#i’m like a starving victorian child begging for more one shots

[l0vef0ol]

how i be lookin when i check the same tag over and over again just for no new fanfics to be published

[moviesyndrome]

Movie Syndrome’s Film of The Hour” London Fields “DIRECTOR’S CUT.” 2019

The only time to watch and review The Director's Cut of London fields is now: within a human species post-crisis, so novel to that species that there is no occurrence leave alone a record. Its the only time that London Fields makes more than just sense, total sense. It is now our new potential mirror and or X-ray machine for our so called"New Normal."  It can be London but it can be any city, town, enclave of human dissonance.

As a child I went to the school of life though films presented by the great Alex Cox, on his Moviedrome show, I was introduced to precursors to the coming influx of Neo-90's Noir. Narratives that coiled around its characters with the love of hungry anacondas; stories from the shrades of the social human fringe; men and women alike gleefully hapless or broken, souls just seeking to steal their inevitabilities from fate and make it their own - as if that some how made thier doom bearable.   Films where pale shadows crowded the celluloid frame even they were alone they were just paler than the crowd.

London fields so reminds me of this vein of filmmaking. In Neo-90's noir people were incapable of making anyone happy, not even themselves, or anyone else, they either new it and would violently seek irony, or just detraction, or simply some air of self-appointed cleverness about their failures: their philosophy the wisdom of one's own doom is better than the ignorance of it (as if that helps).

It was a joy to feel like a kid watching films I shouldn't be watching, with the sound turned down low, so parents in bed don't wake, listening to an intro by the great Alex Cox, and the prototypes of the coming 90's noir. This is what it felt like watching London Fields.

The first shot had dance in its guts, the first sign of a good director, making sure the audience know s/he cares. I was reassured and sat back in comfort knowing I don't have to be anxious. Few films know how to utilize stock footage, or some films over use it, some just don't respect it, we may see more of it since the big plague of 2020 hit planet earth. The now infamous "C" word hit just 4 months after I saw it in 2019 on the eve of the UK election that would decide the fate of thousands literally and of the new London that I am now living through. This is why London Fields Directors cut must be watched post-global pandemic, post London post human incubation, post human global coma, wake up and watch it!

The true value of London Fields is in its ability to be relevant externally, not just internally, it will be talked about for decades as the greatest film-restructuring/ turnaround since George Miller saved Mad Max 4 from september 11th. As long as London is here with a new normal that a film and book called London Fields possibly predictive like Nostradamus "pre" and mid plague predictions. Like Daniel's predictions of the fourth beast,  that is a president of the free world advising people to drink bleach as it cures plague like some victorian charlatan-witch-doctor.  

Talking of victorian London look out for a wonderful Fagan meets Sid-Vicious like surprise, it will remain a surprise as I will not spoil it , you will have to watch it.  Remember the advent of dvd extras where the story behind the story became King and queen, well here is your story behind the story of London Fields the coiling fluid labyrinth that this director's cut had to circumvent and master at the same time, is in itself a book, a film maybe a trilogy. It then becomes a matrix for the films ability to gracefully scream with silent pain, palpable in its starving human waifs, the population of jagged grizzled shadows of an old world, just like a pre-covid London.

My story:

- I waited 5 years to watch the director's cut, as I knew this would be the film to watch, I know from day zero, that this would be the definite splice, I am glad I waited, but i had no other option. More importantly I am glad I waited to be one of the fortunate survivors of the real London apocalypse to be able to write a review worthy of note.

Filming locations:

During the pandemic I walked around the many locations that London Fields filmed in, like Brixton where I grew up, and I went to bulk buy food, part of my post apocalyptic preppers protocol. I'm a prepper by nature so  I had bought my ffp3 mask months before. I actually gave a health and safety threat and risk consultation to a filmmaker heading to Ebola hit Lagos, I said "Make sure you have 3 meters on everyone and every surface so only the soles of your shoes need chlorine (the only chem that degrades DNA) I didn't call it social distancing I called it don't get Ebola. Here we are fortunate it was not Ebola that hit world and London Fields. I bought food in bulk buying is very different from panic buying, but I can't judge london is pretty but pretty tough to live in.  

