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

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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I.S.S. (2024)

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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T.I.M. (2024)

Now Streaming Exclusively on Netflix.

It’s a tale you’ve seen a thousand times by now. It’s as old as Frankenstein. A tech device or system meant to benefit us ultimately becomes our worst enemy and takes on sentience. I saw two last year with the awful “Margaux” and the fun “M3GAN.” Now with studios hoping to garner the same success as the latter we get “T.I.M.” Spencer Brown’s science fiction thriller doesn’t bring anything new to the table, nor does it re-invent the wheel. Despite Georgina Campbell giving her all, “T.I.M.” is pretty much dead on arrival as a flat, dull, and irritating thriller about an obsessed AI.

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Saltburn (2023)

Now Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Barry Keoghan presented such a heartbreaking and nuanced performance in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” it’s pretty excellent to see how much he’s snuck up on movie fans over the years. “Saltburn” is that movie that he might be known for, for a long time because while that might seem like a slight, it’s astonishing how good he is here. Keoghan is wonderful at playing the chameleonic Oliver Quick. Keoghan portrays such a layered and complex protagonist whose shades of morality are often at odds with what the audience is allowed to perceive.

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