Martin P. Lumbridge (not his real name) persists in writing about film even though he has no professional qualifications or compelling reason to be believed. Expect spoilers.
Comings Of Age – Three Attempts From The BFI London Film Festival 2015
by Martin | December 28, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
DER NACHTMAHR Not German for 'nightmare', ein nachtmahr is more like a thing from a nightmare, so the director - German artist AKIZ – tells us. In the case of his film that thing is a strange creature resembling a cross between Belial from Basket Case and Garfield,...
Amulet /Master
by Martin | May 2, 2022 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
AMULET Can horror be 'progressive'? Actor and now director Romola Garai talks about 'changing the narrative' of horror with her first film but I'm not sure that she's managed it (what is this 'narrative' anyway?) though she might have thrown a few spokes in its...
Horromford
by Martin | May 19, 2024 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Soon every town in the country will have its own horror film festival, which I suppose is no bad thing, although I could hardly keep up when it was just Frightfest. I saw one film that escaped me at Frightfest (Austin Jennings' Eight Eyes) in late January at...
Peeping Tom (1960)
by Martin | July 17, 2022 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
I used to say that Michael Powell's Peeping Tom was my favourite film. That I don't say it now has nothing to do with the quality of the film or my changing perception of it; more, it's down to a realisation that there are too many films, and that I have too many...
The Substance / The Driver’s Seat (1974)
by Martin | November 10, 2024 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
THE SUBSTANCE Coralie Fargeat's The Substance is preposterous, which makes perfect sense. We're in the realm of showbiz, after all. Demi Moore is formidable as 'Elizabeth Sparkle', a fading star now fronting an aerobics show who is told by leering, vulgar producer...
Kinoteka 2019: Love Express and Fugue
by Martin | May 11, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
LOVE EXPRESS: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF WALERIAN BOROWCZYK Kuba Mikurda's documentary presents a pretty standard view of Borowczyk, which won't be a problem for people who have no idea who Borowczyk is I suppose, and they are the vast majority of the population, and...
Frightfest 2019 Part One – Home Discomforts
by Martin | September 21, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Set in my ways as I am I prefer to buy my Frightfest tickets in person, at whatever passes for a 'box office' nowadays. Over the years this has become more and more difficult and now entails leaving it to the very last moment. This time around I thought my resistance...
The Secret of Dorian Gray (1969)
by Martin | March 11, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Ah, Valentine's Day – my favourite feast day, since my single status means I don't have to observe it. Nevertheless I was moved to recognise it to the extent of braving rail replacement services to get to the Barbican, where film programmer Josh Saco (aka Cigarette...
The Toxic Avenger (1984)
by Martin | June 27, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
It's fair to say that showings of films in the Cult strand at the BFI have been somewhat underpopulated. In spite of a mention in Time Out, this is no exception – which is as it should be. What point is there in a cult film if everyone wants to see it? This is one of...
Mirror Mirror (1990) / Happy Deathday (2017) / Thelma (2017)
by Martin | September 9, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
MIRROR MIRROR 'Long may it continue', I said earlier in the year about the BFI's 'Cult' strand. Well now it has ended (though replaced by something very similar called Terror Vision) but at least its last showing, curated by feminist film collective the Final Girls,...