Good morning 🐣

As we sail into May, I’d like to debut a new monthly feature: a preview of upcoming movies and TV shows. I haven’t seen any of these, but I’ll give you a quick explanation of why I think they look interesting as well as when and where you can find them:

May 6

• This month is chockablock with fun comic-booky sci-fi adventures, including “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (Disney+, May 27) and the return of “Stranger Things” (Netflix, also May 27), not to mention Sissy Spacek and J.K. Simmons in “Night Sky” (Prime Video, May 20), but the big one is Marvel’s latest extravaganza, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (in theaters), which marks the return of Sam Raimi to the genre. He helped usher in the current wave of superheroics in the early ’00s with the Tobey Maguire version of “Spider-Man.” That movie was expertly grounded in a fun mix of emotion and hints of Raimi’s early roots in gonzo horror. This looks to be a continuation of that. (Watch the trailer on YouTube)

May 13

• I really enjoyed Sarah Perry’s 2016 gothic novel, “The Essex Serpent” (buy the book here), which is now a series on Apple TV+. It stars Claire Danes as a recently widowed amateur paleontologist who moves from 1890s London to a small village and becomes intrigued by a local legend. Tom Hiddleston plays the town pastor that forms an unconventional bond with her. (Watch the trailer on YouTube)

May 20

• I am completely unashamed to recommend sight unseen “Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers” (Disney+). It’s a mix of live action and animation, and might actually be set in the same world as the masterpiece “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” Featuring the voices of John Mulaney and Andy Samberg alongside Will Arnett, Eric Bana, Keegan-Michael Key, and Seth Rogen, the movie reunites the chipmunk ’toon actors thirty years after their heyday. (In an effort to stay young, one of them has undergone a type of plastic surgery for a 3D computer animated body.) One of their former costars has gone missing and it’s up to them to solve the mystery. (Watch the trailer on YouTube)

Now watch this 👀

I don’t want to make too big a habit of recommending only new movies, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

I’ve long been a fan of Vikings and I’ve long been a fan of the “Vikings” television show, so I was really interested in my gut reaction to the first twenty minutes of “The Northman” (in theaters). It wasn’t great. I was distracted. Several seasons worth of historical place-setting by the TV show made me subconsciously expect things to look a certain way: costumes, sets, even cinematography. None of this is right! It all looks wrong!

Ironic given that the director, Robert Eggers, is a former production designer notorious for extreme historical accuracy, as seen in his two prior films: “The Lighthouse” and “The Witch” — excuse me, “The VVitch.”

Expectations, assumptions, a limited world view — poison. And coincidentally kind of recurring themes in the movie itself

So naturally I did what any rational person would do and signed myself up for the Regal Unlimited monthly subscription (all-you-can-watch movies at any Regal theater for the price of a single admission) in order to see it a second time and boy was I a dummy. This movie is great!

“The Northman” is a classic uncle-steals-your-father’s-kingdom-and-you-return-years-later-for-bloodthirsty-revenge-while-guided-by-the-undead coming of age tale. It’s based on the same Icelandic folklore that inspired Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” But if like Shakespeare had Hamlet and his uncle fighting naked on the edge of a volcano.

The movie begins and ends with our hero Amleth’s face, first as a boy, then as a man (Alexander Skarsgård from “True Blood”), and fills the in-between with his singular quest to avenge his father (Ethan Hawke), save his mother (Nicole Kidman), and kill his uncle (Claes Bang). Of course things get complicated and, as I alluded to earlier, not everything is as it seems. Poor Amleth and I are both shouting into the void: None of this is right! It all looks wrong!

Anya Taylor-Joy plays the excellently named Olga of the Birch Forest. (I like to think this story is somehow tied to both “The Witch” and “True Blood.”) There are some wonderful quasi-supernatural dream sequences spritzed throughout (Björk is at her Björkiest), excellent and complicated cinematography by Jarin Blaschke, and the editor, Louise Ford, knows just when to cut and when to let the movie breathe.

For as much as Robert Eggers is known for his devotion to authenticity and attention to detail — wood carvings, fabrics, Icelandic turf houses — it’s his ability to put you in the mindset of 10th century Vikings that sets this movie above the rest. These fantasy sequences might not be happening literally, but you better believe the characters are experiencing them, that fate is a natural force.

All this authenticity, though, is also as authentically expensive as it looks. His prior films cost between $4 and $11 million each. “The Northman?” Somewhere closer to $90. And it’s not doing too hot at the box office. So even though you have to struggle through all the crap Big Cinema throws your way, please go see this. It might not even be your cup of tea, but I need more movies with Willem Dafoe losing his mind.

In fact Mother’s Day is this Sunday. Treat your mom to a naked, sweaty Alexander Skarsgård. It’s the least you can do.

Until next time! 👋

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