TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

I  wasn't familiar with Rebecca Yarros prior to receiving the first two books in her Empyrean Series, Fourth Wing and Iron Flame , as a gift. (Note: links will take you to the audible product page versions of the book on Amazon and are affiliate links. You should be able to find links to physical copies of the books from there if you prefer). It's been a long time that I've read a book that I don't want to put down after the time I have to read for the day is over. These two books, which are not insignificant in size at 498 and 623 pages respectively are page turners from beginning to end (almost but I'll get to that later). The story is set in a fantasy mythical world where dragons and magic are common place. Fourth Wing opens as Violet, the younger, weaker daughter of a fairly infamous general in a dragon riders army, is pushed into the first year of dragon rider school, rather than her preferred, and prepared for, path of scribe school. Both her mother (the afor

I 'm not a huge fan of DC animation in general, despite owning a lot of their movies and TV series on DVD. It may be because they tend to stick to adaptations of the comics a little too much, or it may be that the over exaggerated action that cartoons allow makes it feel like there's never any real stakes for the characters. With that in mind, if I'm going to like anything from DC Animation it's likely to be Batman related. I recently watched the entire Batman: The Animated Series when it came to Netflix, having never seen the whole series when it originally aired. Which I'm obliged to mention since Batman: Caped Crusader is helmed by the same creator, Bruce Timm. Just like that series, Caped Crusader is set in an undisclosed time period but the look, style, and lack of tech used, even by Batman, suggests somewhere around post World War II era, possibly stretching into the 1950s. It could even be 1930's but I feel the vehicles look a little more modern than th

I 'm willing to bet a lot of people haven't seen this film, and probably will never plan to watch it. Madame Web was poorly reviewed by critics and largely ignored by audiences. For myself, I'll only see a Sony superhero movie in cinemas if Spiderman is actually in it. For everything else I can wait until it hits a streaming service I'm subscribed to. Sony's Spiderman/Marvel adjacent movies aren't actually terrible movies. They're not great movies either but I've never put one on and not watched it all the way to the end. I do find them watchable... just not really rewatchable. Madame Web is an origin story for the title character (Dakota Johnson), and three other future Spider Women (that I'm not all that familiar with) who suddenly find themselves being pursued by a dark figure with very spider-like powers. The problem with this movie, in my opinion, is the writers forgot that the main reason anyone comes to see a comic book superhero movie is to

W hen I first heard the news that JD Vance was selected as Trump's running mate for Vice President I must admit, I had no idea who he was.  However I was hopeful that we'd finally get someone in the US election who could actually string a coherent sentence together, that wasn't either catchphrases, or a meandering mashup of barely related thoughts, organized into dot points as a memory aid. A quick glance at the man's achievements, ex-military correspondent, university graduate, and author of a book about the lower and working classes of middle America (I think? I don't know? I haven't read it. I just appreciate he wrote a book with a point of view), definitely showed he had potential. Unfortunately he quickly revealed he's every bit as good as former President Trump when it comes to saying things that make any swinging voter do a double take - he really said that? Not withstanding that JD was formerly in the anti-Trump camp, as outlined in this PBS article

I  can't say I was particularly excited for Disney+'s Star Wars series, The Acolyte . Not because I haven't enjoyed previous Star Wars based series - most have been fine - mostly because it's a Jedi focused story. For me the Star Wars prequels dulled the specialness of Jedi characters in the universe. Suddenly every character was, or could be, a Jedi. They were no longer mysterious beings, you just needed  a better than average Midi-chlorian count and you could be a Jedi too. Even worse was that Jedi were supposed to be formidable fighters, yet so many Jedi characters were there to be 'red shirts', no more formidable than anyone with a sword. So, a show where everyone's a Jedi, wasn't really doing anything much for me in the lead up to it. The Acolyte is set about 100 years before the prequels, and begins with an assassin, hunting down Jedi who were all part of some great tragedy, many years earlier. Investigations into who the assassin is uncovers more

E ver since Ryan Reynolds managed to get the first Deadpool movie made it was a no brainer to some day team him up with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.  While it could've been done without Fox being sold to Disney, the merging of the Fox Marvel Universe and the Disney Marvel Universe allowed Deadpool and Wolverine almost unlimited access to all things Marvel on the big screen. Making this much more epic than it might have been without the merger. The story isn't too hard to follow. Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is tasked with saving the timeline and needs to find a Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to help him. Chaos ensues. If you've enjoyed the previous Deadpool movies then this film should not disappoint. Its plot is as solid as any of the previous films but with the cameos and Easter eggs turned up to eleven. That said, all the main cameos tend to serve the story and aren't there just for the sake of the cameo. To be honest though, the main reason to see this film is for