December 27, 2007 - Looking Back At 2007

2007 is coming to an end and this has been a fast year. Fun year though in the entertainment world. Since there isn't a lot going on in the entertainment world with it being the holidays, I thought I'd do some year in review type stuff in this issue as well as the usual stuff.

I often do a lot of my favorites of the year when it comes to year end issues so I'll add some in this year as well. My favorite TV shows of the year won't be any surprise. Some have made it through 2007 while others only made it halfway due to either being ended or canceled. Veronica Mars was a show that I loved very much and a smart show that left you thinking about what the next story twist would be. The cancellation of the show left me and many Veronica fans with a very bitter taste in our mouths toward The CW and this is coming from someone who was a huge fan of The WB. Yeah, I still haven't given any new shows on The CW a chance. LOL. Thankfully, I haven't been left without Kristen Bell on TV as she moved over to another great show that I found this year, Heroes. Gilmore Girls wrapped up this year as well. The show had a writing bulls eye on it all year long due to the Palladino's no longer being involved in the writing. I thought the show's writing started slow in season seven but they really started to get their footing in the second half of the season. It was probably the right time for the show to end and the show had a great run. Other favorites that have survived the year. Heroes is another show that leaves you trying to figure things out and when you think you've got it right, you're wrong. Such a talented cast and crew on this show. 2008 will hopefully bring us even more great stuff if the strike is ever settled in 2008. Smallville. I absolutely love this show and it has spread like crazy around to my friends as well. We've all pulled some major marathon viewing of Smallville over 2007. My reality shows are the same as they are every year. My summer TV obsession, Big Brother, delivered a very fun season and gave us houseguests that us Big Brother fans won't forget. I've had the privilege of having several of the BB8 cast take the time to do some Wrap Up Q&A's. The show once again had me glued to the live feeds and left me not getting a lot of anything done between July and September. LOL. With the strike, we get to do it all again in February with Big Brother 9. Survivor and Amazing Race were fun this year including an All Stars edition of The Amazing Race. American Idol was pretty much dull for me most of the season. There were a few highlights but overall season six just lacked some pizzazz.

I've found new shows that I've liked as well. Big Bang Theory was a show that I wanted to check out from seeing the promos. I liked the concept of it and checked it out. It has since become a favorite show of mine and can't wait to see new episodes of it. Other new shows that I've added to my every week viewing have been Chuck and Journeyman. Well, Journeyman is gone though unfortunately. Kid Nation was another show that I really begun to love as each episode aired. It was an addicting show and one that I am glad that I found to watch.

I haven't seen all of the movies from 2007 that I am wanting to see. I do know that my favorite movie of the year is Transformers. I don't really see anything else that I might see topping that movie. I was really concerned about this movie when I first heard that they were doing it as I thought it might end up not turning out good. I went into the theatre nervous but excited to see it. I left very happy with only a couple of things that bothered me a little but not enough to make a difference at all on souring me on it. The movie delivered for me and it gets my vote for my favorite movie of 2007.

2007 saw a new option for TV shows in the form of comic books. Buffy made a very triumphant return with season eight in comic form becoming one of the best selling comic book series of 2007. Following right behind was Angel returning for a season five story. With the sales of these comics, Buffy and Angel fans are going to be very happy going into 2008. Also, there is news of a Firefly series of comics coming in 2008 as well. Will the rumors of a Veronica Mars comic come true in 2008? I hope so!!!

The big story in the entertainment world continues to revolve around the writers strike that has shut down much of the industry. With no scheduled talks in the future, there is no telling how long this strike could carry into 2008.

Speaking of movies, here are the box office numbers for last weekend. 1. National Treasure - $45.5 million. 2. I Am Legend - $34.2 million. 3. Alvin & The Chipmunks - $29 million. 4. Charlie Wilson's War - $9.6 million. 5. Sweeney Todd - $9.4 million. 6. P.S. I Love You - $6.5 million. 7. Enchanted - $4.2 million. 8. Walk Hard - $4.1 million. 9. The Golden Compass - $4.0 million. 10. Juno - $3.4 million.

