INTRODUCTION TO THE 2012 EDITION “May I try a free sample?” After speaking those six simple words, the ritual would always be the same: A smiling gray-haired clerk at a Hickory Farms Christmas stand in one of the many Western Pennsylvania malls I visited during my childhood would poke a toothpick into a delicately cut square of meat, hand it to me and the door to paradise would open… I love Hickory Farms Beef Stick. Like that Christmas Eve story Grandpa always told that became longer and more convoluted as the years went on, the time has once again arrived for my ever-growing annual holiday column on Hickory Farms Beef Stick (or, as it’s unfortunately known now, “Summer Sausage”). If George Lucas can give us approximately 18,281 Special Editions of Star Wars, there’s no reason why I can’t write an additional hundred words or so each year, expanding on the joys and sorrows experienced while eating the greatest of the great American foods. (Attention conspiracy theorists: Just because I’ve written and spoken at length about my McRib addiction and am now once more delving into a hagiography of Hickory Farms Beef Stick does not mean that I’m on the American Meat Institute’s payroll. Of course, if anyone from the American Meat Institute is reading this post, I would actually very much like to be on the payroll. Feel free to tweet me up at @ryanbdixon.) And so, dear readers, Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present: ON THE EXEGESIS OF THE SOUL OR: WHY I LOVE BEEF STICK: REVISED and EXPANDED EDITION with a SLIGHTLY NEW, or more accurately, NEWLY REVISED INTRODUCTION (Which You Just Read) and a BRAND NEW (And Very Tragic) EPILOGUE 1: BEEF STICK, LORD OF THE MEMORY PALACE There is...

Conventional wisdom has it that Thanksgiving is the one day where family and friends reunite, reconnect, and relapse over a grocery-store-bought feast of turkey, stuffing and wine. Football is watched. Happy tears are shed. Everlasting memories are made. Balderdash. Come on, admit it, if I put a gun to your head, would you be able to give me ten specific (not to even mention, beloved) Thanksgiving Day memories? What’s that, you say? The many years of chewing on dried turkey, hearing the same dull stories and watching the interminable parades and bad football games have melded together in the same way Aunt Jane’s viscid, feldgrau-colored gravy slithered into the cranberry sauce on your plate last Thanksgiving to create a ichorous blob of food that looked like the bloody brown mucus goo that was leaking out of your nephew Timmy’s nose at the kids table? Well, then, in that case, how about ten Black Friday memories? Ahhh. Now that’s easy. Without any prompting you rattle off a host of fond recollections… … Delicious cold turkey sandwiches (so much better than the dry, hot turkey slices of the previous night)…The entire family going to see the latest Disney, James Bond, Harry Potter or Twilight movie…Dad somehow getting that perfect parking space right in front of the mall’s entrance….Mom buying the very last Cabbage Patch doll…and the sales…oh, the sales… Now those are the memories for which ink is laid upon the Hallmark Card. According to Wikipedia, the term “Black Friday” was originally coined to describe the great stock market crash of 1869. “Black Friday” gained traction as the nom de plume for the day after Thanksgiving (and unofficial start of the Christmas shopping season) in 1969 when the Philadelphia police used the term to describe the...

A bi-weekly blog featuring the recollections of a soon-to-be demolished super regional mall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as told to Ryan Dixon. For previous installments, please click HERE They’re boarding me up as I write this. A crew of twenty burly men attach plywood over my doors and windows. The little light that had managed to sneak its way into me through the Pittsburgh gloom has given way to total darkness. Unable to see my funeral preparations outside, I can now just pretend that the sun has yet to rise. I’ll be opening up again in just a few hours. To tell you about a “day in my life” is to reveal my life in a day… It’s Saturday, September 16, 1989. There are no performances scheduled on the center-court stage – Jem and the Holograms Live! won’t arrive for another two weeks – nor are any department stores having major sales. Santa and the Easter Bunny hibernate in their holiday homes and it’s up to the off-season choo-choo train to offer amusement to the tiny ones (the carousel doesn’t arrive until 1991). Even the escalators manage to survive the day without breaking down. A few people fall in love and some fall out of it, too. But mostly, the 19,211 shoppers who will walk through me go about their business, head home and sleep safely into the future that will be September 17, 1989. 7 AM. Big Mike takes one full lap around me. Armed with his infamous black book, nicknamed Bertha, he’s on the lookout for anything out of place — burnt out light fixtures, broken benches, carpet stains — that would prevent me from looking brand new. In a far corner of the third floor (the least looked-after), an ashtray holds a mass...

A bi-weekly blog featuring the recollections of a soon-to-be demolished super regional mall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as told to Ryan Dixon. It’s quiet now. Allegheny Energy has pulled the plug, sending the lights blinking into blindness. The music, which had been going steady for nearly 30 years ends abruptly. “In the name of love. One night in the name of—“ The ever diminishing sound of shoppers over the last few years hadn’t bothered me because there was always the music. Weekdays, weekends and during holiday season extended hours. I’m going to miss Christmas carols the most, I think. Even in the quiet of those long closing hours, when I was often the only one to hear it, the music still played through the entirety of my three levels, 1,290,000 square feet of gross leasable retail space, 180 potential storefronts and five major anchor spaces. (Not to brag, but no Pittsburgh mall had space for five anchors. When I first opened, it was JCPenney, Sears, Kaufmann’s, Horne’s and Gimbles. Haven’t heard of the last three? That’s okay. They’ve been gone, and mostly forgotten, for a long time now.) During the past few years, rumors swirled that DiBarlto Industries had decided to tear only a part of me down and construct some sort of multi-use development. Their concept, from what I could gather, was to fill my missing bits with an assortment of apartments, major retailers and restaurants — the Cheescake Factory and American Apparel were supposedly very interested — and a vast community garden that would hold something called a “farmers market” every weekend. While I had wanted to stay intact, I still prefered amputation to total oblivion. But then the music went away and my true fate became undeniably grave. Now, the parking lot...

The Man From Primrose Lane is pretty fucking great. Is it okay if I just end my review right here? After all, in an ideal world, one sentence of profuse praise for James Renner’s debut novel would be enough to convince you to go to Amazon right now and hit “purchase.” But that’s not how it works, is it? You might trust my taste from reading previous reviews, but we still don’t know each other well enough for you to turn over hard-earned money on a blind recommendation. Normally right about now I’d present a thorough synopsis of this novel, but straying too far from the opening chapter risks this review running the length of a novel itself due to the sheer amount of “spoiler alerts” I’d have to include. What I do feel safe in revealing is that the first chapter of The Man From Primrose Lane begins, as so many of the best mysteries do, with a murder. An old hermit is found dead in his house. A bullet has pierced his chest, his fingers have been chopped off and stuffed into a nearby blender. I suppose it’s safe to venture just a little further into the plot… our protagonist David Neff, a famous true crime author (who shares many similarities with Renner) is tasked with uncovering the hermit’s murderer. This procedural might be a conventional narrative tightrope, but the moment Renner’s plot steps upon it, it begins to deliriously (and sometimes drunkenly) dance. As our protagonist descends into the investigation, most typical thrillers would pivot on three major twists, placed in the well-hued final three quarters of the book.  Renner includes these narrative benchmarks, but then this overachieving novelist has the audacity to bend turns into the twists, fill subplots with nano-plots...

In Watergate, Thomas Mallon’s exceedingly entertaining, panoramic re-telling of the eponymous presidential scandal now forty years old, Richard Nixon’s downfall is framed as the inevitable, near-farcical conclusion of one of our most tragic national epics: the 1960’s. As the novel opens in 1972, Nixon is cruising toward a second term with an all-but-inevitable election victory over George McGovern. He has every reason to believe that his decades of hard work are finally going to pay off and he will finally be able to move past the painful, crushing defeats. After all, the bêtes noires of the previous decade have been vanquished— assassins’ bullets and Chappaquiddick have neutered the Kennedy’s, Lyndon Johnson is a long-haired recluse back in Texas, Vietnam is in its final (albeit protracted) death rattle, and the Iron Curtain has been revealed to be made mostly of scrim. Yet, the past is the great unseen, parasitic antagonist of Mallon’s novel. So powerful in fact, that it consumes the characters more so than the cover-up itself. The scandal metastasizes up the chain of command and soon not even the perpetrators are sure what really happened during the night they broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex or, in fact, why they did so. As the novel marches towards its well-known conclusion (no need for spoiler alerts in this book review), “Watergate” – the place, the crime, the cover-up, the scandal – reveals its true form as a wrathful, deadly and ethereal phantom, come to take its final revenge. Just when you thought it was safe to leave the 60s… While previous fictional works that tackled all-things Watergate have often been presented from clearly defined points-of-view, Mallon structures his novel like one of Shakespeare’s history plays, seamlessly guiding us around all tiers of...

