The 16 Best TV Shows of 2019

Updated 12/27/19

16. "210 Words Per Minute" (Fear the Walking Dead)

When former power plant operations manager Grace Mu loses consciousness during a supply run at an untapped shopping mall, Morgan helps her to face her mortality and the implications of her radiation sickness. After the two bond, Morgan surprises a tearful Grace by leaving the group.

15. The Bad Mother (Big Little Lies Season 2)
     

This show about five privileged white (mostly) women with varying degrees of familiarity with an evil man pivoted unexpectedly in its second season and cast stones at the series' females, exposing their philandering, lying, bad parenting, bullying and abusiveness (both physical and emotional). The penultimate episode, "The Bad Mother", is the best of the bunch.

14. New Beginnings and 
      The Prophet (Vikings Season 6)

13. The Bells and The Iron Throne (Game of Thrones Final Season)

12. Maximizing Alphaness, RussFest and
      Exit Event (Silicon Valley Season 6)
      

11. Stranger Things Season 3

10. The Last O.G. Season 2

9. See

8. The Mandalorian

Aside from episode six, "The Prisoner", The Mandalorian surprisingly outshines several Star Wars feature films (The Phantom Menace, Revenge of the Sith, Solo, The Last Jedi and especially, Attack of the Clones) -- and all on a limited television budget. If Lucasfilm/Disney spent a little more dough on the already completed second season, it may be worth adding to your Star Wars collection.









7. The Toys That Made Us (Season 3)

The products featured in season 3 (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Professional Wrestling, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and My Little Pony) represent the bottom of the toy barrel but their backstories are interesting enough to keep your eyes glued to the screen. 









6. The Movies That Made Us

5. Sticks & Stones

4. When They See Us

3. Ballers (Final Season)

Action-star Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson's acting skills are often called into question. But not by anyone who's seen him do his thing on this peek behind the curtain of the NFL.









2. Wu Tang Clan: An American Saga

1. Deion's Double Play

John Witherspoon's 6 Best Movies

Comedic legend John Witherspoon died at his home in Sherman Oaks, California on October 29, 2019. Following his stand-up comedy debut in the 1970s, Witherspoon began his onscreen career in episodic television, beginning with a role on detective show Barnaby Jones. In 1977, he was hired as a regular on The Richard Pryor Show. In 1980, Witherspoon moved into film, embarking on a movie career that would span 39 years and 36 features. Here are his best:





6. Hollywood Shuffle

Witherspoon's Mr. Jones is the owner of local hot dog stand Winky Dinky Dog, who advises his aspiring-actor employee, Bobby, to give up on his dreams and fully commit to WDD.









5. Friday After Next

Witherspoon is Willie Jones, former dogcatcher-turned-entrepreneur. He and his brother/business partner, Elroy, bicker constantly and promote their strip mall BBQ joint with crazy local tv ads. When he's not checking badass neighborhood kids, Willie's fighting off the unwanted advances of his son Craig's landlady, Ms. Pearly.









4. Next Friday

After neighborhood bully, Deebo, makes a prison break, Willie drops Craig off with Elroy, the brother he wishes he never had, so that he can lay low in the suburbs until it's safe to come home.









3. House Party

Witherspoon is Play's next door neighbor, Mr. Strickland, who can't get any peace because of the all-night teenage get-together.









2. Boomerang

Witherspoon steals the show as Gerard's style-handicapped dad who shows up to Thanksgiving dinner in a custom-made outfit, gives graphic sex advice at the table and has sex with his wife in the bathroom.









1. Friday

In his first appearance as Willie Jones, Witherspoon is a dogcatcher who hates dogs, suffers from a bad case of IBS and can't wait for his son and daughter to move out so that he and the missus can live in empty-nest bliss.

The Future Looks Bright for R-Rated Comic Book Movies

Updated 3/2/20

It's been 21 years since Blade graced movie screens, ushering in the current wave of comic book movie adaptations. The bloody vampire action flick's $131.2 million take was enough to make it not just a standalone story but the beginning of a trilogy. Ironically, though the Blade saga kicked off Marvel's cinematic dominance, the company wouldn't continue its R-rated leanings until 12 years after the release of 2004's Blade: Trinity.

But 2005's Sin City continued the streak, albeit for Dark Horse Comics (though the 2014 sequel, A Dame to Kill For, flopped like hell and bodied the series.)

Director Zack Snyder's first foray into the genre, the live-action adaptation of the graphic novel 300, was an unqualified success in 2007, pulling down $456.1 million from the 17-and-older crowd. The movie's 2014 sequel, Rise of an Empire, was good for $337.6 million.

DC finally got in on the action with 2009's Watchmen. But though critically-acclaimed, the mature-themed film bombed and handed Snyder his only CBM flop.

2016's Deadpool shocked industry experts when its winter rollout completely upended the established order and proved that neither cliches nor standard practices were necessary for theatrical victory. The "Merc with the Mouth"'s origin story racked up $783.1 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time.

