Tag Archives: Jane Schoenbrun

All Movie Reviews, Documentary, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Review: Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape — Fantastic Fest 2024

Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape is screening as part of Fantastic Fest 2024, which runs from September 19 to September 26.

I have said my piece about the “compilation” film on this website before. In fact, I made some complaints about the format a few months ago when From My Cold Dead Hands played the Fantasia Festival. I’ll be brief about it here. The compilation/mixtape format is, by its design, artistically limiting. In borrowing from existing content, the artistry of the resulting film derives mostly from the edit. Why is this found footage being compiled, organized, and edited in this way? If the answer is, “I don’t know,” then the compilation has not succeeded in properly compiling.

The best of the format will create new meaning out of existing materials, or will resituate the original meaning of the materials in a way that produces new understanding. In short: the compilation film ought to Continue reading Review: Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape — Fantastic Fest 2024 →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Horror, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It

I Saw the TV Glow (2024) Movie Review

You suffocate, then you learn how to breathe again.

Jane Schoenbrun’s magnificent I Saw the TV Glow is a suburban-set semi-hallucinatory, semi-body horror piece of magical realism. Yet the film feels definitively lucid, articulating with striking poise a story about fluid identity and the repressive external forces that work to render that fluidity categorical. It is also a film whose body horror elements (which are quite minimal to the eyes of a frequent horror viewer) should not scare away the squeamish. Indeed, much of the horror regarding the body involves deeply conflicted and isolating internal states, as opposed to buckets of blood.

As for the magical realism, it is the icing on this hazy, flickering cake. Aided by an effectively moody soundtrack and some evocative imagery, Schoenbrun produces a film that feels Continue reading I Saw the TV Glow (2024) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Horror, Leave it, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Fantasia Festival 2021 Movie Reviews — We’re All Going to The World’s Fair, Tin Can

Tin Can and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair are screening as part of the 2021 Fantasia International Film Festival taking place Aug. 5 to Aug. 25.

Tin Can

Tin Can sets up a vaguely intriguing premise about a pandemic which is ravaging the population and a scientist working on the treatment. It appears like it may be a Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2021 Movie Reviews — We’re All Going to The World’s Fair, Tin Can →