Will for the first time I'm very pleased to welcome Andy Godfrey, film critic for Sorted magazine to bring us some movie reviews. Hello, Andy, how are you doing? Hi, Nathan. I'm doing really well. I'm wearing my England t-shirt because looking forward to the final on Sunday, but also looking forward to talking to you about my other favourite subject, which is, you know, is movies. Indeed, yes. Great to see you again. Great to see you with the gathering as well. Yeah, we had a great time. We, as you know, I've got a new book out. We saw some books. We were there with our good friend, Steve Legg, who I know you have on Pure. He is such a great character, isn't he? And he and I were able to promote Sorted magazine. And it was just great to see Steve on stage again, because we know that he's battling a fight with cancer. And so it was wonderful just to see him back in action. And the gathering was great. I mean, I loved every minute of the gathering. Yeah, my first time. Absolutely. It was wonderful. I can't wait to go back next year. Yeah, absolutely. It is just it's a really great event. I mean, to get two thousand men together, I think men open up when they're away from the ladies. I think men talk. I think men share more when they're on their own. You know, a lot of men get very shy about talking and opening up. And the other really great result of the gathering was we know about 120 men committed their lives to Christ, which is absolutely phenomenal. So absolutely brilliant. Yeah. So it really was a good weekend. And it was great to see you guys there as well. Yeah. Yeah. Pure 24/7 really was great to speak. We had so many great interviews with people live talking about who they were representing, what they thought were gathering. I think it's fairly safe to say that it's unanimous. It's amazing. It is. And we'll be there next year, God willing, and looking forward to that. And, you know, as I say, for me, one of the real joys was to see Steve being able to get up on stage and do his thing, because for him, it's the best weekend of the year. I know that for a fact. And just to see men being challenged about their relationship with Christ. Well, it's having fun at the same time. I mean, Jesus said he'd come to give us life in all its fullness. Yeah. And that was it. You know, here are men worshipping. I mean, we had Graham Kendrick leading the worship and his band. That was fabulous. Really, really brilliant. We had Bible teaching, but we also had men having fun. And I think it's a little foretakes of heaven. You know, we'll be worshipping. We'll be together. We'll be with the Lord. But at the same time, life will be what it should be. And I love the gathering. Yeah. To me, it's just, again, it's probably my favorite weekend of the year as well. Yeah. But we are here to discuss movies, because you are, of course, a film critic for any writing sorted magazine, don't you? Yeah. So Sorted Magazine, lovely to see you wearing a Sorted Sorted hoodie right now. Sorted is a Christian magazine for men. We've been around for 15 years and we've just published issue 101. And again, it was Steve Lake's vision. But the idea is to have a magazine that men, a really high quality production that men can read and take interested. So cars, movies, gadgets, sport, we cover all of those things. But in between those sort of articles, we have interviews with famous people who are Christians. And I know of men who've come to Christ, become Christians, who reading our magazine. And yeah, about four or five years ago, I met Steve for the first time properly and we became friends. And he knew that I was a movie buff. I mean, I'm sitting in a room, Nathan with 3000 DVDs behind me. You can see all the posters on the walls. You can see all the posters on the wall, movie posters left, right and center. To my right, there's a whole bookshelf, which has just got books about movies on it. So yeah, I'm a real movie buff. And Steve just said to me, look, would you write the reviews for Sorted? And they needed somebody to do that. And it's great because one of the things we get at Sorted, Steve has established good relationships with all the film companies. And we get to get invited to previews and press screenings. So we can report on the very latest films. I get to go up to London probably a couple of times a month and see some films that are not coming out. I've just seen a film now that's not coming out till October. But I get to report on them. I get to view them. We get to tell people if I mean, at the end of the day, it's only my opinion. But I get to tell people whether they're any good or not. And I love that that to me, this is a boyhood dream. If you'd said to me, I'm not quite sure exactly how old you are, Nathan. But if you'd said to me when I was young, when I was a teenager, what do you want to be when you grow up? I genuinely would have said I want to be a film critic because I was obsessed with movies even back then. And so 50 years later, Steve Legg comes along and says, wouldn't you be a film critic? And so the Lord sometimes just lets you, lets your ambitions come true. He allows dreams to come true. And in this case, the Lord's done this for me. And I get to watch all sorts of movies. I mean, you know, some of them are pretty rich, to be honest. I saw them last year that was unbelievably dire in a press screening. And you say so. You just have to be honest and tell people if you think it's rubbish. But at the same time, we get to recommend some films. And we also work in the Christian film companies. The company that produces the TV series The Chosen, which some listeners may have seen, and films like Jesus Revolution, which came out last year. And we were working very closely hand in glove with them. And I got to go up to London only edition and meet the cast of The Chosen. I got to meet Jonathan Rumi, he plays Jesus in The Chosen. And we