2008 is in the history books, so here are the flicks and TV shows that have us looking forward to the year ahead.

9. The Tonight Show Starring Conan O’Brien (June)
It took sixteen years, but that red-headed goofball who pals around with a masturbating bear and an insult comic dog finally becomes NBC’s main man in late night.  Victory would be sweeter if former host Jay Leno had departed the airwaves for good instead of simply moving to the 10pm slot, but look for Conan to make the Tonight Show timely and relevant for the first time in more than a decade.

8. The Brothers Bloom (May 15)
Originally set to be released last October, Rian Johnson’s quirky con-man comedy—which features a career best performance by Oscar winner Rachel Weisz and an awesome supporting turn by Japanese starlet Rinko Kikuchi—reaches theaters at last.  Because a smallish distributor is releasing the flick you might have to look hard to find it, but you won’t feel ripped off after its over.

7. Shutter Island (October 2)
Martin Scorsese follows up his Oscar-winning crime drama The Departed with a ’50s-era action flick starring Leo DiCaprio (yes, again) as a U.S. marshal searching for an escaped mental patient on the titular secluded island.  Although it sounds closer to Cape Fear than Taxi Driver, every Scorsese picture is a must-see.



6. The Return of Geek TV
I can’t remember the last time I was this excited to see ABC’s Lost return to the airwaves.  The two-hour premiere kicks off on January 21 and the advance word is that the show is better than ever.  And with only one more year to go before its final batch of episodes, you know we’re in store for some major, major revelations.  I have seen the first episode of Joss Whedon’s highly anticipated new show Dollhouse (debuting February 13 on Fox) and I’m happy to say the Buffy creator is off to a strong start with his latest venture.  Between these two shows and the return of Battlestar Galactica (see below), geeks will have three good reasons to say inside glued to the TV during the cold winter months.

5. Watchmen (March 6)
While I’m not completely on board with all of Zack Snyder’s choices for the big-screen version of Alan Moore’s brilliant, groundbreaking, swoon-inducing graphic novel (for the love of God, stop with the slow-mo Zack!), I already know that I’ll be seeing it at least three times in theaters.  Of course, thanks to recent legal issues, we might have to wait a little longer to see Watchmen brought to life, but don’t freak out too much fanboys: this movie will get released.  It’s just going to cost Warner Brothers a heck of a lot of money.

4. Mad Men Season Three (Summer)
Instead of bailing out Detroit, why doesn’t the Fed give $700 million to Matthew Weiner so he can produce weekly episodes of Mad Men for all of 2009?  Because this year long wait to see the continuing adventures of ad man Don Draper is just not cool.

3. Avatar (December 18)
It’s been more than 10 years since James “King of the World” Cameron directed a feature film.  In that time, he’s released multiple versions of Titanic on DVD, helped get buddy Arnold Schwarzenegger elected governor of California and played himself on Entourage.  Some might call this creative loafing, but Cameron insists he was just waiting until CGI-technology caught up with his grand ideas for his next movie, Avatar, a top-secret sci-fi epic about a futuristic female warrior (played by Zoe Saldana).  Will the final product be worth the long wait?  You got me—all I know is, I’m buying my advanced tickets now.

2. The End of Battlestar Galactica (March)
Okay, so Battlestar Galactica as a franchise won’t be signing off for good two months from now.  There’s still a direct-to-DVD movie due out later this year and a prequel series Caprica launches in the fall.  There’s also a comic-book series and endless amounts of fan fiction all over the web.  But the show that launched this cult phenomenon is going away in March and television will be the poorer for it.  Memo to creator Ronald Moore: If Adama turns out to be a Cylon, I’m tossing my TV out the window.

1. Inglorious Bastards (August 21)
Holy crap, Quentin Tarantino has finally done it!  He’s made the World War II movie he’s been talking about since Pulp Fiction came out.  And somehow he convinced Brad Pitt to star in the damn thing.  So Quentin, does this mean we’re going to be seeing The Brothers Vega in 2010?  Travolta and Madsen aren’t getting any younger…

Mad Men: Season One (Lionsgate, $49.98)

Mad Men: Season One (Lionsgate, $49.98)
This box set containing the first season of television’s best drama wins my award for coolest packaging of the year, even beating out that Big Lebowski bowling ball.  All 13 episodes are spread across four discs, which come in a tin box fashioned after a Zippo lighter.  Almost every hour comes is accompanied by a commentary track featuring key cast and crew members and five featurettes reveal some of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into creating this superbly crafted series.  The real prize, of course, is having the episodes themselves to revisit over and over again.  To borrow the famous phrase from the cable network that stupidly passed up the chance to air Matthew Weiner’s groundbreaking series, Mad Men isn’t TV–it’s art.

Click here to see my #5 pick

Golden Globe Nominations are announced.  Check out what’s in store for the year’s first big awards ceremony.

Those crazy kids at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the nominations for the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards, set to be broadcast on January 11, 2009 on NBC.  In the film categories, the big winners were as follow:

*David Fincher’s beautiful life-in-reverse love story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (5 nominations, including Best Drama, Best Actor in a Drama and Best Director)

*John Patrick Shanley’s effective adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play Doubt (5 nominations, including Best Actress in a Drama, Best Supporting Actor in a Drama and Best Screenplay)

*Ron Howard’s mediocre version of the Broadway hit Frost/Nixon (5 nominations, including Best Drama, Best Actor and Best Original score)

Elsewhere, early Oscar favorite Slumdog Millionaire also made a mark, scoring 4 nods and Kate Winslet earned two acting nominations, Best Actress for Revolutionary Road and Best Supporting Actress for The Reader.  (It’s worth noting that the latter nod is absolute crap—she’s the female lead in The Reader, no matter what the HFPA says.)

Interestingly, 2008′s biggest movie, The Dark Knight, was almost completely shut out, picking up a single nod for Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker.  As of now, it still seems like a shoo-in to be one of the five Best Picture finalists when Oscar nominations are announced at the end of January, but this does indicate that there’s still a reluctance amongst a certain segment of the industry to lavishing attention on comic book movies.

Over on the TV side, I’m happy to see last year’s Best Drama Series Mad Men receive another nomination for its stellar second season and have my fingers crossed that the show’s Jon Hamm will be recognized for his excellent work as Don “The Man” Draper.  Of course, I may not be able to see Hamm accept his Golden Globe if Jeremy Piven wins yet another Best Supporting Actor statue for the long past-its-prime Entourage, as I’ll have thrown my TV out the window.  Expect 30 Rock to dominate the Best Comedy category again unless Tina Fey backlash suddenly rears its head in the next three weeks.

For a full list of the nominations, go here.  And tune in on January 11 to laugh at all the celebrities getting sloshed on the free booze.