London Fields Anatomy: + Matrix: When I say The Matrix of London fields I speak about the meta-mould, London is the ideal place to film an apocalypse, London was once the capital of the world since Britannia once owned most of the world. Location location location is everything.   +Concept: You can have a concept of any thing a concept of concept itself , a concept of the idea of a principal. Why not start with the concept of human nature, give our nature enough rope and we will hang ourselves and each everyone else in the room , but why is the nicely investigated by Bill Bob Thornton's character. This rope reaches the macro space to the micro of all the individual characters. + Basis: I have a feeling much like the basis for the characters in "Withnail and I"  the writer Ames, the author of the book, he has based these characters on the transients that peppered his life in London. + Grounds: There are sub-cultures of ravaged souls who make the characters even in the book look pale in comparison - art always mimics life not the other way round.

+Criteria:  The criteria is to capture a credible cinematic vignette of a very wild book + Responsibility: There is an integrity of context well policed diegetically and in the non diegetic space. The director is now renowned for policing this context which was under threat when islamic content (there's that other "C" word) was misaligned with pornography to create a pornography, the legal battle that ensued was only fueled by this particular mismanagement of content with no context.

+ |Sense of place "This is London" London is hit by hyperinflation, social controls, shortages, poverty, mass unemployment, Social Unrest,divisions, divergency of schisms, social branching in to pockets of gang pods.

+Pattern of capacity: is potent disconcerting X-ray machine to the lower digestive system, beyond the ice-tipped persona of innocence, the bystander, observer, storyteller. It peels back the plasters wrapped around the slick wounds, and it does it finger by finger of London's inner ducts, where its appendix once was.  

The shadows of a cosmopolitan gas chamber known as London slither and preen the boiling social swampy waves seeking their nothings in what they see as somethings', goals that are obvious traps or not so obvious. They leave patterns of psycho-splatter across the corridors of doom-drowned doors with no one able to reach their goals and no one capable of making each other happy but, even though deep down they know it, they still pursue against instinct better judgment. They have to, as if they don't we would not have any drama.

This is Kitch satire the likes of which spilled out of neo-grungy scenes of the 90's neo noir, but its interesting to see this in a London steamy punky setting, rather than Hollywoodland. Highlights of the film is an interesting crossing of the 180 degree line, which is always a tricky area.

In London Fields the human ice-berg is built almost entirely out of constellations of man and woman's failure points, we are left with the question simply what will drive us, what will keep us going after the discovery of these failure points.