were in a Pochotel in London, believe it or not, really Pochotel. And he was sitting in the room and I got to go in and have 10 minutes with him interviewing him and some of the other actors as well. So we sorted, we get these opportunities. And I love writing for Sorted. And we're trying to get the magazine. We want the magazine to be out there. And we sell the magazine in places like W. H. Smith's. And we want the public to be buying Sorted because it's a magazine that they're interested in, but also because they're going to be reading about Jesus, you know, they're going to be reading the gospel. So we have been now in the last two years, another boyhood dream come true, because I always said as a child, I want to be quoted on a movie poster. I want to see my name on a movie poster. And we've been on 13 in the last two years, which again is good for the magazine. Yeah, it's the Andy God who taught the magazine, blah, blah, five stars, whatever. And it's really good for the magazine, because again, people have taken seriously, but they're reading the magazine and they are reading about Jesus. And that's what we want. We want to point people in the direction of Jesus Christ. And we also send the magazine into every prison just about in the country. And we send it into every army and navy base of the country free of charge. Amazing. And that's great. So that's all through the work of Chaplains. And we recently got a letter from the chaplain at Bell March prison in London saying, please get this is absolutely true. Please send us more magazines. The prisoners are fighting over it. They enjoy reading it. So it is fantastic because guys in prison, again, are reading the gospel. And they're hearing that Jesus Christ changes lives. And if just one prisoner gets the message that Jesus Christ could change his life and turn his life around. That's what we want. Isn't it? You know, we want to be here. Absolutely. And it's so great to hear the critic of Salty. That was a really long round about long-winded way of saying it. I apologize. That's absolutely fine. It's great to hear you're very, very passionate about movies and also telling others about Jesus. Yeah. Your dad interviewed me at the gathering because I've actually written a book. Yes. I signed a copy of it. You have it. It is a book about movies, but it's a book about what movies say about the Christian message, how we can get the Christian message. Yesterday I was speaking at an event. And by the way, people want to book me up on I'm doing this now. I'm taking a presentation to churches where we can speak to your men's group or your whole church or your lady's group. Yesterday I was at the over 50s group at my church. And I did a whole afternoon with them where we had some fun looking at different movies, talking about favorite movies, showing clips and movies. And then at the end I bought in the story of Jesus. So I'm available to do that, but the book is out there. It's on Amazon, if anybody's interested. Absolutely. It's great book. But now let's have a look at movies, because of course, I'd love to hear about some of your latest movies, because of course the great thing about movie reviews is that like you said earlier, some are not so very good and some are really great. And because of you, we don't have to watch the rubbish ones. We can just enjoy the great ones. So would you mind giving us maybe the top five that perhaps you've come out recently? Okay, so the number one movie in the country at the moment is Inside Out 2. So those who've seen Inside Out will know that it was told the story of a little girl called Riley, and it was the characters inside their head. There were all the different emotions, experiences. So joy is personified as a little girl wearing a green dress. He's inside Riley's head, controlling the panels that make Riley joyful. They were sadness, there was jealousy and so on. So now Riley in this new film has grown up, she's a teenager, and she's experiencing all sorts of new emotions, you know, as we get older. So she's now, we now meet anger, and we meet envy, and we meet jealousy, and we meet boredom, because she's a bored teenager. And there's this little character inside their head who just spends the whole movie slouching on a couch, being bored, and whenever Riley's bored, you know, she comes to the floor. It's a story about coming of age, it's a story about a teenager growing up. I thought it was wonderful. Some of the characters, we know from the first one that there's all sorts of different areas inside Riley's brain, and some of the characters have to go on an adventure. Joy gets lost, typical teenager, joy gets lost. So some of the other characters have to go and find joy, right? And at one point inside Riley's brain, they come across this great big golf that they've got to bridge, and somebody says, what's that? And another character says, that's the sarcasm, get it? The sarcasm. And that was just a brilliant moment. It's a great film about growing up. It's a great film about teenagers. The number two movie is A Quiet Place Day One. So people will know that there's been two quiet place movies. This is an alien invasion, movie science fiction. So in the first film, the Earth is Invaded by Aliens, who see with their ears. They don't have eyes. They see with their ears. In other words, if you make a sound, they can pounce on you. So the whole Earth has become deadly quiet. You don't make a sound. It's the second you make a sound, these aliens know where you are, and they will pounce. And we've had, this is now the third film in the franchise. It is a film that is quite scary, quite violent. It's not non-overgory at all. It is a film that is a really, really good science fiction story. And what's key to it is the central character is actually dying anyway. She's from a hospice and gets caught up in the turmoil of the salient invasion. I thought