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O Lucky Man! (1973) etc….

by Martin | August 25, 2024 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

My introduction to Lindsay Anderson was being shown the 1968 film If.... in (judiciously edited) half hour portions at secondary school in the 70's in a lesson called 'Design for Living', a rather random class which was used to dispense whatever we had in the way of...

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 2014: The Green Inferno

by Martin | August 30, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Movies such as Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox and Ruggero Deodato's powerful Cannibal Holocaust really do seem to belong to a certain time and place – 70 and early 80's Italy – so it was intriguing to see how Eli Roth of Cabin Fever and Hostel fame would fare in...

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...

Hail Caesar! / High Rise

by Martin | May 1, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

One of the funnier scenes in the Coen Brothers' 50's Hollywood-set latest has Ralph Fiennes as a fussy English director struggling to incorporate studio-imposed Western star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) into his drawing room comedy Merrily We Dance. Before his utter...

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...

Doctor Blood’s Coffin (1961)

by Martin | February 15, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Possibly for budgetary reasons, Kieron Moore plays both romantic lead and villain in this shocker from director Sidney J. Furie. In the former capacity he courts Hazel Court’s Nurse Linda Parker, who works at his father’s surgery in Cornwall, while in the latter he...

Amulet /Master

by Martin | May 2, 2022 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

AMULET Can horror be 'progressive'? Actor and now director Romola Garai talks about 'changing the narrative' of horror with her first film but I'm not sure that she's managed it (what is this 'narrative' anyway?) though she might have thrown a few spokes in its...

Stray Dogs

by Martin | June 13, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

‘What is this life if, filled with care/We have no time to stand and stare?’, said the Victorian poet W. H. Davies. Good point, and a view clearly shared by Chinese director Tsai-Ming-liang, who transfixes (hopefully) his audience with fixed shots of his characters...

BFI London Film Festival 2014: The Duke Of Burgundy

by Martin | November 16, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

When nervous maid Cynthia (Sidhe Babett Knudson) turns up at the mansion of entomologist Evelyn (Chiara D'Anna) our first impression – as she harshly calls into question Cynthia's ability to wash knickers - is that Evelyn is an exacting, even cruel, mistress. But...