I: Inspiration by the challenge to put a x-ray, a mirror in front of the face of London as a gateway to the face of the wider world W: WHy do this film? Well every couple of years in intervals where London is begging for this mirror so lets provide it. V: The vision was to engineer an exposing investigation of the ghosts of London all the way to their souls and their soul-engines. M: Mission was to find the cast and support structure to manifest this vision S-T: The strategy to tactical synergy was to turn the motion of this story in to an serendipitous dance off the page of the book on to the cinema screen. Vision: To make a respectable cool potently socially vital potency vignette that a 2 hour film cna do for the many pages of a book Strategy: To go in with fervent dedication leveraging years of mastering skill of marrying music and image, and an industry that forces the discipline of story. B: Diegetic: Why do these characters do what they do, human beings have drives from baseline to top line drives, these drives are constantly hungry, convergent and divergent simultaneously. where do we put drives, what do we do with them, where will they go The characters with doomed naive seek happy endings for their drives, in doing so misd judge everyone. The souls here are using chess strategies to leverage their needs and clear the road of others in their path creating an emotionally psychologically all-in-ring wrestling match everyone eliminating each other. - Agility: The agility is not just in the films dynamic rehabilitative turnaround but agility in characterisation of the most hyper-wild surreal characters in a book nicely done by Jim Sturgess fagan meets sid vicious sex-pistols. And Johnny Depps Cockney-Rockabilly predator. 5.- kudoi: The Synecdoche: Here is with the director has managed to perform if not one of but maybe the most important Innovation Turnaround in the history of cinema. This could be the making of a new career. It is a career I went into recently I have performed it on other films myself but never had to do it on my own. 6.- Innovation: The director holds the mantle on the most strategic siege-craft innovation since those valiant thanes of the 5th century, took the gabled hall to siege in King Fin's realm of friesland; that young King of Denmark Heanerf with with 60 retainers went to visit his sister, recently married in peace weaving in Frankish lands, and for reasons yet to be disclosed to us, is put to seige in a gabled hall. It is an example in history where siegecraft worked. Matthew Cullen would have had to must some ancient type of lock-jaw dedication to pursue a siege craft of 5 years. with an army of producers, investors and compounding resistance. 7.- leadership side: The leadership it requires to execute a turnaround on a business is Herculean. There are 5 stages to a turnaround 0. People 1. Runaway - Leverage Cash runnaw 2. Technical engineering 3. Value chain strategy: add value - take away value - modify underlying value 4. Finalizing product market fit and fitness to execute a cut 5. New Campaign 6. Re-delivery. Just like in the film the characters all see themselves as leaders but they are ultimately proxy-puppets of a greater chess game. 8.- assertiveness: The director asserts with a five year kung-fu grip to show that the little voice in the milestone of a crocodile culture of producers, investors and meta-investors that the little voice can shout the loudest when it counts. It can do this  when it is important, when our voice must protect the unicorns gallop and leave our creativity factory, we must do this so they don;t fall down the cracks. In the film we see actors forging their stamps on their portrayals, of characters seertingthier desperations on each other's visions of happiness. 9.- Resonance of Messaging:brand Matthews Brand is potent authenticity of creativity this resonates in his film-turnaround and in the realignment of creative assets in,most in the alignments 10. Positive magnet respect attract positive Providence: The Universe has shined on Matthew and his valiant journey as the results have shown that it was on his side

LONDON FIELDS GLOSSARY:

- Conceptuals: What if you apply business turnaround to your own film not just someone's film but your own. Inside the film the concept - Concept of principle: The core principle was constant unbridled constant pulse of exposure of warts and all innards of post-social apocalyptic jagged humanity character by character. - Context: The Meta Post-Apocalypse: the after-party to the aftermath of London. - Grounds: Matthew had good grounds to purser this Colonel kurtz-like mission his unicorns had been dropped down the - Reach - if it is made more clear where to find the directors cut this will be king, . - Inimitability: Anyone trying to imitate this will stick out like a pik zeblinp - replayability: There is plenty here to study and restudy and this is the best master class in Film Turnaround making Matthew Cullen the most history making CFO of London Fields successfully restructured like LEGO brick By Brick (Which is also an interesting book on how lego turned themselves around in 5 years). - Accessibility: There is plenty here to make accessible to wider audiences with lots of help from Johnny Depp providing magnetic rockabilly-cockney psycho-menace - Principle: Waste nothing and produce more with as little as possible. Vision mission : Apex-Crux: A poetic battle manual in overcoming the cataclysm-apocalyptic crushing of your family as a consequences of the poisonous chains of criminology. - Idea: Human nature builds cunning paths of self-sabotage for itself knowingly and unknowingly and its infectious. - Theme(s): self-infliction, sabotatge, self-sabotage - Terms of understanding: the terms of understanding here are though the pattern of traffic between peoples' enemy within how they clash and - Dance: The film is nicely dancing   - sculpture : There is a sense of engineering finess to the this cut that reaches between the small life of characters and the wider outside world that is out there somewhere but hasn't been seen in a long time and and clearly is not missed. 4 - Signature: The signature here the brand the unique finger print is garishly distinct defined unmistakable, flamboyant graish clever use nourish pop-kitch- - Innovation: There is an interesting way that Matthew Cullen breaks the 180 line look out for it, Jim Sturges Innovative contribution to a now infamous Sid -Vicious meets Fagan mashup is no legend. ---------------------> - Communication: The colours seem to be the some of the most dominant communicator in London - Message: Warnings of not just the soul's emotional vulnerability of people, the hazard of peoples problems, but the hazard of a now victorian like London - Language - Conveyance - Shape Nuance: Nuance swells in the misery that Billy Bob Thornton carries around, it hangs like the unsucked cigarette smoke constantly trailing his character's - Ethos: The Directors ethos is the first rule of any endeavor is never give up! Once the mission was demanded to turn the film around this rule become law so taking names off a film are not part of this ethos.  The Films' ethos everything is available. - idiosyncrasy: The positions of satirical use of nourish pop--kitch is so uni - ethics: The direct fought to remedy inflammatory scenes IN the original cut there were scenes where religion is explicitly juxat - Responsibility: There is obvious responsibility to do just ice to the book, but also to the characters and how the actors navigate this, then there is London, one of the most if not the most unique city in the world. - Code: Its code of conduct is to never let you rest to corrugate the constant exposure of the shades of core characters and new characters both minor and major. - Policy: IS to be calmly unrelenting in the face of adversity on and off set.

