Adam Shankman's adaptation (or remake) of the Broadway musical Hairspray was released to wide release in US July 20, 2007. The Broadway musical was adapted from John Water's original cult classic Hairspray, released in 1988.
The 2007 release starred John Travolta, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, James Marsden, and Allison Janney. It opened to positive reviews and set a record for the biggest box office opening for a musical until Mama Mia! in 2008.
Shankman's version won numerous awards and was nominated for three Golden Globes and a Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album.
Madonna took home the Grammy for the Best Electronic/Dance Album Grammy for her Confessions on a Dance Floor album at the 49th annual ceremony held February 11, 2007. She also received a nomination for Best Dance Recording for her single Get Together.
Gnarls Barkley won two Grammys. One for Best Alternative Music Album for his St. Elsewhere album. His single Crazy won Best Urban/Alternative Performance. St. Elsewhere was nominated for Album of the Year and Crazy was nominated for Record of the Year.
Bon Jovi won Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for their duet Who Says You Can't Go Home with Jennifer Nettles.
In the memoriam, June Pointer who passed away in April 2006 was one of the musicians remembered.
I'm glad to see that Superman Returns won several Saturn Awards, since I feel this has been an underrated film. Even though it received good reviews and a had a great box office performance, it still seems to be the underdog of the Superman movies. It was even nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, but lost to Pirates of the Caribbean, which stole a lot of Superman's thunder that year.
Superman Returns was nominated for 10 Saturn Awards and won 5 of them at the 33rd annual ceremony, held May 10, 2007. It won Best Fantasy Film, Best Actor for Brandon Routh, Best Director for Bryan Singer, Best Screenplay for Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, and Best Score for John Ottman.
It was nominated for Best Actress for Kate Bosworth, who was also nominated for a Razzie for the same role. James Marsden (X-Men's Cyclops) was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Parker Posey was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Superman Returns was nominated for Best Young Actor/Actress for Tristan Lake Leabu and Best Special Effects.
Another favorite movie X-Men: The Last Stand won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for Famke Janssen, beating Cate Blanchett and Emma Thompson. I don't know why Notes on a Scandal was up for Saturn Awards since it really doesn't fit with any of the categories. Judi Dench was also nominated for her work in Notes.
The Last Stand was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Kelsey Grammer as Beast, Best Score, Best Costume Design, and Best Special Effects.
Curse of the Golden Flower won the Saturn Award for Best Costume Design.
Marvel Comics' supernatural hero, Ghost Rider, came to the silver screen February 16, 2007. Stunt motorcycle rider Johnny Blaze (played by Nicholas Cage) sells his soul save his father, and becomes the Ghost Rider.
I enjoyed the movie, even though it didn't receive many positive reviews and Cage was nominated for a Razzie for Worst Actor. However, it was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Horror Film by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.
It is one of the few Marvel movies in which Stan Lee did not have a cameo, since he was not involved in creating the character of Ghost Rider.
The amazing Helen Mirren won two Golden Globe awards at the 64th Awards ceremony held January 15, 2007. She won the award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen.
She won another award for Best Performance for an Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth I on HBO. She was nominated for the same award for her work as Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect: The Final Act.
Helen Mirren, actress extraordinaire, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Queen at the 79th ceremony February 25, 2007. She had some stiff competition because Meryl Streep and Judi Dench were also nominated.
The movie was nominated for five more awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Costume Design.
My man Billy Joel sang the National Anthem at Super Bowl XLI February 4, 2007 between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears. Marlee Matlin signed the words in American Sign Language.
STS-117 crew (L-R): Clayton Anderson, James Reilly, Steven Swanson, Frederick Sturckow, Lee Archambault, Patrick Forrester, John Olivas
Mission patch
Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-117), launched June 8, 2007, carried a truss segment and a set of solar arrays to the International Space Station. Its crew consisted of Commander Frederick Sturckow, Pilot Lee Archambault, Patrick Forrester, Steven Swanson, John Olivas, James Reilly and Clayton Anderson.
Reilly, Olivas, Forrester, and Swanson performed four EVAs for a combined total of 28 hours. They returned to Earth June 22.
Soyuz TMA-10 crew (L-R): Charles Simonyi, Oleg Kotov, Fyodor Yurchikhin
Mission patch
Soyuz TMA-10, launched April 7, 2007, carried members of Expedition 15 and a space tourist to the International Space Station. Its crew consisted of Oleg Kotov and Fyodor Yurchikhin. The tourist was Charles Simonyi of Hungary.
Simonyi stayed on board for 26 days and returned to Earth on Soyuz TMA-9. Kotov and Yurchikhin remained on the ISS until October 2007.
Curse of the Golden Flower, released January 12, 2007, is a tale of ancient China, the Tang Dynasty in the 10th century. It's one of the best foreign films I've seen. It stars Chow Yun-Fat as the Emperor and Jay Chou as Prince Jai. It wasdirected by Yimou Zhang who directed House of Flying Daggers.
It was nominated for an Academy Award for Costume Design but won the Saturn Award for Best Costume. It also won four Hong Kong Film Awards (out of 14 nominations) in 2007: Best Actress for Gong Li; Best Art Direction, Best Costume and Make-up Design and Best Original Song.
The best and probably only television show to celebrate and revere nerds, The Big Bang Theory, premiered September 24, 2007. Four hopelessly socially-impaired geeks navigate their way through life dealing with their jobs, rivalries and beautiful women.
It starred Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Mayim Bialik, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, and Melissa Rauch.
In 2011, Jim Parsons won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series. The series won numerous Primetime Emmy Awards. Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Wil Wheaton, Bill Nye and astronaut Michael Massimino all made appearances over the course of the series.
