Is it just me, or have the last few weeks been a really great time for genre entertainment?
This weekend I enjoyed the 1,000th episode of "One Piece." It was a lovely tribute to the long running anime series, which has grown into a global phenomenon over the last 20-plus years.
It was also just one of at least three major pop-culture releases last weekend.
The COVID-19 pandemic has, for obvious reasons, pushed back a lot of release dates. I remember joking last year that the delays were eventually going to result in having to go to the theater every week once things get back on track.
I didn't think I'd be right about that.
For the first half of the year, for obvious reasons, I didn't step foot in a movie theater to watch a new theatrical release. And even then, watching "Black Widow" in July and "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" in September is hardly bringing my movie watching habits to pre-pandemic levels.
Once October hit though, it feels like the floodgates opened. "Venom: Let There Be Carnage," "No Time to Die," "Halloween Kills," and "Dune" all hit the theater screens. And while I didn't watch all of those in theaters, that's still a pretty good line-up for October.
But if October was good, November has been great.
"Eternals" was better than anticipated and "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" was every bit the sequel that I've been waiting thirty years for.
(More on that in coming weeks as the new Ghostbusters movie will almost assuredly make my list of "Best things of 2021.")
Still coming up in November is "Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City." The reboot of the Resident Evil movie franchise promises a more faithful adaptation than the Paul Anderson movies. Not exactly a high bar to clear, but we'll see if they really do the games justice.
And, of course, "Spider-Man: No Way Home" will undoubtedly be the biggest movie of the year when it comes out next month.
Even outside of theaters that hasn't been a shortage of things to watch.
Netflix in particular has been kind of killing it as of late. "League of Legends: Arcane," which just released its last set of episodes, is easily the best new animated series of the year. (Another solid contender for the upcoming list.)
The live action "Cowboy Bebop" adaptation also launched last week and it… made some choices. I can't say that they were particularly good choices, but it was good enough that I'd watch more if it gets a second season.
By the time this column sees print, the second half of "Masters of the Universe: Revelation" will also be online. With luck, the back-half of the Kevin Smith helmed He-Man series will actually feature He-Man.
And of course streaming services still have a bit more coming up for December. "Hawkeye" will kick off the last of the MCU's 2021 Disney+ offerings this week and Netflix's "The Witcher" will launch its second season on December 20.
For whatever reason, be it COVID catch-up or just a quirk of timing, the last quarter of 2021 feels like it has more content to watch than the previous three.
And that's okay with me. It's been a long and hard year. We all deserve a holiday season filled with movies to watch and shows to binge.
Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and says if you watch nine hours of "One Piece" a day and skip the openings and end credits, you can catch up before New Year.