[deceptivetides-blog]

Shoot the Messenger

The morning air was cool and the frost began to cloud the windshield of the van. As the sun crept into the eastern sky I watched the dying leaves shy away from their branches and cascade down onto the dew crowned grass, making the suburban lawns look like the palette of a starving artist. And amongst the winter scenery I sat in the front seat of the delivery van taking long scarring drags on a much needed cigarette. The day was fresh, but I was not. Almost mournfully I took one last drag and flicked the remaining ash into the center console cup holder    -or as it became from my purposes the “ash tray”- and watched as the faint amber glow of the burning butt of my Marlboro faded out into nothing. Then with a sigh, I began driving onward to the location of my next delivery, 401 Sycamore St.

As I advanced through the suburban streets, I watched as people shuffled their families from their front doors and into their cars, presumably begin their daily commutes to school and work. Proceeding steadily I listened as the radio hummed away with news of a hospice nurse who had disappeared after visiting her patient August Bower, a poor old man suffering from dementia. Annoyed, I turned the radio down refusing to engage myself in another one of the media’s exaggerated stories and instead turned my focus on finding the house.

When I finally arrived at the timeless Victorian abode nestled at the end of Sycamore, I found it to be almost ghoulish. Dismissing this as foolish superstition attributed to long nights invested in the works of Stephen King I stepped out of the van, retrieved the package from the back, and headed up the walkway to the front door. Wearily I approached the threshold, the aging wood of the front porch creaking beneath my feet. I inhaled dramatically and imparted a firm knock on the door, imagining the looks of who might come to greet me. After a few moments with the cold chill of the wind starting to seep its way into my bones, I began to suspect the home was left vacant or that I might have arrived at the wrong address, but just as I turned around prepared to depart from the porch, the front door swung open to reveal a stout man looking to be anywhere from his late fifties to early sixties. With a casual fluidness I introduced myself, “Hello Sir I have package here that needs to be signed for.” With a grunt the old man reached for my clip board scrawling his name across the dotted line. I glanced briefly at his signature curious as to why the name rang in my head with familiarity. Dismissing the thought, gave a brief thank you to the gentlemen still standing silent in the door way, and turned away to return to the van. Then from behind me a voice deeply murmured, “You’re not getting away again.” And with a sudden blow the back of the head, the world went dark.  

~

           I awoke sitting upright on the hard wood floor of the foyer with my back against the leg of an antique vanity to which my hands were tightly fastened. Working against the painful throbbing in my head I racked my brain trying to figure out how I ended up here. One moment I was strolling through my morning route and now I sat tied up in a dusty foyer. While perusing my thoughts I glanced up to see the old man I had met earlier on my route standing down the hall panting angrily almost like a dangerous animal that has been violently provoked.

           His gaze met mine and I felt the anger in his eyes give way into a fear that took a hold of me the way tractor beams from UFOs took a hold of cows in old Sci-Fi movies. The next moments an unpredictable flurry as he marched down the darkened hall towards the spot where I lay captive. I close my eyes wincing in fear as he leaned down closely to my face, his breath seeming to have come directly from hell, as it burned against my trembling cheek. I felt the warm familiarity of a tear hit my cheek as I braced for whatever torment was to follow. Only it wasn’t my tears that were rushing down, but his. The old man was crying as though he was in great pain but the smile on his face made him look like he just witnessed the birth of his first child. He collapsed onto my chest with a joyful gasp, “You’re home!”

