4 For Friday: Your 4 January MUST Sees

New Year's Resolution? Watch These Now!

2019 is heeeeeere! And with it? A whole new crop of shows, movies, books, and podcasts. January may not be the most glamorous of the 12 months, but it's got A LOT to offer this year! These 4 releases are just the thing to hype up the beginning of your new year! 

1. I Am the Night

Last January TNT took us back in time to 1896 and the Gilded Age of New York with The Alienist, an adaptation of Caleb Carr’s book of the same name. The historical crime thriller gave us a glimpse into a gritty and grimy world where murder and deception lurked beneath the shiny veneer of the city’s elite. 

This January as part of its Suspense Collection TNT premiers I Am the Night. 
Inspired by a memoir and true events, a young woman named Fauna Hodel travels to Los Angeles to seek out her birth mother and ends up becoming entangled in the Black Dahlia murder mystery. 

Starring India Eisley (Adolescence) as Fauna, and Chris Pine as a fictional “ruined” reporter and antihero Jay Singletary the six-episode miniseries takes place in the 1960s. With three of the six episodes directed by Wonder Woman’s acclaimed director, Patty Jenkins, and a dark noir aesthetic, I Am The Night’s take on one of Hollywood’s juiciest unsolved murders is sure to wow fans of My Favorite Murder, and true crime junkies of every stripe. 

I Am the Night premieres on TNT January 28th.

2. A Series of Unfortunate Events (Season 3)

The tragic tale of the Baudelaire orphans, Violet (Malina Weissman), Klaus (Louis Hynes) and Sunny (Presley Smith) mournfully (or is it mercifully? For their sake at least...) comes to an end in the third, and final season of A Series of Unfortunate Events. With drama, despair and devastating turns of events dogging them from day one, one can hazard a guess that their horrible fortune is only going to escalate. 

After playing the iconic characters Lemony Snicket and Count Olaf, respectively, for twenty-five episodes, Patrick Warburton’s deadpan and Neil Patrick Harris’s campy swagger are sure to be on full display in these final seven episodes. 

There are new characters too. Take the third Snicket, Kit. Brought to the screen by Allison Williams (Girls) Kit, (Lemony and Jacques sister) who had a fleeting cameo appearance in the last minutes of The Carnivorous Carnival, is key in the plot this final season. 
With Harris’s gleefully wicked, Olaf and his hilarious ensemble of hapless cronies more than tickling our funny bones, looking away(!!!) as the catchy opening song warns before each episode is no easy feat. 

A Series of Unfortunate Events season three is streaming now on Netflix. 

Logo from Beach Too Sandy Water Too Wet website. 

3. Beach Too Sandy Water Too Wet 

The podcast Beach Too Sandy Water Too Wet created and hosted by And That’s Why We Drink podcaster Christine Schiefer and her brother Xander might just be the best new podcast out there that you’re not listening to. Time to change that! Each week the sibling duo challenge each other to dramatically read one-star reviews about places from hair salons to baseball stadiums and everything in between. 

With a melancholy instrumental track playing behind them as they read each review and screwball challenges like to find and read a one-star review “that’s rude to the Amish” or about a candy shop that mentions “broccoli” Beach Too Sandy Water Too Wet is a laugh ‘till you cry or (if you're like me and drink way too much water) 'till you nearly pee yourself funny. 

One of the best ways to describe the tone and enthusiastic energy that makes up Beach Too Sandy Water Too Wet is to imagine heaping handfuls of glittery, rainbow confetti tossed into the air. Light, colorful, and oh so fun. It’s just what we need to welcome 2019 after the dumpster fire that was 2018. Please, just take that pee break before you start listening! 

Beach Too Sandy Water Too Wet releases new episodes every Wednesday. 
Find out where you can listen to the podcast on its official website.  

4. Glass

One of the most anticipated sci-fi thrillers of the year M. Night Shyamalan's Glass combines the universes of Unbreakable with his phenomenal 2017 follow up Split. In this sequel, Glass takes the stars from both films and brings them together...trapped behind the walls of a mental hospital. Scottish wunderkind James McAvoy reprises his role as Kevin Wendell Crumb, the man with 24 different personalities. Bruce Willis, whose cameo was craftily tucked into the closing minutes of Split is back as David Dunn, the death-defying security guard. Dunn is joined by the sociopathic Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) and Split’s Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy), the only person known to survive an encounter with savage and cannibalistic Beast. 

Two years after Split, Glass finds Kevin committed to a psychiatric hospital along with Dunn and Glass where they’re being treated by Dr. Ellie Staple (American Horror Story regular, Sarah Paulson) for their “superpowered” delusions. The treatment doesn’t seem to be doing the trick as we see in a series of dark and shadowy trailers with escalating drama and violence. 

Packed with pulse-pounding and gritty action sequences and epic clashes between Mr. Glass, the bloodthirsty Beast, and Dunn, Glass premiers in theatres January 18th. 

Friends, what are YOU most excited for this January!? Drop a comment below or tweet me on my twitter! 

All photos from IMDB 

Beach Too Sandy Water Too Wet logo from the podcast's official website 

Gif from giphy