5 Links: The Overachieving Edition

Welcome back from the Thanksgiving Weekend. I hope all of your family are well fed, your body is well rested, and you’re ready to do it all again in about four weeks.

I counted up and I’ve got a lot more than the usual five links this time, so…sorry for the false advertising. Still, here’s what you may have missed while you were wiping the scuff marks off your forehead because you were trampled trying to get to a $50 Blu-Ray player on Friday.

- Advent started this past Sunday. If you’re unfamiliar with the tradition, Scot McKnight at his blog Jesus Creed has a description of what Advent is about as well as a prayer to start out the season:

By lighting one candle each week of Advent, we help ourselves to get ready for the birth of Jesus.  The candles have different meanings, each based upon the Bible.  These meanings help us to understand how special the birth of Jesus is for us.

If you want to read a few more devotionals and prayers that go with the season, check out the Go To Bethlehem and See blog, where a few people have already started posting.

- In all of the turnover in the Narnia movies (and lack of buzz since Prince Caspian received mixed reviews), I almost forgot that they were hard at work on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The first movie was a fine production, but I got a little bored with Prince Caspian after awhile. Dawn Treader, however, is more of an interesting book in my opinion, and may have more to work with since a new main character will have their first time in Narnia. New pictures from the production are up, and we get a glimpse of the Dawn Treader itself. It looks like FOX is going to keep alive much of the look of the first two movies. Principal photography recently finished and the movie is scheduled to be released a little over one year from now. (HT: The Movie Blog)

- A number of the niche and smaller film awards are getting out their nominations out, so it’s a good time to get an idea of what could be nominated for Oscars. The Annie Awards have released their considerations, and the top contenders are Coraline, Up, and The Princess and the Frog. Foreign films The Secret of Kells and Ponyo also received a few nominations. Oddly enough, if Kells were to receive a nomination, audiences in the US wouldn’t be able to see what the buzz was about until after the Oscars since its wide release date is March 12th.

- I didn’t mention it when the news was first announced, but Dollhouse has been canceled. FOX is burning off the rest of the episodes for the next two months. The show has been described as uneven, and at times you do get the feel of a series that doesn’t exactly know what it would like to be except free from interference from the higher-ups (which actually sounds like the plot to Dollhouse, to an extent). It’s still quite good, though, and if you start watching it again this weekend you might see why it still has some rather passionate fans. Apparently Joss Whedon has plans for a new project, and he claims that the plans will be obvious once Dollhouse is finished airing. Some think that it may involve The Dollhouse itself. Much like Whedon’s  other shows they don’t ever really die, they just change mediums.

- Ever wanted to see how a virus infects your body? No? Oh well, you should watch this video NPR posted anyway. Not only can you more easily understand one of those jokes made by Brian Malow, but if you are sick this winter you can watch this and cheer on the white blood cells as they suck up viruses like a frog catching flies.