If this is true,
and the Bluth family Stair Car can be seen in the Airport battle in Captain America : Civil War does this mean the events and characters of Arrested Development exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
Monday, 9 May 2016
Sunday, 8 May 2016
Alan Moore's Middle England Occult Noir 'THE SHOW' is just begining
Right now Leicester is the global centre of England. Tomorrow it might be Alan Moore's Northampton, or its netherworld equivalent - Nighthampton.
Earlier this evening I saw three short pieces
(those without an aversion to Marvel might call them 'One Shots')
which will lead into Alan Moore's independent movie project THE SHOW.
Entirely shot, resourced and filmed within England forgotten heartlands, right now this consists of three 15 minute proof of concepts well captured by promo director Mitch Jenkins and a keen cast of local acting talent.
Honestly I thought this was as close to an evening at Kings Cross's long forgotten Scala cinema club as I've has in a long time and there is no bigger recommendation from these fingers.
The short movies are
Act of Faith
Faith Harrington, a young female reporter on a local newspaper who has an exotic private life, prepares for a stimulating evening at home that doesn’t go according to plan.
One woman, one room test shot that foreshadows the Lynchian English regional sleaze to come. Siobhan Hewlett puts in a quietly heartbreaking performance into a role which we are told will recur.
Jimmy’s End
Louche and hard-drinking womaniser James Mitchum finds himself wandering into one strange bar too many.
Most impressive of the three, this really feels like classic Twin Peaks gone Eurotrash. I have often wondered what happens in Working Men's Clubs. I'm not even sure David Lynch could wring this diabolical a vision from something we are so familiar with (from the outside).
Dir Mitch Jenkins is getting great performances and imagery from real locations and selected actors - Khandie Khisses (seen top photo), Darrell D'Silva, Robert Goodman Robert Goodman and Andrew Buckley as the demonic clown forced to work with the inconvenience of Egyptian mythology.
His Heavy Heart
Picks up the narrative of the hapless James Mitchum from a point following his dreadful realisation at the conclusion of Jimmy’s End. In a grotesque parody of Egyptian funerary rites, James is shepherded less than gently into his unenviable afterlife.
If the first was a test, and the next was setup this really sets out the mythology in a fashion which I think Neil Gaiman would be proud of. If there is a feature film to follow this (and all indications are only Alan Moore's pickiness is holding it up) this could dive straight into Neverwhere territory with some nightmarish theological detail. Budget would help but as scale was obviously considered it didn't seem an issue with these short pieces.
Questions afterward
Alan Moore mentioned LOST and its plot holes with evident irritation, and without giving away too much, I think this is an influence on The Show.
 |
| I was too awestruck even to take a photo of them on stage |
Q -with these are you trying to show how it should be done ?
To which he answered (paraphrased) - "No because I can't because I've not seen the other adaptations of my work. I don't care"
Director and writer said they were resistant to big stars and were careful to pick the actors they wanted - shame Alan will never know this is why the movie of Watchmen works so well!
I had one reservation with the material shown - Some of this seems dated (CD player?) and if it is set in a earlier era this should be made obvious. If I had to date this myself I would say 2006. pre financial crisis, though it is apparently set in 2011.
Personal Note:
Following my failure to interact with personal hero William Gibson because I was shy, tonight I followed a lifetime of non achievement by being too shy to speak to Alan Moore (despite friendly invite from cast on my way out) because I was again - too shy.
"To thine own self be true" said someone once. I hope they didn't take it personally.
Saturday, 7 May 2016
Waiting for Mourinho at Manchester United is like watching Disney's THE BLACK HOLE
It may lead to another universe,
it will probably lead to total destruction,
it won't be smart,
it may be irritating in places,
but the fireworks will be stellar.
The world of Old Trafford now seems isolated from the rest of the galaxy.
Somewhere far, far away Leicester City are destroying Death Stars and overturning the Empire.
Arsenal are imprisoned in an enclosed time loop.
Chelsea and Spurs have regressed/progressed into some kind of Ape society , and Liverpool find themselves in a Mirror/Mirror universe where they appear to be temporarily bearable.
The Theatre of Dreams still has a dusty and fragile grandeur...
But the people at the controls are ego driven maniacs driven insane by their own previous tragic mistakes
Familiar faces from the past will be with us to brave the journey into the void
And though the suspicion is we are treading a familiar path into adventure/disaster, into almost a remake from an earlier era..
you would still be rather encountering freaks, monsters and robots in some nether world/division than finishing 4th from now until the End OF Time.
And the only truly painful thing to overcome will be enduring the maturity of the press.
Even escaping the inevitable in the short term would not save us in the long term as the super dense stellar object will still be out there waiting for the force fields protecting us to eventually fail. Perhaps the sensible option is setting the controls for the heart of that roaring irradiated monster and going in at full throttle.
Especially if the alternative is to be further absorbed by V'GR/Van Gaal in an ongoing perpetually motionless picture.
FOOTNOTE FROM WIKIPEDIA
"In 2014, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson deemed the film.."
(THE BLACK HOLE)
".. to be the least scientifically accurate movie of all time."
This clumsy artless nonsense is inspired by the genius of the Deadly Marina Hyde
Friday, 6 May 2016
Britain must stay on to rescue the EU Bus
Britain could escape EU but can't escape a dangerously out of control Europe - or voracious American corporatism.
I've been agonising over the EU vote and have already written a blog post saying I'm going to vote out.
For these reasons;
Anyone really pessimistic about the future finds the apparent complete uncontrolled chaos at the borders is pretty terrifying and I'm not just talking about refugees. I hear European anger at Britain's lack of enthusiasm for taking in Syrian refugees but thanks to a history of being a destination of migrants this island is already one of the most densely populated in Europe.