TV Guide has listed it as #52 on its list of the best 60 series of all time.
Soyuz TMA-11, launched October 10, 2007, carried two members of Expedition 16 and the first Malaysian astronaut to the International Space Station. Its crew consisted of Yuri Malenchenko (Roscosmos), Peggy Whitson (NASA) and Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, who flew as part of an agreement between the Russian and Malaysian governments.
Shukor stayed on the ISS for about 10 days and returned to Earth on Soyuz TMA-10. Malenchenko and Whitson stayed on board for almost 192 days and returned in April 2008. The first Korean astronaut, Yi So-yeon, joined them on the return trip. She had arrived about 10 days earlier on Soyuz TMA-12.
During re-entry, Soyuz TMA-11 made a ballistic maneuver, which meant its descent was steeper than normal, due to a malfunction. They landed safe and sound about 475 km from their target.
STS-118 crew (L-R): Richard Mastracchio, Barbara Morgan, Charles Hobaugh, Scott Kelly, Tracy Caldwell, Dafydd Williams, Alvin Drew.
Mission patch
Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-118), launched August 8, 2007 to the International Space Station, was the first flight of Endeavour since the Columbia disaster in 2003. Its crew consisted of Commander Scott Kelly, Pilot Charles Hobaugh, Tracy Caldwell, Richard Mastracchio, Dafydd Williams, Barbara Morgan and Alvin Drew.
Barbara Morgan had trained as a backup to Christa McAuliffe as NASA's Teacher in Space, but that ended with the Challenger disaster. However, when Morgan flew on STS-118, she was not considered a Mission Specialist Educator, but rather a Mission Specialist who had once been a teacher. During the mission, she spoke to school children on Earth.
Four EVAs were conducted by Rick Mastracchio, Dafydd Williams and Clayton Anderson, who had arrived on the ISS with STS-117.
The Phoenix, NASA's Mars lander, was launched August 4, 2007. It landed on the Red Planet May 25, 2008 to search for microbial life and and to research the history of water. Phoenix was the first successful landing in Mars' polar region.
It completed its mission in August 2008 and made one last communication November 2, as the Martian winter approached. Subsequent attempts to contact the lander via the Mars Odyssey orbiter failed and the mission concluded on May 12, 2010.
The mission was considered to be successful since it completed all its tasks.
Okay, I admit it. I really liked this movie, even though it basically ended the series. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, released June 15, 2007, performed a little better than its predecessor but soon after, lost steam. Although it made back its budget, it was panned by critics and fans.
I suppose that since I read Silver Surfer in the comics in the 70s, I enjoyed seeing him and the Fantastic Four on the big screen. Of course, watching Chris Evans for 2 hours is not at all a bad thing. Ioan Gruffudd is easy on the eyes, too. And Jessica Alba is on my top 5 women list.
I liked Michael Chiklis until American Horror Story.
Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-120) took off October 23, 2007, being the 23rd mission to the International Space Station. Commander Pamela Melroy was the second woman after Eileen Collins to become commander of a space shuttle mission. When they docked with the ISS, Peggy Whitson was commander of the space station so for the first time, there were two female mission commanders in space.
The rest of the crew consisted of Pilot George Zamka, Mission Specialist 1 Douglas Wheelock, Mission Specialist 2 Stephanie Wilson, Mission Specialist 3, Scott Parazynski, Mission Specialist 4 Paolo Nespoli (on the ISS right now!), and Mission Specialist 5 Daniel Tani.
Dawn, NASA's spacecraft to visit dwarf planets Ceres and Vesta, formerly known as asteroids, in the asteroid belt was launched September 27, 2007. After testing its boosters in orbit above Earth and then receiving a gravity boost from Mars, Dawn entered orbit above Vesta June 16, 2011. After exploring Vesta for a little over a year, it headed toward Ceres.
Dawn reached Ceres in December 2014 and discovered 'light' spots on the surface. NASA scientists concluded that salt-rich water might have welled up to the surface of the dwarf planet.
NASA originally planned to have Dawn visit a third body, Adeona, but decided the spacecraft would be best used studying Ceres. Dawn's mission was extended for one year in June 2017 and it has enough fuel to last until the end of 2018. At that time, NASA may put it into an orbit which will avoid impact with Ceres. They do not want to contaminate any of the asteroids.
Phoenix Mars Lander, launched August 4, 2007, was the first successful landing of a spacecraft on Mars' north polar region. It took 10 months to travel to Mars and is the first mission to the Red Planet to be led by a public university, University of Arizona in Tucson. The Phoenix is a partnership of universities in the U.S., Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, the UK, NASA, the Candian Space Agency and Finnish Meteorological Institute.
It landed May 25, 2008 and completed its mission in August but continued until November, when the Martian winter set in. NASA hoped it would survive but as of May 2010 contact could not be re-established so Jet Propulsion Laboratory declared it dead. Since Phoenix completed all of its goals, it has been considered a success.
One surprise was the observation of snow from cirrus clouds. It had to be water-ice because the Martian atmosphere and temperatures are not favorable for carbon dioxide ice to form.
The last of the great Mannheim Steamroller Christmas albums, Christmas Song, was released October 9, 2007. They released Christmasville a year later, but most songs lacked the Mannheim Steamroller sound and the album had NONE of the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas magic.
Christmas Song featured an old classic Masters In The Hall but some new tracks, Catching Snowflakes On Your Tongue and Above the Northern Lights.
Awesome performance of Masters In This Hall but the Turtle Creek Chorale still did it better. :)
