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.
45 Years
by Martin | October 24, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling play Geoff and Kate, a couple in their 70's who seem to think they are happily married until his ex-girlfriend Katya turns up, entombed in ice in a Swiss glacier and apparently unchanged since she fell into a fissure back in 1962....
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...
London Film Festival 2019: Vivarium / Scales (and End Of The Century)
by Martin | January 5, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
VIVARIUM Director Lorcan Finnegan and writer Garrett Shanley's second film sadly doesn't manage to fulfil the promise of their previous feature, 2016’s Without Name. The LFF brochure compares it to The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror but while it could pass for one of...
Barbican Nights: Into The Woods Part Two
by Martin | August 5, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
EYES OF FIRE (1986) This, Josh Saco explains, is a 'lost' film, and just because it is here tonight screening in front of us that doesn't mean it has been found again. I mean, who are we to 'find' it? Even the director, Avery Crounse, was happy to let it go and move...
Strongroom (1962)
by Martin | August 31, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Vernon Sewell's career in British film started, weirdly enough, with a German film - Morgenrot (1933) a collaboration with Gustav Klimt's illegitimate son (one of them) that premiered in front of Adolf Hitler. Apparently Hitler liked it. His next collaborative...
The Hart Of London (1970)/Sodom (1989)
by Martin | May 23, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Experimental cinema – you either love it or you hate it. Or you don’t know what to think. The BFI’s Will Fowler assembled this double bill in January 2015 under the heading of ‘Transcendence’. And rightly so, I think. The Hart of London confounds our expectations from...
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...
Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey / The Brain From Planet Arous (1957)
by Martin | December 2, 2023 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
WINNIE THE POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY Not all bad films are good. The inspiration behind Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey was apparently writer-director Rhys Frake-Waterfield's understanding that A.A. Milne's characters were going out of copyright, and so fair game for...
Talk To Me / Asteroid City / Nope
by Martin | September 23, 2023 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
TALK TO ME Directors Danny and Michael Phillipou come to us from YouTube, where they operate some sort of channel apparently, which may explain why this BFI showing was full of young people. They were probably taking advantage of the BFI under-25's offer (as if youth...
Popcorn (1991)
by Martin | May 4, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Although I don't think it has been languishing in obscurity exactly (it's showing on the Horror Channel as I write) Popcorn is a film I've somehow missed. Luckily Michael Blyth, masterminding the BFI’s Cult strand, has given it an airing and thus allowed me to atone...