           My eyes now open, watched as the old man lay sprawled against me while he continued a shriek of pain and ecstasy. His lip quivered as he lifted his gaze to meet mine and said “I’ve missed you son.”

           With my actual father being buried upstate years before after a long battle with cancer and alcoholism, I resided in terror of the old man’s exclamation. Then I spotted my clip board on the floor and reread the signature that had been written on it what must have been hours earlier. My heart sank in my chest as the familiarity of the name came to light. He was August Bower the man whose last hospice nurse was reported missing after visiting him a few days ago. Again my heart throbbed as I recalled another damning detail broadcasted on the radio earlier that morning, August Bower had been suffering from dementia. With the realization of where I was setting in, I began to doubt that I would ever return home to my mother lying in her hospital bed nestled in the backroom of my measly trailer home, suffering from old age.

           Thoughts of my mother were quickly shattered by the old man’s fist making contact with my jawbone. I cried out in agony but quickly tried to mask my fear with a stern face, attempting to resist any control he seeks over me. “You left me!” he grunts, “You ran away,” remaining awash in the delusion that I was somehow his son. Is his eyes I fulfilled a persona that has somehow wronged him. He raises his hand again and I wince in preparation for the blow, determined this time to keep quiet.  But instead he dropped his fist and left the room, returning visibly shaking with a knife in hand.

He rushed over and kneeled down in front of me. Again I closed my eyes neglecting to see what was to ensue. I sat blinded to the world awaiting the plunging of blade into one of my vital organs, and my breath grew frantic as he leaned closer. Then in an instant of terror I heard the blade of the knife whip through the air and began counting the seconds before it made it to my chest, but instead I felt the rope around my wrists fall to the ground.

I rubbed the deep cuts the rope had made in my skin and trembled as he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me from the ground, ushering me in direction of a narrow flight of stairs opening at the front of the hallway.

When we reached the top of the stairs he then jerked me towards a door with several locks on it, and with his free hand pawed for the key in his pocket and undid the locks. I was instantly horrified by the sight of the room he is now forcing me into. It was decorated to the liking of a young boy. Attached to the wall was a shelf bearing old sports trophies, above the bed hung an old Star Wars poster, and atop the dresser rests a baseball mitt and picture of young boy who looks to be about twelve, with light brown hair protruding through his red and white baseball cap. The old man grinned and the photo and smirked, “Your old room.”

I turned around to face him, but with an authoritative face he says “Bedtime,” and shuts the door.

I heard the tumbling and engaging of locks on the other side of the door, and resisted the urge to slam my fists against it and cry for help. Instead, I turned back towards the room and looked it over again with the notion that I won’t be leaving anytime soon arising. The windows were boarded up, barring any hope of escape. I slumped back against the door and shrank to my knees and began to pray, something I hadn’t done since my father died. I cried for God to help me and tearfully begged him “Savior please save me from this place!”

Feeling I hope lost I retreated to the bed and threw my aching body on top of it. Just then I heard the thud of something hitting the floor board below. I leapt from the bed and ducked my head underneath, only to find a black leather bound journal that had seemed to have fallen out from somewhere in the bed frame. Puzzled by my discovery I quickly opened it to inspect its contents and found that it had belonged to the old man’s son. The first page read:

February 17, 2003

           My name is Jayden. I am 11 years old. Today is the day I lost my mommy. She died because she screamed a lot, daddy said. I don’t know what that means, but maybe she was very sick. She always took a lot of medicine and shots in her arm. Now I live with just my daddy. He used to coach my little league team, but he got in trouble for playing with one of the boys in a bad way. So now I just play video games, when I’m not sad about mommy. I have to go now before daddy gets mad at me. Goodbye.

           I scanned through the following pages, which were mostly just random accounts of childish things like birthday parties, girlfriends, and candy canes. But eventually I came across one entry that sent fear and sorrow coursing through my bones.

                       March 13, 2004

           Daddy hurt me. He made my wrists hurt. He held them really hard. He made me get naked. Then he held me down and said I couldn’t tell anyone what he was doing. He made me hurt more. I cried and begged him to stop. There was blood dripping on the floor. Daddy said I had to shower and never tell anyone. It still hurts. I miss mommy.