Before the internet allowed us to watch footage of people being murdered for free, any aspiring video-age Percival had to search high and low for quality snuff. There was no relic so highly prized as the Grail of gross, Faces of Death. Often shelved in the back rooms of those pre-Blockbuster video stores located in strip malls, grocery stores and along lonely roadsides, this mondo masterpiece was spoken of by those who had seen it in a hushed, foreboding tone reminiscent of Large Marge’s admonition to the hitchhiking Pee-Wee. A dark fate surely awaited anyone brave enough to press play. However, aside from the rather pedestrian suicides, autopsies, and slightly more elevated baby seal clubbing, the most fondly remembered scenes – everything from the eye -bleeding electrocution to that cute grizzly nibbling on a little foie gras d’ humain – were, alas, fake. In hindsight, that the film was narrated by one “Dr. Francis B. Gross” should have been a red flag regarding its legitimacy. But my teenage self really wanted to believe that someone had actually shot footage of young women (surprisingly buxom, considering the supposed Third World trappings) sacrificing a willing man, eating his flesh and engaging in an orgy where the corpse’s blood proved a far better lubricant than K-Y Jelly ever could. I’d be lying if I said that along with being repulsed, I also wasn’t kind of turned on. In his fascinating, but ultimately frustrating new book, Wake Forest professor Eric G. Wilson dives into this fecund topic of morbid curiosity. It’s the sort of high concept that will intrigue readers before they even read the flap. After all, the title says it all:  Everyone Loves a Train Wreck: Why We Can’t Look Away. Wilson gets right to the heart...

Let’s just jump to the question you really want to ask: Does Alan Lightman’s new novel, Mr g: A Novel About the Creation, live up to the enormous accomplishment of his first one, Einstein’s Dreams? Comprised of chapters devoted to the dreams young Albert Einstein had while working on his theory of relativity, Einstein’s Dreams was the “it” book of 1992. One could find it both within the backpacks of lit majors and atop strollers of soccer moms. It wasn’t hard to see why. Lightman had a genius for merging seemingly incomprehensible scientific topics into illusive narratives laced with hypnotic lyricism. After reading it, everyone felt smarter and a little more human. Consuming the book in one sitting as a young teenager, Einstein’s Dreams didn’t so much change my reading taste as reveal it. The novel was the perfect first date to a lifelong relationship with fictional fabulists like Borges, Eco, and Calvino. It showed that a fictional world could still be a fantastical place even without fire-breathing dragons flying overhead. Following a series of more traditional narrative novels and non-fiction works that failed to have the impact of his fictional debut, Mr g seems conceived, conceptually and marketing-wise, to deliberately echo Einstein’s Dreams. When put side-by-side, both titles create a sort of cosmic Rashomon; Dreams focused on the secrets of the universe from man’s point-of-view, Mr g is a memoir of the creation as told by God. As a novel, unfortunately, Mr g is a still-born prose universe brought forth by a well-meaning creator who is in over his head. Einstein’s Dreams succeeded in part because the ethereal nature of dreams freed Lightman from worrying about typically essential novelistic elements like characters and plot.  Lightman’s attempt to incorporate those same elements in Mr....

“Literary critics have labeled Michel Houellebecq’s novels ‘vulgar,’ ‘pamphlet literature’ and ‘pornography;’ he has been accused of obscenity, racism, misogyny and islamophobia.” Why couldn’t I have read that book? Considering that one of his previous novels focused on a travel agency that sold prostitution packages to Thailand and that several others contain enough sex and violence to make the Marquis de Sade blush, I had a large bottle of hand sanitizer at the ready when reading Michel Houellebecq’s new novel, THE MAP AND THE TERRITORY. Sadly, what I really needed by the end was a six pack of Red Bull. At least from the view of these shores, the wave of controversy that surrounded THE MAP AND THE TERRITORY, which won the Prix Goncourt, France’s highest literary award, is rather perplexing. The novel follows artist Jed Martin as he reveals a new series of paintings after a ten year hiatus.  In order to get as much press attention as possible for his gallery opening, he commissions a certain Michel Houellebecq to write the essays for the catalog. The show’s a hit, there’s a gruesome murder and that’s about it. As a satire on art and society the novel reads like Bret Easton Ellis on Prozac. And even though Houellebecq follows in the footsteps of Martin Amis by casting himself as a major supporting character, the novel is devoid of any other post-modern narrative game playing, aside from a brief detour into Grand Guignol thriller territory that is swiftly brushed aside without a satisfying  pay-off.  To be fair, Houellebecq isn’t interested in narrative pay-off, or storytelling at all really, as he made abundantly clear in a 2010 Paris Review interview with Susannah Hunnewel: “You might get the impression that I have a mild contempt for...

Able to leap multidisciplinary subjects in a single bound, Umberto Eco is the college professor you always wanted to have.  His first novel, 1980’s international bestseller The Name of the Rose placed such seemingly inaccessible topics as semiotics and biblical hermeneutics inside the irresistible candy wrapper of a medieval monastery murder mystery.  Eco’s second novel, Foucault’s Pendulum, also came with a tasty hook, despite causing mild reader indigestion by the end: A group of professors use a computer to unlock the ultimate conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, Eco’s next three fictional efforts, The Island of the Day Before, Baudolino and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, were bloated, meandering tales of ephemera and arcana, written by a brilliant professor without a syllabus. Already a literary sensation throughout much of the rest of the world, his newest novel The Prague Cemetery, seems blessed with a premise tailor-made for a return to form: The memoirs of master document forger Captain Simone Simonini, the fictional “evil genius” behind many the 19th Century’s most infamous events. Unlike Foucault’s Pendulum, where the professorial protagonists were on hand to explain the bevy of conspiracy theories and secret societies, the historical exposition of The Prague Cemetery is about as inviting as the Korean DMZ. (A word of caution:  if you’re not up to speed on such topics as the Unification of Italy, the Paris Commune or the Dreyfus affair, don’t stray too far from a device with internet capacity.) The morass of names, dates and battles wouldn’t have been so exhausting an endurance test if Eco had allowed the reader to enjoy his evil genius’s machinations. After all, the book jacket promises of a plot filled with “forgeries, plots, and massacres.” There’s a good reason, however, why one can’t playfully bathe in Simonini’s...

Want to win a free McRib? Then play Fierce & Nerdy’s Search for the Great McRibiography! Here’s how to win your FREE McRib: 1. Read Ryan’s Dixon’s now classic manifesto: The Five Reasons Why the McRib is the Greatest Fast Food Item of All Time 2. In the Comments section below, share your own personal McRib story or why you think the McRib is the Greatest Fast Food Item of All Time. 3. Fierce & Nerdy’s Blue Ribbon panel (made up of Ryan Dixon, Jersey Joe, and F&N editors Ernessa T. Carter and Amy Robinson) will select the best stories that touch upon the core values of the McRib. (What are those values, exactly? We’re working on it.) 4. Winners will be mailed a coupon for one free McRib! And that’s it. It’s easy. Almost as easy as going to going to your local McDonald’s and ordering yourself a McRib. But hurry, just like the McRib, our contest is for a limited time only: all stories must be posted by TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1st. And now, let’s get on with the show… INTRODUCTION TO THE FIVE REASONS WHY THE MCRIB IS THE GREATEST FAST FOOD ITEM OF ALL TIME Why Me? How did an always poor, mostly anonymous and only occasionally witty blogumnist living in Burbank, CA suddenly find himself as the protagonist in a real-life, 21st century Horatio Alger novel? In 2010,  I was quoted in the Wall Street Journal, my voice was heard on NPR and perhaps the greatest corporation in American history became my follower on Twitter. And I owe it all to one saliva-inducing, two-syllable word: McRib. My journey to becoming a PhD in Pork Product and being hailed as the world’s foremost expert on McDonald’s legendary and enigmatic sandwich all...

