Vive La France!

Well done, France! The Paris Summer Olympics was a complete success! Outstanding! It was the first made-for-streaming, pay-for-view presentation of a traditional sporting event, albeit one that used to be free to watch on television; however, the French did such an elegant job of engineering and managing the Olympics that not even Paramount could screw it up. Surprisingly entertaining, I watched the colorful, artistic opening ceremony all the way through to the closing on the bridge, when France handed the Olympic flag to …Tom Cruise? France might want to pinch that one off right there at the bridge, though, because once Tom screams that flaming rice-rocket into Hollywood with the Olympic flag on fire, the L.A. version will likely explode into a crap-festival of merchandising “partners” that will block out the sun.