If podcasts aren’t your thing, this may be the podcast to convince you otherwise. Dana Carvey and David Spade are the hosts of Fly on the Wall, a retrospective comedy tour back to the original years of Saturday Night Live in the 1970s. It picks through a handful of the late night comedy show’s best casts and hosts for a lighthearted chat, for anyone who wants to burst out laughing for one full hour each week. Twelve episodes are already ready and waiting for you right now. Featured guests so far include 15+ time SNL host Tom Hanks, original Not Ready for Prime Time player Laraine Newman, cast members Chris Rock, Jon Lovitz, Darrell Hammond, Weekend Update host and senior writer Tina Fey, former SNL writers Conan O’Brien and Sarah Silverman, and former SNL hosts Rob Lowe, Johnny Knoxville, and Jon Hamm.
It’s that time of year again, time to take a look forward at what movies should be on your radar for 2019. Are you going to see them all? Heck no. These are the genre films we think borg readers will want to know about to make their own checklists for the coming year–and they are only the films we know about so far. We pulled 78 of the hundreds of films that have been finalized or are in varying stages of final production, slated for next year’s movie calendar.
What looks to top the list for most fanboys and fangirls? The last of the nine films in theStar Wars saga. Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far From Home.Shazam!is DC’s contribution. Quentin Tarantino returns to movies to direct Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Martin Scorsese is back with an all-star cast in The Irishman (on Netflix). M. Night Shyamalan finishes his dark superhero trilogy with Glass. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton return in Terminator. Jordan Peele is back with another horror film with Us.
Do you like sequels? This is your year. Another Men in Black, X-Men, Shaft, Happy Death Day, Lego Movie, Hellboy, John Wick, Kingsman, Jumanji, The Secret Life of Pets, How to Train Your Dragon, Fast and the Furious, Zombieland, Addams Family, Charlie’s Angels, Godzilla, Shaun the Sheep, Annabelle,and Stephen King’s It and Pet Sematary—Disney is trying to get you to move into your local theater with another Toy Story, Aladdin, Dumbo, Frozen, and Lion King–all in one year. Yep, lots and lots of sequels are coming.
Some films don’t have locked-in release dates yet. Amazon Prime and Netflix haven’t revealed dates for these 2019 releases:
Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman, a film about Jimmy Hoffa starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, and Bobby Cannavale (Netflix)
The Kid, a Western biopic with Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Dane DeHaan, and Vincent D’Onofrio (Netflix)
The Man Who Killed Hitler Then Bigfoot, starring Sam Elliott (Netflix)
6 Underground, a Michael Bay film starring Ryan Reynolds, Ben Hardy, Dave Franco, and Mélanie Laurent (Netflix)
The Last Thing He Wanted, Dee Rees directs Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Willem Dafoe, and Toby Jones; journalist quits newspaper job to become an arms dealer for a covert government agency (Netflix)
The Laundromat, Steven Soderbergh directs Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, James Cromwell, about the Pentagon Papers (Netflix)
Radioactive, Rosamund Pike plays Marie Curie, with Anya Taylor-Joy (Amazon)
Some of these films will have revised release dates, or get pushed to 2020.
So grab your calendar and start making your plans–here are the movies you’ll want to see in 2019 (and many you might not):
January
Glass – Superhero, M. Night Shyamalan trilogy part 3, stars Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy; continues where Unbreakable and Split left off – January 18.
Serenity– Mystery/Thriller, stars Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, Jeremy Strong, Diane Lane; sorry, no relation to Firefly – January 25.
King of Thieves– Heist Comedy, stars Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Charlie Cox, Michael Gambon, and Ray Winstone – January 25.
One of the more overlooked animated movies of 2016 was Illumination Entertainment’s cute talking animal movie, The Secret Life of Pets. This week Illumination released the first teaser poster and the first look at its sequel, The Secret Life of Pets 2. Take a look at the trailer below. Voice actor comedians Kevin Hart, Bobby Moynihan, Dana Carvey, and the great Albert Brooks are back. Also returning are voice actors Jenny Slate, Lake Bell, and Eric Stonestreet.
