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

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!!