Do I want to take in 50,000 refugees from Syria - absolutely YES
Do I want to take in 50,000 refugees from Syria + the annual influx of 330,000 economic migrants (and climbing) - NO
Those British people who don't care on this issue I would guess are either in comparatively depopulated Scotland, or spend most of their time in their second homes in France (or cycling around leafy bits of London).
They obviously don't spend much time on English motorways, NHS hospitals or comprehensive schools which are all creaking under the strain.
I also don't trust EU political structures, as they are incapable of dealing with a crisis. Just look at 2008 collapse, Greece, Migrants etc. God knows they would handle something really serious.
There need to be more decisiveness, perhaps from Germany and France, and Britain just seems to get in the way and be a distraction.
because I'm British and, like many of my countrymen going back centuries, I know the problems of Europe aren't solved by ignoring them. And Europe's problems more often than not quickly become the worlds problems.
This is all a bit dry so let me illustrate this.
Think of the movie 1994 movie SPEED.
What we should do is at least stay aboard and steer everyone to safety before the bus/project meets it's probably inevitable demise (in its current form anyway).
Most importantly we need to be aware of jumping off the EU bus would not be any actual escape, we would just find ourselves (to follow the analogy) leaping off the EU bus onto the harsh class divisions of the American nuclear train ....
Think of the 2015 movie SNOWPIERCER
I'll quickly summarise the benefits of that for you
We've actually all forgotten, avoiding becoming the 51st State is why Britain joined the EU in the first place. British politicians in the 1960s were so worried at being economically blackmailed into joining the Vietnam War they saw a close association with Europe as the only alternative.
And don't kid yourselves that the whole immigration debate will go away when we align ourselves West rather than East and South after Brexit. I'm sure the British nationalist dream of a new Anglo zone Big Business project will continue to get it's cheap labour from somewhere. How would we support the all important housing market without ever increasing demand?
So sadly though I don't trust the EU, I trust my own government even less.
In a wider sense, voting for Brexit might make sense if Britain were an island literally in the middle of the Atlantic. Since we can't move we need some form of EU or NATO and I think it is possible to lose both in the new world of Trump politics after Brexit.
After Brexit we in England may also find ourselves with an undefended land border to the European Schengen Area, when the Scots subsequently give themselves up to their own self serving nationalists.
“Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.”
Albert Einstein
Just for amusement I posted a Post Brexit Timeline.
I've been agonising over the EU vote and have already written a blog post saying I'm going to vote out.
For these reasons;
Anyone really pessimistic about the future finds the apparent complete uncontrolled chaos at the borders is pretty terrifying and I'm not just talking about refugees. I hear European anger at Britain's lack of enthusiasm for taking in Syrian refugees but thanks to a history of being a destination of migrants this island is already one of the most densely populated in Europe.
Do I want to take in 50,000 refugees from Syria - absolutely YES
Do I want to take in 50,000 refugees from Syria + the annual influx of 330,000 economic migrants (and climbing) - NO
Those British people who don't care on this issue I would guess are either in comparatively depopulated Scotland, or spend most of their time in their second homes in France (or cycling around leafy bits of London).
They obviously don't spend much time on English motorways, NHS hospitals or comprehensive schools which are all creaking under the strain.
I also don't trust EU political structures, as they are incapable of dealing with a crisis. Just look at 2008 collapse, Greece, Migrants etc. God knows they would handle something really serious.
There need to be more decisiveness, perhaps from Germany and France, and Britain just seems to get in the way and be a distraction.
But despite all that, I've decided to vote IN
because I'm British and, like many of my countrymen going back centuries, I know the problems of Europe aren't solved by ignoring them. And Europe's problems more often than not quickly become the worlds problems.
This is all a bit dry so let me illustrate this.
Think of the movie 1994 movie SPEED.
- The EU government is a mad Dennis Hopper, probably schizoid, who has rigged a bus/European project to hurtle on and be destroyed with massive disaster and loss of life it ever slows down
- Sandra Bullock is the European population which now finds itself on the bus
- and Britain is Keanu Reeves
What we should do is at least stay aboard and steer everyone to safety before the bus/project meets it's probably inevitable demise (in its current form anyway).
Most importantly we need to be aware of jumping off the EU bus would not be any actual escape, we would just find ourselves (to follow the analogy) leaping off the EU bus onto the harsh class divisions of the American nuclear train ....
Think of the 2015 movie SNOWPIERCER
I'll quickly summarise the benefits of that for you
- world records for wealth disparity
- minimal health care
- minimal holidays and work place rights
- minimal government health standards- would you like some lead with that drinking water?
- politics courtesy of Fox news
We've actually all forgotten, avoiding becoming the 51st State is why Britain joined the EU in the first place. British politicians in the 1960s were so worried at being economically blackmailed into joining the Vietnam War they saw a close association with Europe as the only alternative.
And don't kid yourselves that the whole immigration debate will go away when we align ourselves West rather than East and South after Brexit. I'm sure the British nationalist dream of a new Anglo zone Big Business project will continue to get it's cheap labour from somewhere. How would we support the all important housing market without ever increasing demand?
So sadly though I don't trust the EU, I trust my own government even less.
In a wider sense, voting for Brexit might make sense if Britain were an island literally in the middle of the Atlantic. Since we can't move we need some form of EU or NATO and I think it is possible to lose both in the new world of Trump politics after Brexit.
After Brexit we in England may also find ourselves with an undefended land border to the European Schengen Area, when the Scots subsequently give themselves up to their own self serving nationalists.
“Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.”
Albert Einstein
Just for amusement I posted a Post Brexit Timeline.
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