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.
BFI London Film Festival 2014: Three Horrors at the Odeon Covent Garden
by Martin | November 8, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
SPRING If you thought Richard Linklater's Before Sunset might have been improved if Julie Delpy had periodically turned into a squid (and is there anyone who doesn't?), then this may well be the film for you. American backpacker Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) hooks up with...
More Madness: Madeline’s Madeline and Thunder Road (LFF 2018)
by Martin | December 24, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
MADELINE'S MADELINE The new film from director Josephine Decker (Thou Wast Mild And Lovely) is a gripping and vivid account of some days in the life of the eponymous schizophrenic teenager (an impressive Helena Howard), who has joined a theatrical troupe which seems...
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...
Santo in the Wax Museum (1963) / Santo Vs. The She-Wolves (1976)
by Martin | August 21, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the cinema... it IS safe. Oppressively so. I don't know about you but walking into a room full of people in surgical masks doesn't 'make me feel safe' – it makes me feel uneasy. And so I haven't joined the rush to get...
Arrival
by Martin | March 18, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Denis Villeneuve's Arrival brings to our attention something about contact with alien life forms that to my knowledge hasn't been thoroughly explored up until now – how boring it might be. That's not to say that the film itself is boring – although it does hover on...
A Cat In The Brain (1990) and Slugs (1988)
by Martin | July 8, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
A CAT IN THE BRAIN It may seem an odd thing to say of a film called A Cat In The Brain but - inured as I am to disappointment in such matters (almost counting on it, you might say) - the last thing I expected to see in it was a cat clawing at someone's (living) brain....
Caged Women: Hounds of Love, Berlin Syndrome, The Beguiled
by Martin | September 16, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
HOUNDS OF LOVE In 1987 sullen Australian teenager Vicki (Ashleigh Cummings) seethes with resentment at her mum, who has chosen to split with surgeon dad, necessitating a move to a seedier part of town – still, things could be worse, as she soon discovers when...
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...
LFF 2019: Jallikattu/Saint Maud
by Martin | November 14, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Ah yes, the London Film Festival. I remember that. Well it did happen this year, it was just 'different' – they even tried to suggest that the festival we had (mostly online) represented some kind of exciting innovation rather than an attempt to pretend that a film...
The Manster (1959)
by Martin | June 12, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
I got this in a DVD box set called Brains That Wouldn't Die ('6 Midnight Movies on 2 DVDs!'). On the plus side, there are some hard-to-see films here – on the downside, such is the picture quality that they often remain hard to see, even while you're watching them....