Entertainment
New Gundam Movie Arrives And Sluggishly Talks Its Way Through Muddled Mobile Suit War
By Chris Sawin
| Published
The Gundam franchise is weird, and that’s mostly due to the fact that it seems to distance itself from the very thing that would make it awesome. Trained humans pilot skyscraper-sized giant mobile suits called Gundams, so naturally, what you’d want to see in a new Gundam film is a bunch of Gundam action: flying around, destroying stuff, and possibly doing battle with other mobile suits.
What hinders a lot of these newer Mobile Suit Gundam films is that they are supposed to be about some sort of ongoing war, but you typically don’t see it. Instead, the films are going to be spending more time on the political portion of it, which means a whole lot of lengthy-ass dialogue sequences you couldn’t give two craps about.
2021’s Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathway is currently streaming on Netflix, and it’s decent. It’s still way more verbose than it needs to be, and you generally don’t care that much about any of the characters, but there are at least a handful of action sequences that make it worthwhile. Hathaway opens fantastically to an airplane heist. There’s a sequence of people trying to run and find cover while mobile suits battle nearby, it’s destructively amazing, and the flying sequences are killer. The Gundam pilots can see everything in front of them with nothing blocking their vision. Everything feels open like an IMAX screen, with every explosion or incoming enemy as visible to you as it is to them.
It’s intriguing that Mobile Suit Gundam Hathway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe is made by all the same people as the previous film because it’s somehow even slower and more boring by comparison, and the character arcs are all over the place. The Sorcery of Nymph Circe is directed by Shuko Murase, who directed the entirety of the anime series Witch Hunter Robin and Ergo Proxy, as well as single episodes of Samurai Champloo and Michiko & Hatchin.
Complimenting Contrasts Were Better Done In The Past
The film is written by Yoshiyuki Tomino, who has been writing for the Gundam franchise since its inception in 1970. Before that, Tomino was also a writer for the original Astro Boy in the 1960s. The Sorcery of Nymph Circe is also written by Yasuyuki Muto, who helped write the adult animation series Bible Black, Afro Samurai, Afro Samurai: Resurrection, and Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn.
The involvement of Murase, Tomino, and Muto is notable because, by now, these guys seem to know what makes an interesting Gundam film. In The Sorcery of Nymph Circe, the animation blends traditional and computer animation. Sometimes the CGI is so realistic that you think you’re looking at actual footage. Most of the water in the film looks real, and the title sequence featuring a white curtain appears genuine for a moment. The contrast also seemed to work better in Hathway, with the traditional animated sequences looking incredible and the CGI complementing them. The mobile suit battles were CGI during intense action, but hand-drawn when they were idle.
Embracing The Darkness In All The Wrong Ways
More often than not, though, the CGI sequences are pure trash in The Sorcery of Nymph Circe. Most of the ships look flat, blocky, and unfinished. There are also at least two instances in this film where major sequences take place in almost complete darkness. It’s just voices in the dark in an animated film for up to five minutes at a time, and it’s during crucial times where it seems like they’d want to show something.
Maybe it was meant to be realistic if you were standing there with no light source, trying to decipher people blobs in the dark. Or maybe it’s an instance of censorship where they’re trying to mask whatever blood or violence we may have seen with the lights on. Honestly, we’ll never know, and the dialogue doesn’t help much despite taking up 90 minutes of the 105-minute duration.
A Disjointed Continuation
Chronologically, Hathaway follows Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative and is the second work in the UC Next 0100 Project. Both come after Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn in the Universal Century timeline. Hathaway and The Sorcery of Nymph Circe are two-thirds of a new Gundam film trilogy, which is connected to the 1988 film Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack. Hathaway introduced us to Hathaway Noa. He pretends to be a plant inspector while traveling to Earth to retrieve the new Gundam.
On the plane, he meets Gigi Andalusia, a young 20-something mistress who has the gift of intuition, and Federation Colonel Kenneth Sleg. Kenneth’s defining quality is that he’s a womanizer. Hathway spends the most time with Gigi; he shares a room with her, sees her naked, and saves her life. But she still runs off with Kenneth at the end. The most important thing to happen is that Hathaway gets his Gundam.
Despite the five-year gap between Hathway and The Sorcery of Nymph Circe, not much happens in the film. Hathway is pulled between three women in the film: his actual girlfriend, who he’s been having issues with, a mechanic who likes to wear overalls and nothing else underneath (he compliments her breasts), and Gigi, whom he now suddenly can’t stop thinking about despite the two of them bitching at each other whenever they were on screen together in the last film.
