Friday, January 30, 2009

No Wrap Up This Week

Hey everyone. There will be no Entertainment Wrap Up this week due to the massive ice storm that has hit the central part of the U.S. I'll be back soon. Say a prayer for everyone!! Take care and God bless!!

Friday, January 23, 2009

American Idol Week 2, Oscar Nominations, 90210, How I Met Your Mother, & More - January 22, 2009

Auditions continued on this week’s American Idol. Tuesday’s episode had the San Francisco auditions. Twelve people from there went on to Hollywood. I did my tally once again this week and had a count of seven good auditions and seven bad auditions. Even with the auditions being seven a piece, I thought there was more focus on the bad audtions. Highlights of the show included Adam Lambert who was told that he had a very theatrical voice but was a big hit with the judges. Paula said that he was the best they had seen in any city. Kai Kalama impressed the judges as well. His story was that he had pretty much put his life on hold to take care of his mom who suffers from a seizure disorder. Nice guy and the judges main critique of him was that he needed to show more personality on stage. Overall, the judges were pleased with San Francisco. Wednesday’s episode moved the auditions to Louisville, KY. I had a tally of eight good auditions to ten bad auditions. Alexis Grace was someone that I really enjoyed in this episode. She was the stay at home mom who had a big voice. Simon said she had a very commercial face. Likable and she got through. Matt Giraud impressed the judges with his unique voice. Simon said he reminded him a lot of Elliott Yamin. Joanna Pacitti was recognized by Kara as she had a previous record deal but it didn’t work out. She did well and moved on to Hollywood. Good story to close the show with as Leneshe Young wowed the judges singing a song that she wrote. She made it on through including a fake “no” from Paula that almost stunned the room. Nineteen people got through to Hollywood. Auditions move to Jacksonville, FL next week.

I’ll have my Smallville thoughts tomorrow as I’m waiting to watch the episode with friends.

How I Met Your Mother dealt with a major snow storm this week. Ted and Barney ended up running the bar looking to hit it off with these two girls. Their dream of running a bar ended up turning into a nightmare when the girls said they were in a band. The problem was that the band was a school band. The rest of the episode had a fun story of a tradition that Marshall and Lily had going on. Everytime they would travel, the other would get a six pack from wherever they had been while getting picked up at the airport. Each decided to stop the tradition but were talked back into it when they realized that they loved it. Nice twist at the end with them showing what we had seen had taken place over three different days. Marshall’s surprise with the band playing was a nice touch.

Here are the happenings on this week’s 90210. The drama involving Adrianna continued. It almost seems like she has become the central figure of the show at times. She continued to go to auditions but finally went to see about her pregnancy. She found out that abortion was not even an option for her as she is too far along in the pregnany so she has to have the baby. She did get good news by getting the lead in the school play. Who will be the male lead playing opposite of her? Well, that would be the returning Ty. It turns out that he is the father. That is also the Ty that was seeing Annie for a bit too. Annie was also auditioning as well but didn’t get the lead obviously. She took that really bad. Naomi stuck by Adrianna through her continued troubles. Naomi had more troubles of her own when she learned that her dad was selling the house. Her mom was taking time away to get some rest and relaxation after being conned out of money. Naomi would later catch her dad cheating on his other girlfriend with the real estate woman. Naomi announced to her dad that she would be staying in a hotel and not with her dad. Other major news of the episode revolved around Silver. Mr. Matthews returned back after the drama that occurred with him which was done to cover up for the undercover cop. He had Silver transferred out of his class. You may remember that she blasted him really bad in her blog. Kelly confronted him on it and he was talking about how he had lost his love for teaching. Silver went ahead and did the class assignment determined to make him want to keep her in the class. It all worked and he let Silver stay. They came to a peace over the whole matter. Things didn’t end well for her though when Dixon broke up with her. He finally just got to his breaking point on her attitude with things and also with him. The episode left on a major cliffhanger when Annie called Ethan to come back and pick her up for the school play party. He ran a stop sign and was hit by an oncoming vehicle as the episode ended. There was an American Idol tie in with this episode as Lisa Tucker had a small cameo in the episode as one of the students in the play.

The Oscar nominations were announced this morning and here are some of the nominations.
Best Picture: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire.
Actor In A Leading Role: Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Sean Penn (Milk), Brad Pitt (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler).
Actress In A Leading Role: Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Angelina Jolie (Changeling), Melissa Leo (Frozen River), Meryl Streep (Doubt), Kate Winslet (The Reader).
Actor In A Supporting Role: (Josh Brolin (Milk), Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt), Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight), Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road).
Actress In A Supporting Role: Amy Adams (Doubt), Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Viola Davis (Doubt), Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button), Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)
Directing: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire.
Animated Feature Film: Bolt, Kung Fu Panda, WALL-E.

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Paul Blart: Mall Cop - $39.2 million. 2. Gran Torino - $25.6 million. 3. My Bloody Valentine 3D - $24.1 million. 4. Notorious - $23.3 million. 5. Hotel For Dogs - $22.8 million. 6. Bride Wars - $13.8 million. 7. The Unborn - $10.54 million. 8. Defiance - $10.51 million. 9. Marley & Me - $7.5 million. 10. Slumdog Millionaire - $7 million.

I read an article this week that discussed that My Network has now passed The CW in prime time viewers. The reason? WWE Friday Night Smackdown. You know, the show that The CW decided they didn’t want. Smackdown has been the highest rated program on the network. Other shows on the network are bringing in decent ratings as well. It is the only network that has seen an overall ratings increase this season.

House did its highest ratings of the season on Monday night on Fox.

It was fun to watch the season four version of American Idol Rewind recently that featured Carrie Underwood’s St. Louis audition including a new interview of her looking back on the experience. I liked Carrie immediately seeing her audition the night that it originally aired and knew that I had a favorite in the competition. Incredible voice and absolute sweeheart of a personality.

So, they actually brought back KARR on last night’s episode of Knight Rider? I happened to read that online today. Definitely a throwback to the original series.

I got this news to pass along to all of you about a show on Discovery Channel called One Way Out. Here is the information on it.
“The art of escape gets put to the scientific test as escapologist Jonathan Goodwin attempts to break out of bizarre and dangerous homemade contraptions. Joined by his best friend/chief collaborator Mikey Nelson and master builder/engineer Terry Stroud, there is no idea -- no matter how insane – that is out of bounds. From conception to testing to the actual stunt, Jonathan proves there is no escape too extreme or painful in his search to always find that one way out! Series premieres Monday, January 26 at 9p.m. ET/PT on Discovery Channel.”

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, January 27th. The All-New Super Friends Hour (Season One – Volume Two), Blossom (Season One and Two), You’re A Good Sport Charlie Brown, Cheers (Season Eleven), The Love Boat (Season Two – Volume One).

TV Lines Of The Week: From The Lost special before the premiere. I just had to include this cause this is still one of my favorite exchanges in the history of the show. It is of Sawyer and Hurley talking about finding the body of a Dharma worker who ended up being a much bigger player than expected. Sawyer toasted his beer on the skull of the body they found.
Hurley: “That’s not cool dude. That guy had a mom. Oh, and a name. Not Skeletor. It’s Roger Workman.”
Sawyer: “It’s work man, you blockhead. He was a Dharma janitor. “

From 90210. Dixon and Debbie talking about he and Silver’s problems and how they decided not to talk about it.
Debbie: “Did you talk about it? Does she know you’re upset?”
Dixon: “We kind of decided not to talk about it. Sweep it under the rug."
Debbie: “How’s that going?”
Dixon: “Just feels like there is something big under the rug. Someone’s going to break their neck.”

