FishbowlNY has learned that Newsweek is launching an iPad app in January. To help the debut go smoothly, the magazine has hired Melissa Lafsky as its iPad Launch Editor. Lafsky has the chops to make the app a hit; she’s worked at The Huffington Post, edited the Freakonomics blog and has written for The New York Observer, The New York Times and Wired.

Details are sparse (we do know that print subscribers will be able to access it for free) but Dirk Barnett, Creative Director at Newsweek, said a broad goal of the app is to expand on the design elements found in print. “Newsweek’s iPad app will enhance the strong design landscape of the magazine, building on the visual strengths with interactives, video elements and an extension of the strong photojournalism that has been a hallmark of the magazine for decades,” explained Barnett.

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Avatar was the topic du jour on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast this morning, as hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy‘s Matt Van Hoven discussed the year’s best movies with Infrastructurist.com editor and movie buff Melissa Lafsky.

All three decided that Avatar was one of the year’s best films, although Jason had trouble with the movie’s story and Melissa criticized its swipes at former President George W. Bush. Still Avatar‘s plot, involving humans overpowering an alien race while one man betrays his own kind to save the natives, is “a constant theme in movies,” Melissa pointed out. “It’s a constant plot line for a reason. We all have these fantasies of…going back to nature.”

In addition to Avatar, Matt’s list of the top 12 movies of the year included Where The Wild Things Are, The Informant, The Hangover, Adventureland, I Love You Man and Inglorious Basterds. Jason named The Hurt Locker his favorite film of the year, and picked The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Where The Wild Things Are as two of the best adaptations of the year, in addition to critical fave Precious and the blockbuster Twilight sequel New Moon.

Melissa disagreed with Jason about Where The Wild Things Are but sided with him on The Hurt Locker. She also named Drag Me To Hell and Up as her picks of the year. “You don’t see to many movies about getting old,” she said of the poignant Pixar pic.

Also discussed: the biggest infrastructure stories of 2009 and the decade.

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

Blogger Melissa Lafsky, the latest editor of the blog The Infrastructurist, joined the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast today, where she chatted with hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy‘s Matt Van Hoven about the site that she described as an “ongoing conversation about how we get around and how we’ll get around in the future.”

“The joke with infrastructure is that no one pays much attention to it until it breaks down,” she said. “And right now we’re looking at a pretty existential break down [in] that we rely on certain fuels in order to get us to work in the morning and to get us around period, and these fuels are limited in capacity and will eventually run out. So the larger conversation is what’s the future of energy that’s going to run this country as well as the rest of the developed world.”

After talking about infrastructure in the U.S. and around the world, particularly in China and India, Melissa talked about another one of her gigs, as the “Horror Chick”, writing about horror movies for The Awl. Then, Jason asked her for a reaction to Roland Emmerich‘s latest disaster film, 2012, from a horror and infrastructure point of view. Melissa said she boycotted the film because she hates “apocalypse porn” but she still had something to say about it.

“The point of film is to take you to somewhat dark places,” she said. “A movie like this is raw, unbridled apocalypse porn. The premise is so ridiculous I don’t even have to tell you…But the point of this movie is just, ‘We’re going to take Independence Day and make it look like Little Miss Sunshine.’ That is probably the conversation that they had in the greenlight producer’s office.”

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

Hard to believe, but the eighteen-month, fifty debate, liveblog extravaganza is about to come to an end. And none too soon if you ask us! If you can still stand it, and/or, are looking for another fun evening of the “my friends” drinking game, join us here around 9pm when we, along with usual suspects Rachel Sklar, John Carney, Melissa Lafsky, John Neffinger, Steve Krakauer, and as-yet-to-be-determined special guests, liveblog our last. The comments section last time was the best and smartest (and we presume good-looking-est) yet, and we hope to hear from you again tonight.