life & style // no. 16 An analysis of the 2020 Super Bowl commercials » Many films referenced in this year’s collection Jerrison Oracion Senior Columnist D espite the fact that the coronavirus pandemic is still happening, the Super Bow] this year was still exciting in another way and still had an audience mainly consisting of frontline workers in the pandemic hotspot of Florida. While the actual game was not exciting—the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9 and the GOAT, Tom Brady, got his 7th Super Bow] win. Scarborough Ontario's The Weeknd performed an exciting Super Bowl Halftime Show. I had thought that the Super Bowl commercials this year were going to reference the coronavirus pandemic, but instead they made it appear as if nothing had happened at all and is still funny. Here is my analysis of some of the commercials: Cheetos The cheesy snack has a new Crunch Pop Mix that is addictive and relevant to the Shaggy song “It Wasn't Me” which I liked back in the ‘gos. In this Super Bowl commercial, two stars from That ’7os Show, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher, reunite as Kunis gets caught eating Cheetos while Kutcher sings lines from “Tt Wasn't Me.” This had me laughing a lot, as he sounded exactly like the song! Kunis responds with the same song and gets away with it, and this surprises Shaggy as it is was the first time his idea to simply deny the blame worked. Nostalgia helps sell the product which is the case in this Super Bowl commercial. Rocket Mortgage Usually, Budweiser would have the best Super Bowl commercial. Rocket Mortgage’s series of Super Bowl commercials were the top two commercials this year, according to USA Today’s Ad Meter. Getting a mortgage is complex and it is better to be certain when getting one rather than just getting one apparently. Tracy Morgan explains various situations that often backfire, like getting across a bridge, handling bees, and battling Dave Bautista. After watching the commercial again, it was funny as Morgan did his thing. His bit reminded me of a segment in Weekend Update with the Secondhand News on Saturday Night Live. Paramount+ BS All Access will be rebranded as Paramount+ on March 4. CBS, who aired the Super Bow! this year, also merged with Viacom again a bit over a year ago. This means that the streaming service will now have content from Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV, and Paramount’s catalogue. In this series of Super Bowl commercials, Sir Patrick Stewart narrates a story about many personalities from the channels mentioned earlier going up the Paramount mountain, leading them to Stewart as a metaphor for the streaming service. It ends with the scene in SpongeBob SquarePants where the gang performs in the Super Bowl, and Stewart and Stephen Colbert are delighted by the music. There was a lot of comedy gold in these commercials and the streaming world got more interesting.. GM GM is beginning to build more electric cars by 2030 and aims to build more than Norway. This fascinates Will Ferrell, and he invites a few of his comedy friends including Saturday Night Live’s Kenan Thompson and Nora Lum (AKA Awkwafina) to go ona journey to be better than Norway— until they surprisingly end up in Sweden. Interestingly, Ferrell was in a show called Welcome to Sweden. The commercial is informative and still has the comedy you would expect from Saturday Night Live. theotherpress.ca .€ 5 o = = w Oatly The company that made the original oat milk made a low-budget commercial simply explaining the drink with the company’s CEO (which I thought was Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and it ended up being a Super Bowl commercial. The song is okay—at least it’s better than the local Super Bowl commercials. Oat milk does taste like oats. Retro cinemas 1n Coquitlam and Burnaby » Long ago departed theatres once were a mainstay for moviegoers Brandon Yip Senior Columnist lhe movie-going experience has been altered because of the pandemic. People have been relegated to watching movies streamed at home or viewing them on their cell phones, tablets, and laptops. In Coquitlam, during the 1980s, 1990s, and parts of the 2000s, two theatres became prominent for local movie lovers: Coquitlam 4, and Eagle Ridge Cinema. According to cinematreasures.org (who profiled both theatres), Coquitlam 4 opened in 1983 and was located at the corner of Anson Avenue and Pinetree Way—only five minutes away from the David Lam Campus. The theatre originally contained four screens, and it was later renovated in December 1988 to increase to six screens. Cineplex Odeon managed this 1603 seat theatre. The largest screening room seated 435, and the smallest room seated 200. In 1999, the theatre was renamed Pinetree 6 Cinemas. It later closed in 2004 and was demolished to build a Best Buy store north of the property —and today the location operates as a Gap Factory store. Eagle Ridge Cinema, located at 2635 Barnet Highway, opened in 1984. It had six screens and seating was listed at 1,497. The largest theatre seated 283, and the smallest theatre seated 234. In 2005, Cineplex Odeon took over operations and later closed the theatre in 2008. Today, the site is now Clubi6 Trevor Linden Fitness. For Burnaby residents, the City of Lougheed Shopping Centre (previously Lougheed Mall) first opened in September 1969. According to cinematreasures.org, the mall once had a theatre with three screens (opening in December 1969). Seating was listed at 1,526. The cinema closed in 1991 and was later reopened months later by a company called A Theatre Near You. During parts of the gos, the theatre had midnight showings at discounted prices, but later closed in 2002. The Dolphin Cinemas was another theatre for moviegoers for nearly 50 years. It first opened in December 1965 with two screens and 680 seats. The theatre closed in May 2014 and, according to Global News, was Burnaby’s last independent theatre. Today, Coquitlam has only one theatre, Cineplex Cinemas Coquitlam and VIP—located at 170 Schoolhouse Street. Cinematreasures.org states that the theatre first opened in December 1998 and Photo by Brandon Yip contained 20 screens. Seating is listed at 4,534 with the largest theatre seating 450, and the smallest theatre seating 150. Other amenities include one DBOX screen, one UltraAVX screen, nine (3D) screens, five VIP screens, two party rooms, stars and strollers section, and a licensed lounge. At the time, it was the largest cinema screen-wise that Famous Players opened. Particularly, one screen was the first to utilize digital projections in Canada. In 2005, Cineplex Odeon took over operations of the cinema. Unfortunately, the theatre remains closed due to the pandemic, as their official website states: “In accordance with orders from the Provincial Government, your local theatre is temporarily closed and will reopen as soon as we are able. We have already begun processing ticket refunds back to your original method of payment. We appreciate your understanding and look forward to welcoming you back soon.” Actor Simon Callow best describes why people love going to movie theatres—as it is a pleasurable place to escape temporarily from the normal stresses of life: “To enter a theatre for a performance is to be inducted into a magical space, to be ushered into the sacred arena of the imagination.”