I Saw the TV Glow

It sent me out of the theater feeling lots of things, which is what you'd often hope for.

I loved, um, I Saw the TV Glow, their f- previous film.

I declared that the number one movie of its year in Vanity Fair.

Uh, anyway, I went back to my apartment [laughs], opened my laptop, and was like, "Oh, shit, how do I write about this?"

Like, that was, uh, they made it for, like, I think $100,000, another $100,000 to finish it, um, and is entirely, like, this teenage girl living in apparently kind of unhappy isolation who spends m- all of her time participating in this online horror challenge.

And then occasionally, uh, converses with this older man who has reached out, claiming to be worried about her.

Uh, and then, um, you know, TV Glow, I Saw The TV Glow, I think is an incredible movie, but is also one that I feel very outside of.

You know? Like, I-

Like, I went to the theater.

I saw, I saw the TV Glow in a theater.

I'm glad that story got made.

I'm glad I got to see that in a theater.

I feel like this has gotta be so close to, uh, uh, you know, obviously a personal film.

Yeah.

Same with the TV Glow and the one, uh, they did before that.

Um, but it's like to be the director who wants to reboot the old horror franchise after having the hit Sundance movie, surely somebody pitched a Jane Showrun to, to revamp a, a-

Mm.

Um, and I guess the other thing I would say is that, like, the end of TV Glow needed, needed to be what it is, you know? It really did.

It, like, um, I don't view it as a hopeless ending.

I don't view it as a, as a sad ending or a bad ending.

Mm

...

it would've felt so wrong and untrue to, like, take Owen to a space of, like, liberation at, in, in, in the runtime of TV Glow.

Um-

Our favorite movie two years ago, or I'm trying to remember where it fell for you, Olivia.

My favorite movie of the year two years ago was Jane Schoenbrunn's I Saw the TV Glow.

Uh-huh.

So they have become.

You know, you're in this online community and you're kind of just freaking yourself out and kind of like that sort of thing that like I really don't resonate with because I didn't I wasn't part of that experience other than like I did think Slenderman was really scary, but I wasn't into those forums and stuff.

Mm hmm.

Um, but TV glow really worked for me for a lot of reasons.

And this movie worked for me for a lot of different reasons that we'll get into.

Lead me nowhere else but to psychological and sexual chaos.

All right, so Jane Schoenbrunn, I mean, we can send it around the horn here quickly, but I think all huge fan, right? Is that fair to say around the board? Third film from Schoenbrunn after we're all going to the World's Fair and I saw the TV glow.

Both major for me, I'll say.

uh, world's fair.

One of my favorite movies of that year.

I saw the TV glow had kind of a religious life altering experience.

I did.

I didn't come out as trans afterwards, but beyond that, um, pretty, pretty all encompassing major, major, um, experience for me, DB, you're, you're, you're all in on Jane.

all right.

Hello Oh that was yeah, what's you did something? What was that?

So I guess I plugged in my mic and it was working.

I guess it disconnected and didn't tell me and Like

Some of us liked that.

Some of us did not.

Anytime Sugar gets something that was in theaters, I feel like I'm not wasting my $9.

Faces

yeah yeah

so we are here this is the third film by jane schoenbrunn after we're all going to the world's fair and i saw the tv glow this is a people go into it with a lot of expectations.

And I'm wondering what our expectations were for the film and the first impressions and how that evolved over time.

yeah kenzo what were your you take this over i feel like i've been talking

yeah i um so i i i had my perilous journey of getting an early screening ticket from the alamo draft house it was sold out and i found a google chrome um extension that would like reload my page every minute and i had it up for five hours and then a seat opened up and so i got to see it on august 3rd because i was insane Um, and I think that, uh, I love, I saw the TV glow was like, I think it continues to maybe be, I think, well, at the end of the day, but one of my all time favorite films, like it just means so much to me.

Um, and before I saw that film, I did watch, um, we're all going to the world's fair.

And it was one of those movies that kind of crept up on me.

Like I was kind of uncomfortable by it because I grew up, uh, so deeply on that type of internet that like unrestricted sort of terrifying black hole of what the internet used to be when like we were when we were kids you know like it is it's so reminiscent in a way that like terrifies me to like my the core of my body and by the end of that movie i remember i was just sort of floored and i was like this person is so fucking talented and then like the next day i went to go see i saw the tv glow And I was going into it with a lot of Buffy expectations because I loved Buffy.

I think that the attention to detail is so strong.

And, and in the same way that, like, I Saw the TV Glow is about so much more than, like, teenage fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

But, like, if you were one of those fans, there are so many little moments that are specifically for you-

Yeah

I mean, like, references to, references to, like, Pamela Springsteen and to The Burning being made by the Weinsteins, which is something that, like, normal people don't know.

Um, I think it works really well on that level.

I think thematically, um, maybe it's, doesn't hit me as hard as I Saw the TV Glow.

Mm-hmm.