NEW TO STREAM
Rundown of what’s arriving on entertainment platforms
MOVIES
In “A Man Called Otto,”
Tom Hanks stars as a despondent and ornery widower whose suicide plans keep getting foiled by the needs of his neighbors. When it played in theaters in December, the Sony Pictures release proved the rare adultoriented success at the box office and grossed more than $100 million globally. Marc Forster’s adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s bestseller and remake of the 2016 Swedish film “A Man Called Ove” arrives May 6 on Netflix. In my review, I wrote that Hanks’ role “interestingly, if not always entirely successfully, caters to his strengths while tweaking his familiar screen presence.”
A new series on the Criterion Channel
pegs the 1980s as the birth of Asian American cinema. The 12 collected films — mostly products of the independent film movement — chronicle some of the inroads
Asian Americans made in mainstream film while exploring new definitions of identity. Among the films here are several by Wayne Wang (1982’s “Chan Is Missing” and 1985’s “Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart”), Peter Wang’s China-set culture-clash comedy “A Great Wall” (1986) and Steven Okazaki’s 1987 rom-com “Living on Tokyo Time.”
— Jake Coyle, Associated Press
MUSIC
Don’t count Ed Sheeran out, even if his latest album is “-” or “Subtract.” The British singer-songwriter will be releasing the Aaron Dessner-produced acoustic album May 5, marking the end of his mathematical album era (“Divide,” “Multiply” and “Plus”) and diving into his personal grief and hope as well as how he has dealt with “fear,
depression and anxiety.” Among the song titles are “Boat,” “Life Goes On,” “End of Youth,” “Spark” and “No Strings.” If you need more Sheeran, tune into Disney+ beginning May 3 for the four-part series “Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All,” to find out “what Ed thinks of the world, of himself and how his experiences have influenced his music and shaped him into the chart-topping artist he is today.”
Smashing Pumpkins have the last chapter
to their ambitious three-part rock opera “Atum” on the way. Pronounced “autumn,” the band’s 12th LP is being called the narrative successor to 1995’s “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” and 2000’s “Machina/The Machines of God.” The 33-song “Atum” sounds different from the band’s
2020 album “Cyr,” with music ranging from airy to headbanging, and the new single “Spellbinding” has 1980s-inspired synths before a heavier guitar-led chorus kicks in.
— Mark Kennedy, Associated Press
TELEVISION Fifty years later and Hollywood is still drawing
from the Watergate well for entertainment. Woody
Harrelson and Justin Theroux co-star in “White House Plumbers” for HBO as E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. Hunt was a former CIA agent and Liddy a former FBI agent who were tapped by the Nixon administration to investigate his political adversaries and help get him reelected to a second term. The pair orchestrated the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel that ultimately led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation. Hunt and Liddy were both characters themselves, and Harrelson and Theroux dive into their eccentricities. The five-episode series is now streaming.
The producers of Netflix’s “Indian Matchmaking”
are broadening their TV search for love by filming Jewish singles ready to settle down. In “Jewish Matchmaking,” professional cupid Aleeza Ben Shalom attempts to make love connections for Jewish singles in both the U.S. and Israel. She politely nods at some of their high-expectations and encourages others to go on another date or two to really decide if there’s chemistry. “I have the hardest job in the world,” Shalom remarks in the trailer. Watch her work her magic beginning May 3 on Netflix.
Pete Davidson stars in a semi-autobiographical
comedy series about navigating family, fame and relationships in “Bupkis,” which he executive produced and wrote. Edie Falco plays his mom and Joe Pesci is his grandfather. The show also features many guest stars including Al Gore, Jon Stewart, La La Anthony, John Mulaney, Steve Buscemi and Colson Baker, also known as musician Machine Gun Kelly. All eight episodes drop
May 4 on Peacock.
VIDEO GAMES Zombies have been terrorizing video gamers
for decades, from classics such as Resident Evil to the recent Dead Island 2. But where have the vampires been all this time? According to Bethesda Softworks’ Redfall, an awful lot of them are hanging out on a Massachusetts island, where they’ve blocked out the sun and isolated the locals. Your mission, along with up to three other slayers, is to stop them from bleeding the town dry — and you have supernatural powers of your own, like invisibility and teleportation, to complement some heavy weaponry. Redfall comes from the Arkane Austin studio, known for the terrific first-person adventures Prey and Dishonored. The stakes couldn’t be higher as it has now arrived on Xbox X/S and PC.
You know how classic fantasy novels
like the “Lord of the Rings” books always have big old maps up front? Paradox Interactive’s Age of Wonders 4 turns a map like that into your own personal playground. Imagine a game like Civilization — but instead of human armies battling for dominance, you have wizards, demons and dragons flying around. Instead of building technological prowess, you’re searching for ever more powerful magic tomes.
Age of Wonders 4 marks the franchise’s debut on consoles, and Paradox is promising a more streamlined approach that should still satisfy fans of both strategy and role-playing games. Launch your own game of thrones now on Xbox X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC.