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.
Don’t Step On It, It Might Be Jake Gyllenhaal: Nightcrawler/Enemy
by Martin | April 4, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), the central figure of Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler, resembles nothing so much as a cockroach that has unaccountably taken on human form – emerging out of the LA night as a petty thief with aspirations, he soon graduates into a 'nightcrawler',...
A Nightmare On Elm Street Part II: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
by Martin | May 4, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
The London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival has renamed itself Flare. I'm not sure what I think about this – immediate associations that spring to mind (trousers, nostrils, distress signals) are not exactly encouraging. Also, if someone told me: 'I'm going to Flare', my...
Mothra (1961)
by Martin | July 12, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
After a self-imposed double-bill of Camille Claudel 1915 and Miss Violence at the Curzon Soho, what better way to cool off than with a showing of Mothra, at the Prince Charles off Leicester Square? So I reasoned. And it only cost a pound, if you were a member. I was....
Caged Women: Hounds of Love, Berlin Syndrome, The Beguiled
by Martin | September 16, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
HOUNDS OF LOVE In 1987 sullen Australian teenager Vicki (Ashleigh Cummings) seethes with resentment at her mum, who has chosen to split with surgeon dad, necessitating a move to a seedier part of town – still, things could be worse, as she soon discovers when...
L’il Quinquin
by Martin | January 18, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
My jaw dropped when I heard that divisive auteur Bruno Dumont's next film would be a comedy about cops, and remained in that state throughout the three-hour plus length of the film (actually a four-part TV series, served up in a single showing at the London Film...
La Grande Bouffe (1973)
by Martin | August 15, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Marco Ferreri’s 1973 film La Grande Bouffe has airline pilot Marcello Mastroianni, chef Ugo Tognazzi, TV director Michel Piccoli and judge Philippe Noiret gathering in Noiret’s old family pile to indulge themselves in hedonistic pleasures until the toilet backs up -...
Frankenstein 1970
by Martin | April 20, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
This begins generically but effectively with a screaming girl being pursued across the (German, it turns out) countryside by a nightmarishly-contorted Frankenstein's monster whose face we never see; this proves, however, to be part of a TV programme being shot in the...
The Witch
by Martin | April 9, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
I saw this at the Odeon Covent Garden. Amazingly, they are only charging £6.00 a ticket at the moment for any showing Monday to Thursday. I hope this doesn't get out, or my chances of getting an entire screen to myself (that ever-elusive dream) will diminish even...
Frightfest 2014: Open Windows, Nekromantik and Der Samurai
by Martin | September 21, 2014 | movies, reviews, Uncategorized | 0 Comments
OPEN WINDOWS In an age when you can watch films on your phone, here's another novelty – going to the cinema to see a film whose action takes place entirely on someone's laptop screen. I think it did, anyway – I was frankly a little befuddled by the end. Bear in mind...
Further Dispatches From BFI Flare
by Martin | May 2, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Futuro Beach On the face of it this has everything you could possibly want from a Brazilian- German co-production – it begins in Brazil and it ends in Germany – and beneath the surface there’s enough happening to offset a vague sense of one's having seen something...