TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

As someone who really enjoys the Marvel movies, and has written about them quite extensively in previous posts , I feel I should make mention of the passing of Stan Lee last week. I wouldn't say Stan was a hero of mine, or that I grew up with him (though unknowingly I did to a certain extent). I really only became aware of who Stan Lee was when he started making cameos in Marvel films. Then I really got to know him through the various online web shows he had, interviews, and his own work promoting Marvel at almost any opportunity. He seemed like a great guy, and by all accounts he was. I never really bought comic books. Most of the ones I had were given to me. My avenue into the superhero world was Saturday morning cartoons through the 1970's and 80's. Marvel got me with reruns of their, kind of animated, more motion graphic, cartoons from the 1960's. They weren't great but boy did they have catchy theme tunes. For me Stan serves as an inspiration some...

Batman Ninja , the DC animated movie set in feudal Japan, written, directed and animated by respected Japanese artists, sounds like an amazing proposition. Unfortunately, from my point of view, it follows very closely in the footsteps of most of DC's straight to video animated movies, with a poorly thought through story. Which is a shame because the art and animation is really amazing. Seeing Batman and his rogues gallery in this anime style is something I'd watch all day, if the stories were actually good. Initially the movie had me hooked in with not only the art and animation but also through the use of time travel, as a plot device, to send Batman back through time to feudal Japan. How could it go wrong? Batman, Anime, and Time Travel are all things that pique my interest more than most. As well, you get a whole bunch of familiar characters redesigned for their new time and location. Which is an additional treat for the eyes. The movie fails because the initia...

Jodie Whittaker, The Thirteenth Doctor. I'm, what I would describe as, a casual Doctor Who fan (the long running BBC TV series if you've somehow never heard of the character or show). I grew up with the show in the 1970s and 80's but kind of dropped away when sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, took over the role - and definitely tuned out for Sylvester McCoy's turn). Colin was too much of a contrast to Peter Davison's fifth Doctor. I remember struggling to get used to his version of the character. Sylvester's Doctor was even harder to connect with, though looking at clips of him as the Doctor now, I can see his influence on several of the Doctors that came after him. When the show was rebooted in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston's ninth Doctor I was back in for his entire one season run. It was kind of a shame Chris didn't stick around for long because I really liked his Doctor. As I heard Colin Baker say in some Doctor Who Reunion show at one point, Chr...