The first of the summers comic book/superhero films is here (we’ve got The Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight, Hellboy 2, Hancock and The Punisher 2 to come) and standing tall astride the top of the Box Office charts. I thought it was pretty good but that’s mostly down to the actors involved: Robert Downey Jr. was great as was Jeff Bridges as his Nemesis and Gwyneth Paltrow as his erstwhile assistant-slash-unrequited love interest. Incidentally - am I the only person on the planet to not think less than fuzzy thoughts about her as an actress?

There’s been a lot of criticism of the films pacing, saying that the second half was much slower than the start but personally I couldn’t see it. Perhaps it’s because, unlike most superhero films, there was much more character exploration. Tony Stark’s transformation into Iron Man also represented a change in his character from amoral to moral coupled with an awareness that his life is actually rather empty, illustrated pretty well by the fact that he seems to be far friendlier with his robots than the people around him. Of course, being a comic book film, it’s not exactly going to be a character driven piece and I’m happy to say that the action scenes were pretty good too. It’s just a shame that we saw most of the good stuff in the trailers which left very little new stuff to see. What will be interesting to see in future sequels (already announced and pretty inevitable considering it’s one of Marvel’s biggest properties although I don’t think I’ve personally ever read any IM comics) is whether they explore the darker side of the character, his descent into alcholism and his sometimes dubious politics.

All in all, Iron Man is a good start to a summer that is chocka full of potential. If this turns out to be the worst film of the summer than I am going to be a very happy bunny.

The film itself isn’t actually that good even so I found myself enjoying it. Then again, how can you not love a film that’s so blatantly ripping off classics that it even calls two characters Miller (after George, director of Mad Max) and Carpenter (after John, director of Escape from New York) Indeed, how can you not love a film that introduces the rowdy crowd of cannibal punks to the riffing beats of “Kings of the Wild Frontier” by Adam and the Ants, followed immediately by the head honcho strutting onto the stage accompanied by the melodic strains of “Good Thing” by the Fine Young Cannibals(!) before bringing on fat men in kilts dancing to the Bad Manners version of the Can-Can (I kid you not) all leading up to the spectacular spectacle of Sean “My Dad Was Doctor Who” Pertwee being burnt alive and eaten. Even the final showdown is set to splendid Frankie Goes To Hollywood cover of Two Tribes. Let’s face it, walling up Scotland is also a good idea so this film is not entirely without merit!¹

I’m not sure I’d recommend anyone to go and see this unless it’s with some mates and you had a couple of beers and have a laugh. I don’t even think it’s going to become a cult classic when it’s released on DVD because it’s just not quite cool enough, even though it does have an exploding bunny quite early on. I hope it does because in some ways it deserves to be a fondly-remembered film even if it’s just for Marshall’s sheer audacity in actually making it - it’s just a shame that the script is not quite as sharp or as funny as his debut feature, Dog Soldiers and that, in my honest opinion, is what’s going to consign this to the bottom of the DVD bargain bin in a years time.

¹I don’t mean it really. Some of my best friends are Scottish or at least they would be if I had any.

Fortunately there are some people out there with more money than sense - like those crazy fools at Virgin Media who are holding the very first Virgin Media shorts competition (I say first but there’s no guarantee that there’ll be more). Submissions for films that are no longer than 2.5 minutes are eligible and need to be, um, submitted between now and the end of June. The first prize is £30,000. Yes, that’s right - thirty thousand quid. £30K. A three with four zeroes. The top ten or something will also get shown on telly and on the big screen. It’s a fantastic competiton with the only downside being that it’s being run by the incompetent twunts at Virgin Media but aside from that, if you’ve got a film that’s <= 150 seconds then you could do worse than enter it. I will be sorting out a hi-res version of Fairy Tale for the entry but I don’t hold out any hope for it but nothing ventured, nothing gained as Yoda didn’t say. I’ve also got it in mind to see if I can cut seven and a half minutes out of another script I’ve got and get it filmed before the closing date but that’s - what’s the word? Oh yeah, extremely fucking unlikely!

On a related note (and also related to the previous post) Nine Inch Nails (in association with YouTube) are holding the Ghosts film festival, introductory details of which can be seen here. Simple idea: listen to Ghosts I-IV then provide some visuals inspired by the fine tunes you’ve slooshyed with your extremely attractive and slightly furry ookos.

If neither of those appeal to you or if two is simply not enough for the three-in-one-go person that you are, perhaps you’d like to enter the Uwe Boll Movie Challenge which, allegedly, is to be judged by the pesky homunculus himself. Unfortunately the closing date for that is the 16th of May - but considering the nature of the competition, you could probably churn out at least 3 diminutive masterpieces between now and then! Sadly, I will definitely be skipping this one. Then again, the quality of video on my mobile phone isn’t too bad…

I’ve yet to listen to either so far as I’ve been assaulting my aural canals with lashings of Jim Thirlwell in the guise of Foetus (the album being Vein, the Love remix release) and his alter-ego creator of instrumental soundtracks for films that don’t exist, Manorexia (the album in question this time being the 2002 release, The Radiolarian Ooze). I’d heard a lot of negative things about Vein but so far I’m liking it quite a bit.

I only wish that people would stop saying that NIN are doing a Radiohead! While that bunch of miserable bar stewards certainly got all the attention-grabbing headlines when they released “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” or whatever the Hello Dolly! it was called, popular beat combo, “The The”, released their (his) last album, NakedSelf, on the internet, in Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 encoding for free after falling out with Universal/Interscope (as evidenced by his library archive here) and avant-garde Teutonic Industrialists Einstuerzende Neubauten (who else) have been releasing stuff over the internet off their own back and without a distributor for, oh, quite some time now. Admittedly, it’s mostly for those who have paid to be a subscriber but considering the nature of their music and the tools required, that’s what it takes.

