Good morning 🐣

It was nice finally getting a newsletter out a few weeks ago. This won’t happen every single week (already obvious), but it’ll be more regular. Let’s see how long I can keep the pace.

I had the chance to movie hop at the local multiplex recently and ended up with this fun triple feature. Strangely all three films had to do with various aspects of the human body:

First up was “I Saw the TV Glow,” which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (which I’m finally starting to write about several months later) and was written/directed by Jane Schoenbrun (“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair”) and produced by Emma Stone (“iCarly”) and her husband, Dave McCary (a former director on “Saturday Night Live”).

It’s a bonkers movie about Owen (played by Justice Smith, “Pokémon Detective Pikachu”) and Maddy (played by Brigette Lundy-Paine, “Bill & Ted Face the Music”), two teenagers who bond over a fictional ’90s TV show in the vein of something like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” That show is called “The Pink Opaque” and features two teen girls who telepathically bond from opposite sides of town to fight Mr. Melancholy and his monster goons. Reality and the TV show start blurring together for Owen and Maddy, forcing them to confront their own identities and even gender.

With its gorgeous use of color alongside surrealism, horror, and camp, “I Saw the TV Glow” is a wild ride of a transgender allegory with cameos by Phoebe Bridgers, Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, Amber Benson from “Buffy,” and the titular Petes of ’90s Nickelodeon sitcom “The Adventures of Pete & Pete” — Michael C. Maronna and Danny Tamberelli.

Next up was “Babes,” a much-needed comedic break from all that dread. It’s directed by Pamela Adlon (the voice of Bobby in “King of the Hill”) and co-written by and starring Ilana Glazer as Eden. After Eden accompanies her best friend Dawn (played by Michelle Buteau) to the hospital when Dawn goes into labor, she spends the long subway ride home chatting with a total stranger (played by Stephan James), who ends up going home with her and inadvertently getting her pregnant, then ghosting her.

The movie goes through every stage of pregnancy (before, during, and after) in all its joys and pains with a pretty good hit rate of jokes. But what probably sent it over the top for me was the moviegoing experience itself. Sometimes an audience can be downright annoying, talking and making noise that’s beyond distracting, but a group of friends sitting across the aisle from me had a constant stream of genuine uproarious guffaws from the first scene on. At first I rolled my eyes (“OK it wasn’t THAT funny”) but their laughs became more and more infectious as time went on. They apologized to me after but I assured them it was more than fine. Critics can sometimes get a little full of themselves when it comes to the power of communal, theatrical moviegoing, but this experience was an absolute treat that left a smile on my face the entire time.

Last but not least is “Challengers,” the most lustful movie I’ve seen in a long time. The advertising really played up the threesome angle, but it’s really more of a love triangle intersecting with a heavy bromance. Or maybe a foursome because tennis is absolutely not absolved of anything here. The three main characters are basically always in matches with each other both on and off the court throughout the entire movie, batting their grudges and power dynamics between themselves. Even the story structure gets involved as we’re transported between the past and present and back again, sometimes all within seconds. Hell the camera too when it takes on the POV of the ball during the climactic game.

The story follows two boarding school boys, Art (Mike Faist, Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story”) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor, TV’s “The Crown“), who both pursue Tashi (Zendaya, “Space Jam: A New Legacy”) for roughly thirteen years as they all age into tennis superstars. All three actors are absolutely 100% committed to their roles. I could have watched them for far longer than the movie’s 2+ hour runtime. And you know I love a good fourth-wall break, so when Zendaya leans back and practically smirks at us, I was sold.

Director Luca Guadagnino (“Call Me by Your Name” and the “Suspiria” remake) is not subtle with the symbolism: bananas, Coke bottles, churros, hard boiled eggs, gripping tennis balls and rackets, spitting gum into another person’s hand — it’s all so silly and sexy in the most fun way possible. All while Guadagnino expertly pushes the tension up and down and up and down, then right over the net.

Until next time! 👋