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Early Buzz: Bond soars, plus Jay-Z and Coldplay do NYE

By Matt Sebastian, guest blogger for Pop Candy
Daniel Craig stars as James Bond in 'Skyfall.'

Well, here we are, Monday ... my first stab at Early Buzz, and, worth noting, one of those sorta holidays. Sunday was Veterans Day, of course, which makes today the observed holiday for those working for the government and select other industries that are taking today to properly honor the men and women who have served in our nation's armed forces. The rest of us? Back to work.

Luckily, there are no shortage of pop-culture headlines:

• A lot of us went to see Skyfall over the weekend, helping propel Daniel Craig's third outing as 007 to a box office-topping $87.8 million opening, far and away the best debut ever for a Bond film. So do you agree with Roger Moore that this is the best Bond ever?

• Jay-Z and Coldplay will reprise their New Year's Eve plans from two years ago, once again co-headlining a Dec. 31 concert — but this time at Brooklyn's just-opened Barclays Center Arena rather than a Las Vegas casino. The show is one of three year-end gigs for Chris Martin and Co., but the only one featuring Hova.

• From the Yes, They Were Still Together Department: INXS is apparently calling it a day after some 35 years together — and 15 since frontman Michael Hutchence died.

• Sunday night on The Walking Dead, we finally saw a key member of The Governor's family, who's featured prominently in the original comic books, worked into the TV adaptation.

• Morrissey has rescheduled (most of) the U.S. tour he called off last month so he could return to England and be with his ailing mother. A pair of dates in Washington and Texas won't be made up, but Moz added eight new concerts. Fair enough.

Here are some highlights of this weekend's Saturday Night Live, which featured a great Homeland send-up with Bill Hader channeling Mandy Patinkin and host Anne Hathaway doing her best bugged-out Claire Danes. Oh, and Rihanna performed in front of some kind of Windows 95-era screensaver.

• Speaking of SNL, if you loved Louis C.K.'s Lincoln short film from the previous weekend's show, NBC has now released an extended director's cut.

• Conan O'Brien has stumbled across Wes Anderson's audition tape to direct Star Wars: Episode VII, which he'd title A Life Galactic.

• Plus: That kid who played young Boba Fett in Attack of the Clones is a real-life hero.

• Brian Eno has a new album called Lux coming out this week, but when The Guardian asked to interview him about it, he insisted that he instead discuss the record via a conversation with South Korean-born economist Ha-Joon Chang — a fascinating talk that has little to do with Lux, but does touch on sausages, K-pop and the war in Iraq.

• MTV has pulled the plug on the Randy Jackson-produced America's Best Dance Crew after seven seasons. Heartbreaking.

• Your attention, please: Watch a smoking, 40-minute in-studio session by The Afghan Whigs at Los Angeles' KCRW. Best reunion of the year.

• Helen Fielding has a third Bridget Jonesnovel and film in the works, and they are not the same thing.

• They're not exactly going out on a limb here, but a couple of online bookies in the U.K. are predicting Call of Duty: Black Opswill be the holiday season's best-selling game. Put it on your list now.

• RIP John Napier of early '90s alt-rockers Ethyl Meatplow.

• And, finally, do you ever wonder why MTV doesn't play music videos anymore? Here's why.

Follow Matt Sebastian at slicingupeyeballs.com or @slicingyeyeballs.

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