To start, let’s compare Alan Hollinghurst’s new novel The Stranger’s Child to the Boston Red Sox. In 2004, Hollinghurst won the Man Booker Prize (Britain’s highest literary award) for his previous novel, The Line of Beauty. That same year the Boston Red Sox won their first world series in 86 years. Most sports prognosticators predicted that the Red Sox would play in the World Series this year just as The Stranger’s Child was the prohibitive favorite to win the Booker. Two weeks ago the Red Sox completed a historic September collapse and failed to make the playoffs. When the Booker shortlist was announced in September, The Stranger’s Child was nowhere to be seen. To drag the sports metaphor to its inevitable, clichéd conclusion: on paper, The Stranger’s Child seemed built to win awards.  With a century-spanning narrative, meticulously rendered scenes of alcohol-infused parties at vast country estates and a cast of literate, witty, repressed Brits in the throes of  forbidden romance, you can practically hear the Hollywood pitch: “It’s Possession meets Atonement meets Brideshead Revisited.” Broken into four major parts with a short epilogue, the opening sequence takes place over a weekend in 1913, when fledgling poet Cecil Vance visits the two acre family home of his Cambridge schoolmate George Sawle. George and Cecil are far more than just friends and share a magical weekend that inspires Cecil to compose an ode to his visit entitled “Two Acres,” part of which reads: “The book left out beneath the trees,Read over backwards by the breeze.The spinney where the lisping larchesKiss overhead in silver archesAnd in their shadows lovers tooMight kiss and tell their secrets through.“ As Cecil departs the Sawle home at the end of the first section, Hollinghurst shows that he’s as equally skilled...

Every hero hears the call to adventure. So, too, then must a critic — perhaps the most passive of all protagonists — discover the stylistic and aesthetic tools needed to tell perfect strangers how to think about a work of art. In Roger Ebert’s new memoir Life Itself, the critical call to adventure occurs after first seeing legendary director Ingmar Bergman’s drama of existential dread, Persona: “I didn’t have a clue how to write about it. I began with a simple description: “At first the screen is black. Then, very slowly, an area of dark grey transforms itself into blinding white. This is light projected onto the screen, the first basic principle of the movies. The light flickers and jumps around, finally resolving itself into a crude cartoon of a fat lady.” And so on. I was discovering a method that would work with impenetrable films: Focus on what you saw and how it affected you. Don’t fake it.” Roger Ebert has never faked it. The passion and clarity with which he writes about movies in his memoir is infectious, reminding us why, as America’s most influential cinematic tastemaker, he is the critic who launched a thousand cinephiles. Ebert’s promotion to film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times at age 25 and his rapid ascent to multi-media cultural mainstay is chronicled in several wonderfully entertaining chapters that form the narrative spine of this book. Along with Bergman, film luminaries Martin Scorsese, Russ Meyer, Robert Altman, Woody Allen, John Wayne, Werner Herzog, Robert Mitchum and Lee Marvin are portrayed with such grin-inducing gusto that it’s a constant temptation to put the book down and just watch their movies. Aside from movies, we quickly discover, Roger Ebert loves a lot of other things too: Full-figured women; 1957...

.500. For any fan of baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates, this number now has more significance than Barry Bonds’ home run record, DiMaggio’s hit streak or Cal Ripken’s consecutive games played. When I wrote the following blogumn in March, it looked like the chances of  the Pirates  finally ending this season with as many wins as losses after a record 18 consecutive years of failing were about as good as Newt Gingrich winning the Republican nomination. Then a funny thing happened: the Pirates started winning. And they’ve kept winning with as much regularity as they’ve been losing. And now the wins are starting to outnumber the losses. We’re about halfway through the season and if the Pirates keep going, this blogumn will be forever outdated. Never before have I ever wanted my writing to be so wrong... Originally published 03/25/11 How do the Pittsburgh Pirates compare with other infamous losers of history? On Thursday, April 7th, Major League Baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates will take to the field of PNC Park to play the Colorado Rockies. If all goes as planned (and there is little reason to doubt that it won’t) sometime in early October, the Pirates will finish their 19th consecutive losing season. The only records that will be broken will be their own: In 2009, their 17th  losing season tied them with the Philadelphia Phillies for the longest streak of consecutive losing seasons in North American sports history. And last year, the Pittsburgh Pirates celebrated their final descent to the bottommost throne in Loserdom’s decaying garbage heap with the most losses (105) in their 123 year existence. In terms of embarrassment, ignominy and defeat, the Pittsburgh Pirates are now only competing with themselves. Of course many people will argue that Pirates’ fans really have no right to complain....

I have a problem. And like most of my problems, I was the last one to know about it. In fact, I had considered this problem an attribute until last Saturday night when I was strolling through the outdoor shopping and dining district of Old Town Pasadena enjoying a fruitful, funny conversation with my companion Anne Hathaway. (Ok, it wasn’t really Anne Hathaway, but since my actual companion wouldn’t appreciate having her name immortalized in this blogumn, I figured I’d pick a pseudonym that could bring in some extra search engine traffic.) It was just after 10pm and suddenly every store front –from quaint coffee shops to high-end wine bars to Yogurtariums– transformed like some brick and mortar werewolf into make-shift night clubs with obligatory velvet ropes and roided-up door men hairier than Cerberus. Turning onto a slightly more quiet side street, Anne Hathaway and I passed two women in their early 20s who were squeezed into club wear of such suffocating tightness that their female forms resembled nothing less than two freshly fed pythons. As I watched them wobbling forth in their sky-scraper heels like sailors after seven years at sea, I quickly concocted twin backstories featuring a whistle stop tour of heartbreaks, disappointments and diminished expectations. “I feel bad for them. They seem just so desperate to impress,” I said in a tone of genuine pity as opposed to my usual snark attack. “That’s really judgmental. How do you know they’re desperate and sad?”  Anne Hathaway snapped back. In an effort to save face, I mumbled something to Anne Hathaway about how she was right and then asked her to reveal some plot spoilers from The Dark Knight Rises (Ka-ching! – Take that Google!) And that is how I learned about my problem: ...

Soda is delicious. But to the ancient Callatians, so was the flesh of dead relatives and nowadays no one outside of gourmand serial killers would salivate over a dish of foie gras d’ humain.  That soda and junk food have followed in the footsteps of flesh and cigarettes to become the consumptive Voldemorts of the 21st century presents a great challenge for corporate confectionerians: How to produce products with addictive deliciousness without fattening the populace into lumbering Elephant Men. PepsiCo’s quest of attaining this snacktopia was chronicled recently in a fascinating New Yorker article written by John Seabrook. In the article, Pepsi’s strategies for creating healthier food — developing a brand new type of salt with the atomic-age name “15 Micron Salt” and building a “taste testing” robot hardwired with cultured cells featuring the genetic sequences of the four known taste receptors — seemed more like excerpts from a science-fiction novel than the evolutionary next step for Cool Ranch Doritos. Instead of spending hundreds of millions dollars on cutting-edge scientific research, all the folks at Pepsi really needed to do was look west toward Los Angeles. During the past fifteen years the marketing, distribution, and accounting departments inside Hollywood studios– the real imaginative forces of the dream machine—have discovered a can’t-miss business algorithm: making movies that no one likes but everyone goes to see. Or, to be more precise, the Orphan Blockbuster. Like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Hollywood hive mind has now confused audiences to the point where they can’t tell good from bad.  Let’s look at two recent releases, both on their way to making more money than the GDP of Guinea-Bissau: Fast Five and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Both films may be built with...