Video Of The Week: Season five music video for the premiere of Lost set to The Fray’s song “You Found Me”. Incredible music video. Just now watched this since I was afraid of spoilers that could be in it.


That is all I have for you for now. Take care and God bless!!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Lost Season Premiere - Review and Thoughts - January 22, 2009

Lost is back and I was so excited to watch the premiere on Wednesday night. What an incredible season premiere!! If you aren’t a Lost fan, you really ought to give the show a chance. Also, if you give the show a chance, be prepared to give up some of your social life cause this is one of the most addicting shows ever. I can’t tell you how many days that I had where I thought that I’d just watch a couple of episodes and then had watched about eight by the end of the day cause I couldn’t quit watching. On to the season five premiere. When I was watching this, I was thinking what in the world kind of formatting am I going to use to try and recap this premiere? I’m not quite sure how to go about it cause so much was happening. One thing that I always love about this show is that it keeps you thinking. Not only is the island crazy just in present day but now we are bending time on the island. The island is having troubles and continues to keep flashing to different points in time. We know that there is a three year difference between the current stuff with the Oceanic Six being gathered to go back and the time of when they left the island. I guess first we’ll talk about what is going on with the remaining people on the island. The show opened with Daniel being shown in the time period of when the Dharma orientation videos were being made while a mention of time travel was talked about. That beginning to the episode would set the stage for what we were about to see on the island. Daniel was with Sawyer, Juliet, and that group at the time of the island being moved. We return to that point with the freighter having disappeared. However, the camp is gone. Daniel figures out that there is some sort of disruption with the island forcing either the island to time travel or just themselves to time travel. This brought us to Locke who was in a different place as well alone on the island. He looks up and there is the plane set to crash of Mr. Eko’s brother. It crashes and Locke goes to it. As he is climbing to it, he is shot by Ethan. The light and noise starts up again and time switches again. The plane was then on the ground signifying that it was in time after Boone and Locke found it. Locke is helped by Richard who knew of what had just happened and the wound that Locke had. Richard said for Locke to give him a compass the next time that he sees him mentioning that he won’t recognize Locke. Richard tells him that the only way to save the island is to get them all back there. How does Locke do that? Richard tells him that he’ll have to die. Daniel and the group went to the original hatch which they found was gone signifying the time period as well. Lights and sound happened again and the hatch had returned. Sawyer wanted to go and talk to Desmond who was in the hatch at this point in time but Daniel said that it was pointless since them talking had never happened in the past. Daniel had already made the point that you can only go forward and backward in time but couldn’t change anything that hadn’t happened. However, Daniel would talk to Desmond since they both have the time travel stuff in common. He told Desmond to go and see him at Oxford. When Desmond wakes in current day, he remembers the conversation and told Penny that he had to go to Oxford. At this point, we notice that Charlotte is having nose bleeds which has to be from the time traveling going on while Daniel is trying to figure out where in time that they are. The group then gets shot at with flaming arrows which killed several people. Sawyer and Juliet are captured by Dharma people with them wanting to know why they are on the island. One of them says that the right answer will save Juliet’s other hand since the first one is non negotiable. Sawyer tells the truth about the time travel with the island but they weren’t buying it. Locke showed up and took out the Dharma people saving the two of them. What is happening with the Oceanic Six? We got a scene from when they were about to be rescued and decided to lie about what had happened on the island. Hurley wanted to tell the truth but no one else did which made him furious. Three years later, Ben and Jack were working together saying that they had to get back to the island to save everyone. They were also bringing Locke back who we had previously found out was the one in the casket. Ben eventually left Locke with a woman at a meat market saying to watch him while they rounded up everyone else. Hurley and Sayid were on the run. The media was reporting that Hurley was a murder suspect. People were shooting at them and Sayid took them out except for one that hit him with a dart loaded with something that took out Sayid. A bystander got a picture of Hurley at the murder scene. We had heard Sayid tell Hurley about working for Ben and gave him the advice to never believe anything Ben ever says. That would play into the events for later. Hurley made a run for it with an unconscious Sayid making it to his parents house. They took him in and he eventually told the truth of the island happenings to his mom. Jack was eventually brought into the equation to help a struggling Sayid. Ben found Hurley and said that everyone began to trust him when they all realized that they had one thing in common, getting back to the island. Instead of doing that, Hurley turned himself into the cops saying that was better for him than the alternative of being with Ben. Ben was seen talking to a woman who said that he had 70 hours to get everyone together and get this thing going or they were all in trouble. Kate was on the run after being met by lawyers who wanted to prove that Aaron wasn’t hers. They wouldn’t reveal who their client was. She met up with Sun and talked about everything. Sun suggested that whoever it was just probably wanted Aaron and that Kate should just “take care of them”. Earlier in the episode, Sun was seen meeting with Widmore where they discussed their common interest and that was killing Ben.

Random thoughts on the premiere. Was anyone else freaking out like I was when they saw that plane set to crash and thought that it could be Eko’s brother’s plane? I know I was. It was nice to see the show continue the tradition of record player music playing to open up the season. When Ana Lucia showed up, my conspiracy thinking started to go to, uh oh, now the Oceanic Six are time traveling too? That wasn’t the case of course. How about her saying to Hurley that Libby says hi. Wow. When Locke found Eko’s brother’s plane, my thinking automatically went to wondering if people from the past who were killed off might be returning if their deaths could be prevented. I was thinking that we might be seeing Boone sometime but that theory got wiped out quickly when Daniel talked of them only being able to go forward or backward but not being able to change anything. I am really curious to find out what kind of major role that Sun is going to have. She is setting up to be a major power player with the events to come. If you didn’t see the Lost special that aired to start the premiere night, it was really a fun show to watch. Really well put together. Even though I had seen everything, it was a really fun look at the series up to season five. I have decided that I’m not going to be watching the previews for each week’s episode. This show is much more fun to not have any clue of what is coming. I prefer to get my Lost blindsides just full blast. Ha ha.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Is The Veronica Mars Movie Happening??!! - January 17, 2009

2006 Summer TCA Day 8
Yeah, the picture with this is old but it was fitting. Are we going to get the hoped for Veronica Mars movie? Well, two key people are in for it and that is Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell. There are reports coming out and I just had to comment on it. Thomas spoke at the TCA press tour about how Cupid had been cut from a thirteen episode order down to eight. Thomas said that the freed up time that he now has is going to get him to writing the Veronica Mars movie. Thomas spoke about the movie as he discussed his current project Cupid. This is what Thomas had to say: "For me, that's the next project. But my writing it is really just half the battle. Somebody has to pay for it. I mean, Joel Silver does have a certain pile of money that he can decide on and he called me asking if we, you know, 'Can we do this now?' So I know that Kristen wants to do it. I want to do it. Joel wants to do it, and now I suddenly find myself with enough time to write that script. So that's my -- for me, that's the next project."

