2008 Review

This has been a great year for movies. In my mind, I will remember this year when the movie industry tried many different ideas. For example, earlier this year they released Cloverfield, a movie about a giant monster that attacks New York, and the whole movie is taken from a camcorder. I thought the idea was cleaver, and hope that they don’t overdo it.

Many other great movies came out this year. We got Vantage Point, a movie where we see one incident from many different points of view. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I recommend you check it out. Also, there was 21, a movie about a group of university students going to Las Vegas to count cards. You want a kung fu movie, well they provided one, The Forbidden Kingdom, a really good movie that I think is worth checking out. There was a little something for everyone.

The summer provided many great hits that will be remembered for a long time. First of all, a lot of them are hits that you wouldn’t expect. Iron Man was one movie that before the summer started, I wasn’t hyped to see it, but when I saw it, I was completely blown away. Indiana Jones made his comeback after nearly 20 years, and he was on a pretty solid adventure this time. I was impressed.

Other movies that I was really impressed with were Wall-E and The Dark Knight. Wall-E had to do with a robot left on Earth to clean up the mess, but ends up going into space when he falls in love with a robot that comes to earth. It is one movie that must be watched.

The most hyped movie this year was The Dark Knight, and it was for many reasons. It became the number one movie this year at the box office, and also became the number 2 movie in the box office of all time. Amazing, and that is the best way to describe the movie. Of course there were many great movies as well this summer, like Kung Fu Panda, The Incredible Hulk, Hancock, Get Smart, and the list goes on.

The fall and winter provided with many more great movies. Eagle Eye, Madagascar 2, Quantum of Solace, Valkyrie, Transporter 3, and much more.

The home entertainment industry made some pretty awesome advancements. The iTunes store began to carry more movies, and allowed the rent feature.

Also, we finally saw a winner in the high definition format war. Two formats were battling for the top prize, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. An end to the format war was in sight at the beginning of the year when Warner Bros. announced that in June it would be dropping support on HD-DVD and only support Blu-Ray. The war officially ended when Toshiba announced it would stop producing HD-DVD. I have seen both formats and they are both good, but I think that Blu-Ray always had the edge. The good part with there only being one high definition format on the market is that there is no more confusion. Now, when you are ready to upgrade your home entertainment center to HD, then just get a Blu-Ray player, it’s that easy, and many companies are starting to take full advantage of the Blu-Ray format. I have fully dived into the Blu-Ray format now, and it is incredible what it can do.

Yes, there were many challenges that took place in 2008, mainly with the economy. However, we have seen many great things take place this year as well.

2009 should be a great year. It is already shaping up to be one.

Speaking of this year, on March 24, Quantum of Solace will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray. Another to add on the schedule.