To: Newly Promoted President of Production at Major Hollywood Studio From: The Mainstream Moviegoing Audience of America Congratulations on your new job! After years of suffering through labyrinthine lunch orders, death-defying dry cleaning runs and post-orgy organization duty, you’ve climbed to the top of the Hollywood mountain and can greenlight any movie you want! Sorry about your first day on the job, though. Having the Chairman of your parent company enter your newly feng shuied office, plop an energy drink on your desk and ask, “How can we make this into a five-picture franchise?” is probably not what you had in mind when dreaming of cinematic glory. But don’t panic. You can still produce your King’s Speeches, Social Networks and Black Swans, first you just need to feed the multi-national corporate beast by stuffing it full of sequels! The good news is that with a record 27 sequels scheduled to open this year (including a unprecedented collection of “Part IV’s”) the beast is hungrier than ever! The goal of a sequel is primordial in its simplicity: make enough money to make another sequel. Unfortunately, come December 31 many of these 27 titles will most likely have failed to deliver, forcing studios to impatiently wait decades instead of mere years to “reboot” the franchise. Those decision makers who shepherded the ill-begotten cinematic spawn will be forced to live in Hollywood exile, roaming a desolate world of canceled Centurion cards, dollar menu deals and martini’s made with McCormick’s gin instead of Bombay Sapphire.  To help avoid this dark fate, we, the mainstream moviegoing audience of America, have decided to present you with a reference guide to potentially lethal sequel symptoms. We have also compiled a list of the twelve most deadly sequels of all time. The...

How Morgan Spurlock’s POM Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold shows the world the glory of Sheetz. During the 1940’s, Walt Disney spent weekends sitting on creaky benches watching his daughters play at shoddy, destitute amusement parks. Those endless hours suffering in communal boredom with other parents was the inadvertent shot that sparked a revolution. As Disney would later tell it: “What this country really needs is an amusement park that families can take their children to. They’ve gotten so honky tonk with a lot of questionable characters running around, and they’re not safe. They’re not well kept. I want to have a place that’s as clean as anything could ever be, and all the people in it are first-class citizens, and treated like guests.” Opened in 1955, Disneyland is the 20th Century’s singular cultural achievement. Walt Disney’s vision of a fully immersive world (the amusement park transformed into a theme park writ large) had the same Olympian influence on entertainment and the arts as Richard Wagner’s 19th Century theatrical innovations like designing theaters in the Greek amphitheater style so all seats faced the stage (imagine that!), lowering the house lights and covering the pit orchestra so that the music would seemingly rise from the recesses of the audience’s imagination. But what seemed radical then is now taken for granted. Many of the newer Disney attractions have been greeted with ho-hum indifference. A 3D Imax experience is just another variation of Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk. The envelope needs to be pushed. The edge needs to bleed. And they have. Just in a very different industry. Over the past twenty years, cultural innovation has been given a new name: Sheetz Like nazi, pederast, and futures investor, convenience store is a term widely and rightfully derided, conjuring images...

A Reader’s Guide to Not Reading Ulysses. It can happen to anyone. You’re at a birthday party, Bar Mitzvah, or PTA meeting. The day has gone well, the weather outside is perfect, you’re happy to be alive. But then the rabbi, soccer mom super hero or neighbor’s boarding school brat references James Joyce’s Ulysses. The innards of your bowels roar, your heart goes all NASCAR, a tsunami of sweat floods your brow, back and underarms. You flashback to Thanksgiving three years ago: the last time someone referenced Ulysses — you confused it with Homer’s The Odyssey. Five minutes later, the host informed you that, unfortunately, they had miscounted the table settings and you soon found yourself eating turkey at the kids table. And now the book rises again like an unread wraith into your otherwise literate life. You have two choices: confess to never having read Ulysses or toss the Hail Mary question: “Is that the one where he masturbates?” Neither choice has a happy ending. You go home alone, despondent. Food loses its taste, sex is mirthless, even an episode of Modern Family fails to elicit a chuckle. You’re not alone. Every year, millions of American’s suffer in silence for not having read the greatest novel of the 20th Century. But now there is hope. I’ve read Ulysses so you don’t have to. Your days of struggling through mile-long passages of impenetrable language and backbreaking bulk when all you really want to do is luxuriate in the grocery store prose stylings of James Patterson and Nora Roberts are over. Just follow these three simple “Ulylessons” and you will sound like a second-year Joyce Studies PhD candidate to friends, loved ones and pets (all of whom have probably also never read Ulysses). Ulylesson #1...

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has yet to kill anyone, but could it end up murdering the Broadway Flop? No show in Broadway history has ever battled through such a dizzying array of troubles as Spider-Man: Turn Off Dark. The buzz hasn’t just been bad, it’s been genocidal.  And like the war in Afghanistan or The Passion of the Charlie Sheen, there seems to be no end in sight. This week brought news that director Julie Taymor has been fired/quit the production and the supposedly really, really, real opening date of March 15th has just gone the way of the dodo. Yet the production continues to perform gravity-defying feats of box office wonderment. The producers love the free publicity. Critics are having adjective orgasms crafting witty, bitchy prose. Federal, state and local authorities are only too happy to enlist the show’s help in fixing historic deficits by fining it for countless safety violations. And the suddenly contract-endangered Glenn Beck is relieved to pontificate on a subject that doesn’t involve eschatology. Everyone, it seems, is happy to have Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark in their life. The only people who shouldn’t be happy are theatre fans. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark may not be the catalyst for one of Beck’s certain-to-arrive-any-minute-now apocalypses, but it very well could be the canary in the coalmine for an even more tragic End Time: The Death of The Broadway Flop. Devotees of film, literature and music rarely focus their café conversations on the Cutthroat Islands, Ancient Evenings, and Garth Brooks in the Life of Chris Gaineses of the canon.  But if you love theatre, it’s a given that at some point in the last month you’ve incanted “Carrie: The Musical,” “Moose Murders” or “Dance of the Vampires” in the hushed, haunted...

“The Ancient Greeks reserved a special word for the sort of arrogance that makes you forget your own humanity. That word was Hubris.” — From an introductory essay included in the Playbill of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Note to Julie Taymor, Bono and The Edge: When creating a $65 million dollar musical beset by more accidents than those found in the diapers of my nine-month old niece, it’s not a good idea to feature an essay in your show’s program about Hubris. But then again, the entire production history of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark reeks of Hubris. And Hubris was at the heart of what I saw on the night of December 20th when, during a preview performance, Christopher Tierney (one of the many actors who portrays the flying Spider-Man) plummeted 30 feet into an orchestra pit, causing the performance to come to a premature end with seven minutes left. In truth, I was there to see an accident. Not an accident that endangered the life of an actor, mind you, but a theatrical one.  I had missed the opportunity to feast upon such legendary Broadway turkeys as Dance of the Vampires, Lestat, and Carrie: The Musical. And the larger-than-life elements and Jupiter-sized egos involved with Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark seemed to ensure that the show was either going to be a unmitigated disaster or a genuine work of theatrical genius like Taymor’s The Lion King. I know what you’re thinking now– Aside from the stage accident, how was the show? To assist me in answering this question, I’ve enlisted my buddy Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher who knew a few things about Hubris. As anyone who’s taken a freshman year theatre class knows, Aristotle broke down Greek Tragedy (and thus...

a blogumn by Ryan Dixon INTRODUCTION TO THE 2010 EDITION Like that Christmas Eve story Grandpa always told that became longer and more convoluted as the years went on, the time has once again arrived for my ever-growing annual holiday column on Hickory Farms Beef Stick. I figure if George Lucas can give us approximately 18,281 Special Editions of Star Wars, there’s no reason why I can’t write an additional hundred words or so each year, expanding on the joys and sorrows experienced while eating the greatest of the great American foods. (Attention conspiracy theorists:  Just because I wrote about my McRib addiction a few weeks ago and am now delving itno a hagiography of Hickory Farms Beef Stick does not mean that I’m on the American Meat Institute’s payroll. Of course, if anyone from the American Meat Institute is reading this post, I would actually very much like to be on the payroll. Feel free to tweet me up at @ryanbdixon.) And so, dear readers, Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present: ON THE EXEGESIS OF THE SOUL OR: WHY I LOVE BEEF STICK: 2010 REVISED and EXPANDED EDITION with a SLIGHTLY NEW, or more accurately, NEWLY REVISED INTRODUCTION (Which You Just Read)   1: BEEF STICK, LORD OF THE MEMORY PALACE “May I try a free sample?” After speaking those six simple words, the ritual would always be the same: A smiling gray-haired clerk at a Hickory Farms Christmas stand in one of the many Western Pennsylvania malls I visited during my childhood would poke a toothpick into a delicately cut square of meat, hand it to me and the door to paradise would open… I love Hickory Farms Beef Stick. There is a popular dinner party question that goes something like...

