LCHC Power Rankings: Week of May 24th

The LCHC Power Rankings are our rating system for the top ten people, events, stories, and trends making moves in the world of sports and culture this week. Providing as a snapshot of the current cultural landscape, the Power Rankings offer a guide to hat mattered most in the cultural zeitgeist this week. They are put together every Friday by your humble committee (of one).

1. Game 7 Hockey Over Everything – The NHL Playoffs return to the top spot on this week’s ranking on heels of two Game 7s this week and the start of the Conference Finals about the kick off on Saturday. The visibility and publicity around this year’s postseason is certainly helped by the fact that major markets like LA, Chicago and Boston are still involved, and that “Face of the Game” Sidney Crosby is captaining the favorites to raise the Cup, but more than for any other reason, hockey’s playoffs lead the pack this week because they have provided the most compelling storylines, culminating in Seabrook’s thrilling OT winner on Wednesday night. That game is a classic example of proof that sports remains the home for the most compelling drama anywhere. When sport is at its best, no other narrative device – be it scripted film, literature, or reality television – can touch the raw emotions and catharsis created by sudden-death, ‘win or go home’ sporting events. Moments like Wednesday night are why we watch, and we are all just lucky that there are even more to come in the weeks ahead.

2. The Smiths, Lost in Space – A sampling of the critical response to After Earth: “Is “After Earth” the worst movie ever made?”; “After Earth is not as bad as The Last Airbender. Yes, you heard it here first: After Earth is not as bad as one of the worst big budget films ever released.”; “There is no small irony that this sci-fi action adventure is about surviving a serious crash. The scorched earth left behind by “After Earth” is sure to leave a scar on everyone involved.” Put it this way – the critical response to this film is worse than it was to A Good Day to Die Hard. Leading to a larger question: are we just about done with Will Smith, superstar? Yes, the film will make its money back overseas where he is still a draw, but here domestically it is just about guaranteed to be a flop. The mid-90s were a very long time ago after all, and between some truly terrible films and utterly pretentious interviews, I wonder how much longer until he becomes the Action equivalent to Adam Sandler as relic of another time in our culture. There are only so many times you can go to the Graham Norton/Fresh Prince Nostalgia Well, Big Willie.

#3-10 and Honourable Mentions, after the jump…

Mad Men: Odds and Ends (S6, E9)

• Bob Benson’s shorts > everything.
• Congrats to Mr. Bunson – er, Benson, who finally has someone to share his coffee with. He and is “well-bred Spaniard” are good people to have in your corner. Well, unless Kenny was right when he said that Bob was a sociopath. After all, in that scene Bob said his father was dead, and here he tells Pete that the nurse recently brought his father back to health. Hmm…
• Margarine is indestructible; Abe is not. He was right, he wasn’t cut out to be a pioneer.

Mad Men: “The Better Half”

“They are two halves of the same person” – Megan

Last week gave us “The Crash”, arguably the strangest and most abstract episode in Mad Men‘s entire run. This week’s “The Better Half” was much more straightforward, however there were certainly elements here of the way Matthew Weiner uses metaphor to convey his larger themes. Even though “The Better Half” was a much more accessible and streamlined narrative, it still featured similar symbolism throughout, starting right in the opening scene. Don and Ted’s argument about how to sell margarine certainly sets up the night’s theme of what governs our decision-making when all of our options are ultimately unsatisfying.

Whether one brand of margarine will save you money compared to another is seemingly irrelevant, because neither one is as good as butter. Ted would dress up our choice between two inferior goods by telling us one is “Chivas Regal”; Don knows better – when the choice is between ‘cheap’ or ‘cheapest’, they are both “Budweiser”.

What Weiner is saying (via Don) is that our personal and professional relationships will sometimes come down to two or more unsatisfying brands, because the quality choice isn’t available – or worse, the ‘quality’ option is really just more of the same. So many options, so very few real choices. More after the jump…

LCHC Power Rankings: Week of May 24th

The LCHC Power Rankings are our rating system for the top ten people, events, stories, and trends making moves in the world of sports and culture this week. Providing as a snapshot of the current cultural landscape, the Power Rankings offer a (subjective) guide to what mattered most in the cultural zeitgeist this week. They are put together every Friday by your humble committee (of one).