It sounds like Thomas wants to start the movie story wise before Veronica’s college days come to an end possibly before graduation. That would do away with the FBI storyline that was proposed for season four. If you haven’t seen the plan for season four that was proposed to The CW, check out the season three DVD. It had a lot of promise for sure. Come on though. Rob Thomas plus Kristen Bell always has promise!! I am really hoping for this movie to happen. I will no doubt be seeing that movie on opening day!!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Smallville Returns - Thoughts on Episode 811 - Legion - January 15, 2009

Smallville returned tonight after a hiatus that left us on the cliffhanger of the wedding. If you’re a Chloe fan like myself, it was a stressful episode!! I wasn’t sure what was going to happen tonight. Chloe and Davis were in the newly darkened Fortress. Chloe however had been taken over by Brainac while Davis was actually Davis and not Doomsday. The Legion arrived to help Clark out. They were from the future and knew that that particular day in time was a big one. It was fun to hear them talk about Clark in the future tense calling him “the Man of Steel”. The Legion was all about taking out Brainiac. The problem was that he had a host and that was Chloe. The Legion was set on having to kill Chloe to do the better good of killing Brainiac. That didn’t set well with Clark. The Legion worked their way around it including one of them talking to Lana. Lana and Clark were set on finding a way to get rid of Brainiac but save Chloe as well. Everyone was able to track Brainiac/Chloe to The Daily Planet where The Legion captured him/her. They were about to do the killing until Clark stepped in talking of how he does things and that is not killing. He and The Legion were able to team up and save Chloe but also get rid of Brainiac. Seeing her brought back was definitely a relief and also a cool surprise by the end which looks like she now remembers Clark’s secret as well. I am very happy with that cause I didn’t like when they went with the story of Chloe not knowing his powers anymore. The Legion brought many clues of what was to come with what we heard from them. One of them was the fact that they had heard nothing of a Chloe Sullivan from the history books. Not liking that!! Lana apparently plays a major part in what Clark becomes. Humans are a major factor in what Clark becomes as well. They said that Lana was very well known in the history books. They were surprised when they learned that Clark was unable to fly yet. The Legion left Clark with something that would allow him to time travel to the future if he ever needed to meet up with them. I liked the addition of The Legion into this episode. Fun episode overall. We did learn as well that Chloe had found out that Jimmy was going to be ok and that Lois was still with him. The end of the episode saw Doomsday return to form.

Survivor Cast Announced, Golden Globes Winners, CBS Comedies, & More - January 15, 2009

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Gran Torino - $29.4 million. 2. Bride Wars - $21 million. 3. The Unborn - $19.8 million. 4. Marley & Me - $11.3 million. 5. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button - $9.2 million. 6. Bedtime Stories - $8.8 million. 7. Valkyrie - $6.6 million. 8. Yes Man - $6 million. 9. Not Easily Broken - $5.3 million. 10. Seven Pounds - $3.8 million.

The cast has been announced for Survivor: Tocantins - The Brazilian Highlands. Here they are: Benjamin "Coach" Wade - Soccer coach from Boliver, MO; Age 37
Brendan Synnott - Entrepreneur from New York, NY; Age 30
Candace Smith - Attorney from Dayton, OH; Age 31
Carolina Eastwood - Bartender from West Hollywood, CA; Age 26
Debra "Debbie" Beebee - Middle School Principal from Auburn, AL; Age 46
Erinn Lobdell - Hairstylist from Waukesha, WI; Age 26
Jerry Sims - Sgt. in US Army from Rock Hill, SC; Age 49
Joe Dowdle - Real Estate Sales from Austin, TX; Age 26
James "JT" Thomas Jr. - Cattle Rancher from Samson, AL; Age 24
Sandy Burgin - Bus Driver from Louisville, KY; Age 53
Sierra Reed - Model from Los Angeles, CA; Age 23
Spencer Duhm - Student from Lakeland, FL; Age 19
Stephen Fishbach - Corporate Consultant from New York, NY; Age 29
Sydney Wheeler - Model from Raleigh, NC; Age 24
Tamara "Taj" Johnson-George - Former Pop Star from Nashville, TN; Age 37
Tyson Apostol - Professional Cyclist from Lindon, UT; Age 29
The new season of Survivor premieres on February 12th at 7pm central time.

The countdown is almost over. Season five of Lost premieres this Wednesday night, January 21st, on ABC with a three hour premiere beginning at 7pm central time. Can’t wait!!!

I loved this week's How I Met Your Mother. Ted and Robin decided to go with the whole friends with benefits thing since they were having so many problems as being roommates. They figured that would solve their problem. The problem with that? You have Barney who is completely in love with Robin but can't tell her. So, he keeps having to hear about the stories of their "benefits" nights. It involved Barney going outside the bar and throwing a TV down on the ground that was in the trash. The TV disappeared at one point when the trash was gone so he went and bought one to throw down. It was really funny. They did a great sequence cutting quickly between the stories, his reaction, and the TV getting thrown. The whole concept of the episode was that friends with benefits always involves somebody getting hurt. That person was Barney. I really was feeling bad for him at the end of the episode with him being completely in love with her and unable to say anything while Ted looked on knowing what was happening with him. Great finish to the episode.

Wolowitz has feelings. That was one theme on this week's Big Bang Theory. Penny finally had all she could take of his flirting comments with her and she snapped. She basically told him that he was going to be alone for the rest of his life and it was no wonder that no woman would ever want him. It sent him into a depression and he wouldn't come out of his room including staying home from work. The guys had her apologize to him after telling her that she is nice most of the time but tends to go way over the top with her words when she gets angry. Penny apologized to him but also got the life story of every girl that had broken his heart. She did like the Wolowitz that she was seeing at that point cause he was just being himself and being real. Well, he then went to kiss her and she punched him right in the face. Wolowitz's disappearance affected the rest of the guys in their building a killer robot to win at the robot wars. However, they ended up facing another guy who built a monster robot that was complete with torching capability. Things didn't go so well for "Monte" which was the name of their robot as it ended up destroyed.

Some Heroes news. Tim Kring put out a statement saying that the plan for the fourth volume is to “start us pretty much from scratch. There is almost nothing that the audience needs to know from the previous volume in order to follow the storyline." Volume four of Heroes which is called Fugitives is set to begin on February 2nd.

There has been quite a bit of news coming out of the TCA press tour. NBC announced some news today saying that they had renewed The Office, 30 Rock, and The Biggest Loser for new seasons. ER is also going to stick around for three more episodes longer than was the plan. The show will finish on April 2nd. Fox has cancelled Prison Break.

Chevy Chase is set to guest star on three episodes of Chuck.

Burn Notice returns with new episodes on Thursday, January 22nd at 9pm central time on USA Network. This is a very fun show as I’ve seen a lot of episodes of it. I’d give it a recommendation to check it out if you haven’t seen it. Fun and smartly written show.

A follow up to last week on the Regis and Kelly – Wired 96.5 contest that they helped a fan participate in. The caller, Lora Natysyn, did in fact win the tickets based on what I’ve been able to find online. Some of the other celeb callers that they beat out included Bill Cosby, Heidi Klum, Cedric The Entertainer, and more. If you missed it, the call was done on Live With Regis and Kelly. Very fun!! Congrats to Lora on the win!!