it was a really, really good science fiction. So that's number two in the box office. Not that many kids films in the in the top five. The other one that's still in the top 10, actually, number seven is the Garfield movie. So some people will, I know a lot of people go Garfield. Who's Garfield? Garfield is a big fat orange lazy cat. And he goes on an adventure with his estranged dad. And it's good fun for kids. I mean, it wasn't really my cup of tea, but the children that were in the audience when I saw it really seemed to enjoy it. So the Garfield movie, we also got a movie at number nine, which is another fantasy kids movie called If. So I don't know if you ever had an imaginary friend. Apparently I did. I had an imaginary friend called Jennifer. What happens to our imaginary friends when we grow up? This film says, our imaginary friends go to an imaginary friend's retirement home. So all the imaginary friends are in a retirement home. And we meet a young lady who is determined to reunite the aged imaginary friends with their aged people who actually drank them up. There's a really good fantasy. It's not as good as it could be. If this had been made by Steven Spielberg, we'd all been teased by the end of it. But it's a fine movie. And I'll just highlight if I made one other that's currently in the top 10. This one is a 15 certificate. But the bike riders, the bike riders, so between 1969 and 1973, a photographer joined, a certain photographer joined up with a motorbike gang, sort of hells angels type things. These are these are really quite good guys, actually, really. And he photographed them. And in 1993, he published a book of photographs that he'd taken of this motorcycle gang that was just riding around America on their big bikes going from town to town. They've taken those photographs and they kind of turned them into a movie with the bike riders telling their story. It's a really good solid film. I think it's going to be up for some Oscars this year. It's called the bike riders. And it's really good. So those are the ones that I would highlight in the current top 10. I mean, of the current top 10, I've seen seven. But inside out to a quiet place, if the Garfield movie and the bike riders, they are all really, really good films. Excellent. Well, that sounds good. I've seen a lot of Garfield, you know, the original cartoons. Right. So that does sound like fun. If you like it, I mean, it's it's mad cap. It's mainly accurate. It doesn't stop, you know, it hardly gives you time to breathe. But then it is only an hour and a half. And there are some good laughs to be had in there, I will say, but it's, it's, did we really need a Garfield movie? Obviously, we did because it's been in the top 10 now. I was actually checking. It's been in the top 10 for six weeks since it came out. So obviously, you know, people are going to see it and family. I think families are enjoying it. Yeah. Well, I think the movie is for Garfield for a long time. It's been sort of, I don't know, household name, almost, you know, everybody knows about Garfield. He was a cartoon character for many years of that, you know, that's my newspaper. And of course, you know, I mean, the thing with Garfield is he's packed, he's lazy, and he just spends all day eating pizza. Yeah, I think we all relate to him one way or another. Yeah. I mean, there are other films in the top 10 that I enjoyed. There's a Bad Boys Four, which Bad Boys One was the story in 1985 of two cops in Los Angeles who were investigating drug crimes. And this is down the fourth film without franchise. If you like shootouts, if you like gunfights, if you like wives cracking cops, you know, getting on each other's nerves, that's the film for you. It's a plenty, plenty of action. Well, that sounds great. That's some good movies there. And would you recommend maybe just one movie that people could watch over the weekend? Okay, so one of my favorite films of recent years, I think it's number 20 in my list in the book of my top 100. But I have over the years, I've made friends with Britain's, believe it or not, with Britain's leading female filmmaker. So her name is Carol Morley. She's directed a number of really great films. And she had a film come out two years ago. And I was invited to not just the London premiere, but I was invited to the party afterwards where I got to meet all the stars of the film. So this is a film by my friend Carol Morley. And she made a film called Typest Artist Pirate King. And it's coming to Netflix from tomorrow. And I really hope hundreds of millions of people will see this. I mean, it didn't have a great run of the cinemas, unfortunately. But now it's on Netflix. People are getting the chance to see it. So Typest Artist Pirate King, I have a big poster on the wall just here, which Carol Morley, the director has actually signed. Typest Artist Pirate King tells a story of a lady who had mental problems. And do you know what, I talk about this from all the time, and I'm going to have to quickly look up because my brain has gone to Bush while I'm live while I'm on the air. And I literally got to just look up a name. In terms of story of an artist, this lady was an artist at the Royal School of Academy. She had great back in the 50s. She had great potential, she had great, there we go, sorry about that. Typest Artist Pirate King is about a lady called Audrey Amos, and how I could forget that I don't know. Audrey Amos was a student at the Royal School of Academy back in the 50s, but she had mental problems, and she had to drop out. And her work, some of which was absolutely phenomenal, was never displayed. Carol Morley, the director, got to see some of this work on which there were hundreds of pieces of art, possibly thousands. And it was all in carrier bags in the mental home, or in the shelter accommodation, rather, where Audrey ended her life, where her life came to an