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.
Longlegs / Only The River Flows
by Martin | October 16, 2024 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
LONGLEGS Longlegs has been subject to a lot of hype claiming that it is the scariest film of the year or decade or maybe even century, and it certainly maintains a tense and creepy atmosphere throughout, but the scariest moment comes before the credits, where the...
The Substance / The Driver’s Seat (1974)
by Martin | November 10, 2024 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
THE SUBSTANCE Coralie Fargeat's The Substance is preposterous, which makes perfect sense. We're in the realm of showbiz, after all. Demi Moore is formidable as 'Elizabeth Sparkle', a fading star now fronting an aerobics show who is told by leering, vulgar producer...
Blink Twice and Heretic meet The Phantom of the Monastery (1934)
by Martin | January 2, 2025 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
BLINK TWICE Waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) and her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) accept an invite to the private island of tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), where everybody seems to be having a fantastic time – or are they? Well, maybe not the women, who have...
Pacifiction/Infinity Pool/The Outwaters/Beau Is Afraid
by Martin | July 1, 2023 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
PACIFICTION Back in 2013 I almost killed myself hurrying from a London Film Festival showing of Denis Coté's Vic And Flo Saw A Bear on the South Bank, to Albert Serra's Story of My Death in Leicester Square. Given the title of Serra's film, it would have been an...
Ghost Theatre / Yakuza Apocalypse
by Martin | January 24, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
GHOST THEATRE Hideo Nakata, director of the Ring movies and the excellent Dark Water returns with this theatrical tale that never comes to life – unlike the dummy being used as a prop in the play Ghost Theatre revolves around. The dummy's head, you see, comes from a...
BFI London Film Festival 2017: Rift, My Friend Dahmer, Hagazussa – A Heathen’s Curse
by Martin | December 3, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
RIFT Apparently the Icelandic title of Rift (Rökkur) more closely corresponds to 'Twilight', but that title, as the director Erlingur Thoroddsen drily points out, was already taken. Though not terribly exciting as a title, Rift is apt enough for this story of two gay...
The Devil Outside / Permanent Green Light
by Martin | March 16, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
THE DEVIL OUTSIDE In writer-director Andrew Hulme's second film (after gangster drama Snow In Paradise, which I haven't seen but will be sure to catch up with – no doubt on London Live - one day) our adolescent hero Robert (Noah Carson) finds the disconnect between...
FrightFest 2024 – Mental Health Issues
by Martin | March 1, 2025 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
The big screen at the relocated FrightFest (Odeon Leicester Square) is almost scarily big now: I couldn't face it. For single ticket buyers like me the seating options weren't promising anyway. So I stuck with the Discovery Screens and found myself in another cinema...
The Brand New Testament (BFI London Film Festival 2015)
by Martin | November 14, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Jaco Van Dormael's film might end up being remembered as the one where Catherine Deneuve sleeps with a gorilla, but that's the least of it. Benoît Poolvoorde is God, a middle-aged slob who never leaves his apartment and spends most of his time on his computer,...
Office Killer (1997)
by Martin | August 14, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
The first thing I knew about photographer Cindy Sherman making a sort of horror film was when I saw that feminist film club the Final Girls were screening it at the Prince Charles; either that, or I did actually see it at the cinema in the 90's and subsequently forgot...