Here are the winners of this past weekend’s Golden Globe Awards.
Best Motion Picture – Drama: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama: Kate Winslet for Revolutionary Road
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama: Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Colin Farrell for In Bruges
Best Performance by an Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture: Kate Winslet for The Reader
Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture: Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight
Best Animated Feature Film: WALL-E
Best Foreign Language Film: Waltz With Bashir
Best Director – Motion Picture: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire
Best Screenplay – Motion Picture: Slumdog Millionaire written by Simon Beaufoy.
Best Orignal Score: Slumdog Millionaire composed by A.R. Rahman
Best Original Song – Motion Picture: The Wrestler from The Wrestler by Bruce Springsteen
Best Television Series – Drama: Mad Men
Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Drama: Anna Paquin for True Blood.
Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series – Drama: Gabriel Byrne for In Treatment.
Best Television Series – Musical Or Comedy: 30 Rock
Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series – Musical Or Comedy: Tina Fey for 30 Rock
Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series – Musical Or Comedy: Alec Baldwin for 30 Rock.
Best Mini-Series Or Motion Picture Made For Television: John Adams (HBO)
Best Performance By An Actress In A Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made For Television: Laura Linney for John Adams
Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made For Television: Paul Giamatti for John Adams
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made For Television: Laura Dern for Recount
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture for Television: Tom Wilkinson for John Adams.

If you’ve been watching Friday Night Lights on DirecTV, season three is over for you. However, NBC premieres season three tomorrow night, January 16th. I’ve never seen the show but I tend to think that I would like it if I watched it. I hear really good things about it.

This week's 90210 continued the fallout of the life changing news that Adrianna got last week. She confided in Naomi but she didn't know that Naomi had spread rumors about her using drugs again. That wasn't true of course and Naomi later apologized especially after knowing the major issue that Adrianna was dealing with. Things didn't go so well with Navid when she revealed to him about her news. He had been thrilled with their relationship up to that point but broke it off after hearing the news. Annie and Ethan had a rendezvous up at Annie's grandmother's house. Things didn't go as planned for Annie though and her parents showed up anyway upon learning about where Annie was. Dixon and Silver's relationship is starting to show some cracks. Dixon was puzzled over Silver's behavior towards him so I'm wondering what is going on with that whole storyline.

American Idol debuted with lower ratings than last season. The season premiere opened with 30 million viewers but was said to be down 10% from last season. However, the show did better last night on its Wednesday airing averaging 29.8 million viewers. That held just about even with last year’s second episode. Those are still great numbers OBVIOUSLY!!

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, January 20th. Criss Angel Mindfreak (Season Four), Emergency! (Season Five), Jonathan Creek (Season Three), MonsterQuest (Season Two), Moonlight (Full Series), My Three Sons (Season One – Volume Two), The Rockford Files (Season Six), This American Life (Season Two – Only available at Borders).

TV Line Of The Week: From The Big Bang Theory. Penny talking to the guys after their robot that they built for battle destroyed their door and almost ran over Penny in the process.
“The killer robot. We built it.” - Leonard
“Yeah. Well, it almost killed me.” – Penny
“Believe me. If it wanted to, you’d be dead.” – Sheldon

You Tube Video Of The Week: Chad Vader goes turkey bowling.

American Idol Season Eight Premieres - January 15, 2009

talent show
Season eight of American Idol is underway. Fun first couple of episodes this week. Each of them ran for two hours a piece. Kara Dioguardi made her TV debut as the fourth judge. I was really happy with her. She added a lot to the judging and has had a very successful music career as a singer/songwriter. What I like about Kara is the way that she handles herself on there. She knows what she is talking about and will get her point across. However, she doesn’t get mean. She stays nice unless she gets provoked which did happen in a clip that has been played a lot this week. She gets a major thumbs up from me. She’s a great addition to American Idol. Was I the only one that thought she and Katharine McPhee look a lot alike? There were good singers with one being a major front runner already. I guess I should point out what I feel about the audition episodes. I’ve said over and over that I am not a fan of the bad auditions like a lot of people. I just feel bad for the people especially if they are treated badly. The audtion episodes for me are looking at these good singers and trying to figure out who I’m going to cheer on in the competition. I had several that I liked this week. I guess I’ll just go from episode to episode.

Tuesday night saw the girls doing better than the guys. The episode showed the auditions from Phoenix. I did my tally like I did last year of good, bad, and middle singers and how many they showed of each. It should be pointed out on how I rank them. If their name gets shown on TV, I count them as one. A montage of singers gets counted as one as long as they don’t show names of contestants. I had a count of ten good singers, twelve bad singers including two montages, and two middle ground singers where they weren’t good or bad. The highlight of the show was Scott Macintyre. He was the guy that was born nearly completely blind. He can see a little but compared his vision to like looking through a straw. He had a very good voice and it was great to see him do well. One of my favorites so far was Arianna Afsar. She is sixteen and talked of being a part of adopt a grand-friend. She just came off very likable and the judges really liked her. Cody Sheldon had a nice surprise voice that surprised the judges after learning of how he was a horror movie fanatic. It didn’t take long for a rocker girl to get the stage as Emily Hughes made it on through singing a Heart song. Funny story with her saying that she was the lead singer of a band who didn’t know that she was there. She said that if she made it through that her band wouldn’t be able to go on their scheduled European tour. She wanted to do a Daughtry type deal if she got far enough on Idol bringing her band with her on her career. 27 total golden tickets were given out from Phoenix.

That gets us to Wednesday’s episode with the auditions from Kansas City, MO. This episode had the guys outperforming the girls. My tally in this one was twelve good auditions, thirteen bad auditions including one montage, and three middle ground auditions. This episode felt even on the types of auditions. My favorites on this episode included Jessica Furney, Danny Gokey, and Asa Barnes. Jessica’s story was that she lived with her 93 year old grandmother. Good voice and likable girl. One of my favorites so far. Danny Gokey had a very heart touching story. His wife had just passed away four weeks before the auditions due to a heart condition. He went on to audition and dedicated it to her. This was one of those stories where you just begged for him to have a good voice and he had a very good voice. Easily through to the next round. Asa was the band director and was a lot of fun. Judges enjoyed him. I liked Andrew Lang which was the guy who brought the cheerleading squad with him. I thought it was a clever gimmick. He had a good enough voice to get him through to Hollywood at least. He didn’t make it which I didn’t agree with cause they said he was too theatre sounding. He did have a theatre sounding voice mostly but I just think he at least was good enough to get to Hollywood. The rapping sisters were a lot of fun. One of them got through while the other didn’t. What was great to see was just how supportive that the sister that didn’t get through was of the other one that did. Jason Castro made an appearance on this episode supporting his brother, Michael, who tried out. Jason said that he had never heard his brother actually sing “for real”. How alike are they? Well, they have the same interview skills. Ha ha. Michael said that he actually started singing 20 days before the audition thinking that if Jason could sing, then he could as well. Michael did get through and did well. One nice surprise was Von Smith. His voice blew away the judges. It is always fun when you get surprised with how good of a voice that someone has. The one getting the most attention from the judges closed out the show and that was Lil Rounds. She had a sad story of how her family had been recovering from a tornado. She had a powerhouse of a voice and got rave reviews from the judges including Kara and Randy saying that she was the best so far. Randy said that she was a combination of Mary J. Blige and Fantasia. She will be a front runner in this competition for sure. 26 people got their ticket to Hollywood in Kansas City.

Some random notes from Idol this week. It is never a good sign for you as a contestant when Simon starts his point with “you know what it reminded me of?”. That is rarely ever going to be followed by anything good. It appears that a tie vote means that you get to go on to Hollywood as we’ve seen a few ties.