Anyway, the floor is open for anyone who has listened to either Ghosts or The Slip to discuss their thoughts on it’s quality and any other random musings their deranged minds might meander upon.

I don’t quite know how I’m managing to get the time to play it (couple of hours in the evening being with an extremely calm and undemanding 5 day old daughter probably) but I’m looking forward to exploring more of Rapture.

Waitress: I hope you enjoyed your evening. (Indicating Mrs T’s bump) When are you due?
Mrs. T: About now?
Waitress: You’re expecting soon?
Mrs. T: No, I’m in labour now.
The waitress went a quite obvious whiter shade of pale.
Mrs. T: (cont.) Don’t worry, I’m not going to give birth here.

That was at about eight-o-clock. Four hours later, precisely on midnight, Mrs. T gave birth - at home - to a little girl hatchling weighing all of 7lbs and 3oz and a sister to hatchling #1.

That was some tapas!

Ya see, I’ve got a brand new shiny-shiny and it’s, well, extremely shiny. It’s a laptop. The same one I tried buying last year only newer, better specs, direct from Dell and shinier. But… there’s a little problem. A tiny problem. A problemito if you will. And that’s quite aside from the fact that it comes with Internet Explorer 6 installed as default (with Windows XP Pro SP2 - Vista be damned!)

The miniscule issue I have - and I confess that I’m entirely to blame for my propensity for magpie-like attraction to the shinies, is that the laptop, with its 2.6Ghz Dual Core CPU, 4Gb RAM, 400Gb HDD, Dual 256Mb SLI Geforce 8700M GT Graphics adaptor, remote controlled media player, 17″ widescreen and backlit keyboard, is too big to fit in my motorcycle panniers. Also the power supply is the size of a brick. Well, half a brick but seriously, it’s brick sized. Red brick not breezeblock because that would be silly. It’s HUGE (and that’s before you add in usual male exaggeration). I suppose it’s not actually a surprise when you consider it’s a desktop replacement rather than a tiny portable. Ah well - it’s a problem I can deal with.

Did I mention how shiny it was?

(P.S. When I get my broadband connected in the flat next week, there will be no stopping my plans for world domination. You have been forewarned. And forewarned, as they say, is given enough notice to make the appropriate plans.)

After 78 days in captivity in the darkest recesses of Nottingham, I’ve learned two things:

1. I can’t count.
2. I tend to over-dramatize things.
3. Nottingham is (apparently) a city.
4. I really can’t count.
5. Only 4 people actually live in Nottingham.

I say that Nottingham is apparently a city because I still haven’t actually made it into the city centre itself so as far as I’m currently concerned, it’s just suburbs and not a lot else. Then again, the flat I’m renting is technically in Derbyshire so what the hell do I know? As for there only being 4 people who actually live in Nottingham, this is based on the fact that of the two Nottingham bloggers that I know of and feature in my listAllFeedRead(), I bumped into one in the local deli. So how big can Nottingham actually be? (Or is it, in fact, just testament to either my magnetic charisma or, more probably, my tendency towards stalking my victims before pouncing?)

Anyway, despite being accosted by a man attired in sweaty, running gear (sorry about that), Ms Rullsenberg was very gracious and charming at the impromptu blogmeet held in the tinned goods aisle. I don’t know what she thought after having someone yell “Oi! You! Blogger!” at her from the other side of the supermarker nor do I want to know what the she made of the contents of my shopping basket (which at that time contained a jar of chili sauce, rubber gloves and a bottle of cheap white wine - don’t ever let it be said that I don’t know how to have a good time!) Anyway, both she and her man were very charming and didn’t hit me so that was nice.

As an aside, I’ve started working on Revelation again although it mostly involves totally reworking the story. A friend told me about a story he’d heard on Radio 4 (on some wildlife program, no less) which was intriguing but also gave me some new ideas which, so far, appear to hold together much better. It’s always suprising how sometimes life can be stranger than fiction.

I must be getting responsible in my old age. Today was the first time I’ve not only been aware of the fact that the Budget was taking place, I also was paying close attention but mainly as small businesses got pretty screwed over last year and the proposals for this year weren’t looking too promising. Fortunately, the big issue I was concerned about has been delayed until next year. Not that it matters anyway as Brown’s last fucking act as chancellor screws most of the people on a lower income anyway and these days, that includes me. Labour: protecting the interests of the wealthy since the Tories messed it up.

Anyway, enough of the politics. What the fuck is with CSI: Miami? It’s fucking dreadful! I know a lot of people rave about the original CSI which I confess to never having watched but I did catch this spin off last night and it was truly, truly terrible. I hope it’s not representative of the rest of its siblings! On a more positive note, I’m currently disappointed at not being able to tune into Virgin One on Thursday nights to catch the Sarah Connor Chronicles Terminator TV show thing. I watched the first one and it seemed quite good or perhaps that was because I think Lena Headey is far, far hotter than Linda Hamilton ever was.

Life in Nottingham is… unsettled. I still don’t have a place to live but am waiting to hear about leasing a flat which will give me a base to run my operations out of. I haven’t ventured far out of the guest house I’ve been staying in but have managed to finally watch the entire third season of Battlestar Galactica which entertained me for a couple of evenings. On the other evening, I rewrote a short script for the umpteenth time so that felt productive too. I celebrated by getting very drunk on Amaretto - I seriously know how to party hard.

That’s it. Nothing interesting. Haven’t finished my review of Cloverfield and rarely get a chance to netConnect() these days.