Come back later…

Yep. Saw THOR last night.

Not something I was expecting much from to be honest. I was eager to get Branagh freed up to do more Wallander, but that was about it. I think the only Thor story that I’ve really enjoyed was Garth Ennis’ Vikings. Thor’s not in it much and gets the crap beaten out of him when he does show up. Highly recommended.

As is THOR, surprisingly enough.

Let’s get the weak parts out of the way. The post film conversion to 3D is bollocks so please don’t be tempted to pay more over worry you’re missing something spectacular hitting you in the frontal lobe. I think I would have enjoyed this a lot more if it hadn’t resembled a cheap pop up birthday card so much.

The Asgard stuff I could take or leave – they seemed to spend a tad too much time there and while it’s all very shiny and epic looking it was also very empty and lacked the drive of what was happening on Earth. Idris Elba was great though and it was nice to see Rene Russo again.

The opening is bit too LOTR and the first mention of ‘frost giants’ just pulled me out of the film completely, but when it gets going it really delivers.

There’s actual chemistry between Portman and Hemsworth and their supporting cast helps keep everything light and genuinely funny so that you don’t get hammered (sorry) by the mythology. Hemsworth is a real find. He steps into movie star status effortlessly and I’m looking forward to seeing him outside of the comic book stuff.

The plot is what you expect and that’s fine. It’s all about that hammer and that’s as it should be. But the script has a truly smart moment that actually made me think an Avengers movie is possible and all the little nods to IRON MAN are not forced down your throat. And yes, there’s a coda worth sitting through the credits for.

I’m honestly shocked that at this stage I’d much rather see a THOR 2 than an IRON MAN 3, but go see it for yourselves and tell me I’m wrong.

Tonight I’m off to see this:

Can’t go wrong really…

One of the side effects of being BoingBoinged around the same time that Warren Ellis shines a light on your little slice of the Internet is that lots of people come to take a look and all attempt to squeeze their eyeballs through a narrow tube that then causes a server rupture that results in a spell of fall-overing for most websites. There are probably more technical terms for this but I prefer to call it ‘being fucked’. In a good way. It just means your website doesn’t walk right for a little while.

Well that used to be the case anyway. For a few years now I’ve had @loudmouthman looking after my website (this one and a few others I have squirreled away), ensuring my WordPress installations are up to date and generally answering all the annoying questions I have when Google fails me. He’s been doing this since an older version of my site got hacked and was properly done over. Since then things have run like clockwork. Or whatever the digital version of clockwork is.

I now recommend him to everyone I know if they’re even considering using WordPress. My backend now has an effective series of bells and whistles as well as a near invisible suite of addons that just keep the site up no matter what and most importantly don’t get in the way of my infrequent blogging attempts.

This of course is just a small part of what Nik does for a living (he recently helped Ridley Scott’s mob not get overwhelmed by Life in a Day) so if you’re doing anything for a sustained period online he’s certainly the man to talk to. I said this on Twitter this morning, but its worth repeating: Too many talk themselves up, deliver little. Nik gets it done. End of.

Oh and he also runs a neat little Moleskine blog which is one of those cool things that I wished I’d thought of doing first.

There’s just too much awesome going on here. First check out this photo:

That’s Brad Fidler, Leonard Kleinrock and Matt Novak.

Read up on Kleinrock if you need to and please take note of Boelter Hall 3420. Then click here.

Our heritage site is a restoration of the original 1969 ARPA lab that sent the first Internet message from 3420 Boelter Hall at UCLA.  It will be open to the public and feature key artifacts including the very first piece of the Internet infrastructure, namely the Interface Message Processor (IMP).  We use teaching tools from the 1960s such as slide projects and blackboards to tell the story of the Internet’s early history.

Chills. I’ve been following this since @3420BoelterHall popped up on Twitter. Right now they’ve only got 184 followers so I urge you to get in on the ground floor of something very important and offer all the support you can. In many ways this reminds me of the work done by Sue Black to save Bletchley Park and I’m hoping there’s some discussion around the importance of this kind of physical archive/museum on both sides of the Atlantic.

Looks like 3420 is way ahead of me:

I believe that most of you will know the fellow Brit in question and I’m looking forward to seeing him document the ongoing work as well as reflect on the history.

Matt Novak I’ve been following for quite a while via one of the best websites on the Internet: Paleofuture. We’ve yet to meet in person, but he’s also incessantly entertaining on Twitter so I do intend to buy him a drink at some point. It makes perfect sense that he was one of the first people to get access to the site and organised an Obscura Day tour.

The director of this endeavor is Mr Fidler. Brad and I first crossed paths on Seesmic when it was still a video platform I believe (he’ll correct me if I’m wrong) and once conned me out of a hotel at an ungodly hour to do shots in a dive bar with an ungodly mix of Internet hobo types in New York. He’s a force of nature and just the right chap to see this mission through.

If you have even a passing interest in Internet history then you’ll be excited to know that 3420 plans to be back to its original 1969 self this summer.  I can’t wait to go visit.

Just dropping this here for no other reason but that I can’t stop watching it.

Beautiful.

And I really got hot when I saw Janette Scott
fight a Triffid that spits poison and kills…

I’m a big fan of DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1962) so was delighted to hear there was going to be a chance to see it on a big screen again:

On the first night of the UK Green Film Festival we’ll be showing Steve Sekely’s DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1962) at 10.30pm at Shortwave Cinema. Come along beforehand for a drink in the bar, where we’ll be displaying real carnivorous plants, and also a Triffid cake designed by Cakes & Crunk! Plus a Q&A with James DC who’ll be running a radio show on John Wyndham a few days later on Resonance FM.

Shortwave is a beautiful bar and cinema right on my doorstep that I write out of and have the occasional meeting at. The guys that run it really know their stuff and always seem to be supporting independent film events. This one is being organised by Passenger Films and is part of the UK Green Film Festival.

All good reasons to come along, but mostly this is about Howard Keel, that kid asking if the pilot is blind too and a LOT of slow moving flesh eating plants.

See you there.

Seeing this chap tomorrow.

Should be fun.

Finally caught the first episode of Camelot last night and it seems a very worthy successor to The Tudors (I’m also being told to check out The Borgias, but that looks a tad popey for my tastes). I’m not sure we’ll see Sean Pertwee again, but he lasted a little longer than when he was playing King Henry’s uncle (“French bastards!”). Great scene that.

The Tudors was also directed by Ciaran Donnelly, a wonderful chap that I was lucky to spend a few weeks with a while back over in Ireland. We were locked in a series of rooms breaking the plot of another TV show and I hope that’s something we can back to at some point.

I learned a lot and it was fun to collaborate in that way. Looking forward to seeing how Camelot evolves as again it’s saddled with an overly familiar story, but already its interpretation of magic and the casting of Merlin serves the tale well.

Hopefully also seeing the first episode of Game of Thrones this evening so it’s all swords and beards for a while…

With a mind of its own…

Create something…