Fierce Anticipation’s 1st Annual Macabre, Morbid, Miserly, and somewhat Murderous Christmas Reading List of 22 Books Selected at Random by Me, Ryan Dixon Need a gift for that not-so-special someone? Read on to discover the perfectly inappropraite book for every Christmas occasion after the gallery… For those who’d rather eat a reindeer than ride one: How to Cook a Reindeer by Laila Spik For those who’d rather eat a human than a ham: I Ate Billy on Christmas by Roman Dirge For those looking for a legitimate reason NOT to buy anyone presents: Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays by Joel Waldfogel For those who aren’t already bored enough by Prairie Hometown Companion: A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor For those looking for re-confirmation that Texas is the worst state in the Union (especially at Christmastime): Tinsel: A Search for America’s Christmas Present by Hank Stuever For those who are closeted, Christmas loving Jews: Sex, God, Christmas and the Jews by Gil Mann For those plotting a family member’s murder during the holiday: Murder for Christmas: 26 Tales of Yuletide Malice edited by Thomas Godfrey For those who ate too much bread pudding: The Bathroom Book of Christmas Trivia edited by Lisa Wojina For those getting a PhD in Christmas Studies: The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum For those getting a PhD in Christmas Studies with a focus on the semiotics of Santa Claus: Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men: The Origins and Evolution of Saint Nicholas Spanning 50,000 Years by Phyllis Siefker For those who like their Beef Stick organic and farm fresh: Stocking Stuffers: Homoerotic Christmas Tales edited by David Laurents For those who want some Gore(y) with their Christmas: The Twelve Terrors of Christmas by John...

To celebrate Halloween, all week Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present the online premiere of John Dunn’s Last Run, a darkly comic psychological horror film written and directed by Hell House: The Awakening co-author and F&N contributor Ryan Dixon and produced by F&N writers Zachary Halley, Joe Rusin, and Jersey Joe (with Yasmina Jacobs). Today is the conclusion of the 26 minute film about John Dunn, a former high school teacher with a mysterious past who takes a late night run only to discover that he’s on no ordinary running trail. His run turns into a nightmare as specters of his dark past appear before him and threaten to consume his sanity — and his life. Click here for Part 1 Click here for Part 2 Click here for Part 3 Click here for Part 4 And watch the final installment of John Dunn’s Last Run...

INTRODUCTION TO THE 2010 EDITION: Why Me? How did an always poor, mostly anonymous and only occasionally witty blogumnist living in Burbank, CA suddenly find himself as the protagonist in a real-life, 21st century Horatio Alger novel? During the past three weeks I’ve been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, my voice was heard on NPR and perhaps the greatest corporation in American history became my 69th follower on Twitter. And I owe it all to one saliva-inducing, two-syllable word: McRib. My journey to becoming a PhD in Pork Product and being hailed as the world’s foremost expert on McDonald’s legendary and enigmatic sandwich all began with a seemingly innocuous FaN blogumn that I wrote last December arguing that the McRib, an object of both mirthless odium and near-religious devotion, was simply the Citizen Kane of rapidly-processed culinary cuisine. I had resolved myself to the fact that this blogumn had probably sunk to the never-to-be-read-again seabed of the fathomless internet ocean until a few weeks ago when a reporter, working on his own McRib story for the Wall Street Journal, read the post, contacted Fierce and Nerdy and interviewed me. With the publication of that front-page article, I stepped upon the national stage to take my rightful place as the Susan Boyle of fast foodies. (Google “Ryan Dixon McRib” and 3,390 results come roaring back at you. Google “Ryan Dixon” and I don’t even make an appearance until the second page.) Unfortunately, for the past sixteen years only select pockets of the country were able to celebrate the annual arrival of those banners, draped under the Golden Arches, inscribed with that immortal phrase “The McRib is Back.” But this year, for the first time since 1994, the entire nation, in a period of great...

To celebrate Halloween, all week Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present the online premiere of John Dunn’s Last Run, a darkly comic psychological horror film written and directed by Hell House: The Awakening co-author and F&N contributor Ryan Dixon and produced by F&N writers Zachary Halley, Joe Rusin, and Jersey Joe (with Yasmina Jacobs). Today is the fourth part of the 26 minute film about John Dunn, a former high school teacher with a mysterious past who takes a late night run only to discover that he’s on no ordinary running trail. His run turns into a nightmare as specters from his dark past appear before him and threaten to consume his sanity — and his life. Click here for Part 1 Click here for Part 2 Click here for Part 3 And watch Part 4...

To celebrate Halloween, all week Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present the online premiere of John Dunn’s Last Run, a darkly comic psychological horror film written and directed by Hell House: The Awakening co-author and F&N contributor Ryan Dixon and produced by F&N writers Zachary Halley, Joe Rusin, and Jersey Joe (with Yasmina Jacobs). Today is the third part of the 26 minute film about John Dunn, a former high school teacher with a mysterious past who takes a late night run only to discover that he’s on no ordinary running trail. His run turns into a nightmare as specters of his dark past appear before him and threaten to consume his sanity — and his life. Click here for Part 1 Click here for Part 2 And watch Part 3...

To celebrate Halloween, all week Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present the online premiere of John Dunn’s Last Run, a darkly comic psychological horror film written and directed by Hell House: The Awakening co-author and F&N contributor Ryan Dixon and produced by F&N writers Zachary Halley, Joe Rusin, and Jersey Joe (with Yasmina Jacobs). Today is the second part of the 26 minute film about John Dunn, a former high school teacher with a mysterious past who takes a late night run only to discover that he’s on no ordinary running trail. His run turns into a nightmare as specters of his dark past appear before him and threaten to consume his sanity — and his life. Click here for Part 1 Watch Part 2...

Just in time for Halloween Week, Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present the online premiere of John Dunn’s Last Run, a darkly comic psychological horror film written and directed by Hell House: The Awakening co-author and F&N contributor Ryan Dixon and produced by F&N writers Zachary Halley, Joe Rusin, and Jersey Joe (with Yasmina Jacobs). In the 26-minute film, which will broken into five parts airing each day this week., John Dunn, a former high school teacher with a mysterious past, takes a late night run, only to find that he’s on no ordinary running trail. His run turns into a nightmare as specters of his dark past appear before him and threaten to consume his sanity — and his life. Watch Part I...

On the Origins of Hell House: The Awakening:  A Special Multi-Part Fierce Anticipation Event By Ryan Dixon Click Here for Part I Click Here for Part II The phone rang in my dorm room during the dawning hours of a frigid Monday morning in January 1999. Already awake and blearily trying to memorize the opening prologue of Shakespeare’s Henry V that I had to perform for my acting class in just a few hours, I answered it. On the Contrary’s Joe Rusin was on the other line. One of the charter members of our close-nit group of friends, Joe was two years younger than me and should have been getting ready for school. “Emily’s in the hospital,” he said. “She tried to kill herself.” After hanging up, I tossed the Shakespeare aside, put on my overcoat and stumbled through the thickening layer of snow accumulating on Carnegie Mellon’s campus, wondering… What should I do? My initial response was to call my parents and have them pick me up so I could visit Emily in the hospital. This is what a best friend would do. This is what an aspiring boyfriend would do. But was I either of those things anymore? I had gotten used to repressing my romantic longings for Emily. I satisfied myself with our strong friendship, but since that October night at Hell House, she and I had barely communicated. Our epically long IM sessions had gone the way of the dodo. Emails were returned, not within minutes or hours, but days. Calls were non-existent. In the month and a half between our Hell House adventure and Christmas break, I threw myself fully into school work and made an effort to bond with my classmates so I could avoid thinking about Emily....

I’m looking soooo forward to the 32 CANDLES Q&A at Writing Pad tonight. And I’ve been really good with the Weight Watchers points this week, so salted caramel cupcakes will be eaten without guilt. This I decree! But before all that, let’s get our procrastination on, shall we? 1. Our own Ryan Dixon not only gave the best quote in a Wall Street Journal article about the legendary McDonald’s McRib (“It has a ghostly quality […] You don’t know when it will appear. It’s the girl who you are in love with who has always been a tease to you.”), he’ll also be talking about on NPR this Saturday for “All Things Considered,” so do tune in. For those of you who haven’t met Ryan IRL, he talks just like he writes. Don’t believe that’s even possible? Dudes, tune in…. [WSJ.com] 2. A preview of the upcoming SWEET VALLEY HIGH sequel (drop date: April, 2011), which will feature the twins all grown up. Elizabeth and Jessica have fallen out because of an unnamed betrayal. I can tell myself I’m too grown to read this, but we all pretty much know that I’m going to be pre-ordering it on Amazon. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, ya’ll. [Jezebel] 3. Apparently, 92% of babies have a social networking presence. My bigger question is about the 8% that don’t. I mean if a baby is born and you don’t post her or his picture on your blog or Facebook page, does that baby actually exist? [ValleyWag] 4. I likes me both some meat and some seafood, but I imagine this article from our own Kelli Bielema (“Fierce in Seattle”) about how to navigate being a vegetarian at a seafood restaurant might be very helpful to someone...

