2019 was a year dominated by Disney again, both in theaters and on TV, so it’s hard to talk about the last 12 months without them coming up multiple times.
This is not a top 10 best list, but rather the 10 entertainment related things that stuck out and made the biggest impression on me in 2019.
In no particular order…
The Irishman
This was Martin Scorsese’s answer to his magnum opus Goodfellas. It’s like he wanted to make the opposite movie. Whereas Goodfellas was fast paced and never took its foot off the gas, The Irishman was slow and took its time.
Not his best movie, but one of the best of the year.
DeNiro felt like he phoned it in and was just happy to work with Scorsese again, but Joe Pesci and Al Pacino are better in this than anything else they have been in in years. Pacino showed that he can still give a great performance without screaming every line.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Skywalker did not bring back the core fans like Disney wanted it to, but it did have some nice moments to help close out the trilogy and helped show that apparently the vacuum of space is harmless to people.
It was nice to see Palpatine back in the chair as the big baddie again, but unfortunately everything was rushed and packed too tight because the one time that splitting the final movie of a trilogy into two would have made sense, the studio chose not to do it.
DC Film Universe gets on track
Is it possible that after years of missteps DC and Warner Brothers finally figured out how to make a good comic book movie without Christopher Nolan directing it?
It seems like it. Shazam and Joker were hits with both audiences and critics because the studio was finally more interested in making a good movie than copying the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The most ironic thing about both film’s success is how they were successful despite going in opposite directions with their tone. Both films were also based on characters you wouldn’t expect to wanna see on the big screen: Captain Marvel Shazam has not been popular in decades and one of the things that made The Joker interesting is that no one knew his origin.
With Aquaman a hit last year and the trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 looking pretty good, the DCEU looks like it’s going in the right direction (Birds of Prey not counting).
Chernobyl
The first episode of HBO’s five-part limited series is one of the best hours ever produced for TV. That’s not hyperbole, it’s a fact. It’s impossible to watch and not get hooked into the show immediately.
Though the rest of the series doesn’t live up to the first hour, it’s still one of the best pieces of entertainment released in 2019.
If you have not seen it you owe it to yourself to go back and watch to learn about one of the least understood parts of recent world history.
Super Mario Maker 2
It’s endless levels of Super Mario Brothers. And portable. What more could a video game fan want?
Even though it’s a lot of the same you get with the first game, Nintendo added enough new content to make it fresh. Stuff like Death Stranding and Pokémon got a lot of the attention this year, but for me, this was the most fun game of the year.
There are a lot of crappy user-created levels, but when you find and complete a good one it’s a great feeling.
The most interesting thing about the game was seeing gamers turn Mario from being a platformer into either a strategy or survival-based game and creating levels that make you work hours in order to complete.
A Silent Voice
A Silent Voice is an anime movie that was released a couple of years ago in Japan but debuted on Netflix this year.
It’s about a teen who seeks forgiveness from the deaf girl he tormented in grade school.
This thing is extremely heavy and deals with subjects such as bullying and suicide. I started watching it one night because I couldn’t find anything else to watch and was in tears by the end.
Anyone who had to deal with the subjects the film brings up would probably find it difficult to watch, but it’s worth it and one of my favorite finds of the year.
The Dirt
This movie is a total piece of shit.
The acting, the writing, the casting, all of it is bad. I can’t think of anything good to say about it. Anyone who needs an example of how bad Netflix’s original content is could use this as exhibit number one.
But I loved it.
If you grew up listening to bands like Mötley Crüe like I did, you’ll know exactly why.
Game Of Thrones
If the final season lived up to expectations, it could have gone down as one of the greatest shows ever. Instead, it gave us six wildly uneven episodes that just made everyone scratch their heads wondering what the hell happened.
The Battle of Winterfell was an hour that everyone complained was underlit. Danny’s heal turn felt out of left field for a lot of people. Arya killed the Night King even though the entire series set up Jon Snow to be the hero who was promised. That’s just off the top of my head.
Despite those issues, it did have some great moments. The sacking of King’s Landing was visually stunning. The Battle of Winterfell was an hour of hardcore fighting. The Hound vs The Mountain felt like a heavyweight battle.
The first few seasons were some of TV’s greatest. Too bad people will just remember it for the last one.
Avengers: Endgame
The final piece in Marvel’s ten-year plan was the biggest hit ever, though not necessarily the best film Marvel ever made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r2-ZlUpUPE
Credit has to be given to them for being able to pull it off. The end battle in the film should have been what the end of Rise of Skywalker aspired to be.
Now the MCU resets and starts over. Chances are it won’t be as successful as the first ten years, but Marvel has enough goodwill on their side to give them a chance before saying they can’t do it again, despite the appearance of them trying to go super woke now.
Late Night
If you were to take all the combined hatred mankind has accumulated over the centuries into a single ball of evil, all that combined venom would still be less than how much I hated this movie.
There is nothing wrong with diversity, but if you’re going to push it down everyone’s throat so hard they’re going to gag, you can’t expect anyone to take you seriously.
If you don’t like subtly this movie is for you because everyone is always saying exactly what they are thinking and how they want you to think. It’s like no one involved in this production took a basic screenwriting class.
Mindy Kaling, who wrote some of best episodes of The Office, wrote herself a role in which she is the ultimate Mary Sue, a person who knows nothing about comedy and never had an interest in it, yet writes some of the supposed funniest jokes in late night history the first time she makes an attempt at it.
It wants to make a case for… screw it. Don’t get me started. This is just the worst movie of the year.
This makes The Dirt look like Citizen Kane.
