From the Nostalgic Files - And then there were 2... The 2013 Stanley Cup

Once, a long, long time ago, I wrote a thing or two about hockey. Now there is no hockey. I need my hockey fix. It's the dead time when nothing of importance is going on - but i do think i saw a vaguely familiar NHL player walking downtown yesterday. Why do I think that? He was young, well-built, facial hair (stating 'hey, i've been on vacation for awhile) and had poor fashion sense (so probably rich). I try to keep interested in NHL news but I can't get excited about who won what in arbitration or which player recently signed a minor league contract for X team. 

So, I'm going to post this - an retro article back in the day when life was good and the Hawks had yet to win their second Cup in three years. 

We all know how this ended. The biggest winner by far was 3rd string lunch bucket man Dave Bolland managing to take advantage of scoring the Cup-winning goal into a 5 yr/$27.5 million contract with Florida despite only playing in 58 games the last two years. 

If he continues to take his 2 year yearly average of 29 games played per year to the Panthers, that guy is ringing in approximately $190,000 per game. 

And all because of an incredible let down by the Bruins in Game Six. On behalf of the Chicago fan base and especially Dave Bolland - thank you.

a rare picture of Bolland actually on the ice in Toronto.

The Retroactive Oglethorpe Award (Movies) 2010

My new favourite idea (brought to you by Netflix Canada, unofficial motto 'Not the most popular movies but how about this documentary?') is to create a time machine that goes back in time and does nothing but change the Academy Awards results.

Imagine the possibilities...

We all know the Academy Awards. In one word; pretentious. Another word might be 'narcissistic' which besides being incredibly hard to spell is not something Hollywood has never been called. If it weren't for Hollywood, where would be America's white trash magazine industry?

It's the ultimate awards show, where past winners decide who new winners will be. Once you have been awarded an Oscar, you become one of the voters in the Academy. You become part of a 'clique', a special circle within a wider special circle, like the illuminati or the G7. Your influence can either help or kill a career and most importantly, sell tickets for the studios as the proudly proclaim X actor was an 'Academy nominee' at one point in their careers. Be and Academy Award Winner and expect an extra 100,000 people in the seats. That's sheeple marketing for you.

It's an exercise in societal voyeurism where the common people are invited to watch the beautiful, rich people perform fellatio on each other. In theory it's designed to bring artistic credibility to a medium that reflects our humanity or inhumanity to fellow human beings with thought-provoking movies such as Schindler's List or 2013's winner 12 Years A Slave (haven't seen it but i'm guessing it's about someone being a slave for 12 years). The Awards are an attempt by the culturally elite to erase the reality that most of Hollywood is built on the profitability of brain-numbing, gun-shooting, hi-faluting moral garbage like the Saw or Star Wars franchises or Adam Sandler's latest piece of shit.

Jack and Jill 2 coming soon.

When I invent my Time Machine and go back in the past, I will make sure the Awards have a Best Comedy Award. Or a Retroactive best Cult Movie Award - movies only qualify after being in circulation for 10 years. That way movies that may have done nothing at the Box Office will finally get the acknowledgement they deserve, like Idiocracy or Rocky Horror Picture Show.  And best comedy? Why not create an award for the movie that makes the most people happier leaving the theater than when they entered it?

So, let's go back and make things right starting with 2010.

10 Once Great Actors

Firstly, a disclaimer: there are great movies and there are great actors. Yet no matter how great an actor is, there will be the occasional floating log of film turd that will be skipped over on their resume if they are lucky enough. Bruce Willis had his Hudson Hawk, Tom Hanks plopped one out in The Ladykillers, but, hey, they still command our respect. Hell, even Al Pacino showed up in the giant Adam Sandler turd Jack and Jill, which scored extremely well with people of low intellect and Republican teenagers.

Once upon a time, these 10 actors could only poop box-office gold, but something happened. One turd beget another and another and another. Now these former greats simply are shallow imitations of their past glories, struggling to find that right script that’ll put them back on top, a 'John Travolta' if you will. But let's be clear, none of these have signed on to be a talking baby. There's still hope. Saying that, here’s is a list of 10 still actors that we once idolized who have fallen from grace.

David Lynch Called... I didn't answer cuz he's pretty weird.

Movies that make you go WTF are special indeed. Just ask (or read) this Whatculture contributor who’s viewing habits make Hollywood focus groups cringe in fear that she has such influence on main stream culture. While we all bitch about the current state of cinema with its popcorn predictability, dumbed down mass releases and beating on the usual dead horses, let’s instead take a look at a visionary director that has such influence on cinema that his contribution cannot be overlooked at a time when our attention span is so short that we want to just jump into the main part of this article, so much so that it’s difficult to follow to the end of this sent

David Lynch is an oddity within himself. A non-mainstream visionary who hit the mainstream right in its American nutsack.  His film genre CV reads like a student itinerary with ‘Undeclared’ written all over his class choices. Nothing wrong with that. Yet at a time when ‘family connections’  play such a large part in Hollywood’s next generation of film-makers, Lynch is the strange uncle at the family Christmas Party that nobody ever talks about yet you found he was the most amazing person in your family.

Here’s a personal ranking of David Lynch films, in order of bizarre surrealism, story-telling and cinematic vision.

11. The Straight Story (1999)

This is the easiest of the bunch when ranking WTF, although it bears special merit as straying far outside the norm, like Snoop Dogg doing a song with Miley Cyrus. The Straight Story is what it proclaims to be: a rather straight up bland Americana drama (for David Lynch) based on the true story of a man who drives his lawn mower 300 miles across America to make amends with his ill brother.

No dancing midgets, no moody soundtrack or supernatural splits of reality, it starred Hollywood legends Richard Farnsworth and Sissy Spacek and for a brief moment in time, Lynch’s confusing career trajectory looked like it was heading for ‘After School Special’ territory. It was the only Lynch movie ever to be rated ‘G’ to the viewing audience. WTF?