Knife+Heart (2018) [LA&M Film Fetish Forum]

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Playing at the LA&M Film Fetish Forum Saturday, January 20th at 7pm; it will be Co-Presented by Cinematic Void.

Director Yann Gonzalez’s “Knife+Heart” is a movie that’s too silly to be taken as a giallo, and too serious to be taken as a dark comedy. It’s constantly shifting in tones and storylines which makes its narrative frame work feel so disorienting and ultimately kind of unbearable. Truth be told I slept through a quarter of “Knife+Heart” because it has so much trouble maintaining its multiple plot threads that it just rambled for long periods of time. Any kind of momentum or tension that picks up during “Knife+Heart” feels accidental as director Gonzalez can never quite decide on what kind of story he’s trying to tell.

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The Peacock’s “Ted” Is Better Than the Movies

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Now Streaming Exclusively on The Peacock. “Ted” The Movie is Now Available.

It’s probably not much of a surprise to discover that Seth McFarlane’s talents work much more when applied to serialized television than with feature length films. While “Ted” has gradually evolved in to a favorite of mine, and “Ted 2” is—well—good enough to pass the time, Seth McFarlane’s transplanting of his concept to the small screen is very good. Often times it’s great. This is also stunning considering Seth McFarlane’s earlier humor was often so dark and nasty. “Ted” actually manages to bring a lot of what we love about the humor from “American Dad” and “Family Guy” but also injects some actual heart and substance to McFarlane’s bizarre formula.

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The Bootleg Files: The Woo Song

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BOOTLEG FILES 852: “The Woo Song” (2024 music video by Corey Rieman the Dilemma Band incorporating Walt Disney’s “Steamboat Willie”).

LAST SEEN: On multiple social media and online video sites.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: Not yet.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: The underlying “Steamboat Willie” footage has been the subject of complicated copyright actions.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Some day, perhaps.

On New Year’s Day, Mickey Mouse was the center of attention because the copyright for the 1928 animated short “Steamboat Willie” finally expired and the groundbreaking film that helped usher synchronized sound into the world of cartoons was suddenly denuded of copyright protection. Less than two weeks after “Steamboat Willie” officially became a public domain work, footage from the film was incorporated into a bouncy music video for “The Woo Song” from the rockers Corey Rieman and the Dilemma Band.
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I.S.S. (2024)

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Exclusively in theaters January 19th.

It’s the classic tale of humanity. When you dig deep and throw away all semblance of civility, we’re all savages that will do anything to survive. “I.S.S.” is a mean but thought provoking science fiction thriller that teeters on the edge of horror quite often. It’s that classic post apocalyptic tale about man kind resorting to desperate measures to stay alive; by the end of Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s film, the whole setting of science and technology are merely props meant to spread a cloak of the nastiness that humans are capable of. “I.S.S.” is one in a trend of post apocalyptic movies that don’t really fetishize the idea of the end of the world, but depict it as a waking nightmare.

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How Deep is the Ocean (2023)

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Now Streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Tubi TV.

Director Andrew Walsh’s microbudget indie film thrives on being a mumblecore character journey that is unabashedly aimless with its narrative. It’s not so much a linear narrative so much as it is a series of encounters a small journey our character Eleanor experiences. She’s in search of stability and has a hard time adjusting in a city where she comes across nothing but oddballs and unusual characters. Eleanor is an admitted victim of her own being as she spends so much time self sabotaging her own life, and can never figure it out.

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A Best Man (2022)

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Dylan Tuccillo’s short drama is not what I expected it to be and that might be its best weapon. It’s a movie about marriage, and regret, and ultimately the lengths some of us will go through to correct what we think is the right course. Director Tuccillo really is great at catching the audience off guard, setting down on a normal hectic marriage one day where a trio of friends is bouncing back and forth with Josh, the best man trying to smooth things over between the bride and groom.

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