The Dark Knight Review - January 15, 2009

I finally saw The Dark Knight. I have wanted to see it forever but I’m honestly bad about taking time to watch movies cause I have so many TV shows that I watch. What an incredible movie!! Lots of great action, acting, and story twists. I thought Christian Bale did great as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman Begins and it carried over into The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger was INCREDIBLE as The Joker. I was big time impressed with his acting just in his first scene in the movie. I liked Maggie Gylenhal in taking over the role of Rachel Dawes from Katie Holmes. This movie also saw the addition of Harvey Dent. I thought that added a ton to the story of this movie especially with how that character expands. This portayal of The Joker was a much darker version than we’ve seen in the other Batman movies. It definitely worked as we saw the more darker side that the character has in him. The theme of the movie is definitely the clashing of rules between Batman and The Joker. Batman has one rule and that is to not kill. The Joker on the other hand just doesn’t care. He has no rules. The Joker will do whatever he has to do and won’t be bargained with. This movie sees that battle go on with how do you take on a guy that just does not care and knows what your rule is. I’m not going to go into spoilers obviously for anyone that hasn’t seen it yet but there are a LOT of good storyline twists in this movie that really surprised me. The movie runs two and a half hours in length but it flies by for sure. Highly recommend this movie!! I loved it!!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

The Entertainment Wrap Up - January 8, 2009 - People's Choice Winners, GAC Top 50, 90210, Idol, & More

Hey, I finally saw The Dark Knight. So, those of you that have been giving me grief about how I’ve still yet to see it can now get off of my back. Ha ha!! Loved the movie!!! I’ll talk about it more next week when I have more time to discuss it.

Don’t forget that Smallville returns with new episodes one week from tonight. Thursday, January 15th on The CW. Where are things going to go after that incredible wedding episode?

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Marley & Me - $24.2 million. 2. Bedtime Stories - $20.5 million. 3. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button - $18.6 million. 4. Valkyrie - $14 million. 5. Yes Man - $13.9 million. 6. Seven Pounds - $10 million. 7. The Tale Of Despereaux - $6.9 million. 8. The Day The Earth Stood Still - $5.04 million. 9. Doubt - $5 million. 10. Slumdog Millionaire - $4.6 million.

Here is a continuation from last week as I was naming the top music video countdowns for 2008. GAC had yet to finish their countdown so I waited for this week. Fans voted on the top 50 videos. Taylor Swift hosted the countdown and was joined by different guests throughout including Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, Lady Antebellum, and Miley Cyrus. It was a very fun countdown to watch. Yeah, I like a TON of songs that were on this countdown.
1. Trace Adkins - "You’re Gonna Miss This"
2. Carrie Underwood - "Just A Dream"
3. Trace Adkins - "Muddy Water"
4. Carrie Underwood - "All-American Girl"
5. Taylor Swift - "Love Story"
6. Alan Jackson - "Good Time"
7. Kellie Pickler - "Don't You Know You're Beautiful"
8. Carrie Underwood - "Last Name"
9. Alan Jackson - "Small Town Southern Man"
10. Brad Paisley - "Waitin' On A Woman"
11. Lady Antebellum - "Lookin' For A Good Time"
12. Sugarland - "All I Want To Do"
13. Miranda Lambert - "Gunpowder and Lead"
14. George Strait - "Troubadour"
15. Reba McEntire - "Every Other Weekend"
16. Keith Urban - "You Look Good In My Shirt"
17. Taylor Swift - "Should've Said No"
18. Blake Shelton - "Home"
19. Kenny Chesney - "Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven"
20. Taylor Swift - "Picture To Burn"
21. Little Big Town - "Fine Line"
22. Darius Rucker - "Don't Think I Don't Think About It"
23. Carrie Underwood - "How Great Thou Art"
24. Billy Currington - "Don't"
25. Toby Keith - "God Love Her"
26. Sugarland - "Already Gone"
27. Blake Shelton - "She Wouldn't Be Gone"
28. Alison Krauss & Robert Plant - "Gone, Gone, Gone"
29. Julianne Hough - "That Song In My Head"
30. Billy Ray Cyrus - "Somebody Said A Prayer"
31. Taylor Swift - "I'm Only Me When I'm With You"
32. Lady Antebellum - "Love Don't Live Here"
33. Jimmy Wayne - "Do You Believe Me Now"
34. Kenny Chesney - "Shiftwork"
35. Ashton Shepherd - "Sounds So Good"
36. Keith Urban - "Everybody"
37. Alison Krauss & Robert Plant - "Please Read The Letter"
38. Heidi Newfield - "Johnny and June"
39. Miranda Lambert - "More Like Her"
40. Zac Brown Band - "Chicken Fried"
41. Keith Anderson - "I Still Miss You"
42. Luke Bryan - "Country Man"
43. Billy Ray Cyrus - "Real Gone"
44. James Otto - "Just Got Started Lovin' You"
45. Brad Paisley - "Letter To Me"
46. Trisha Yearwood - "This Is Me You're Talking To"
47. Rascal Flatts - "Every Day"
48. Gary Allan - "Learning How To Bend"
49. Ashton Shepherd - "Takin' Off This Pain"
50. Brad Paisley - "I'm Still A Guy"

The People's Choice Awards were held last night. I had my banners up on the site supporting some of my favorites to win. Here are the winners for the 2009 People's Choice Awards.
Favorite Movie: The Dark Knight
Favorite Comedy Movie: 27 Dresses
Favorite Movie Drama: The Secret Life Of Bees
Favorite Family Movie: WALL-E
Favorite Independent Movie: The Secret Life Of Bees
Favorite Action Movie: The Dark Knight
Favorite Cast: The Dark Knight
Favorite On Screen Match Up: Christian Bale & Heath Ledger from The Dark Knight
Favorite Male Movie Star: Will Smith
Favorite Female Movie Star: Reese Witherspoon
Favorite Male Action Star: Will Smith
Favorite Female Action Star: Angelina Jolie
Favorite Leading Man: Brad Pitt
Favorite Leading Lady: Kate Hudson
Favorite Superhero: Christian Bale as Batman and Bruce Wayne
Favorite TV Drama: House
Favorite TV Comedy: Two and a Half Men
Favorite New TV Drama: The Mentalist
Favorite New TV Comedy: Gary Unmarried
Favorite Animated Comedy: The Simpsons
Favorite Sci Fi/Fantasy Show: Heroes
Favorite Competition/Reality Show: Dancing With The Stars
Favorite Game Show: Deal Or No Deal
Favorite Male TV Star: Hugh Laurie
Favorite Female TV Star: Christina Applegate
Favorite Talk Show Host: Ellen DeGeneres
Favorite Scene Stealing Guest Star: Robin Williams for his appearance on Law & Order: SVU
Favorite TV Drama Diva: Kyra Sedgwick for The Closer
Favorite Male Singer: Chris Brown
Favorite Female Singer: Carrie Underwood
Favorite Group: Rascal Flatts
Favorite Combined Forces: "No Air" by Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown
Favorite Hip-Hop Song: "Low" by Flo Rida with T-Pain
Favorite Rock Song: "All Summer Long" by Kid Rock
Favorite Country Song: "Last Name" by Carrie Underwood
Favorite R&B Song: "No One" by Alicia Keys
Favorite Pop Song: "I Kissed A Girl" by Katy Perry
Favorite Song From A Soundtrack: "Mamma Mia" by Meryl Streep from Mamma Mia
Favorite Funny Male Star: Adam Sandler
Favorite Funny Female Star: Tina Fey
Favorite User Generated Video: Barack Roll
Favorite Online Sensation: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Favorite Star Under 35: Carrie Underwood