Gigi is still under Kenneth’s protection throughout most of the film, but she goes back to the count’s place briefly. She’s been seeing an old man who’s wheelchair bound and is probably the reason she’s wealthy. She redecorates his house, then leaves him to return to Kenneth, but spends the entire film obsessing over Hathaway. Her intuition proves useful upon her return to Kenneth, but she’s passed around like a hot potato so often that you don’t care.
A Wordy, Self-Absorbed Drama
Meanwhile, Kenneth has become the commander of The Federation. He was seeing a woman closer to his age, but Gigi ruins that, and he’s into it. The anti-Earth Federation group Mafty is what Kenneth has been chasing in these two films. Hathaway was secretly working with them the entire time during the previous film, and now Kenneth is attempting to find Hathaway, his Gundam, and whatever Mafty hideout he can get his hands on.
There is one flying sequence about half an hour into the film, and about ten minutes of the finale are a Gundam/mobile suit battle, but that’s it. The rest of the film is literally just people talking. It’s also weird that The Sorcery of Nymph Circe features two montages: Gigi’s interior decorating montage and Hathway’s broken relationship montage. Then the end credits play over “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns ‘N Roses.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway has some hiccups, but ultimately shows promise with its action sequences. But Mobile Suit Gundam: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe is so dull, feels tortuously long, and all of the characters are selfish a-holes. The sequel feels uneventful, and its strange use of almost absolute darkness and bizarre montages only sours the fact that you could be watching mobile suits pound each other stupid in the sky instead.
Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe SCORE
You literally don’t care about anything they’re talking about. Unless the third film is somehow able to distance itself from being a wordy, self-absorbed drama, then these new Hathaway films are only worth putting on if you’re in need of a good nap.
Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe arrives in US theaters on May 15.
Entertainment
HBO's Most Raunchy, Boundary-Breaking Series Is Streaming Uncensored For The First Time
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
For decades, HBO’s first scripted comedy series, 1990’s Dream On, has been an internet legend. The series was impossible to find anywhere. Not because of the nudity, or the swearing, but the copyrighted movie clips and music. That’s why fans were stunned when it turned up on The Roku Channel, and unlike the version that aired on Comedy Central, it’s the original, uncensored version that aired on HBO.
If you’ve never heard of Dream On, you probably know the show that its creators, Marta Kaufmann and David Crane, put together after the raunchy comedy came to an end. A small sitcom called Friends.
Dream On Took Sitcoms In A Wild New Direction
Friends defined the traditional sitcom, and it would be easy to say that Dream On went the opposite direction and bucked convention, but it doesn’t. The show follows Martin Tupper (Brian Benben), a divorced book editor madly in love with his ex-wife, Judith (Wendy Malick). Martin’s misadventures, involving getting back into the dating pool, trying to co-parent his teenage son with Judith, and navigating a stifling work environment, are all standard sitcom tropes. Except for the constant movie and television clips. And the nudity.
Dream On’s gimmick is that Martin was raised in front of the television to the point that his internal monologue comes out in old black-and-white clips. They range from the opening to “Trojan War” featuring a clip about love from Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone to Marilyn Monroe’s Some Like It Hot. During a single scene, there can be a dozen quick cutaways, sometimes showing Martin’s reactions, other times acting as his responses. It’s a gag that works, and the production team was creative with their choices, digging deep into Hollywood history to find unexpected clips.
Saved From The Dustbin Of History
The plot of each episode doesn’t always revolve around sex, but most of them do. Martin’s dating life is the most unrealistic part of the series. Like Jerry Seinfeld, he has a series of girlfriends far out of his league, but unlike Jerry, he’s shown actually having sex (sometimes with diastrous results). No one on any other 90s sitcom had to face an ethical dilemma in which they discover a video of a popular children’s clown enjoying some adult time. That’s the plot of the Season 4 double-sized opener.
HBO wasn’t yet a media juggernaut when Dream On debuted in 1990, and back then, “HBO Original Programming” was essentially documentaries. The risqué comedy series opened the door for the network’s late 90’s rise with Sex and the City and The Sopranos, and without the misadventures of Martin Tupper, Friends wouldn’t exist as it does today.
Comedy Central aired the series in a heavily edited format, for both nudity and language, from 1996 through 1999, and then that was the last of Dream On. Quietly, the series arrived on The Roku Channel, but it was missing a few episodes. A few weeks later, and even those were ready for streaming, giving everyone complete access to the entire unedited, uncensored series for the first time in decades.
Entertainment
NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for May 17, 2026
The NYT Connections puzzle today is not too difficult if you love a hot drink.
Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that’s captured the public’s attention. The game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today’s Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
What is Connections?