A couple of movies opened up on Christmas day this week. Alien vs. Predator opened at number three for Christmas Day as it opened with $9.5 million on Tuesday. Also, The Great Debaters opened at number six with $3.6 million while Water Horse opened up at number nine with $2.3 million. Remember that all of those numbers are for Tuesday only.

Not sure what channel to watch when the ball drops on New Year's Eve? Maybe this will help you out on deciding as this is the lineup for the New Year's shows as far as the big networks go.
On ABC is Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve which will feature Fergie, Akon, Natasha Bedingfield, Sean Kingston, OneRepublic, Plain White T's, Taylor Swift, and will.i.am. Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest will host the show.
On NBC will be Carson Daly hosting the festivities. Tiki Barber and Amy Robach will also join him. Performances by Alicia Keys and Lenny Kravitz.

Do you know what I miss about New Year's Eve? I miss watching the top music video countdowns on the various music channels. I used to watch those quite a bit seeing who would rank where. This seems to be a thing of the past especially in its original form when there was....wait for it....full music videos played. Not all of them have went away from it but MTV has stopped doing it and VH-1 has went to its VH-1 format or as I call it the I Love The 80's show format that every show on VH-1 has now. I watched a little of the 2007 countdown on VH-1 and saw a little bit of the music videos covered up by various people discussing the videos and cracking jokes about them. It's a bummer that it is so hard to watch music videos anymore. Oh well. Best bet now is to watch the music videos online at any time that you wish.

Top movies for 2007 at the box office. 1. Spiderman 3 - $336 million. 2. Shrek The Third - $321 million. 3. Transformers - $319 million. 4. Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End - $309 million. 5. Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix - $292 million. 6. The Bourne Ultimatum - $227 million. 7. 300 - $210 million. 8. Ratatouille - $206 million. 9. The Simpons Movie - $183 million. 10. Wild Hogs - $168 million. 11. I Am Legend - $150 million. 12. Knocked Up - $148 million. 13. Rush Hour 3 - $140 million. 14. Live Free Or Die Hard - $134 million. 15. Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer - $131 million. 16. American Gangster - $128 million. 17. Bee Movie - $123 million. 18. Superbad - $121 million. 19. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry - $119 million. 20. Hairspray - $118 million.

Billboard has put out their list of the top DVD sales of 2007. Here is the top 10: 1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. 2. Cars. 3. Happy Feet. 4. 300. 5. Transformers. 6. Ice Age: The Meltdown. 7. Night at the Museum. 8. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. 9. The Departed. 10. The Da Vinci Code.

Here is the listing for the top 10 albums of 2007. Number one was Daughtry selling around 3.2 million albums. Here is the full top 10. 1. Daughtry. 2. Akon - "Konvicted". 3. Fergie "The Dutchess". 4. The Hannah Montana Soundtrack. 5. Carrie Underwood - "Some Hearts". 6. Nickelback - "All The Right Reasons". 7. Justin Timberlake - "Futuresex/Lovesounds". 8. High School Musical 2 Soundtrack. 9. Now 23. 10. Linkin Park - "Minutes To Midnight".

Add Back To The Future to the list of movies in the Library Of Congress's National Film Registry. The movies that are added to this every year have to be ''culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant''. The 25 movies added this year, which brings the overall total to 475 movies, were Back To The Future (1985), The Naked City (1948), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), In a Lonely Place (1950), Oklahoma! (1955), 12 Angry Men (1957) The Strong Man (1926), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Bullitt (1968), Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), Dances With Wolves (1990), Days of Heaven (1978), Glimpse of the Garden (1957), Grand Hotel (1932), The House I Live In (1945), Mighty Like a Moose (1926), Now, Voyager (1942), Our Day (1938), Peege (1972), The Sex Life of the Polyp (1928), Three Little Pigs (1933), Tol'able David (1921), Tom, Tom the Piper's Son (1969-71), The Women (1939), Wuthering Heights (1939).

The new Transformer Animated series has begun airing on Cartoon Network. If you missed it, catch a repeat on Saturday morning when they will air the first three episodes again. I haven't seen it yet but am definitely going to check it out.