Live With Regis and Kelly returned from their hiatus due to the holidays on Monday going high definition. The show now features a new opening, new theme song, and new graphics. It gets a big thumbs up from me. I love the new opening as it looks really cool. Regis and Kelly were hilarious this morning as they tried to help a fan win a contest. The radio contest is "Who Do You Know"and is hosted by Wired 96.5. The winner gets tickets to the Philadelphia/New York NFL playoff game. The way to win is for listeners to basically recruit famous people to call in to the station and they have to say what person that they are calling in for. One Regis and Kelly viewer sent the show a message asking them to place the call to the radio station. What resulted was the listener, the morning radio host, and Regis and Kelly having a very fun conversation on this morning’s show. Who else has called into the station as part of the contest? Well, Bill Cosby for one. Hey, Regis and Kelly put it all on the air though!! Really fun contest and I'll be interested to see who wins.

If you're a 24 fan, this isn't going to be news to you. The long awaited season premiere of 24 is this Sunday at 7pm central time on Fox. This is a show that I really need to get into. I watched the first episode on Hulu and liked it but quit watching because there were only five episodes available on the site. Just in one episode, I can definitely see why this show is so loved.

Scrubs did very well with its ABC debut. The show was said to have averaged 6.7 million viewers. The number of viewers was up significantly from when it left NBC.

90210 returned this week with plenty of storyline twists. I thought we were going to get a pregnancy twist but I thought it would be Brenda ending up pregnant after sleeping with Ryan. Instead, we found out that Adriana was the one pregnant. Brenda’s news was that she found out that she will be unable to have kids. Kelly and Brenda stood by Adriana with her recovery and it ended up reconciling Kelly and Brenda especially with Kelly learning of Brenda’s news. Brenda did say that she is wanting to adopt. However, it looks like Adrianna’s comeback may not last long based on the previews for next week. The other big story of the show was Sean, the son of Harry’s. Well, except that he turned out to not be the son after Annie and Debbie got suspicious. Sean had revealed to the family how he was in trouble and needed a TON of money to fix it. Harry said that he’d help out with the money trouble. Annie and Debbie started putting some things together that didn’t make sense and talked Harry into asking Sean to take a paternity test. Sean agreed but was gone the next morning. Not before scamming and getting a ton of money out of Naomi’s mom. Of course, Naomi blamed everything on Annie again. The whole storyline with the son was wrapped up a LOT faster than I expected. I figured that we'd see that story play out over at least a couple of more episodes. Instead, it was wrapped in one unless there is more to come about it. I guess we still have to figure out what the private investigator was doing working with Sean. I also enjoyed the story of Dixon attending the party given by the cheerleader.

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment sent out a press release telling that season one and two of Lost will be released on Blu-ray. No word on when but likely sometime this year.

I saw a movie on the other night which had Will Estes in it. All I could think when I saw him was, wow, I miss American Dreams so much. That was one of the best produced shows that I have ever seen in my life.

Someone get Kristen Bell back on my TV. I’m having withdrawals. Ok, I’m going to run and get my Veronica Mars DVD to watch. Ha ha.

American Idol returns for season eight on Tuesday night, January 13th on Fox. It will be interesting to see how the show is this year. They’ve tweaked it up a bit adding another judge and changing some of the format. One great thing is that there is talk that the show will return more focus to Hollywood week. I’m glad to hear that cause I’ve complained about that a lot in recent years. That was often where we would learn more about the singers and begin to pull for our favorites. Recent years has had Hollywood week trimmed down to almost non-existent and I think it hurt the show. It also has felt like we don’t know much about the singers anymore as far as their personalities. The show used to be so good at that with letting us learn about their personalities along with hearing what they have vocal wise. American Idol hasn’t been as exciting for me in the last couple of years and I’m waiting to see if this season pulls me back in.

I got this information sent to me for all of you Man vs. Wild fans looking for some new episodes to watch: "MAN VS. WILD returns Monday, January 12 at 10PM ET/PT with all-new episodes that push adventurer Bear Grylls to the limit, as he navigates through some of the most extreme and challenging conditions he’s faced yet. Shot entirely in high-definition, the new episodes take Grylls to Transylvania, Turkey, Belize, the Yukon Peninsula, and through the Badlands of Oregon, before heading to the Dominican Republic during hurricane season. The ultimate adventure expert, Grylls uses his vast knowledge and survival expertise - which are tried and tested throughout these episodes - to show viewers how to get out of each location alive. The new episodes continue the hit Discovery Channel series’ third season, which began last August."

Super Mario Brothers is no longer the best selling video game ever. The new top seller is Wii Sports. It actually has apparently outsold it by 40 million as well. Wii Sports has been wildly popular across the world. Many people use it as a way to exercise and I've actually seen that nursing homes are using the game as well for people there to play.

I was watching some Back To The Future stuff last week and found some clips where they take you on location to where many of the scenes in the trilogy were done. It really was fun to watch and see how much the area has changed over the years. Twin Pines Mall has obviously seen many changes since then. I know for sure that if I ever were out in that area, I would have to go and see all the locations of where the movie was shot. I would be one of those fans printing out addresses of movie locations to check out for nostalgias sake.

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, January 13. Dallas (Season Ten), Man vs. Wild (Season Two), Matlock (Season Two), Reba (Season Five), 'Til Death (Season Two), Walker Texas Ranger (Season Six).

TV Line Of The Week: From this morning’s Live With Regis and Kelly.
“I bet we lost by two votes, you and I, cause we don’t know how to use a computer”. - Kelly to Regis about their loss to Ellen in the People’s Choice Awards. Funny stuff. They often laugh about how they are happy to be computer free.

You Tube Video Of The Week: Charles Barkley gets shoes thrown at him. The look on Barkley’s face is priceless!!


Have a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

The Entertainment Wrap Up - January 1, 2009 - Looking Back At 2008

Happy new year everyone!! I want to start off by wishing all of you a great and happy 2009!! 2008 was a fun year for me and the Wrap Up. I want to thank each and every one of you for reading the Wrap Up through 2008. I’ve reviewed several live events including meeting Allison Mack at the Superman Celebration, meeting the Roloff family (except for Matt) from Little People Big World. I’ve done a couple of Wrap Up Q&A's. One with Dominique Moceanu and the other with Whitney Duncan. I got to review the Whitney and Gloriana concert which was very good. Just a fun year in doing stuff for the Wrap Up and I hope that 2009 is even more fun. If you’ve missed any of this stuff, here are the links to check them out:
Wrap Up Q&A With Dominique Moceanu:
http://entertainmentwrapup.blogspot.com/2008/08/entertainment-wrap-up-august-15-2008.html

Wrap Up Q&A With Whitney Duncan:
http://entertainmentwrapup.blogspot.com/2008/11/wrap-up-q-with-whitney-duncan-november.html

Live Event Recaps:
Whitney Duncan and Gloriana at West Kentucky Community and Technical College (WKCTC) in Paducah, KY:
http://entertainmentwrapup.blogspot.com/2008/11/whitney-duncangloriana-at-wkctc-in.html

