NorsePlay.

From the hands of the director of Troll Hunter  (2010 CE) comes another foray into the fields of NorsePlay: Mortal (2020 CE). Vagrant American tourist Eric (Nat Wolff) is hiding out in the Norwegian forest, on the lam from an apparent arson fire/murder at his cross-Atlantic family's farm. Eric is apparently emotionally damaged with post-traumatic stress from whatever actually happened, and has nightmares involving fire . Another apparent murder lands him in the local Ossa jail, where rookie psychologist Christine (Iben Akerlie) is called in to speak with him before U.S. authorities are to show up and extradite him. Willing to talk to her, Eric then seems to manifest some electrokinetic powers , which she intuits are related to his volatile emotional state, and manages to talk him down. The film becomes something of a chase movie in its second act, with a final reveal of why Eric is gifted/cursed with his electrokinesis. This dynamic, however, was explored in  The New Mutant...

The question we're confronted with is: Is The Northman the best Viking visual media yet made? Despite all the previous internet objections (for whatever that noise is worth), the bar for this is History Channel's inarguably successful  Vikings (2013-2020 CE). Director Robert Eggers mixes the supernatural moments of magical realism from  Vikings with the pastoral setting from  Prince Of Jutland (1994 CE), while screenwriter Sjón pulls from the Icelandic tropes of When the Raven Flies (1984 CE), using Saxo Grammaticus' Amleth legend from  Gesta Danorum: Deeds of the Danes as a baseline point and The Sagas of Icelanders as building blocks, all which make for a  necessarily brutal & beautiful film. [model Ineta Sliuzaite rages through the sky as a  valkyrie  with her line-filed teeth!] [Note: Spoilers are about to occur ... but you read Hamlet in high school like everyone else, right?] For Heathens coming to this film, there...

Co-opted from Norse lore by writer Stan Lee & artist Jack Kirby in 1962, their comic book Thor was designed as an adversary for the Hulk, but in selecting such a richly backgrounded character their story's potential far outgrew a mere contest-of-strength rivalry with the moody green simpleton in purple stretch pants. And here we are, hundreds of issues and half a century later, treated to the doom-filled thunder of Marvel's second pantheon-based cinematic blockbuster "Thor: The Dark World". With the withdrawal of Shakespearian first director Kenneth Branagh due to Disney's less-generous shooting timetable, the sequel's helmed by Alan Taylor (episodes of "Game of Thrones"/"Mad Men"/"The Sopranos"), but the main difference being instead of having hammerless Thor humbled among the down home people of enchanting small town New Mexico, we find ourselves on a eye-goggling tour of the multiverse with the fate of not just frost giant...