           Sadly the following pages revealed that this was not the only occurrence. These horrifyingly monstrous attacks went on for years. My eyes wretched with tears as I read over the final entry.

                       December 24, 2009

           I can’t take it anymore. With mom gone he never stops. People are asking question at school about the bruises on my arms. He tells me if they ever find out he’ll kill me like he did mom. Every night he comes in and rapes me. It has to stop. Big boys aren’t supposed to cry. Since I have no one to say goodbye to, I suppose this is my last farewell.

           The bottom of the page was soaked in blood.

~.

           After incubating in hours of horror alone in my captivity, I jumped at the sound of knocking on the door. “Why would he be knocking on my door with all the locks outside,” I thought. Cautiously I stepped towards the door. His voice rang out, “Are you awake yet?” A few breaths later he persists “We’ve got a visitor.” I opened the door and froze with horror in a state like rigor mortis and cursed my eyes, hoping that the picture they painted before was nothing but I trick. Before me my own mother stood shaking in her pastel night gown with tears and sweat dripping down against her old loose skin. With a smirk he says, “Mommy’s home”

           He hurries away from the door almost skipping and says “We can be a family again.” I ran to embrace my mother and take her into my arms, but with a fist to the back of the head, the old man drew me away from her. “No,” he says. “She was always your favorite.” He shook his head and produced a knife from his pocket and rested the blade against the pulsing veins in her neck, “Wasn’t that right?”

Desperately a cry escapes from her frail body and he gives her a hard jerk only provoking the flow of more tears. He glides the blade over her as she trembled in his arms, “Stop screaming!” “She died because she screamed a lot,” I thought. Once again I ran to her, only to be met by another blow to the head. Now her cries escalated to screams drowning in the tears pouring from her eyes. Again he yells, “Stop screaming damnitt!” With that he shoves me back into the room and before I can return to my feet the door has already been locked shut.

In the hall I hear her struggle, her feet dragging across the floor boards. I freeze as she cries out with pain, the amplitude of her wailing shaking the foundation of my world. Her screams proceeded in volume and pain, and I knew what was happening. “She died because she screamed a lot.” I shrank to the floor. He was beating my mother to death, beating the life out of her eighty year old body. When the final cry faded, a piece of my heart broke away and shattered in my heaving chest. My mother was dead.

~

           Later I was awoken from my trance of grief by the sound of stomping approaching the bedroom door. I pulled my trembling heap of a body off the floor and awaited the entrance of my captor. My heart sank with the turning of each lock and froze when the door swung open. The old man’s eyes were glazed over as if he’d been possessed by a demonic spirit as he shouted with a voice akin to a demon itself, “GET IN BED!”

           I shuddered and stumbled backwards, losing my balance and falling against the dresser. My hand grazed the heavy frame of the photograph of the old man and his son. And as he charged forward I gripped the picture and thrust it against his face, the glass shattering against his skin. He let out a howl and I bolted for the door, but before I reached the threshold the old man’s hand grasped my belt and flung me back into the room and onto the bed.

           The old man stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders forcing me down. As I struggled, I prayed again silently for freedom. Then as the old man drew his hand back to reach presumably for his zipper, I jerked my head back meeting his jaw with my skull. And as he sprawled backwards I headed again for the door, this time making all the way down the staircase until I was met by the sound of gunshots ringing out. Terrified and hopeless, I continued towards the door as the sound of bullets rushed past, exploding into the walls around me.

           When my fingers finally reached the doorknob, I felt a moment of fear that it might all be that the door may not open, and I may never be free. But instead I turned the knob and flung the door open. I felt a rush as the evening air blew in to greet me. Slamming the door behind me I ran towards the curb where my van was still waiting. I brought my hand to my pocket and almost jumped with happiness to find that my keys were still there. As I reached the van one final shot rang out from inside the house, and I felt the old man’s life pull away from the Earth, knowing that final shot had claimed his life.

I hopped hurriedly into the van and pulled away from the house on Sycamore Street.