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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.

In Pictures 2: Rope (1948) /Possessor (2020)

by | August 30, 2021 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

ROPE On the extras on my DVD of Alfred Hitchcock's Rope screenwriter Arthur Laurents nails several of the reasons why this adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's play (based on the Leopold/Loeb case in which a couple of students felt entitled to kill a 14 year old boy...
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The Curious Dr. Humpp / Vengeanza Del Sexo (1967 or thereabouts)

by | August 12, 2023 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

I had reservations about going to see Brainwashed: Sex – Camera – Power, Nina Menkes' take on 'the male gaze' at the BFI, partly because it seemed like the kind of thing that would turn up on BBC4 or Sky Arts in a month or two, but there is a certain advantage to...
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La Grande Bouffe (1973)

by | August 15, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Marco Ferreri’s 1973 film La Grande Bouffe has airline pilot Marcello Mastroianni, chef Ugo Tognazzi, TV director Michel Piccoli and judge Philippe Noiret gathering in Noiret’s old family pile to indulge themselves in hedonistic pleasures until the toilet backs up -...
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Frightfest 2015 Day One

by | 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...
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Kinoteka 2019. Monument

by | May 4, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

'It won't be easy', warned writer-director Jagoda Szelc before her second film began, which was possibly an example of what she later referred to as her as her 'dry humour' – does anyone go to the Polish Film Festival expecting uncomplicated fun and games? Not that...
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Talk To Me / Asteroid City / Nope

by | 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...
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A Brexit Trilogy

by | March 24, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

GOD'S OWN COUNTRY (2017) Brexit – is it humanity asserting its freedom to be perverse in the face of global capitalism, or is it just a backward-leaning movement composed of people whose preciousness about their 'British identity' makes you wonder who the real...
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Censor / Surge

by | October 10, 2021 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

CENSOR Prano Bailey-Bond's Censor makes a link between censorship and (emotional, psychological) repression that's pretty obvious, but the film has a knack of making the obvious work – which has the additional virtue of being thematically appropriate. After all, the...
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In Fabric / Little Joe

by | March 21, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

IN FABRIC Peter Strickland's follow-up to the excellent Duke Of Burgundy is a bumpier ride, but you get to enjoy that after a while. Apparently it's set in 1993 – I read this on the Sight and Sound letters page – but it seems to be taking place in some kind of...
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BFI London Film Festival 2017: Brawl In Cell Block 99 and Let The Corpses Tan

by | January 1, 2018 | movies, reviews, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 Violence. It can leave a nasty taste in the mouth, and perhaps it ought to. Brawl In Cell Block 99 certainly left a nasty taste in my mouth, but I'm almost convinced that this was intentional. Not intentional as regards just my mouth of course....
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