This week's Amazing Race was a day of can you top this? Not the good kind of can you top this but can one team top the bad luck that the other was having. TK & Rachel and Kynt & Vyxsin had one of those days where nothing seems to go right. They basically competed against each other to see who could have the least happen to them. LOL. Just when we thought TK & Rachel had a clear way to the finish line, their tire blows out. However, they still finished in 4th place. Kynt & Vyxsin were the last team to arrive but it is a non elimination round. The twist this year is another new concept in the race, the speed bump. The speed bump is a surprise task that they will have to complete in the next leg of the race which no other team will have to do. They will not know when the task will have to be done. Nicolas and Donald finished in first place after completing the only fast forward on the race. The fast forward was that they each had to get a tattoo with the letters "FF". Wow. They really had no choice but to go for it as going back would have probably meant elimination. Then again, I'm not sure if that would have guaranteed elimination with the leg that TK & Rachel and Kynt & Vyxsin were having.

A three network simulcast of football will occur on Saturday night when the Patriots/Giants game will be shown on NBC, CBS, and NFL Network. A lot of talk has been made about how this game was only going to air on NFL Network due to its limited availability. The Patriots are looking to go undefeated in the regular season this weekend and the decision was made to make the game available to more viewers. This will be the first simulcast in the history of the NFL and will be the first simulcast since the first Super Bowl in 1967. This has been a hot topic on both sides of that debate.

If you are a Heroes fan frustrated with no new episodes as I am, here is an option for you. A Heroes novel has just been released called Heroes: Saving Charlie. The book covers the period of time in which Hiro teleported to try and save Charlie's life. We didn't see much of what their lives were like for that six month period of time and this book fills that gap.

I read some comments last week where Juliet Huddy was telling of the worst celebrity guests that she has interviewed. There was one that really waved up a flag to me. She had Jessica Alba on the list. The reason? Jessica didn't want to discuss her personal life. Now, I don't know about you but I find that to be a relief. In a day when we know way too much about celebrities personal lives, it's nice to see someone that wants to keep it private. Good for Jessica.

I've been doing a lot of watching of one of my Christmas presents this year. Season two of Charles In Charge. When you grew up watching a show, a lot of times you don't know how it will hold up when you watch it years later. This show holds up just fine!! I find myself laughing out loud at the same scenes that I did when I watched it originally. It's great to now have these shows on DVD in great quality. My old videos of this show have been long showing their wear and they weren't the best organized recordings anyway. This was one of my favorite shows growing up and I had a long tradition of watching this every day when it aired after school. Actually, I remember that this show was a go to for me many times when I'd be home sick from school and looking for something to watch. I'd throw in the tapes and watch it all day. I've seen these episodes so many times and the reason I know that for sure is that even after not seeing these episodes in forever, I still can recall a line before it's even said. The duo of Charles and Buddy is still one of my TV favorites of all time. One debate among fans of the show is often whether they preferred the Pembroke family (season one) or the Powell family (season two to the end). I always liked both but have loyalty to the Powell's cause that was the show that I started watching. The Pembroke episodes would air in repeats but the Powell episodes were still having new episodes premiering. I also remember just how many guys had a crush on Nicole Eggert at the time and that was myself included. LOL. Season two had so many funny episodes and I'm having a great time watching them again. Not any extras on this DVD set but I'm just thankful to have season two released.

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, January 1st. SeaQuest DSV (Season Two), Weird Science (Seasons One & Two).
TV on DVD release for Wednesday, January 2nd. The Tudors (Season One).

You Tube Video Of The Week: The troops overseas were recently entertained by the WWE. WWE sent the talent over to Iraq for their annual visit to entertain the troops over the holidays and meet with them. Such a special show and here is a three minute music video of the highlights of the trip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afT4e0Vcr_4

Another year comes to an end. I hope that each and every one of you have had a great 2007 and wish you an even better 2008!! Have a great and very safe New Year's!! Talk to you in 2008. Take care and God bless!!