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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...

The Invisible Life

by Martin | May 25, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

It was a lovely day, sunshine sparkling on the Thames, Green Park bustling with life. The freshness in the air seemed almost to be trying to dissuade me against seeing a bleak existential drama about death at the ICA, but I was determined - even if, in the event, it...

Frightfest 2018 – The Cleaning Lady, Braid and Piercing

by Martin | September 23, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

THE CLEANING LADY Frightfest is now 'owned' by Arrow Video, which makes sense. The only difference I could see was that there were a lot of free DVD's lying around, which I certainly wasn't complaining about (I'll save that for when I watch them). The first two films...

New Year’s Evil (1980) / Bloody New Year (1987)

by Martin | February 11, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

New Year is, as everybody knows, a massive anticlimax. We all get frantically excited about what turns out to be just a glib transition into more of the same. Here are two films (showing in the BFI's Cult strand) which try to give New Year some genuine significance...

More Quite Good Films of 2014

by Martin | February 1, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

L FOR LEISURE The fact that people are nostalgic for the 90's is beguilingly weird to me - I was there, and barely noticed them – but maybe this is why I enjoyed Whitney Horn and Lev Kalman's goofy, dreamy, possibly inconsequential L For Leisure so very much. It was...

Frightfest 2014: R100

by Martin | August 31, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

What's that you say? Are Japanese films still as bonkers as they used to be? Why yes, and here is the proof. In Hitoshi Matsumoto's beguiling oddity a furniture salesman (Nao Ômori) attempts to escape the drudgery of his existence (wife in coma, young son to raise) by...

mother!

by Martin | November 12, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

The release of Darren Aronofky's latest film was preceded by a director interview by Trevor Johnston in Sight & Sound urging viewers not to read it until they'd seen the film, since (even more than is usually the case) the more you knew about this film in advance...

Our Time / Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

by Martin | September 7, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

OUR TIME There was quite a high turnout for this three-hour epic of directorial self-laceration from Mexican director Carlos Reygadas, although admittedly this was at the Minema screen at the Curzon Bloomsbury, which seats about 20 people. I had a guy ahead of me...

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...

Horror Express (1972)

by Martin | February 6, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Ever since I was a child it seems to me that the BBC has been showing Eugenio Martin's Spanish horror film Horror Express in a late night slot at regular intervals. This kind of reassuring continuity is exactly what I pay my licence fee for. If I had it on DVD I...