Little People Big World Event In Metropolis, IL:
http://entertainmentwrapup.blogspot.com/2008/07/entertainment-wrap-up-july-7-2008.html

Superman Celebration 2008 with Allison Mack, Ned Beatty, and Noel Neill:
http://entertainmentwrapup.blogspot.com/2008/06/entertainment-wrap-up-june-14-2008.html

Even though I didn’t attend Comic-Con, the power of fans and You Tube made me able to recap it based on the full videos of the show’s Q&A panels that popped up online. So, here is my recap of some of the happenings at Comic-Con: http://entertainmentwrapup.blogspot.com/2008/08/entertainment-wrap-up-july-31-2008.html

Revelers Bring In The New Year In Times Square
I checked out Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve as usual. I was out and about so I didn’t see it live but the TIVO got it for me. It isn’t New Year’s in Times Square without Dick Clark and I’m so thrilled to see him still on the show. It really is a good combination of him and Ryan Seacrest. Kellie Pickler was out on the street interviewing people. She is a great personality to have do that. Fergie did the hosting duties for the recorded portion of the show. Performers on New Year’s Rockin’ Eve included Taylor Swift, The Jonas Brothers, will.i.am, Lionel Richie, NE-YO, Jesse McCartney, Natasha Bedingfield, Robin Thicke, and more. Frigid temperatures there in New York. The temperature was around 19 degrees while the wind chill had the temperature down around 0 degrees. The Clintons helped out with starting the one minute countdown with the ball dropping. There really isn’t anything like seeing the ball drop there in Times Square and I’m just talking about seeing it on TV. I can’t even imagine what it must be like in person. It looks like a good time was had by all in Times Square as they welcomed in 2009.

I’ve been watching some of the extras on the season four DVD of Lost. If you haven’t seen them, definitely watch them. They are excellently produced. I was so amazed at the featurette about the sets. They showed how they go about picking out locations in Hawaii and turning them into other countries to matchup with their stories. I would never have guessed that some of those scenes were actually shot in Hawaii. Just incredible. The blooper reel is a lot of fun. There is also a very fun featurette on the guns on Lost. They talk of how hard it was at first to keep track of who had guns and how they got them. They counted on one guy to literally keep track of the characters history of having guns. They do a fun little timeline about how the guns were switched around over the first few seasons. Speaking of timelines, there is an eight minute segment that is a very quick review of Lost all the way up to to season four. It is fun and had me cracking up with the wording at times. I haven’t gotten to listen to any commentaries yet. If you have the box set, give the extras a watch cause they are definitely worth it.

Since I didn’t do a Wrap Up last week, I’ve included the last two weekends of box office numbers.
Movie box office numbers for the weekend of December 19-21. 1. Yes Man - $18.2 million. 2. Seven Pounds - $14.8 million. 3. The Tale Of Despereaux - $10.1 million. 4. The Day The Earth Stood Still - $9.8 million. 5. Four Christmases - $7.7 million. 6. Twilight - $5.1 million. 7. Bolt - $4.1 million. 8. Slumdog Millionaire - $3 million. 9. Australia - $2.1 million. 10. Quantum Of Solace - $2 million.
Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Marley and Me - $37 million. 2. Bedtime Stories - $28 million. 3. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button - $8 million. 4. Valkyrie - $21 million. 5. Four Christmases - $16.5 million. 6. Seven Pounds - $13.4 million. 7. The Tale Of Despereaux - $9 million. 8. The Day The Earth Stood Still - $7.4 million. 9. The Spirit - $6.5 million. 10. Doubt - $5.7 million.

I haven’t seen Marley and Me but one of my friends gave it a big thumbs up. I take his opinions on movies and shows very seriously so it sounds like it is definitely worth watching.

Several movies have been added to the list of movies of the National Film Registry in the Library Of Congress. The movies added include The Terminator, Hallelujah, In Cold Blood, and Deliverance.

If you just recently got hooked on How I Met Your Mother and would like to see some of the older episodes, you have another option besides DVD. How I Met Your Mother is going to begin airing on Lifetime on Monday, January 5th at 6pm central time. I love this show and thought that the first season was incredible.

90210 returns on Tuesday night with new episodes.

When watching TV on New Year’s Eve, my thought after just a few minutes was that I’ll be glad when Time Warner and Bright House get their dispute over a new agreement settled with the Viacom channels so I don’t have to keep watching that crawl at the bottom of the screen. I read the story on Tuesday about what was going on and then the next morning, the crawl was there about the situation on every Viacom channel. Viacom was apparently asking for more money from the cable systems which they didn’t want to give them. Viacom and Time Warner worked out a last minute deal to keep the channels on the air on Time Warner systems.

This has been a wild year in the entertainment world. 2008 will probably be most remembered for the writers strike that shut down Hollywood for many months. Thankfully, it finally came to a conclusion but it sure wasn’t pretty in getting there. TV was effected forcing many shows to have shorter seasons with some coming back to finish the season while others just said forget it and returned in the fall. The writers strike effect did bring us one good thing and that was….Dr. Horrible. Late night TV returned during the strike causing some to be happy while others were angered. This gave us the Conan strike beard. The Olympics of 2008 brought in huge audiences. I, like everyone else, was glued to the Olympics night after night. Swimming got the most attention obviously with Michael Phelps doing what he was doing. He had an incredible run. Gymnastics also drew a lot of attention as it normally does. Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson finished in gold and silver positions in the individual all around. Liukin’s win provided the US with back to back individual all around gold medal winners as she followed Carly Patterson from 2004. May and Walsh continued to dominate in volleyball. The US basketball Redeem Team got the US back into gold. I still am happy that I stayed up until 4am or so and watched that incredible gold medal game live as it happened. What a game!! The Dark Knight set all kinds of movie box office records becoming the second highest ever grossing movie. It also featured the last performance of Heath Ledger after he sadly passed away in January. This was also the year that Tim Russert passed away shockingly. The 2008 Election just wasn’t the same without him involved in it. One of the most complimentary things that I read about Russert’s interviews was how many politicians were afraid to be questioned by him cause he asked such tough questions. However, you gained a huge amount of respect if you were able to hang in there and look strong. I thought that was a great compliment to him. As far as what I’ve liked in the entertainment world. This was the year that I got into Lost. I had planned on giving it a try for a long time now. I was looking for a show to watch over the summer since there wasn’t anything new to watch with most stuff being reruns. I got through the four seasons in a short amount of time. It is one of the most addicting shows that I’ve ever watched. I can’t tell you how many times I would sit down to watch and plan on just seeing a couple of episodes. Then, I would realize that I had just watched about eight episodes. I don’t know how you people did it with just getting one episode a week . I had the advantage of just being able to go right to the next episode. The Big Bang Theory has become my favorite comedy. I became obsessed with the Discovery Channel series, Storm Chasers which is just amazing to watch. 2008 was a big year for remakes as well and it sounds like 2009 might be even bigger for that. 90210 was remade on The CW which is in turn going to lead to the resurrection of Melrose Place. It will be interesting to see if 2009 sees this become the trend even more.

My favorite actor and actress for 2008? Well, neither will be much of a surprise. David Boreanaz and Kristen Bell. Both are incredible actors!!

