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T he first shot of I Saw The TV Glow is quite the opening salvo. The camera creeps along a suburban street just after dusk, passing over tangled veiny chalk art, the world covered in a blue so deep it seems to spill off the screen. The image precedes a film no less vibrant or eerie; its brash, attractive color palette pulls you under, and only when you’re fully submerged does it start to feel like you’re drowning. Director Jane Schoenbrun, whose debut film We’re All Going to the World’s Fai r was shot almost entirely through webcams, announces themself as a vital new cinematic talent. In their sophomore film, Schoenbrun focuses on two outcast teens, sheltered Owen and antisocial Maddy, who bond over The Pink Opaque, a Buffy and The Secret World of Alex Mack-inspired fantasy television series. On The Pink Opaque, the two spunky leads use their telepathic connection to fight surprisingly gruesome monsters – a dynamic which unsettles and entrances the pair. What we see of The Pink Opaq...

F or years a fixture in the film-festival circuit’s more rarefied corners thanks to visually striking, entrancingly enigmatic shorts such as 2012’s Mountain in Shadow and 2022’s The Sower of Stars, 40-year-old Lois Patiño breaks out to significantly wider renown with his third feature-length picture Samsara – the first to obtain UK release. A tripartite docufictional reverie that begins in Laos and ends in Zanzibar, the film’s USP is a 15-minute bridging mid-section whose nature will not be divulged in this review as its effectiveness depends heavily on the element of surprise. Suffice to say that, A) it feels like new cinematic ground is being broken before our eyes, and B) the impact is exponentially increased if experienced with people in the dark of the cinema. Bottom line: even if you must travel a long way to catch Samsara, all effort and expense will be rewarded and then some. Like many of his fellow filmmakers hailing from Spain’s north-western province of Galicia, his appr...

A s the wintery, back-to-work blues of January finally begins to subside, we have news of a very bright near-future, as at the end of February the Glasgow Film Festival opens its doors once more for a special 20th anniversary jamboree of cinephile frolics. And we can tell you from experience that it’s a city that’s perfectly calibrated and designed for total immersion in that blissful festival vibe, and with their freshly-minted 2024 line-up all locked down and out in the world, we can’t wait to do it all over again. Opening the festivities is Rose Glass’ violent opus, Love Lies Bleeding, the filmmaker’s follow-up to Saint Maud that stars Kristen Stewart and Katy M O’Brian, which comes directly off the back of a triumphant premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Things will round off in a more homely fashion with the world premiere of Janey, a profile documentary about the Scottish comedian and activist Janey Godley. The festival is set to present 69 features culled from 37 countri...

A sleek but cold skyscraper in Croydon is the primary setting for Andrew Haigh’s queer adaptation of Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel ‘Strangers’. Screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) is working on a script about his parents, who died in 1983 when he was 12, but despite mining the physical mementoes he keeps, the words just won’t come. A chance encounter with his mysterious, charming neighbour Harry (Paul Mescal), seemingly the only other resident in the building, invites the possibility of romance into Adam’s life after years of solitude, and with it comes a strange new complication. When he returns to his childhood home in search of inspiration, Adam finds his parents exactly as they were before they died. Affable Dad (Jamie Bell) and doting Mum (Claire Foy) greet him warmly, eager to catch up. Meanwhile, the process of reconnection allows Adam to let love in. His blossoming relationship with Harry begins as a hook-up; a way for them to stave off unspoken loneliness. But slowly something ...

G ottleib is in trouble. Since the death of his wife, Ben (Jason Schwartzman) has found himself in a place of personal and professional crisis. He’s moved back in with his mothers, Meira (Caroline Aaron) and Judith (Dolly de Leon), following the sudden death of his wife a year ago, and still can’t perform his job as the cantor for his local synagogue because he’s lost his voice. Depression and loneliness lead Ben to a dive bar, where, after one too many mudslides (that’s vodka, Irish cream, coffee liqueur and heavy cream in case you were wondering) he gets into it with another patron, who promptly knocks his lights out. When he comes to, a kindly older lady – who had earlier been performing karaoke in the back room – is standing over him concerned. Carla Kessler (Carole Kane) helps Ben to his feet and insists on driving him home. Later, she turns up at the bar and bat mitzvah class he’s teaching…hoping to become his latest student. It turns out that Carla used to teach Ben music whe...

F ilmmaker. Dream-weaver. Footwear-epicure. Whatever your impression of Werner Herzog is, this affectionate docuprofile is unlikely to drastically alter it. And that’s no bad thing. Within the opening minutes of Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer, impassioned tributes from such luminaries as Patti Smith, Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson, Wim Wenders and, yes, Carl Weathers, paint a picture of an almost mythological figure – a rare and enigmatic creative spirit without parallel. This doesn’t necessarily tally with the image Herzog presents of himself, which lands somewhere between kindly uncle and glint-eyed loon. That, of course, is the paradox of Werner Herzog: somehow, all these things can be true at once. Clips of his acting gigs in The Simpsons and The Mandalorian are introduced early on to show how far the cult of Werner has spread throughout contemporary pop culture. The film retraces Herzog’s humble upbringing in the Tyrolean Alps and surveys his arrival on the international film ...

“T hey can only stop We, if We see We as I” is the mantra that rings out over The Kitchen, the last standing social housing estate in a dystopian near-future London. The voice belongs to pirate radio host and beating heart of the block, Lord Kitchener, played with gravitas by legend Ian Wright. In their feature directorial debut, Daniel Kaluuya and Tavares Kibwe deliver a parable on the strength of community and the violence of gentrification, thinly veiled in a father/son drama. Our anti-hero, Izi, is a cold character to get in bed with. Played by the always-understated Kane Robinson, he embodies an archetype of Black masculinity that has been sculpted into callous stoicism, catering to no woman or child. Izi’s focus is to get out of The Kitchen, or what he calls the “shithole”. Having had enough of dealing with frequent police raids, surveillance drones and shut off water, Izi grafts at Life After Life, an ecological funeral home aptly shot in Barbican’s conservatory, and saves up...