On the Origins of Hell House: The Awakening:  A Special Multi-Part Fierce Anticipation Event By Ryan Dixon Click Here for Part I “This is Steve,” the Grim Reaper guide says. “He thought his homosexual lifestyle was everything a real man could want, but now he’s dying of AIDS.” While the exact details of what my best friends and I experienced inside the Hell House can mostly be found, slightly fictionalized, in Hell House: The Awakening, when I think back to that Halloween night twelve years ago, I do so not to bathe in the memory of the fun we had, but in the still-in-vain hope of uncovering the sundering seed of tragedy that would eventually befall the beating heart of our group, my unrequited love, Emily. Emily… Yet retrospection only brings a cacophony of our communal noise; the quiet sneers, suppressed giggles, and sarcastic remarks we shared while witnessing the immersive, multitudinous triumphs of aesthetic, thematic and moral bad taste within those dimly lit rooms dedicated to purging the sinful desires of homosexuality, illegal drugs, indecent literature and pre-marital sex from its visitors. Suffice it to say, the sort of genuine “haunted house” scares that could have perhaps provoked Emily’s hand into mine, and thus chastely consummate a romance, were non-existent. At least that’s what I thought then. Now, I know better. Something inside the Hell House did frighten her. But what? No matter how many times I scour the cache of my memory, trying to find a Rosebud within the thirty minutes we spent inside the abandoned and re-decorated steel mill on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, I still cannot locate the inciting incident of Emily’s eventual descent. The infection point where the cancer of religious obsession entered her bloodstream, eager to metastasize and...

On the Origins of Hell House: The Awakening:  A Special Multi-Part Fierce Anticipation Event “Where do you get your ideas?” As a writer I’m asked that question a lot. Usually I respond by spouting off something about an amalgamation of life experience, imaginative fancy and just plain ripping off better works. However, Hell House: The Awakening — the recently published Viper Comics graphic novel I co-wrote with Chad Feehan– provides a rare case where the idea sprung directly from a very specific incident in my own life. Hell House: The Awakening was a story that both Chad and I had to tell. Despite its supernatural trappings, the book’s inspirational core—researching the poisonous vapors that drift off the sweltering swamp of Fundamentalist Christianity—was something that hit each of us, in very different ways, personally and tragically in the gut. While the dark road that led Chad to become passionate about our graphic novel can only be revealed when he is emotionally ready, I have decided, after much inner turmoil and a few long discussions with the parties involved, to reveal, for the first time, my own inspiration behind Hell House: The Awakening. Suffice it to say, over a decade has passed since the tragic events of 1998 and 1999 and not a day goes by when I don’t wonder how much better my life would have been if I had never gone into a Hell House. In October of 1998 I was a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and desperately lonely. Having left the tight-knit group of friends from the rural area I grew up in 90 minutes away (which included fellow F&N contributors Jersey Joe and On the Contrary’s Joe Rusin), I was too intimidated by the seemingly sophisticated and overtly-theatrical mien...

Back in August I promised that today I was going to reveal the true and terrifying story behind the upcoming graphic novel I co-wrote, Hell House: The Awakening. Well, it turns out I f*cked up the release date and Hell House: The Awakening isn’t actually coming out until later this month. The good news: this gives you even more time to pre-order the book! (50% of all proceeds will go to help save the lives of rescue dogs across the country who are in danger of being put to sleep.) The bad news: you’re going to have to wait just a little longer for my product-placement enhanced memoir cum blogumn. The even worse than bad news: I discovered the delayed release date last night, meaning I was scrambling faster than a quarterback being chased by the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense for something to write about today. (The most terrible news of all: I lied about those rescue dogs. I’m keeping all my money and not giving any of it to them. They will die horrible, sad, lonely deaths and there’s nothing you can do about it.) In my desperate search for material, I began reviewing past Fierce Anticipations and realized that it was two years ago almost to this very day that this blogumn first appeared onto the world wide web (does anybody still call it that anymore?) and changed all of your lives forever. Even more surprising was my discovery that the blogumn I wrote in 2008 could still be used today, albeit with just a few small changes accounting for the two-year time difference. Because the “happy ending” massage parlor I frequent charges 15% extra if you’re late for an appointment, I’ve decided to skip trying to write a new blogumn and just...

. a favorite blogumn by Ryan Dixon Ryan Says: Love at first sight? For me, it’s a dubious concept with one notable exception. During a trip to Boston last August I fell instantly into Eros’ pulsating embrace upon my first step inside Jordan’s Furniture. For those who didn’t read this Fierce Anticipation when it was posted a year ago, I won’t spoil all the wonders that awaited me. Just know this: as it stands right now, if I were to pick one place to reside for all of eternity, it would be Jordan’s. Perhaps after reading this Fierce Anticipation, Jordan’s will be your ideal eternity too… From September 4, 2010 The Furniture Store as Theme Park Edition (with Complimentary Bonus Photos!) FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Jordan’s Furniture Over the past decade, when dinner party chatter would turn to the topic of the best themed furniture stores in the nation, my well-worn response would always be, “Gallery Furniture in Houston is the best of course. It’s not even close.” Like those pundits currently opining that there will never be a Senator (or President) who achieves a legacy that equals the legislative accomplishment of Ted Kennedy (R.I.P.), I was certain that I would never again walk through another furniture store that equaled the scale and invention of Texas legend Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale’s commerce masterpiece, which features an indoor water wheel, bowling alley, giant rocking chair, cafeteria, and roaming salesmen dressed in life-sized foam mattresses. And then I went to Jordan’s Furniture. While most would consider the mandatory stops in Salem, MA to be the various historical haunts like the House of Seven Gables and Witch Trial Memorial, I urge anyone with an appreciation of themed entertainment — that art of making the ordinary, extraordinary, of giving the...

