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The Voices

by Martin | May 4, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

A toy factory worker in a small American town, Jerry (Ryan Reynolds) is your standard eager-to-please psychotic passing for normal, at least until he starts ticking the box marked ‘serial killer’ by stabbing his indifferent love-object (Gemma Arterton) to death and...

The Brand New Testament (BFI London Film Festival 2015)

by Martin | November 14, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Jaco Van Dormael's film might end up being remembered as the one where Catherine Deneuve sleeps with a gorilla, but that's the least of it. Benoît Poolvoorde is God, a middle-aged slob who never leaves his apartment and spends most of his time on his computer,...

Crimes At The Dark House and elsewhere – some films with Tod Slaughter 1937-1946

by Martin | August 19, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Crimes At The Dark House (1940) is nominally a version of Wilkie Collins' novel The Woman In White in which Tod Slaughter is Sir Percival Glyde – or rather he isn't, he's an impostor first seen hammering a tent peg into the real Sir Percival's left ear. Which is to...

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...

LFF 2018: Holiday / This Teacher / Cam

by Martin | January 20, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

HOLIDAY I took over a week's holiday for the London Film Festival in 2018. This leaves me with no anecdotes about my experiences when I get back to work but it means that I can 'visit' many different countries without the hassle of actually having to go anywhere...

Screen Time

by Martin | April 10, 2021 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

MYSTERIES OF LISBON (2010) Lockdown was a good time to finally sit down, maybe even lie down, and watch those films whose running time demanded an entire day devoted to them, and their extras. The Chilean director Raúl Ruiz, in the extras on the New Wave Films DVD of...

Goodnight Mommy

by Martin | April 9, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

TV presenter Mommy (Suzanne Wuest) returns from plastic surgery with a bandaged face and a bad temper, so that her twin boys Elias and Lukas start to wonder if she's really Mommy at all, the question mark over her identity deftly conveyed in a scene where she plays a...

Weapons /Bring Her Back

by Martin | January 18, 2026 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

WEAPONS There was a lot of hype around writer-director Zach Cregger's follow-up to the promising Barbarian – I remember noticing a website ranking the characters in Weapons in order of how 'iconic' they are. No doubt it is old-fashioned of me to expect to wait a few...

Frightfest 2016 Day One

by Martin | September 24, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

This year Frightfest disconcerted me by moving temporarily to the Vue in Shepherd's Bush. I don't like change. As we sat in the Pizza Express near Soho Square beforehand, which is where we always go on Frightfest Friday, Dave tried to reassure me by showing me the new...

In Fabric / Little Joe

by Martin | March 21, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

IN FABRIC Peter Strickland's follow-up to the excellent Duke Of Burgundy is a bumpier ride, but you get to enjoy that after a while. Apparently it's set in 1993 – I read this on the Sight and Sound letters page – but it seems to be taking place in some kind of...