Tonda, Slávka a kouzelné světlo

SIFF begins! First film was a wonderful stop-motion fable from eastern Europe (I say that because it was listed as a Czech film, from the credits it looked like it was made in Hungary and there was also some sponsorship from Slovene tv). title translated as Tony, Shelly and The Magic Light. Tony literally glows, Shelly can imagine things into being with the help of a flashlight, and there's a budgie/pigeon romance. they live in a tumbledown art nouveau courtyard apartment building that has a big secret.

the stop-motion has a rough and ready quality that's more Robot Chicken than Laika, but extremely charming. glad to have seen it on the big screen, recommended.

Luther: Never Too Much

So this was a filler film - I put this on my schedule because I wanted to see the one before and one after and a music doc is always cromulent.

crying over Luther Vandross was not on my bingo card. it was wild to watch - I'm a white girl and while I knew his name and certain hits, he had a career in an alternate universe from mine on radio stations I didn't listen to and tv shows I didn't watch - which was a topic in the film, that he was locked in as a "black artist" for most of his career.
fam, he was David Bowie's vocal arranger. he made bank singing jingles that US X-ers know in their bones ("Let it be Lowenbrau"). he was all over disco records, he wrote part of The Wiz. while I was obsessed with Devotchka in the aughts he was winning a Grammy for a song about his dad that was multi-platinum (deserved!)...I heard it for the first time today.

all of which is to say it was very entertaining for someone who knew nothing; the group of folks behind me were spontaneously singing along at points and clearly delighted.

it was produced by Sony so I'm sure it will show up on streaming before long, recommended

I Saw the TV Glow

Packed house with the director present. The hook is two friends who bond over a TV show and then the lines between the show and reality blur.
So ...this is a movie about a) loving Buffy the Vampire Slayer (lampshaded with the credits font, the club, and an Amber Benson cameo) and b) being an egg. Great: the whole thing is kind of a riff on Normal Again, the lead actor is excellent. Ultimately I'm not the audience for this film; I wanted more exploration of the creepy premise that maybe the TV show is real and RL is actually being trapped in "the midnight realm", but the movie isn't about that, it's about the pain and confusion and self-doubt of someone who is wrestling with their gender identity. It does that well; and I think if that's what you're there for it should be quite moving but I was sold a psychological horror film.

Edited to add: reviewer take https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/jane-schoenbrun/i-saw-the-tv-glow-review