. a favorite blogumn by Ryan Dixon Before his diagnosis of Esophageal cancer took up all the headlines and dominated the interviews, Christopher Hitchens’ officially-minted feud with literary lion Gore Vidal looked like it was going to be one of the featured topics during the publicity tour for his memoir Hitch-22. As he explained in that book and in a February Vanity Fair piece, the source of this antagonism revolved around the genesis of a quote attributed to Vidal about Hitchens being his “dauphin.” In a brilliant marketing move, the back cover of Hitch-22 even featured Vidal’s quote crossed out in harsh red ink. A year before Hitchens wrote his Vanity Fair piece dismissing the quote as an adulatory gift Vidal begged him to accept, I had an opportunity to meet with Vidal and asked him directly whether or not he ever said the now-infamous “dauphin” remark. You will find his very funny and caustic answer in the blogumn below. Another reason I chose to re-run this particular Fierce Anticipation is because it also includes a short essay about the surprisingly insightful life lessons found in the Jim Carrey vehicle Yes Man. When this blogumn first appeared, many readers wrote expressing how much they were touched by both the essay and the movie which, several noted, was so much better than the marketing had led them to believe. Despite the positive feedback and enthusiasm for the essay, I always thought that it didn’t quite get the readership it deserved as it was forced to sit supplicant under the suffocating buttocks of prose that was the chronicle of my epic visit to Vidal. In case you missed it the first time, I offer it up again for your enjoyment and edification. From April 10, 2009...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING You Watching the Hell House: The Awakening trailer! On September 8th HELL HOUSE: THE AWAKENING, a graphic novel I co-wrote with Chad Feehan, will be unleashed upon unsuspecting readers all across America. While I won’t reveal the dark, twisted and ultimately tragic true story that inspired the book until the next new Fierce Anticipation on September 10th, right now I am proud to present the official unveiling of our trailer. P.S. If you enjoyed the trailer, go ahead and give yourself a treat. Pre-order the book now! P.P.S. Did you Pre-order the book yet? No? Come on, it’s only $9.95. (To quote Mad Magazine: $9.95 — Cheap!) P.P.P.S. I’m not moving on to the next subject until you Pre-order it. Please? It’s the perfect price to get you over that $25.00 “Free Shipping” hump on Amazon. P.P.P.P.S. You finally Pre-ordered the book? Great. Thank you! Now, on with the show… KINDA WANT YOU TO SEE A Real Hell House You’ve just watched the trailer and Pre-ordered your copy of the book, yet probably most of you are still wondering, “What the hell is a Hell House?” Instead of spending 2000 words or so of your time explaining what it is, why don’t I just show you? (I’m catching trailer fever here today at Fierce Anticipation.) The following is a video tour (created by the YouTube group Curious Travelers) of a Hell House that was held in Brooklyn. While this 2006 production was produced by the hip, hot and ironic New York theatre company Les Freres Corbusier, the original Hell House script, written by Pastor Kenan Roberts, was used without much adaptation. What you are about to see is by no means an exaggeration of what audiences...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon Those lucky enough to count themselves as children of the 80’s know the truth. If it was amongst your possessions, there was perhaps no other toy that earned more esteem from one’s elementary school peers than Voltron: Defender of the Universe (which should not be confused with Queen’s Flash: Savior of the Universe or just the plain old Masters of the Universe). What’s Voltron, you ask? Well, if you don’t know, then you can read all about it here, but let me give you a quick breakdown for the purposes of understanding my analogy in the next paragraph: Voltron was a giant metallic Transformer-like robot that was created by putting together a group of smaller robot lions. Suffice it to say, the sum was far greater than the parts. My thoughts turned to Voltron recently when looking at the poster for The Expendables. While much has been made about how this collection of talking-head testosterone represents perhaps the biggest all-star ensemble ever assembled (at least until LeBron decided to take his talents to…well, you know the rest), the truth is that most of these actors are either washed up or just up-and-coming talents. The only way such publicity-fueld hyperbole can even begin to approach any semblance of truth is if you put them all together. TaDa!!!–an all-star cast! This act of actorly assembly was really no different from how Voltron was so much cooler when all the robots were put all together. Knowing that most actors aren’t exactly the most secure beings in the universe, I have no doubt that when Stallone et al were in their trailers–in between scenes of blowing up the next South American bandito— their minds were secretly racing with sweaty, Nixon-like paranoia as to...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING ON DEMAND “Are you sure you’re ready to do this?” “Yeah, I really want to.” “And you won’t have any regrets? You know there’s no going back.” “I want to. I want to do it. Badly. Really badly.” And so last Friday evening, my roommate and I, after hours of agonizing debate, gave into our basest passions and let pleasure be our guide as we made the fateful decision that would affect the rest of our lives… We rented a new movie through On Demand. (What? Expecting something different?) Perhaps no other platform of digital delivery has spurred as much debate as the day-and-date release of movies in theaters and On Demand. While having no particular prejudice based on pricipal against this method of watching movies, I always preferred the theatrical experience for reasons having do with my own makeup as a passive viewer. I want to give a movie the same amount of attention I do a book and the lack of alternative points of stimulation in a movie theater allows me to both persevere through the boring parts and be totally enraptured when the great moments arrive. At home the slightest dramatic downturn in a movie’s narrative brings about a tizzy of temptations– to check my Blackberry or glance through a magazine or go to the bathroom every ten minutes. What were, just moments before the movie began, prosaic domestic tasks, turn into hideously beautiful Sirens, hell-bent on seducing my focus away from the television screen. Last Friday presented itself as an unexpected perfect storm of factors for me to enter into the world of On Demand. I’m a bit of a Kevin Kline nut and was eagerly (or some could say, Fiercely) anticipating...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon Fiercely Anticipating Tom Cruise in Knight and Day I come to praise Tom Cruise, not to bury him. That I can present you with this brief, but spirited defense, is due to one major reason: I used to work for the man. If you’ve spent any time employed in the entertainment industry, it will come as no surprise that Hollywood loves cranking out horror films. What’s unexpected to those on the outside looking in is the fact that, more often than not, working at an agency, production company or studio often provides the inspiration for those films. And the Freddy Krueger’s who prowl the feng-shuied halls are the A-listers, those 800lb gorillas– whether they be directors, producers or actors — who love to beat their chests at even the slightest disturbance. Compared to most, Tom Cruise (or TC as he was referred to by us at work) is a proverbial King Kong, yet in the six months I worked at his production company and, from what I heard afterwards by the employees I kept in touch with, the man with the supernova smile was nothing but a consummate gentleman. In fact, I would go so far as to say that one would be hard pressed in finding a boss, with approximately 400 billion times the wealth and fame of those working under him, who had a better relationship with his employees. Whenever TC was in the office he made a concerted effort to be pleasant and attentive to all of us who were killing ourselves for the betterment of his career. When he talked to you, he had a laser-like focus that is missing from the vast majority of middle managers over-populating office parks across the country. But if...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon Fiercely Anticipating The Novelization Like any adolescent with a slice of ambition and a small sliver of spunk, I was always searching for new and inventive ways to see R-rated movies. Unfortunately, in the confines of my rural existence, where the nearest theater was a half hour away, the video store owned by family friends and cable an urban legend, I was often blocked at every turn. The occasional R-rated film I did see before entering puberty–a stew of early to mid-80s sword and sorcery pulp and straight forward action films – were pre-edited by my father who would fast-forwarded through all the inappropriate moments (e.g. the sex scenes) while watching them the night before and copying them in SLP onto our Maxell video tapes. The one medium where I was given free reign were books. I was allowed to read whatever I wanted as long as I read. Thus to the shock of the kind and patient employees at the local Waldenbooks there I was, aged eleven, purchasing Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs’ paean to heroin addiction. I had seen the video poster for David Cronenberg’s film adaptation, featuring a fedora wearing Peter Weller looking up at a green humanoid insect, and thought the film to be a sort of R-rated Who Framed Roger Rabbit with giant bugs instead of toons.  Since there was no possibility that I would be allowed to rent it, the only way to see the movie was to read the book. Roger Rabbit it was not. I struggled through the impenetrable jungle of Burroughs’ prose for about eight pages until tossing it aside in favor of something else — most likely by Stephen King or Michael Crichton, authors whose writing-style was complex enough to...

