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.
Horrors Of The London Film Festival 2019
by Martin | February 22, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
DEERSKIN Horror films have fielded some unlikely 'monsters' over the years and director Quentin Dupieux has already supplied a notable one with 2010's Rubber, whose 'villain' was a spare tyre. His new film explores the malign potential of a jacket. Filling it out, and...
Bone Tomahawk / Chronic
by Martin | March 20, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
There is, or there was, a 'projection issue' in the Curzon Bloomsbury's Phoenix Screen. A sheet of A4 paper warns you of it just before you go in – though after you have paid for your ticket. It doesn't make it entirely clear, or maybe I didn't read it closely enough,...
The Wolf Of Wall Street
by Martin | October 4, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Mere seconds after rogue stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) appears in Martin Scorsese's film, I was eagerly awaiting his comeuppance, if not actual slow death by steamroller. Unfortunately I had to wait nearly 3 hours and even then (SPOILER ALERT) it...
Further Dispatches From BFI Flare
by Martin | May 2, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Futuro Beach On the face of it this has everything you could possibly want from a Brazilian- German co-production – it begins in Brazil and it ends in Germany – and beneath the surface there’s enough happening to offset a vague sense of one's having seen something...
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...
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...
The Mad Ghoul (1943)
by Martin | January 2, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Director James Hogan's film begins with an unusually delicate situation for a mad scientist flick – the heroine Isabel (Evelyn Ankers) has fallen out of love with the hero Ted (David Bruce). Isabel confides this melancholy fact to Dr. Alfred Morris, Ted’s chemistry...
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...
Frightfest 2016 Day One
by Martin | September 24, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
This year Frightfest disconcerted me by moving temporarily to the Vue in Shepherd's Bush. I don't like change. As we sat in the Pizza Express near Soho Square beforehand, which is where we always go on Frightfest Friday, Dave tried to reassure me by showing me the new...
In Pictures
by Martin | May 30, 2021 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964) Mario Bava's The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) is said to be the first giallo, but of Bava's films it is this that feels like the ur-giallo, a template for everything that came after – not just 70's gialli, but 80's slasher films as well....