Entertainment Weekly has paired up with the cast of How I Met Your Mother to recreate some of the images of 2008. Fun pictures.
http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20162677_20164091_20247449,00.html

What a game on Christmas night between the Lakers and Celtics!! I was glued to it. Seeing this rivalry back to great heights in the NBA has been great. I loved that the teams met in the 2008 Finals. This game on Christmas night felt like a NBA Finals game as well. LA had the date marked on their calendar for a long time wanting revenge for the Finals loss. Then, you had Boston riding a 19 game winning streak into that night. LA did prevail on Christmas night. These two teams definitely bring the best out of each other. I was pulling for the Lakers in that game for one reason. The Celtics are starting off hot and the comparisons are already being made to the 95-96 Bulls team. I’m a Bulls fan so I don’t want them anywhere near that 72 win season. Ha ha. Seeing the Celtics win the championship in 2008 was a cool moment after so many years of struggling to win. Paul Pierce stepped his game up to a whole different level. Kevin Garnett finally got his ring. Garnett is one of my favorite players in the NBA cause that guy just wants to win. He plays so hard. The Lakers and Celtics rivalry in 2008 definitely made for some fun NBA TV viewing. I look forward to their second matchup of the season in Boston.

The yearly music sales numbers have been released and nothing really surprising to tell. People continue to buy their music digitally instead of actually buying physical CD’s. There was a 20% drop from physical album sales from a year ago. Digital tracks were up 27% from last year. Overall, album sales were down 8.5% from last year. There continues to be trouble for the music industry where people are buying more tracks instead of full albums. Taylor Swift sold the most albums this year with 4 million including her new album and first album. Behind her was AC/DC, Lil Wayne, and Coldplay. The best selling singer as far as digital sales goes to Rihanna who had 9.94 million tracks sold. The top selling album of the year was Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III (2.87 million) followed by Coldplay’s Viva La Vida (2.14 million) and Taylor Swift’s Fearless (2.11 million. Buying music digitally though is taking over the industry. I’m a fan of both that and physical albums. I like to buy songs digitally but if I’m a fan of an artist, I like to physically have the album in my hands.

With it being the end of the year, the music video countdowns are showing up showcasing the best of the year. Here are some of the Best of 2008 video countdown listings.
Here is CMT’s Top 20 of 2008 countdown listings.
1. Carrie Underwood - Just A Dream
2. Sugarland – All I Want To Do
3. Kenny Chesney – Shiftwork
4. Trace Adkins – You’re Gonna Miss This
5. Taylor Swift – Picture To Burn
6. James Otto – Just Got Started Lovin’ You
7. Alan Jackson – Small Town Southern Man
8. Brad Paisley – Letter To Me
9. Kid Rock – All Summer Long
10. George Strait – Troubadour
11. Carrie Underwood – All American Girl
12. Taylor Swift – Love Story
13. Billy Ray Cyrus – Ready, Set, Don’t Go
14. Rascal Flatts – Every Day
15. Kenny Chesney – Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven
16. Darius Rucker – Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It
17. Craig Morgan – International Harvester
18. Alan Jackson – Good Time
19. Blake Shelton – Home
20. Keith Urban – You Look Good In My Shirt

Here is VH-1’s Top 40 videos for 2008
1. Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
2. Kid Rock - All Summer Long
3. Pink - So What
4. Jason Mraz - I’m Yours
5. Rihanna - Take A Bow
6. Daughtry - Feels Like Tonight
7. Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl
8. Coldplay - Viva La Vida
9. Beyonce - If I Were A Boy
10. 3 Doors Down - It’s Not My Time
11. Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful Of Sunshine
12. OneRepublic - Stop and Stare
13. Britney Spears - Womanizer
14. Buckcherry - Sorry
15. Sara Bareilles - Love Song
16. Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown - No Air
17. Christina Aguilera - Keeps Getting Better
18. O.A.R. - Shattered
19. Duffy - Mercy
20. Mariah Carey - Touch My Body
21. Gavin DeGraw - In Love With A Girl
22. Leona Lewis - Better In Time
23. David Archuleta - Crush
24. Gavin Rossdale - Love Remains The Same
25. NE-YO - Closer
26. Adele - Chasing Pavements
27. Rihanna - Disturbia
28. David Cook - Light On
29. Lifehouse - Broken
30. Estelle and Kanye West - American Boy
31. Maroon 5 - Won’t Go Home Without You
32. Secondhand Serenade - Fall For You
33. Madonna with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland - 4 Minutes
34. Matt Nathanson - Come On Get Higher
35. New Kids On The Block with NE-YO - Single
36. John Legend with Andre 3000 - Green Light
37. Linkin Park - Shadow Of The Day
38. All-American Rejects - Gives You H***
39. Mary J. Blige - Just Fine
40. Weezer - Pork and Beans

The spinoff of The Hills that follows Whitney’s move to New York has premiered on MTV. The City has aired its first two episodes. I like what I’ve seen so far. If you like The Hills, you’ll probably like this show as well. I’ve always found Whitney to be extremely likable so I think this will be a fun show. Whitney’s move to New York so far has seen her nervous on who to trust and what to believe from people as she learns her new surroundings. She already has two guys battling for her attention as well. The City airs in the normal Hills timeslot on Monday nights on MTV.

I ended up watching Back To The Future this week for probably the 5,000th time. It’s amazing how I will always sit and watch that movie if I see it on. Well, I may not actually watch the whole thing but I’ll at least watch a bit of it or leave it on in the background. I’ve also found myself continuing to watch Gremlins 1 and 2 in their repeat airings this week on AMC. Classic movies.

I laugh at the War Of Warcraft commercial about every time that I see it. I’m talking about the Ozzy Osbourne commercial where he says that he is the only Prince Of Darkness. Then, we see the two encounter each other on the game with Ozzy screaming for Sharon. Funny stuff.

The Guild has returned for its second season online. I reviewed this during the first season and have really enjoyed it. This online series is about a group of online video gamers and stars Felicia Day of Buffy/Dr. Horrible fame. She also does the writing for it as well. The Guild has won awards on You Tube, Yahoo, and SXSW and has over 9 million views on You Tube. Season two has premiered and here is a link to the first episode of season two which is over on MSN video. http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0184e453-8782-4412-a0a0-8899325f629d&showPlaylist=true&from=customplayer_en-us_xbox_watchtheguild&fg=cp_en-us_Xbox_Channel_TheGuild
To learn more about The Guild, head over to their website at: http://www.watchtheguild.com/

I’ll get this week’s and next week’s TV on DVD releases in this Wrap Up. Released this week were: 10 Items Or Less (Seasons One & Two), Kyle XY (Season Two), Nip/Tuck (Season Five – Part One), The Secret Life Of The American Teenager (Season One).
Here are the releases for Tuesday, January 6th. Battlestar Gallactica (Season 4.0), Duckman (Season Three & Four), Transformers: Animated (Season Two), The Tudors (Season Two), The Waltons (Season Eight).

TV Line Of The Week: From Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
“This isn’t New Year’s for little sissies, I’ll tell you that.” - Kellie Pickler on New Year’s Rockin’ Eve talking about the dedication of the people out on the street who got their spots early despite the frigid temperatures. That line cracked me up.

You Tube Video Of The Week: One Year Passes In 40 Seconds. What a cool video!!

That is it for the first Wrap Up of 2009. Wishing all of you a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!

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