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.
Enys Men / Skinamarink
by Martin | February 25, 2023 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
ENYS MEN Mark Jenkin's follow-up to the attention-grabbing and fiercely Cornish Bait is being sold as 'folk-horror' but it's a bit more experimental than that might suggest. I don't know if anyone has complained. Certainly I won't, since I enjoy an experimental film,...
Privilege (1967) / Duck Soup (1933)
by Martin | May 5, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
PRIVILEGE On this BFI DVD you get a couple of early short films from director Peter Watkins, one of which is 1961's The Forgotten Faces, an urgent, authentic-seeming account of the 1956 people's uprising in Hungary, filmed in Canterbury. Therein lies the moral of much...
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...
The Boxer’s Omen (1983) / Goodbye Dragon Inn (2003)
by Martin | May 15, 2021 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
THE BOXER'S OMEN I saw this in late 2016 at the Barbican in a season called Cheap Thrills, a celebration of bad taste. Is this then a 'bad film'? If so, we need to dismiss any judgmental qualities that might still be clinging to the word 'bad'. We are not condemning...
Terror Firmer (1999) / Screamplay (1985) / Suture (1993)
by Martin | July 10, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
TERROR FIRMER Based on a memoir by Lloyd Kaufman, co-founder of Troma Entertainment, and director of many of its 'hits', such as The Toxic Avenger (also on this Czech DVD under the title Toxicky Mstitel), this film is essentially Kaufman's 8½. He plays a blind...
Frightfest 2014: Bad Milo!
by Martin | September 7, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Frightfest has relocated from the Empire Leicester Square to the Vue Leicester Square, which seems to be a good thing. No more cramped Discovery Screens, we now have the run of numerous larger screens over several floors. And it's even nearer Burger King, where I sit...
Frightfest 2015 Day One
by Martin | September 12, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
The Rotten Link Raulo and Roberta (Luis Ziembrowski and Paula Brasca) are two unlikely siblings: a simple-minded hulk, he looks old enough to be her father while she is a pretty young thing barely out of her teens. But they fit into their isolated Argentinian...
Frightfest 2016 Day Two
by Martin | October 22, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
FURY OF THE DEMON On day two I returned unaccompanied to Shepherd's Bush as Dave had to get up early on Sunday, but another recurring character in this blog - Michael Blyth, BFI cult film programmer - was sitting nearby for the first two screenings, which was oddly...
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...
Empire of the Ants (1977) / Contamination (1980) / Alien 2: On Earth (1981)
by Martin | January 5, 2021 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
EMPIRE OF THE ANTS (1977) Bert I Gordon, director of such vintage extravaganzas as 1958's Attack Of The 50ft Woman briefly returned to cinema screens in the 1970's with a couple of films which were, nominally, adaptations of H G Wells stories, though B.I.G. (note...