1. Dumb versus Dumber: The Memorial Day Box Office Showdown – This is a bit of misnomer on my part, because this is nothing close to an actual ‘showdown’. In one corner, we  have Hangover Part III, the (thankfully) final installment in the R-rated comedy franchise that has received truly awful critically and audience reviews so far and is coming off of one of the worst received comedy sequels in years (which is saying something). In the other corner, we have Fast 6, which is coming on the heels of its franchise’s most successful film both creatively and financially (which may be a relatively low bar, but I will be damned if Fast 5 doesn’t have fun knowingly embracing exactly what it is) and is already breaking records everywhere overseas with Universal’s biggest opening day in 22 different countries. Most box office observers had expected a somewhat close race between the two over the US long weekend; now, Dom and the gang are expected to easily outpace The Wolfpack’s final bow, with a four-day gross just short of $90 million (against $70M for TH3, which while still a great number for a R-rated comedy is less than half the $135M its predecessor opened to in 2011). Of course, the real winners here will be the audience, so long as something in F6 can come close to the brilliance of this scene. Ride or die, indeed.

Springfield Will Now Be a Real Place You Can Visit (at Universal Studios, Anyway)

Earlier this month, Universal Orlando announced that The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was going to be expanded to include Diagon Alley and that “other new attractions would arrive at the park next year”. Exactly what those “new attractions” were was unclear…until now, as Universal has revealed that they will be expanding the area around The Simpsons Ride into a full-out mini-Springfield world.

Yes, that means there will be a Krusty Burger, a Jebediah statue, and real-life Moe’s. And per the press release, “Yes – there will be Duff Beer.” Whether you think this is incredible or horrifying, the complete concept art is after the jump…

Kenny Cosgrove x Daft Punk = Viral Sensation

Owing to the Victoria Day holiday this Monday (and my own general laziness that it precipitated) I wasn’t able to spend the time necessary to prepare a thoughtful recap of the this week’s Mad Men. Without diving into the larger debate over whether this week’s episode was one of the series best ever or perhaps its very worst, I can still bring praise to the canned brilliance of Account Executive Ken Cosgrove, who performed the jig to end all jig (and the GIF to end all GIFs, with apologies to Pete Campbell).

Of course, the Internet being the glorious, horrifying beast that it, got a hold of said GIF and took it up to 11. Behold, Mad Men meeting Daft Punk…

Why the “Timecop” Remake is Exactly the Kind of Idea Hollywood Needs

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news yesterday that Universal has begun developing a reboot of Timecop. Yes, a major studio is reviving a genre franchise in an attempt to repackage it and sell a non-original idea to a new audience. In other news, water is still wet.

Studio recreate, reimagine, rerelease, and repurpose their own properties all the time, and most fan take this proof that film creativity is an endangered species. The cynics see a Timecop remake and think: “Same old song: Start an action, sci-fi franchise, sequelize it, reboot and repackage it. Rinse, repeat. No idea is original”. I cannot help but be a contrarian to that kind of response.

Unpopular Opinion Alert: I think this is precisely the kind of move Hollywood needs more of, and actually think it is kind of brilliant (Record Scratches).

No One Rolls Up on the ’89 Charlotte Hornets

Yesterday’s official confirmation of the world’s-worst-kept-secret that the Charlotte Bobcats franchise would be reverting back to the name “Hornets” is as good a reason as any to re-run a seemingly impossible photo shoot from Chris and Snoop – err, make that for the Hornets’ 1989 season. In a word, “Yikes”

Watch: Live from TIFF Bell Lightbox, Kanye West – “New Slaves”

Tonight, Kanye has proven why he remains the brilliant, beautiful, exciting, mad genius we know and love. Ever an innovator in the art of the album launch, Yeezy topped himself again tonight, unveiling the video for new song “New Slaves” via massive projections on 66 buildings across the world, including here in TO at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. I was lucky enough to capture the full video in HD, which I’ve embedded below after the jump.

Enough from me; here is Mr. West…

Sir Alex Ferguson’s Retirement: Evil Empire Edition

In the wake of the news that Sir Alex Ferguson would be retiring as Manager of Manchester United at the end of this season, I wanted to get contrasting perspectives on the matter: thoughts from a United supporter and Ferguson admirer; and from of a rival fan sharply opposed to Ferguson and what his run at United symbolized. 

These two companion pieces run as separate interviews. Below is the transcript of my anti-empire, anti-United discussion with Paul Lamb. My earlier, pro-Reds discussion with Brent Lukowski can be found HERE.

Trev: Following Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement announcement, I was compelled to discuss news and its fallout with those who could contextual it and explain its importance. To that end, who better than my friend Paul Lamb, a man who has watched more soccer than literally any person I know. Lamber understands the game (and the culture around it) as well as anyone thanks to a lifetime of Saturday and Sunday mornings with tea, the game of the week, and his father.

Lambo, you are a Scot and a Celtic supporter through and through. Naturally you have long rallied against United and what they stand for in terms of fair-weather, spoiled fans. With that said, you are also an lover of the game overall and appreciate it beyond just the name on the front of the kits, so I know you understand Ferguson’s place in history. Can you share what your initial reaction was to the news – to this inexpert soccer fan, it has the feeling of a generational shift for the game overall, not just for United.