end in her 70s. She found her passport, and in the passport, the job description was Typest Artist Pirate King. And what Audrey did was she just drew and painted everything she saw around her. If she saw a bird in the sky, she would stop the car and draw it. If she passed a building that she thought was interesting, she would stop the car and paint it. She would just literally draw and paint, ordinary everyday life, and some of her works were extraordinary. And Carol was going through all this material and thought, "People should see this. People should know the story of this woman's life." And so she created a sort of fantasy story based around the last week of her life, where Audrey tells her carer. Now, Audrey is played by Monica Doolander. Carer is played by the rather lovely Kelly McDonald, who I got to meet these actresses at the press screen and the press party, Grammy party. In the film, Audrey says to Kelly McDonald, they're in London. There is an art gallery open where people can display their works for free. You've got to take me. Before I die, you've got to take me and my work has got to be displayed. So her carer says, "I will drive you to this art gallery." Okay? And yes, we'll display your work. They get in the car and the carer says to Audrey, "So we're in London. Where is this art gallery? Give me directions." And she says, "It's in Sunderland." So the movie then becomes a road trip with these two women traveling to Sunderland so that Audrey can display her art in this exhibition. Now, Audrey's mentally honest, Nathan, was really interesting. It's a real condition. She would walk up to total strangers, but she would see them as people from her past. So there's a scene where she's in a cafe and there's a young couple on the next table. And she goes up to them. She says, "Hi, John. Hi, Jane. Haven't seen you since school." But these are two total strangers. But this is how her mental illness manifested. This was the problem she had. She would walk up to total strangers, but she would say, "No, no, no. So-and-so is a person from my past." And they have some very attention. There's various elements of fantasy in this. And it all culminates with a meeting, a reunion with a sister. And we actually discover what happened that caused the mental illness in the first place. And it was an accident in some woods near a waterfall. I don't want to give away any more than that. But it is a remarkable film. I think it's one of the best films of recent years. It's one of my favourites. And I'm not just saying that because the director is a friend of mine. And in fact, I was talking to Carol, the director just this week. It is a film with two brilliant central performances. Kelly MacDonald playing the carer, Monica Dule, and playing Audrey, is they are both sensational. And it's going to be on Netflix. That's from tomorrow. And you know, I love the tagline for this film. The tagline for this film is this, reality is just around the bend. Reality is just around it. I say, I have a big poster just to my right hand side on my wall, which Carol, the director has signed. So Netflix, as from Friday, typist artist Pirate King, please have a look at it. I think it's a wonderful film. Hugely enjoyable. Might take you a few minutes to sort of get into it, get the vibe of the film. It's got a fantastic score. Again, I've got the soundtrack on a yellow vinyl, which the composer signed for me at the premium party. And it is just a wonderful score. Towards the end, we discover that Audrey's favorite hymn was with your anchor hold in the storms of life. And we get a beautiful rendition of this hymn, which plays a significant part in the plot. So you've got an old hymn playing a significant part in the plot of the film. I can't praise it enough. I've seen it. I know how many times. And as I say, I was privileged to be invited to the London premiere and to meet the stars of the film. So yeah, that's on Netflix as from Friday, typist artist Pirate King. Excellent. That sounds very interesting. It's really good. typist artist Pirate King. It does sound very, very interesting, especially the mysterious nature of this illness. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it really is. And at one point, they wander into an ordering system. They wander into a church on this journey from London to Sunderland. She's about to pass the church. And she says, stop. I need to go into the church. I'm a few minutes of reflection. They go and the vicar suddenly becomes somebody from her past, you know. And another point that said they're in the cafe and another point they're on a beach somewhere. At another point, Audrey calls his problems and the police have to be called and the policeman becomes somebody from her past. So it's an endlessly fascinating film. I've watched. I must have seen it. Probably half a dozen times at least. I saw it. I've seen it three times in a cinema, including the premiere. And every time I see new things in it, it's really interesting. Well, I mean, road trip films are always really exciting. You know, seeing people go on a trip and travel into different places. You get to see loads of scenery and as they travel along, it's really interesting. This is kind of like a British thalmer in Louise. Yeah. Well, thanks so much, Andy. Great to hear about all these films. And as you recommended, typist artist Pirate King. So if you do get a chance to watch that over the weekend and send my friend Carol a message on Twitter, tell her how much you enjoyed it. Tell her I said to do that. Absolutely. Yes. Well, thanks so much, Andy. Great to chat with you. I'll see you next week. Thank you very much indeed. God bless you and God bless Pure. Did you know Pure 24/7 Radio has a shop? Well, we do. You can buy merchandise while supporting the work that we do here. Simply head over to www.pure247radio.org/shop. That's www.pure247radio.org/shop.
