2009 is almost over.

And not to sound like grumbling old blokes, but can you believe how quickly it’s gone by?

There have been some huge stories and even huger-er films released, so we thought we’d look back at some of the biggest stories, movies and features that showed up on the site.

The bell is ringing, the second act of the year is about to be chronicled. Take your seats, ladies and germs...

July

Summer continued, but the weather was still mixed.

At least we had the trailer for The Informant! to cheer us all up, as Steven Soderbergh and Matt Damon gave a true-life corruption tale a comic spin.

There was good news from the world of Harry Potter as Bill Nighy revealed he'd been cast in The Deathly Hollows (for which we also picked a list of British Legends who'd been overlooked previously) and Robert Rodriguez' Predators finally got a director in the shape of Nimrod Antal.

We went all '70s with Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart as pics of the girls filming The Runaways arrived, and then '80s as a movie version of TJ Hooker  tempted us with visions of a Shat cameo.

Seth Rogen's long gestating Green Hornet movie nabbed a leading lady - Cameron Diaz - but lost Kato/director Stephen Chow. Boooo…

Features-wise, we delivered a snappy Battle Royale between movie and TV dinos and, on the heels of a Force-alike toy wondered what would happen If Star Wars Was Real.

At the movies, the latest Ice Age arrived and began box office domination while Michael Mann brought Public Enemies and Sacha Baron Cohen launched Bruno's offensive charm. Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince finally showed up and we were suitably wowed by Moon.

Oh, and we evaluated the career of TF favourite Kevin Smith and asked Moon director Duncan Jones about his Movie Life.

The idea of the Smurfs film terrified us and we wondered just what was going on over at Spider-Man central as yet another writer - Gary Ross - was hired to work on the script for the fourth film. Seabiscuit as the villain, anyone?

Ryan Reynolds began his domination of comic book casting by winning the Green Lantern lead over Bradley Cooper and Justin Timberlake. In other comic book movie news,  Natalie Portman joined Thor's ever-growing eclectic cast to play the hero's Earthbound lady love.

Bruno faced a teen-friendly edit, we got our first proper look at ScarJo in her leather Iron Man 2 togs, Nic Cage signed on to Green Hornet (but not for long) and the Tron sequel launched its viral campaign.

Talking of Tron 2 - or Tron: Legacy as we'd come to know it - the film exploded at Comic Con as the geek mega convention hit San Diego bringing new footage delights and several announcements.



We got to meet the new Freddy Krueger, see the Green Hornet's ride, take a peek at some Avatar footage (and be present for Jim Cameron's announcement of the Avatar Day screenings), hear Robert Zemeckis talk up Roger Rabbit 2 (even if he was his usual evasive self), chat with Tim Burton about Alice In Wonderland, Peter Jackson about The Hobbit, James Cameron (again) about Avatar and cheer on the first Iron Man 2 presentation, which rocked Hall H.

We also chronicled the entire con in our exhaustive (and often exhausting to write) diary, then came home to ask Judd Apatow about his career.

Towards the end of the month, The Proposal saw Sandra Bullock score a romcom hit and Lars von Trier made a similar film about love with Antichrist (okay, not so much - chaos reigns!)

And then there was talking rodent with G-Force, Will Ferrell flopping with Land Of The Lost and Tony Scott remaking The Taking Of Pelham 123 with more 'splosions.

July wrapped up with author Maurice Sendak talking Where The Wild Things Are, The Wolf Man shifting release dates yet again, a trailer for Toy Story 3D and two bombshells - Ridley Scott would return to the Alien franchise and Bryce Dallas Howard taking over one of the Twilight roles.

On to August…

Next: August