Three great special issues were released by Marvel in the past two weeks, unfortunately they shipped (and I subsequently read) in perhaps the exact reverse order they were intended.  All three books are written by Brian Bendis, the architect of the upcoming Siege event and writer of the Avengers titles for several years.  The books in questions are New Avengers Annual #3, Dark Avengers Annual #1 and Siege: The Cabal.  Read them in that order, but don’t read on unless you want to know why (consider that a SPOILER warning).

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Other MLD writers have seen a preview of Avatar, and from what I could tell, weren’t very excited. A frequent MLD reader had attempted to organize an opening night viewing to see it fail…which seems like the opposite of seeing it fail to me. But whatever….it is clearly something that I don’t understand. What stands out to me as proof positive this movie will completely blow….The 12/3 episode of Bones on Fox was turned into an hour long ad for the movie. Showing “super nerds” extremely excited about it and waiting in line? Come on….this show has been getting fairly cheesy, but this is taking it a bit far. No wonder Kevin gave up on watching it.
Oh – and PS – the “hot nerd girl” being excited about Avatar….also not enticing at all. No one is getting flashed by someone attractive in a line for Avatar. # 1 reason….There will not be a line for Avatar.  Keep dreaming nerds. And enjoy 3 hours of your life stolen away by total suckiness.

I’ve been a Saturday Night Live fan for a long time and have stuck with it even through some very weak seasons.  The upside is that there are years when everything seems to come together nicely and makes for some great shows.  I think this might be one of those years.

The hosts so far have been pretty average with Taylor Swift being the only real stand-out.  This hasn’t stopped any of the shows from being a lot of fun since the cast really shines this year.  Some great recurring skits new to this season include What Up With That? and ESPN Classic broadcasts.  Combining these with spoofs of Tiger Woods and Fox News’ Fall election coverage have made for some fun shows.  The Digital Short offerings have also been solid with On the Ground, Two Worlds Collide, Shy Ronnie, and A Ladies Guide to Throwing a Party to name a few.  Lady GaGa was also surprisingly fun as a musical guest.

New featured cast members Nasim Pedrad and Jenny Slate have been great additions.  It’s just a shame that these two were hired as replacements for Michaela Watkins and Casey Wilson who I enjoyed last season.

Saturday Night Live airs Saturday’s at 11:30PM on NBC.  Tonight’s host is someone called Taylor Lautner who’s in some vampire movie and the musical guest is Bon Jovi who will likely get involved in other segments of the show.  An amazing number of clips from past shows are also available from the show’s official site.

The Lugubrious Mr. Lydon has been away from the Latest Distraction for some time, doing schoolwork and teaching kids how to read, so just ahead of Christmas, I’m back to give you my short review of Wes Anderson’s stop-motion rendering of Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox“.

I’ve been a fan of stop-motion animation since I watched Nickelodeon in the 80s. This love was only bolstered by Christmas specials by Rankin and Bass, and old Sinbad movies featuring the work of stop-motion god Ray Harryhausen.  Though the love affair hasn’t been nearly as long, I’ve loved Wes Anderson’s movies since I saw Rushmore… what, ten years ago? So, marrying the twain together was a like a dream come true for me.

Full disclosure: I did fall asleep once during Fantastic Mr. Fox, but that wasn’t because of the story/the film itself. Haven’t been sleeping very well with end-of-term woes, and had only slept like 3 hours the night before. Bygones. What I did see (which was most of the film excepting like 10 minutes) was great! The colors, the character design, the sets, everything wowed me like I haven’t been wowed since Wallace and Gromit’s Curse of the Were-Rabbit! And hey, include George Clooney and Jason Schwartzman, and I’m up for the downstroke.

Not going to get into the story for you; you can read the book or see the movie for  yourself. Be wary, though, if you are not already a fan of Wes Anderson movies, or stop animation, you probably won’t think this is so fantastic. Pacing is very much like Anderson’s other movies, as is the writing. They’re not for everybody, as my friend Bill’s dad still reminds me to this day. I told him to rent The Royal Tenenbaums, and he STILL wants the 3 bucks it cost him to rent the movie.

But, if you’re like me, you’ll love this movie. Also, anybody wanna get a whackbat team together?

HOTBOX!

In a week, some of this mop of hair you see to your right might be going away.  Until then, I can enjoy moments like right now, where in an effort to control the uncontrollable, Angie goes with any hair configuration that works.  I’d say it looks like Chronomancer-era Bishop‘s hairstyle, but no one will get that reference. So I’ll just say that I love my wife, Predator-head and all.

Images courtesy of Mile High Comics and Unreality Magazine.