Goodbye to 2008

Well, 2008 is set to soon fade to black. It's been quite a year all the way around, from economic disasters to the groundbreaking presidential election of 2008.

Here on the blog and in JKM-Land, it's been a banner year. There were almost a hundred more posts on this blog in 2008 than there were in 2007 (a leap from 237 posts to over 331).

And once again, the blog's traffic has expanded significantly (by well over 5,000 readers), making 2008 the biggest year here yet. We also crossed the 1,200 point in number of total posts overall.

The biggest quarters here were the first (when my web series, The House Between aired a second, much-watched, award-nominated season), the third, which featured my attention-grabbing review of X-Files I Want to Believe, and the fourth. For some reason, June was a low month.

The blog also received a much-needed design upgrade in the fourth quarter, making it look a bit more color-coordinated, not to mention user-friendly.

In terms of movies, I feel like overall that 2008 was a pretty good year for the genre. I loved Wall-E, Quantum of Solace, The Strangers, Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, Cloverfield and Iron Man.

On the other hand, I found myself irrevocably out-of-step with most mainstream movie critics because I adored both the inventive Speed Racer and the intimate X-Files I Want to Believe.

I also didn't particularly love some highly-hyped and critically-acclaimed efforts, most notably the vile Wanted, The Incredible Hulk and a little superhero movie starring Christian Bale (which I haven't gotten around to reviewing on the blog yet...). I'm still looking forward with great anticipation to Let The Right One In.

Television was disappointing in 08. Heroes didn't manage a return to greatness and Fringe proved unexpectedly lousy, one of the worst, most derivative TV series I've ever had the misfortune to endure. It's Bionic Woman-bad.

When I look back at the last twelve months on the blog, I see that we remembered several Alfred Hitchcock movies together, not to mention some of the more controversial efforts of auteur William Friedkin. We also recalled some of the Gene Roddenberry Pilots, and began to anticipate the new Star Trek movie. TV movies like The Last Dinosaur, Killdozer and Gerry Anderson's The Day After Tomorrow also got excavated, and we took a side-step into time travel movies and programs.

Looking ahead, 2009 will bring the third season (and shocking final act) of The House Between in late January, not to mention detailed episode retrospectives and analyses of the trail-blazing Chris Carter series, Millennium (1996-1999).

In short, there's lots more goodness to come.

Hope you stick around for another year of reflecting on film and television (and toys) with me.