TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Although I'm very familiar with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as comedic entertainers I didn't really know much about this movie going in, having only seen a brief TV spot for the film the day before. Personally I expected Stan and Ollie to be much more of a biopic focussing on their rise to success but the film completely sails by almost their entire career very quickly, settling in on their final tour of the United Kingdom with a run of live theatre performances. At that point the duo had come out of retirement and were trying to raise money for a new Laurel and Hardy film. As you would expect, things don't go quite as smoothly as hoped. Past grievances, and the challenges of regaining momentum after being retired provide for interesting drama. Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly are spot on in the title roles, recreating classic comedic moments with understated performances and rounding out the two personalities in their daily lives. I will say I was expecting to s

From time to time I keep checking in on WB Animation to see what they're doing with their DC Superheroes, so, when I saw The Death of Superman appear on Netflix my first thought was... didn't they do this already? 2007's animated feature, Superman/Doomsday is based on the same Death of Superman comic and, while the two movies are not exactly the same story, they are very similar. The main difference may be that Superman/Doomsday tells almost the complete story arc of the comic series it's based upon whereas this new feature continues the story in a sequel animated movie, Reign of the Supermen  (which I haven't seen). I've said before, I don't read comics, but I know enough that The Death of Superman graphic novel is meant to be one of the all time great Superman stories. I don't know how faithful an adaptation this film is? Hopefully not close because it's terrible. In this movie we have a Superman who is well into his Justice League y

Outwardly I wasn't concerned about my first time on a P&O Cruise ship but inwardly I guess my subconscious anxiety was working overtime. I'll spare you the details but just know my digestive system was pretty empty by the time my partner, Kathy, and I left the house. That said, once we were on the boat for our three day cruise from Adelaide, South Australia, with a stop at Kangaroo Island (KI), and back to Adelaide again, everything went pretty well, with nothing to be too concerned about.  The ship didn't leave until four in the afternoon. However we were able to board in time to not only have lunch on the boat but also spend a couple of hours exploring. Our ship was called the Pacific Eden and is pretty much what you might imagine a cruise ship to be from the outside. Maybe bigger or smaller than you think depending upon whether you've seen a cruise ship before. This particular ship will be retired from March 2019, having been sold to another cruis

Jo's new Art Studio/Conservatory. Today's guest post is by Artist, Writer, and Mental Health Advocate, Jo B Creative who writes for her blog,  Creating My Oddessey . Y ou should see our (almost) brand new conservatory, half of which is my art studio. 'Lucky me!' I think to myself. Not every creative bod can boast that. It's HUGE! Like a giant greenhouse. We first moved to our pleasant cul-de-sac house - great for raising kids - when our son, who's on the cusp of thirty-one, was four. One of the main reasons that we wanted it was that, apart from its location on the fringes of a historic market town in rural Hampshire, UK, it had a sizable conservatory looking onto the back garden. It was brown wood framed and had a corrugated transparent roof sloping down from downstairs ceiling height. On the face of it, it doesn't sound that glamourous, but we loved the idea of a conservatory. Luxury! I even liked the red brick walls which it was built against -