Comedic actor Patton Oswalt is stepping in to replace Louis CK in the lead role as the voice of Max the terrier. The first trailer looks like great family fun, all at the expense of your dog, cat, or guinea pig. If you’ve had a dog who had any kind of surgery or rash, then you’ll recognize Max in the poster sporting the Cone of Shame. The first trailer features Max on his first visit to the veterinarian. Keep an eye out at the movie’s website here for more character teasers arriving from Universal Pictures.
Check out this new trailer for The Secret Life of Pets 2:
We recently previewed USA’s First Impressions, starring Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Dana Carvey. The show premiered this week, and it looks like a winner. The series pits aspiring comics in an “impression off” to wow an audience of judges and a celebrity guest for a prize of $10,000. It’s not a competition show, like Last Comic Standing; it’s a game show with new contestants every week. In fact, it feels a bit like a mashup of Lip Sync Battle and Whose Line is it, Anyway?, with a bit of Hollywood Game Night thrown in.
Three contestants offer up their best celebrity impressions in a variety of bits and sketches, while Carvey and a visiting comedian (Steve Carell in the pilot) cheer them on, offer commentary, and occasionally join in the fun. Prinze keeps the fun moving as host and emcee.
We’ve been a bit weary of the competition show format, so it’s always nice to see a fresh, upbeat take, without all the season-long drama, eliminations, and infighting. First Impressions moves swiftly, giving each contestant plenty of time to showcase their talents. Contestants on the pilot spoofed both perennial favorites like Al Pacino and Christopher Walken, as well as surprising choices like the hilarious Jennifer Coolidge (Legally Blonde, A Mighty Wind) and Drew Barrymore. Everyone loves standup comedy, and the impersonators were fun to watch. But the real draw for the show is Carvey and friends. Carvey’s energy and enthusiasm are infectious, and the overall tone of the show is welcoming and collaborative, not combative. At one point, when two contestants had each done impressions of Sharon Osborne, Carvey leaped from his chair and said, “I want to see the Sharons together,” initiating a joint bit where the comics played off each other. It was a great moment that took this show to another level–not just game show, but comedy workshop.
Of all the stars of Saturday Night Live to spend Saturday nights in our living rooms, few were as beloved as Dana Carvey. Carvey’s Church Lady and Garth from Wayne’s World became icons of TV comedy. He had mega-hit films with the two Wayne’s World movies, but you should also check out the comedy classic Opportunity Knocks co-starring Robert Loggia if you missed it. But the last time we saw Carvey as a TV weekly regular was on the short-lived The Dana Carvey Show back in 1996.
Carvey will be the star of a new competition show beginning next month on USA Network. More accurately he is the “expert comedy mentor in residence” to amateur impersonators competing with their celebrity impresions in front of Carvey and other comedy guests. The show will be hosted by actor Freddie Prinze, Jr. son of the late comedian Freddie Prinze. Comedy guests include Steve Carell, Jay Leno, Kevin Nealon, Yvette Nicole Brown, Tom Arnold, and Jon Lovitz. Eighteen contestants are slated for the initial run of the show.
Check out these previews from USA Network for First Impressions:
Our annual “All the Movies You’ll Want to See…” series has been one of the most viewed of all of our entries at borg.com each year. So this year we again scoured Hollywood and its publicity machine for as many genre films coming out in 2016 as have been disclosed. Usually we select the 24 that look like the biggest hits, but we’re going all out for 2016. The result is a whopping 48 movies, many you’ll probably want to see in the theater or catch on video. We bet you’ll find a bunch below you’ve never heard of. Bookmark this now for your 2016 calendar!
Most coming out in the second half of 2016 don’t even have posters released yet, but many do. We’ve included descriptions and key cast so you can start planning accordingly.
What do we think will be the biggest hits of the year? How about Star Wars: Rogue One? Or Star Trek Beyond? You’ve heard endlessly about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but 2016 will also see Doctor Strange, Captain America: Civil War, and X-Men: Apocalypse. There’s even a handful of Westerns, with The Hateful 8, Jane Got a Gun, and another remake of The Magnificent Seven heading our way.
The Hateful Eight – January 1
Tarentino’s Western! Ennio Morricone score! Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Channing Tatum!
The 5th Wave – January 8
Chloe Grace Moretz and Liev Schreiber in an alien invasion.
400 Days – January 12
The CW’s Brandon Routh, Caity Lotz, and Tom Cavanaugh in a movie about astronauts that seems to be a play on Ender’s Game.
