Favorite TV 2008

Merlin from BBC-1 is my favorite TV series of the year. It's a retelling of the legend of King Arthur (who's still a prince in the series) that focuses on Merlin and his friendship with the once and future king. They are of the same age in this series. Evidences that it's not a big-budget American TV program that looks and feels like a movie  (e.g. Prison Break, 24) show up in sequences that required complex special effects, but the story itself is very engaging and the reason why I was hooked from the first episode. Its Wikipedia page says that it will be shown in the US by NBC for the Spring 2009 TV season. This series, more so than the good but rather inferior of the two, The Legend of the Seeker, could potentially usher in the rebirth of the high fantasy genre to television, which if I remember correctly was last brought about by Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: The Warrior Princess.

The Big Bang Theory from CBS is my favorite comedy series of the year. It's a sitcom about two brilliant physicists room mates (Leonard and Sheldon), their two genius friends (Howard and Rajesh), and their hot neighbor (Penny). The writers kept coming up with very funny, highly rewatchable episodes each week.

Fringe from Fox is my favorite sci-fi TV series of the year. It's about a group of government agents involved in cases that are related to what is collectively called "fringe science". Only the scientists who know real fringe science will not like this new series from J.J. Abrams, creator of Alias and Lost. The rest of us who like science fiction but don't really care whether the science in it is realistic or not will love this show. The special effects in this series are rather good and have a movie-quality feel to them. If only Merlin have the same budget.

Of course I still like and still watches Prison Break, The Amazing Race, House, and How I Met Your Mother. 24 took a hiatus this year, a casualty of the 2007 writers strike. I have a feeling that 24 would have been my favorite of the year had their 2008 season not been cancelled. But then again, tomorrow will already be January and it means the new season of 24 from Fox is just around the corner.

Favorite book 2008

My favorite read of the year is a book first published over three years ago. It's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I reread it last month and say what you want about how JK Rowling writes, all I know is that she writes very engaging books that are hard to put down until you read the last page.

My second favorite read of the year is a book first published in 1990. It's Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. His fiction may not have won awards, but I have yet to read a boring Crichton book. Come to think of it, most of the time, those award-winning books are the boring ones. I'm looking forward to reading his final book, which will be published sometime next year.

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 And yes, it's Christmas. Merry Christmas!

Favorite movie 2008

December is drawing to a close and with it the year. I don't think I'll be seeing another movie in the theaters for the rest of the year, so I think it's safe to pick my favorite among the movies that I have seen in theaters this year. I've seen most big movies for free courtesy of The Company's "movie night" before the budget for community activities were cut: I Am Legend, Vantage Point, Iron Man, Indiana Jones IV, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Twilight. It's easy to see how it's been cut, of course. Notice that all of these movies came out in the first half of 2008 with the exception of the last one, which came out in November. In the second half of 2008 the economic crisis in the US began to loom upon us like the heavy dark clouds before a storm. If the budget wasn't cut I would have seen 12 movies (one for each month) for free by now and I would have seen my favorite movie of 2008 for free. As it was, I had to pay for it to see it and seen it with only two co-workers instead of 99.

WALL-E. I have no doubt that this would have been picked had there been a "movie night" for August. I like "nice" sci-fi movies. By nice I mean something that isn't highly stylized (e.g. making the whole thing grayscale, or the opposite making it burst with too bright colors) and something that doesn't strive to be something more than what it can actually deliver. WALL-E was the "nicest" scifi movie that I've seen this year. It's a Pixar animated flick and, like its predecessors, it's worth the ticket price to see it in theaters. If WALL-E wasn't shown this year, The Dark Knight would have been my top favorite movie. And there's also no doubt in my mind that it would have been picked for July if the movie night budget wasn't cut.

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I have seen only 3 Filipino movies in theaters this year: Ploning, For the First Time, and I.T.A.L.Y.. And among them, only Ploning was worth the ticket price. Even the co-workers that "forced" me to watch FTFT and ITALY with them weren't happy with these movies.

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Tropic Thunder was the funniest movie that I've seen in theaters this year. It was funny in a silly kind of way. And we paid only 90 pesos for each ticket because we saw this in SM instead of the usual Ayala Center.

The funniest one in the most-fun kind of way had got to be Bolt from Disney. We had plenty of laughter and the story wasn't bad either.

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Next year, I'm looking forward to watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.