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Weekend winners
› The epic Olympics closing ceremonies. Yes, the Tom Cruise news leaked earlier last week, but it was still cool to see Maverick/Ethan Hunt/pick an iconic role here/ in the mix. Then the Olympics mascot/ambassador, aka Snoop Dogg, performed and did so with Dr. Dre as the Games officially switched to SoCal.
› NBC and the Paris Olympics organizers. At one point Sunday, NBC fired the power cannon of Tirico, Costas and Al Michaels on set. And I thought there are the three greatest living sports commentators we have. Tirico killed everything he did. The Today Show’s role in the morning was perfect. The color commentaries of Rowdy Gaines in swimming and Julie Foudy in soccer were A-plus level. Sure, there were too many celeb shots (in the women’s soccer final, I saw more of Tom Cruise than anyone). But it was a great coverage effort of arguably the best Summer Olympics of my lifetime.
› The Ryan Reynolds-Blake Lively Hollywood summer storm. Reynolds’ third Deadpool installment crushed it at the box office and held the top spot for several weeks. Then Lively (aka Mrs. Reynolds, or Reynolds is Mr. Lively, depending) grabbed the top spot with her film “The Last of Us.”