Wondering what to do with your upcoming free time? Good thing we have some suggestions for what you should be watching, playing, reading, listening to, etc.
Ben’s Anime Pick: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury – Witch from Mercury stands out from most of its Gundam brethren in two ways: it is easily accessible to those who don’t know the history of the decades-spanning franchise, and it’s the first Gundam show to focus on a female protagonist. It’s a new chapter for Gundam, but one that maintains the series’ hallmarks. Every mecha battle is spectacular, and the story dives deep into mature material as it slowly opens up a conspiracy of corruption, greed, and inequality between space-faring and earthbound humans. While not my favorite Gundam series (that title still goes to Thunderbolt), it’s easily one of the better mecha anime that I’ve watched all the way through in the past four or five years. The mecha genre as a whole has been in decline – both in quantity and quality – over the past decade or so, but Witch from Mercury is a bright spot that proudly proclaims giant, animated robots still have plenty of originality left in the tank.
Ben’s Book Pick: Age of Cage: Four Decades of Hollywood Through One Singular Career – While the book does briefly go over Nicolas Cage’s family history and childhood, Age of Cage isn’t a biography. Instead, it’s a look at how the landscape of films and filmmaking has changed in the past forty years through the lens of one of acting’s most unique and varied talents. From charming rom-coms to landmark action flicks to award winning dramas, Cage has done it all, adjusting to not only the trajectory of his stardom, but the ebbs and flow of his audience and Hollywood. Not many actors have had such a long-lived stay in pop-culture, and Age of Cage explores the one-of-a-kind thespian’s ability to keep things fresh, along with how his luck and choices (both good and not so good) have kept him working throughout it all. If you’re a Nicolas Cage fan, or even just someone who appreciates film history, then Age of Cage is a definite recommendation from me.
Lauren’s Comic Pick: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow – With the desire to avoid any unnecessary psychological damage that would inevitably follow this sudden urge to rewatch Supergirl (or, at the very least, go back and finish everything post the Covid shortened season), I decided it would be much less traumatizing to do the prep work for the James Gunn “promised” adaptation of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. And thank Zod this is the route I took, because this might be my favorite exploration of Kara’s story yet. Or Supergirl’s story, I should say, as she dons the S and cape to lose herself in the role of the unwavering hero. A hero who isn’t haunted by the endured trauma of the slow annihilation of a people who did not go out with a bang, but a taxingly pained whimper; a hero who doesn’t buckle under the shouldered weight of all the hope of the people of her planet and the stars beyond, who doesn’t buckle under the symbol promising that this is a just universe because there are heroes like her in it; a hero who doesn’t fail to not only see that everyone can be saved no matter the horrors they have inflicted on the innocent unable to protect themselves, but that everyone is worth saving… A hero who isn’t just so fucking tired of it all. She is Supergirl, a promise, and it’s a scary day when a hero decides that promise costs too much.
So what do you think about these picks? What content did we miss over the past two weeks while we were spending time with these? Be sure to leave a comment below letting us know about everything (both current and simply new to you) you’ve been consuming lately!
And while you’re here, be sure to check some of the site’s other recent content:
- Ben’s review of The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart
Middle of the Row 