The NYT‘s latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications’ Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
Here’s a hint for today’s Connections categories
Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Mashable Top Stories
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Yellow: A funnel
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Green: To scam
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Blue: A good cuppa
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Purple: An academy
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Vote for your favorite creators today
Here are today’s Connections categories
Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:
Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today’s Connections #1071 is…
What is the answer to Connections today
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Conduit: DUCT, LINE, MAIN, PIPE
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Swindle: FLEECE, HOSE, SQUEEZE, STIFF
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Tea-making verbs: BOIL, POUR, STEEP, STRAIN
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“School” modifiers: GRADE, GRAMMAR, HIGH, PRIMARY
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? Get all the Strands hints you need for today’s puzzle.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Connections.
Entertainment
Sexy, Star-Studded Remake Of The Ultimate Adventure Comedy, Now Streaming On Netflix
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
When I heard we were getting a reboot of Jumanji, I was absolutely filled with dread. The original film was very special to me: it was a master class in acting from the late, great Robin Williams, and the plot about getting stuck inside a board game both frightened and delighted my adolescent self. I assumed any remake of this iconic film would be an insult to Williams and everyone else from the original Jumanji. Plus, the original sequel, Zathura: A Space Adventure, which was such a minor blip on the pop culture radar that I’d bet my board game collection you already forgot it ever existed.
Accordingly, I walked into my local theater in 2017, assuming that Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle would be complete trash and that I would be hate-watching it from beginning to end. To my immense surprise, however, the movie used the original Jumanji as a springboard to tell an innovative and original story featuring a quirky cast that meshed together shockingly well. The result is a modern adventure comedy that’s as funny as it is family-friendly, and you can now stream it on Netflix.
Like A Rock
In Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the titular tabletop adventure has been transformed into a ‘90s video game console that is discovered by some hapless high schoolers. They fire up this retro machine and are instantly sucked into the world of the game, which was heavily inspired by everything from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to the old Pitfall video game. In order to get back to reality, these teens (each stuck inside an adult body) must win the game. That means finding a way to stop its final boss: a mad professor who has taken control of the animals and turned everything in the jungle into a weapon.
The cast of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is eclectic, to put it mildly. Dwayne Johnson does his usual action hero thing, but he mercifully leans into his sillier side to embrace the broad comedy of this cinematic caper. The biggest punchlines come courtesy of two other, very different comedians: Kevin Hart, doing his reliably wacky schtick as a pint-sized sidekick, and Jack Black, playing hilariously against type as a teenage girl stuck in a man’s body. Rounding out the cast is Karen Gillan, the former Doctor Who companion who has now fully embraced her Marvel makeover as a modern action star.
If You Die In The Game, You Die In Real Life
The stakes never feel all that high in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, but that’s actually part of its appeal. This is a perfect movie when you want to grab a beer and just vibe out on the couch to pure, unadulterated fun. It’s great to watch with your friends because you don’t have to take the plot seriously, and everyone you invite over will love at least one member of the quirky cast. As long as your kiddos aren’t too young, this PG-13 movie is fun for the whole family, and if your teens live on Discord, they’ll enjoy the plot about being trapped in a life-or-death video game.
While Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is not the most original movie, it’s a great example of how a film can be greater than the sum of its parts. It’s based on the original Jumanji, and it brings in some of the “kids trapped in a fantastic world” elements of classics like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Its action/adventure elements are basically what you get if you smash the Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises together. Plus, the movie borrows heavily from the modern Marvel formula, with a brisk pace that always finds time for some surprisingly funny quips and unexpected punchlines.
Clean, Dumb Fun
As you can tell, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle isn’t a great choice for anyone looking for a wholly original film. But if you like the movies referenced above, this action-adventure is basically a buffet of genre goodness. Not a high-class buffet, either, but one of those local places that specialize in greasy carb bombs that slow down your heart in a “hurts so good” kinda way. In the spirit of those buffets, Welcome to the Jungle is not exactly a healthy part of your cinematic diet. But for anyone looking to consume a guilty pleasure of film, however, this Jumanji reboot really hits the spot.
Fittingly enough, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is true to the origins of the franchise. This isn’t a movie that will change your life, and it was never exactly in danger of taking home an Academy Award. But like all great board games and video games, it delivers the best kind of distractions in the form of a breezy plot, charismatic cast, and infectious humor. Whenever you’re ready for a much-needed break from the trials and tribulations of our hellworld, here’s some good news: you can now stream Jumanji: Welcome To the Jungle on Netflix.
It should be perfectly safe. After all, there’s no way you could possibly get stuck in this movie for the next two decades, right?
HBO's Most Raunchy, Boundary-Breaking Series Is Streaming Uncensored For The First Time
Report: Red Sox SS Trevor Story headed to IL
