Ron Swanson, Meet Sam Elliott

“Way out west there was this fella… fella I wanna tell ya about. Fella by the name of Ron Swanson….”

To absolutely no one’s surprise who is familar with the show, season six of (LCHC-favourite) Parks and Recreation is shaping up to feature a cavalcade of comedic guest stars. Most of the announced names have already been fairly inspired casting choices, but perhaps the most impressive of all these has just been revealed.

According to TVLine, Sam Elliott – AKA Wade Garrett AKA The Stranger AKA Lorne Lutch AKA Virgil Earp – has signed on to guest star in an episode of the NBC comedy as Ron Swanson’s mustached counterpart from Eagleton, the neighboring rival town that’s the-Shelbyville-to-Pawnee’s-Springfield.

New Sherlock Villain Revealed for Season Three

While the current Guy Richie-directed, Robert Downey Jr.-led Sherlock Holmes film series has its merits and is generally well-regarded, anyone who has had the opportunity to watch the BBC’s Sherlock knows that the definitive modern Holmes adaption resides on the small screen: Benedict Cumberbatch’s is a revelation as the iconic detective, while Martin Freeman’s take on Dr. John Watson is magnificent.

With Sherlock‘s third series/season presently filming in the UK, more details about the upcoming episodes are beginning to emerge, chief among them are announcements about the show’s antagonists since (SEASON TWO FINALE SPOILER ALERT) Andrew Scott’s wonderful interpretation of “consulting criminal” Moriarty seemed to have committed suicide in hopes of trapping Holmes at the end of The Reichenbach Fall.

Lars Mikkelsen – star of hit Danish shows The Killing and Borgen, and the elder brother of Mads Mikkelsen – has been revealed as playing Charles Augustus Magnussen. Sherlock producer Sue Vertue announced the news of Mikkelsen’s role on Twitter on Monday. More details about the character’s backstory are after the jump…

R.I.P. James Gandolfini: “Booth Reserved For The Soprano Family”

After Wednesday’s incredibly sad news of the passing of acting giant James Gandolfini, many tributes to the late actor have been shared by peers and fans alike. Beautiful as many of the obituaries and gestures have been, perhaps the most quietly moving as been that from Holsten’s Ice Cream Shop in Bloomfield, NJ.

Holsten’s was the location of the iconic final scene of The Sopranos; not a day has passed since the airing of the show’s finale where fans haven not sat at the booth where the scene was shot to take photos and take in the scenery.

To honor the actor, the shop’s owner Chris Carley has placed a “Reserved” sign on the table atop a newspaper with a photo of Gandolfini.

Watch: “Wolf of Wall Street” Trailer

Based on its absolutely incredible new trailer, I feel secure in having projected this as my Second-Most Anticipated Film of the Year back in January.

In my best Stefon voice: “2013 hottest trailer is Wolf of Wall Street. This film has everything: monkeys, stacks of money taped to women’s bodies, lobster throwing contests, Goodfellas 4th-Wall Breaking, Coach Taylor, that thing where you throw a midget against a dart board.” Imagine Leo channeling Patrick Bateman, but with less murder and more McConaughey, to the sound of Yeezus‘ “Black Skinhead”. Oh, and add in the most insane dance this side of Diddy…

See the full trailer, after the jump…

Daft Punk Internet Memes Cannot be Stopped

Watch your back Kenny – Roger wants in on this Random Access Memories-driven Daft Punk Everywhere meme. You may have the finest jig known to man, but Sterling comes packing world-class mommy issues and a drinking habit only Dick Whitman can match. He plays for keeps. Via the good folks at Vulture.

“I told him to be himself. That was pretty mean I guess.” – Waldorf Stories

Life in the Background: My Day as TV Extra

*The following is a guest post (the first of what I hope will be many) from my Ahmad-Rashad-Certified-Main Man Blake Murphy. Follow Blake on The Twitter at @BlakeMurphyODC  and check out his writing archives – with articles for a dozen sites more reputable than LCHC – over at http://blakemurphy.com/

I am a student right now, and as such I have no money. I need money, because I like fancy things like bread and chocolate milk. As a “journalist,” I make next to no money blogging and freelancing.

With only a six-week window before returning to Ontario for a several week visit home, rendering myself a “real” part-time job would be silly. I’m therefore stuck trying to find temp work. Searching Craig’s List (for jobs, not weird sexual encounters), I came across a posting for extras for a TV show shoot.

It didn’t pay well (minimum wage) and it promised to be a long and boring day, but at the very least it could make for a fun story. So I filled out the profile.

Tuesday night around 10 p.m., I got a call. Could I commit to a full day tomorrow? Did I have these particular wardrobe items? Could I be clean-shaven and could I make a 7 a.m. call time? Yes, yes, begrudgingly yes, and yes.

Read Blake’s journal of his day spent in Extras-ville 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 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.