And since the wildly successful first outing of the anti-hero's debut, a new mature (with the requisite MPAA rating to match) comic book film has been released every year since. 2017 saw the cinematic send-off of the most popular X-Man, Wolverine, in March of that year, in Logan. The film's $619 take make it not only the best X-Men movie but also one of the most profitable. Only one of the X-series' more modestly rated entries -- Days of Future Past -- had a bigger box-office haul ($747.9 million).

Deadpool returned in 2018 and the sequel snagged $785 million from moviegoers, becoming the biggest-seller of the 12 X-movies. This year, DC's R-rated Joker bagged plenty of critical acclaim -- and controversy -- to go with its $619 million in global earnings -- after only two weeks in theaters. Joker received an eight-minute standing ovation following its screening at the Venice Film Festival, copping the event's top prize, the Golden Lion award, in the process. 

At $1.073 billion and counting, the villain's origin story has since become the top-grossing R-rated film of all time and the first to gross ten figures at the box-office. It's also the third-highest grossing DC movie of all time, surpassing all but billion-selling PG-13 hits The Dark Knight Rises and Aquaman. Joker has even outsold all of the previous movies featuring the title character (including the Oscar-winning and billion-grossing The Dark Knight). Amazingly enough, Joker has also out-grossed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey; former highest-grossing movie of all time, Jurassic Park; The Phantom Menace; animated franchise-starter Despicable Me; and Disney hits, Toy Story 3 and 4, Zootopia, Finding Dory, Dead Man's Chest, On Stranger Tides and the live-action versions of both Aladdin and Alice in Wonderland -- and it did so without a 3-D release or screenings in China.

What does all of this mean? Only one R-rated movie of any genre has made it into the billion-dollar club so far so don't expect Hollywood to turn its back on PG-13 superhero adventures anytime soon. But just maybe the big studios will make a little more room for those who like a little blood (and locker room talk) with their onscreen violence.

November 2019 Movie Trailers

November 1

The Irishman

November 8

Last Christmas

Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep is the sequel to 1908's The Shining. Hopefully, Sleep's filmmakers will jettison the casual racism of its predecessor.









November 15


Ford v. Ferrari

November 22

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

21 Bridges

November 27

Queen & Slim

November 27

Knives Out

The 19 Biggest Movie Flops of 2019

Updated 1/7/20

When it comes to movies, they can't all be winners. And lately, more and more of them are proving to be financial disasters. Last year saw its fair share of box-office bombs and 2019 seems to have followed the same trend. Here are the biggest losers of the year:





19. Lucy in the Sky

Loss: $27 million

Not only did Lucy in the Sky lose millions of dollars, the movie only made $319,976.









18. The Kitchen

Loss: $31 million









17. Playmobil: The Movie

Loss: $33 million









16. UglyDolls

Loss: $37 million









15. Wonder Park

Loss: $41 million









14. The Kid Who Would Be King

Loss: $43 million

King Arthur hasn't been a hit with movie lovers in 37 years -- since 1981's
Excalibur. And this is the second Arthurian flop in a row to be done in by shoddy grand finale CGI.









13. Late Night

Loss: $43 million

Late Night is a low-budget film. But the cost of acquiring its domestic distribution rights and the marketing, combined with audiences' lack of willingness to pay to see it, pushed this high-profile comedy beyond the realm of profitability. 









12. The Goldfinch

Loss: $45 million









11. Men In Black: International

Loss: $47 million

Nobody really wanted to see a Men In Black movie without Will Smith. And his chemistry with Tommy Lee Jones is light-years better than that of Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson. Liam Neeson's addition to the cast was just a nail in the movie's coffin.









10. Zombieland: Double Tap

Loss: $50 million









9. Gemini Man

Loss: $75 million









8. Charlie's Angels

Loss: $78 million









7. Missing Link

Loss: $88 million

Laika, the studio behind such animated hits as ParaNorman and Kubo and the Two Strings, really swung for the fences with Missing Link's $100 million budget. But they struck out hard and came away with the biggest loss in the studio's 14-year history.









6. Alita: Battle Angel 

Loss: $53 ($96 million)

James Cameron may have dreamed of scoring his third billion-dollar-grosser with this sci-fi spectacle tailor-made for 3-D but Cam and company must've realized that disaster was looming because Alita: Battle Angel was screened for free in hundreds of theaters around the country a mere two weeks before the movie's actual release.









5. Cats

Projected Loss: $100 million

4. Terminator: Dark Fate

Loss: $130 million

3. Dumbo 

Loss: $149 million

Dumbo made lots of money. It's only on this list because so much was spent on the movie's production and marketing that it was unable to make a profit.










2. Dark Phoenix

Loss: $150 million

The X-Men went out with a deafening whimper. The final movie -- and lowest-grossing entry -- in the franchise, Dark Phoenix bombed so hard upon release that it was pulled from theaters early.










1. King of the Monsters

Loss: $215 million

A direct sequel to King of the Monsters is scheduled for release next Spring, which makes you wonder how nervous the studio is about gambling even more money on this particular monsterverse.