The Man From Mo WaxThis is Alastair’s final update from the 60th BFI London Film Festival. For the end of the festival I saw The Man From Mo-Wax, Snowden and The Gual. Above you can listen to what I thought of each of them. The Man From Mo-Wax is a music documentary about James Lavelle, Snowden is Oliver Stone’s biopic of Edward Snowden and The Gual is a low budget British psychological thriller.

snowdenThis is my final update from this year’s London Film Festival. It was a great festival. At the end of the recording I choose my favourite films from the entire festival.

A Monster CallsThis is Alastair’s second update from the 60th BFI London Film Festival. I have scene four more films: A Monster Calls, Planetarium, Arrival and The Stopover. The recording in this post contains my initial thoughts on all of them. A Monster Calls is a YA drama based on the novel by Patrick Ness, Planetarium is a drama about French filmmakers in the 1930s, Arrival is a high concept sci-fi film and The Stopover is a French film about three female soldiers returning from Afghanistan.

The StopoverThere will be more discussion of these films in future MFV episodes and in future posts on this website. Keep alter for those and let us know what you thought of these films or any others films you saw at the festival on social media.

lukecageEpisode eighteen, so the podcast has finally come of age! Nick also completes a major rite of passage as he finally finishes Twin Peaks, while Alastair is out partying at the London Film Festival.

After that, it’s a game of two halves as we check out two new American TV shows: the opening seven episodes of Luke Cage, the new Marvel Netflix series (5:36 WITH SPOILERS), and the pilot of Westworld, a new sci-fi series from HBO (24:32).

westworldAnd if you want the syllabus of post-Luke-Cage reading material Alastair mentions during the episode, here it is.

In the latter stage, it’s all about British cinema with Spaceship (38:53), a spacey teenage drama we saw at London Film Festival, and Alastair’s recommendation from last week, the East Midlands revenge thriller Dead Man’s Shoes (49:41).

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TowerAlastair has spent the last few days at the 60th BFI London Film Festival. He has seen four films so far: The 13th, Tower, Spaceship and The Worthy. The attached recoding has some off the cuff thoughts about each of them. The 13th is a documentary about the rising rates of incrassation of African Americans; it is hard-hitting, very detailed and really interesting. Tower is a rotoscoped documentary about a mass shooting in Texas in the 1960s. Spaceship is a British indie film and the Worthy is a tense thriller set in a post- apocalyptic Saudi Arabia.

The WorthyThere will be more discussion of the films on at the festival in future MFVs and in another Excessive Fantasy Violence festival summary. Watch out for those on the website and do let us know in the comment or on social media if you have seen any films at the festival that you would recommend.

thegirlwithallthegiftsThe seventeenth division has landed! It’s a Brit-heavy episode, with opening talk about the current London production of Pinter’s No Man’s Land with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, plus the revival of 90s middle class soap Cold Feet.

And then it’s down to business with new homegrown zombie film The Girl With All The Gifts (6:01) based on a book by MR Carey, which both Nick and Alastair read and loved. Next, it’s the difficult eleventh series of scifi sitcom Red Dwarf (21:57), before finally crossing the Atlantic for horror sequel Blair Witch (36:59). (Some parts of Blair Witch are spoiled quite heavily. BE AFRAID.)

red-dwarf-xiFinally, Britain goes to enhanced war in Nick’s latest recommendation: grim WW2 superpeople comic Uber (50:07) by Kieron Gillen and Caanan White.

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moderatefantasy-violenceOur sweet sixteen! Other important milestones in this episode – Nick finishes watching Chuck after about a year and Alastair books his London Film Festival movies!

More to the point, we catch up to the zeitgeist with Netflix’s scary-nostalgia-saga Stranger Things (4:05, INCLUDES ENDING SPOILERS), then go a little more specialist with Spanish subtitled film Julieta (24:04) and The Divine Comedy’s new album Foreverland (34:51).

As promised in the episode, if anyone’s interested in the Sodajerker on Songwriting podcast with Neil Hannon (of The Divine Comedy), it’s very good and can be found at this link here.

the_divine_comedy_foreverland_artLastly, Nick somehow hasn’t seen The Fifth Element (44:18), but Alastair’s latest recommendation will sort that out.

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david_brent-_life_on_the_road_ricky_gervais_1_h_2016-2Fifteen down! Back on regular format after two reality-bending outings, starting with opening chat about Between Two Thorns by Emma Newman and the end of Outcast season 1.

We’ve got thoughts about the difference between now and the 2000s as we talk David Brent: Life On The Road (3:19), then the long-lost world of folklore with Cry Havoc: Mything In Action (23:08). Next, we jump right back to our own tenth episode to revisit Orange Is The New Black season 4 in its entirety (37:09) INCLUDING SPOILERS.

CryHavoc_vol1-1Last of all, it’s time to get lo-fi with BBC Three’s romantic-yet-squalid one-room sitcom Him & Her (57:24).

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SINK-CpmEHa_WYAAwZiaOne last hoorah for our Nine Worlds coverage – this is Nick talking in his hotel room moments before leaving the convention for the year. (With some heckling from his girlfriend.) Cut from our main episode for reasons of length and slight redundancy, but if you want one more chance to experience the con vibe, this is your moment!

(Pictured to the left – our hotel sink, mere feet from where this audio was recorded.)

And if you want plenty more on-site Nine Worlds audio from both Nick and Alastair, you can listen to MFV #14 here! Unless you already have!

nine-worlds-2016Episode fourteen! We break our format for the second podcast running, but first, discussion of recent activities involving Twin Peaks and the Hackney Visions festival!

And then we’re into our reflections on the recent Nine Worlds geekfest event in London (4:08), including live on-site audio! Then it’s time to review new superhero movie Suicide Squad (26:08) and take a look back at the whole first season of Preacher (49:57).

If you want to revisit our thoughts on the Preacher pilot, you can hear them in MFV #8.

Yes, this episode ran a bit long once we built in all the Nine Worlds stuff. Good fun though.

suicidesquad2And lastly, as ever, Nick takes a look at Alastair’s latest recommendation: Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City by Guy Delisle (67:07).

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cursed childIt’s our thirteenth episode! We’ve done this for a whole half-year! What better way to mark the occasion than a massive batch of trailers from San Diego Comic Con and the third Sharknado movie?

We’ve also got our first ever guest on the show – we’re talking about Harry Potter And The Cursed Child (6:47), Nick saw the play but Alastair didn’t. So booktuber and mega-Potter-fan Claire Rousseau is coming on to tell us her feelings. There’s a quick no-plot-details opinion-summary at the start, then anyone avoiding spoilers should jump to 46:35, where Nick and Alastair review Star Trek Beyond in the regular MFV way.

And finally, Nick recommends Alastair the video-game-folk-music of Rebecca Mayes (58:29). Is it his sort of thing, or are we headed for another Lebowski-esque clash?

If you enjoy Claire’s appearance, you can find her talking about books on YouTube here, or at ClaireRousseau.com or @ClaireRousseau on Twitter. Since the web allows it, we’ll also embed the first of the Harry Potter re-read videos briefly mentioned on the show.

If Nick’s persuaded you to try out that video game folk music, you can see Rebecca Mayes’ videos for these songs on The Escapist here, or just cut straight to buying the albums here. You can also check out her more recent material as Boe Huntress on her Bandcamp page.

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