation" forming in the media that makes the subtext text.

I'd really like to talk about that, if/when anyone sees this.

Just saw this. Loved it and found it haunting, although somewhat more straightforward than most of Lynch's most famous works.

Would love to hear your thoughts on what it all means, I have yet to read the theories.

Edit: well just read the wiki and I guess it's pretty obvious in hindsight that it's about coming out as trans. I'm a little disappointed if that's really all there is to it.

[Dicktar2023]

If you have a taste for David Lynch films, this might be for you. It's a surrealist parable about two high school students who form a folie a deux around a TV show and...stuff happens. The line between fantasy and reality blurs.

I don't know what else to say about it that doesn't potentially taint the experience, but suffice to say, I love that halfway through this movie, I had no idea where it was going or whether I liked it.

I ended up loving it more than any movie I've seen in a calendar year--but your mileage might certainly vary.

I highly recommend you read nothing about it, because there is defintely a "correct interpretation" forming in the media that makes the subtext text.

I'd really like to talk about that, if/when anyone sees this.

Just saw this. Loved it and found it haunting, although somewhat more straightforward than most of Lynch's most famous works.

Would love to hear your thoughts on what it all means, I have yet to read the theories.

Edit: well just read the wiki and I guess it's pretty obvious in hindsight that it's about coming out as trans. I'm a little disappointed if that's really all there is to it.

Spoiler

The correct interpretation is that it is a parable for gender transition (or lack thereof).

Having watched the movie with no prior info, this was not entirely obvious to me. The queer themes are not subtle, of course, but the movie avoids explicit reference to changing gender. I took it to be a more broad horror story of the (maybe) universal feeling that adulthood is haunted by the increasingly tangible sense that you are not living the life you were "supposed" to live. Of which, the feeling that you're in the wrong body or that you've spend years trying to be someone you'll never be, etc. are just specific presentations .

But Schoenbrun (herself trans) has been more than happy to explain that, yes, it's about being trans, and that there are many specific references and metaphors and codes that only trans people will pick up on.

Which I have some complicated feelings about. It's one thing for David Lynch to say that Eraserhead was an expression of his anxieties about being a father. (Yeah, no duh.) But what if he'd been willing to walk us through each metaphor and image to break down exactly what he was thinking and what lesson we should take? I don't think that movie would still be as talked about 50 years later (IMO)

Schoenbrun hasn't been that specific, but she's happy to give a kind of guide to what means what.

https://newsletter-stg.oscars.org/news/ ... -interview

I'm very, very happy to have had the experience of seeing this without any prior info.

[3dender]

If you have a taste for David Lynch films, this might be for you. It's a surrealist parable about two high school students who form a folie a deux around a TV show and...stuff happens. The line between fantasy and reality blurs.

I don't know what else to say about it that doesn't potentially taint the experience, but suffice to say, I love that halfway through this movie, I had no idea where it was going or whether I liked it.

I ended up loving it more than any movie I've seen in a calendar year--but your mileage might certainly vary.

I highly recommend you read nothing about it, because there is defintely a "correct interpretation" forming in the media that makes the subtext text.

I'd really like to talk about that, if/when anyone sees this.

Just saw this. Loved it and found it haunting, although somewhat more straightforward than most of Lynch's most famous works.

Would love to hear your thoughts on what it all means, I have yet to read the theories.

Edit: well just read the wiki and I guess it's pretty obvious in hindsight that it's about coming out as trans. I'm a little disappointed if that's really all there is to it.

Spoiler

The correct interpretation is that it is a parable for gender transition (or lack thereof).

Having watched the movie with no prior info, this was not entirely obvious to me. The queer themes are not subtle, of course, but the movie avoids explicit reference to changing gender. I took it to be a more broad horror story of the (maybe) universal feeling that adulthood is haunted by the increasingly tangible sense that you are not living the life you were "supposed" to live. Of which, the feeling that you're in the wrong body or that you've spend years trying to be someone you'll never be, etc. are just specific presentations .

But Schoenbrun (herself trans) has been more than happy to explain that, yes, it's about being trans, and that there are many specific references and metaphors and codes that only trans people will pick up on.

Which I have some complicated feelings about. It's one thing for David Lynch to say that Eraserhead was an expression of his anxieties about being a father. (Yeah, no duh.) But what if he'd been willing to walk us through each metaphor and image to break down exactly what he was thinking and what lesson we should take? I don't think that movie would still be as talked about 50 years later (IMO)

Schoenbrun hasn't been that specific, but she's happy to give a kind of guide to what means what.

https://newsletter-stg.oscars.org/news/ ... -interview

I'm very, very happy to have had the experience of seeing this without any prior info.

Thanks... agree with everything you said. As you pointed out, Schoenbrun did her work and its legacy no favors by giving away the game.

Still a haunting film, and I love to think, as you did, that it could be representing just the general malaise that younger generations seem to increasingly experience amidst the degeneration of late-stage capitalism.

[Dicktar2023]

This is a good discussion of the movie from Pop Culturel Happy Hour. Interesting mix of views--including Liam McBain reluctantly admitting that the movie IS ambiguous, even though there is only one correct way to interpret that ambiguity.

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/14/11979645 ... ransfixing

[BarkCampbell]

Remember when all those churches bought all those ads and insisted we all go out to see, buy, rent whatever God's Not Dead? That it's just amazing when in reality they just wanted you to watch 90 mins of their propaganda?

I Saw The TV Glow is the God's Not Dead for the latter half of the letter people. Directed by a mentally ill dude whose "early life" section is exactly what's expected, it's just propaganda that NPR and Rolling Stone tells you is deep art. Both movies' actors are bad, too.

[Dicktar2023]

Remember when all those churches bought all those ads and insisted we all go out to see, buy, rent whatever God's Not Dead? That it's just amazing when in reality they just wanted you to watch 90 mins of their propaganda?

I Saw The TV Glow is the God's Not Dead for the latter half of the letter people. Directed by a mentally ill dude whose "early life" section is exactly what's expected, it's just propaganda that NPR and Rolling Stone tells you is deep art. Both movies' actors are bad, too.

Written like someone who has not seen a single frame of either I Saw the TV Glow or God's Not Dead, but thanks for your "thoughts," Cletus.

[BarkCampbell]

Remember when all those churches bought all those ads and insisted we all go out to see, buy, rent whatever God's Not Dead? That it's just amazing when in reality they just wanted you to watch 90 mins of their propaganda?

I Saw The TV Glow is the God's Not Dead for the latter half of the letter people. Directed by a mentally ill dude whose "early life" section is exactly what's expected, it's just propaganda that NPR and Rolling Stone tells you is deep art. Both movies' actors are bad, too.

Written like someone who has not seen a single frame of either I Saw the TV Glow or God's Not Dead, but thanks for your "thoughts," Cletus.

saw it 2 months ago on Max. MST3k-worthy. Director has almost as hard a time implementing the art of subtlety as he has getting rid of that Y chromosome.