Mission To Lars
Directed by James Moore & Will Spicer
Starring Tom Spicer, Will Spicer, Kate Spicer
Spicer Moore Films
Released 6 June, 2012 (Limited UK & U.S.)

Ground control
To Major Tom
Commencing countdown
Engines on

Metallica. One of the biggest metal bands on the planet. Surrounded by layers of PR, management, assistants, groupies and crew. Everyone one wants a slice of the four piece from “˜Frisco.

In the bedroom of his West Country home Tom Spicer proudly wears his Metallica t-shirts, collects their music and head-bangs along to it (“Enter Sandman” is his favourite), but Tom is not your average metal head. Tom has Fragile X syndrome, a condition described by his sister Kate Spicer as “autism with bells on.” For the last twenty years Tom has made his dream clear to his family telling them regularly, “Wanna meet Lars, wanna meet Lars.” Lars Ulrich is of course Metallica’s drummer and Mission To Lars, directed by James Moore and Tom’s younger brother Will Spicer, documents the Spicer siblings embarking on a road trip so that Tom can meet his hero.

“We realized very early on that Tom is much more unpredictable than any rock star.” Kate Spicer is talking about her brother and focus of her feature documentary. Made alongside their brother Will, Mission To Lars is their story of trying to set up a meeting between Tom and his hero, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. Tom has Fragile X syndrome, a condition described by Kate in the trailer as “autism with bells on” which created massive challenges for all of them.

Before she found herself adding Filmmaker to her business card, Kate was a lifestyle journalist; far from the heavy metal junkie she had to become. In a surprisingly honest interview, Kate talked to me about those challenges in making the film, our culture’s attitude to people with learning disabilities, and her relationship with her brothers.

Geeks of Doom: Are you excited for people to see the film now it’s finished?

Kate Spicer: Excited isn’t the word because we’re doing so much of this on our own, which means there’s quite a lot to worry about. I enjoy a lot of it in hindsight, but I feel like if I stop to enjoy it, it will all go wrong!

If you’re like me, you were absolutely stunned to discover that Andy Whitfield, the 39-year-old star of the hit Starz series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, had lost his battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Obviously any type of cancer is a very serious thing, but all hopes were that Whitfield would find a way to beat the disease.

What we didn’t know, however, is that Whitfield’s battle was being documented by Lilibet Foster (Academy Award nominee for 1999’s Speaking in Strings) in hopes of creating something special to inspire people who are in similar fights to the one Andy faced, and everyone else to get out there and live life to the fullest every single day.

The title of the documentary is Be Here Now, and you learn more about it and watch a trailer below.

Being A) British, B) a huge fan of thrash metal, and C) awesome (see A and B), I am hugely excited by this.

A History Of A Time To Come – The Story Of UK Thrash, to give it its full title, will tell the story of those great thrash bands in the UK from the genre’s inception and heyday in the 1980s to its exciting renaissance presently.

Granted, not many thrash metal bands from this little island have achieved anywhere near the level of record sales, reverence, and general arse-lickery as those from the U.S. and other parts of Europe. But that does not mean we don’t have talent, no sir.

Watch the new trailer for the doc here below.

Classic Albums – Iron Maiden: Number Of The Beast
Netflix Streaming
DVD
Directed by Tim Kirby
Starring EDDIE, Bruce Dickinson, Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, Steve Harris, Clive Burr, Martin Birch, Rod Smallwood, Nicko McBrain, Ross Halfin
Isis Productions/Eagle Vision
Originally Released: December 4, 2001

When Netflix added nearly all of the Classic Albums series to their streaming collection last week, it was inevitable that I would draw attention to the series in this review. The big question for me was: which Classic Albums episode do I review? Being a music geek, and especially (first and foremost) a Metal Head, the choice was incredibly tough. With bands such as Metallica, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Motörhead, Rush, and many more among the features now online, it took me a while before I settled on a title.

Favorably rated as one of the most memorable and cornerstone albums in Metal history, Iron Maiden: The Number Of The Beast now seems, in retrospect, the appropriate selection for this review. The band is frequently cited as one of the fundamental acts that bolstered the genre of metal, having blasted onto the scene among the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal – and they continue onwards to this day, renewing their legacy with new releases that strengthen their music identity.