She released her soft, moist tongue from around my throbbing member. And then her naked body, dripping with liquid crystals of love sweat, began to mount me. In a matter of minutes, I would be a virgin no longer… Okay, enough with that. Per the new format of FaN, our dauntless edittress Ernessa T. Carter has demand, in a harshly worded email she sent this past week, that we contributors include a catchy opening to hook readers like you into clicking “more” to read the rest of the blogumn. So now that I hopefully have you hooked, it’s time to forget about virgins, tongues and, thankfully, my throbbing member and get to today’s real topic: the 1980s. (Note: For those who read the first paragraph and didn’t have to click “more,” I deeply apologize for any future psychological harm due to imagining anything having to do with me or my member.) Even though as a society we are as polarized as we have ever been, there is something I hope we can all agree upon: this is perhaps the worst summer for movies on record.  Those who have avoided the stream of cinematic exctrement that keeps pouring out of Hollywood’s neither regions should consider yourselves among the lucky few. I haven’t been so lucky, but now am starting to realize why so many of the recently released movies have left me feeling so bored: I’ve already seen most of the movies…back in the 1980s. It’s no surprise that the mutant 80s are at the forefront of modern pop culture seeing that many of Hollywood’s decision makers grew up during that decade. What is surprising is the utter banalitiy of what we’re now getting, re-heated entertainment leftovers. In the past two months, we’ve been forced...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon A very busy week with lots of overdue projects equals an abbreviated Fierce Anticipation. Instead of providing you with an 2,000 word exegesis on the glories of Honey Baked Ham or a dissertation exploring the semiotics of The Real Housewives of New York, I’ve compiled a special treat, just in time for summer. So, without further adieu… Fierce and Nerdy Proudly Presents… . Fierce Anticipation’s 16th Annual Unconventional, Inappropriate and All-together Arousing Summer Reading List of 50 Books Selected at Random by Me, Ryan Dixon Previews and Reviews for each of the books can be found after the jump! One sentence previews and reviews after the jump! For those wanting to be a serial killer: Final Truth : The Autobiography of a Serial Killer by Donald H. Gaskins and Wilton Earle For those wanting to catch a serial killer: Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker For those wanting to forget the Ben Roethlisberger affair and be reminded why the Pittsburgh Steelers are the single greatest organization in the history of sports: Rooney: A Sporting Life by Robert L. Ruck, Maggie Jones Patterson, and Michael P. Weber For those wanting to read a great new thriller written by my 91-year-old grandfather, a published author at last: A Watch in the Night by James R. Libbey For those who feel guilty about being too happy in their lives and want to buy a $160 book with intensely disturbing photographs of genocides from around the world: Inferno by James Nachtwey. For those who just finished reading Inferno and still don’t feel depressed enough:  The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton For those looking for something to talk about with the Asian masseuse...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Returning to Fierce Anticipation “So, where were you?” That’s what you’re asking right now. Wondering what the hell happened in my own life to cause me to go missing on this very web page for nearly six months. Well, as anyone who’s ever seen Spider-Man knows, with great power comes great responsibility. After two nearly two years, the power of my position as a Cultural Kingmaker became an unbearable burden. Sure, it was fun to be the supernova star of whatever cocktail party or soiree I was attending. To have fawning fans (ones who I would surely bed afterward) asking my advice on what to do that weekend. To watch them await my response like I was the Oracle of Delphi. But you will never know what it truly felt like to sit over my computer and compose Fierce Anticipation during my initial tenure. To predict that Love Never Dies would never make it to Broadway and then see, days after its disastrous West End opening, that the scheduled New York run was going to be delayed (perhaps forever). Yes, I might have prevented unwitting audience members from spending untold millions on a masturbatory musical, but how many teamsters, costumers and ushers will be jobless come this November because of me? How many lives did I ruin by a mere 2,000 word blogumn? Again, with great power comes great responsibility. So I’m here to set the record straight. The rumors of arrests, anal rapes and ascensions to Heaven are all wrong. The real reason I went on hiatus and put my power in the drawer was due to a letter I received on January 13 from a reader I will simply call M… Dear Ryan, It’s...

Whatta fierce and nerdy week! Here are my thoughts: 1. I just love that France requires a chest x-ray from its would-be citizens. I wonder why… 2. Poor Robin actually asked me if it was okay to self-promote on the blog, and I answered something along the lines of “Absolutely not, b/c I don’t believe in it — especially when it comes to my own projects.” Then she profusely apologized and rewrote her piece before I could tell her that I was just kidding. Luckily, she had the original saved, but I really do wish there was a a way to indicate sarcasm in email.  I think it would be cool to just be able to indicate sarcasm with a ~ mark after the sentence that you don’t really mean. What do you think? Anywho, if you have a second, use it to help Robin and her fiance get a free wedding from Crate & Barrel. 3. Monique’s piece on David Patterson got me to thinking about how so few of us have good back-up plans for anything b/c we just don’t think we’ll ever need them. I guess one good result of being cynical, morbid, and anxious is that I have (at the very least mental) back-up plans for just about everything. That’s the only way I can function day-to-day. 4. What’s funny is that Amy has never struck me as particularly shy. But then again, so many people, including my sister and BFF, have accused me of not being shy, even though I often proclaim that I am. My BFF is not shy and my sister is much shyer than I am. But I do wonder if we all just have a general inability to recognize shyness in others. I feel that...

. an occasional blogumn about an assortment of things by Ryan Dixon Here’s a tip for any theatre-centric PhD candidate desperately looking for a thesis topic: write your dissertation on the history of sequels to Broadway musicals. In fact, I’ll make your job even easier and provide you with the research: Bring Back Birdie (sequel to Bye Bye Birdie). Opened: March 5, 1981. Total Performances: 4 The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public (sequel to The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas) Opened: May 10, 1994. Total Performances: 16 And that’s it. Two sequels. 20 total performances. Millions of dollars lost. Well, that was it, until now. This evening, London’s Aldelphi Theatre will play host to the world premiere of Love Never Dies, the sequel to a little chamber musical you might have heard of entitled The Phantom of the Opera. While normally I would have waited to write about Love Never Dies until it makes its scheduled Broadway debut on November 11, urgent circumstances have forced me to re-consider: after listening to the newly released original cast recording, I’m doubtful that the show will ever even get to Broadway. Let’s get it out of the way: Love Never Dies is terrible. However, the truly important question is whether Love Never Dies (henceforth known as Phantom 2!) is so terrible that it’s actually good? And the answer to that question is one big, MOTHERF*CKING YES! While I expected Phantom 2! to be bad, I was fairly certain it was going to be bad in a tastefully done, dull way (similar to Lloyd Webber’s most recent musical The Woman in White). I couldn’t have been more wrong. Phantom 2! is stuffed so full with glaring lapses of good taste and divinely rotten cliches that the cast recording...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING THE ORACLE OF DIXON: 2010 EDITION The NFL playoffs are starting this weekend without the Pittsburgh Steelers. No matter how you look at it, the evidence is pretty clear: It’s all my fault. During the course of the NFL’s regular season I used a section of each week’s Fierce Anticipation to disparage the home city of the Steelers’ opponent. For a while this tactic worked like a charm– halfway through the season the Steelers were 6-2 and looked like legitimate Super Bowl contenders. Then came the Cincinnati Curse. Under most normal conditions, I wouldn’t have had any problem with making fun of Cincinnati, but this particular game was coming only three weeks after the Steelers played the Cleveland Browns and my blogumn devoted to the evisceration of that city–in which I had posted a selection of YouTube clips revolving around Cleveland’s many ignominious and heartbreaking sports defeats– was so depressing that it managed to elicit sympathy from even die-hard Cleveland haters like my roommate Joe. Since Cincinnati was nothing more than a second rate Cleveland, I had a crisis of conscious about once again picking the low-hanging fruit off the tree of Urban America. In the end though, I decided to go through with it. Why? To fully understand my thinking, we have to take a brief journey back in time to my adolescence…. Growing up, I lived near a family called the Fitzgibbons.* They were altogether poor and unsanitary. Also, the males of the family shared an estimable talent for deep-sea nose picking. To get a better idea of what they were like, just picture the Klopeks, that Satan-worshiping-serial killing brood from the 1989 Tom Hanks comedy, The ‘Burbs and multiply them by ten as...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon Introduction to the 2009 Edition Last December, I wrote a blogumn explaining my unconditional love for Hickory Farm’s Beef Stick. The post was a raging success and, after talking with the editor, we’ve decided to bring it back as a special holiday treat. However, like that Christmas Eve story Grandpa always told that became longer and more convoluted as the years went on, I’ve decided to start an annual tradition of adding new material to the post. I figure if George Lucas can give us approximately 18,281 Special Editions of Star Wars, there’s no reason why I can’t write an additional hundred words or so each year expanding on the joys and sorrows experienced while eating the greatest of the great American foods. (Attention conspiracy theorists:  Just because I wrote about my McRib addiction two weeks ago and am now re-posting a hagiography of Hickory Farms Beef Stick does not mean that I’m on the American Meat Institute’s payroll. Of course, if anyone from the American Meat Institute is reading this post, I would actually very much like to be on the payroll. Feel free to tweet me up at @ryanbdixon.) And so, dear readers, Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present: . On the Exegesis of the Soul or: Why I Love Beef Stick: 2009 Revised and Expanded Edition with a New Introduction (Which You Just Read) FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Hickory Farms Beef Stick “May I try a free sample?” After speaking those six simple words, the ritual would always be the same: A smiling gray-haired clerk at a Hickory Farms Christmas stand in one of the many Western Pennsylvania malls I visited during my childhood would poke a toothpick into a delicately cut square of meat, hand...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING The McRib This past Sunday I was driving down the long, wide stretch of San Fernando Blvd in Burbank, CA, searching for a place to buy a salad for lunch, when I passed the local McDonald’s and noticed that the “McDouble” sign that had graced the windows for the past few months had been taken down. In its place was a poster advertising a new item, but because of my poor eyesight, all I could make out before I rolled on by were the words “IS BACK.” A moment passed. Then, the synapses of my brain revved up and one immortal phrase rushed through my cerebral cortex with the fury of Hell’s Army: The McRib is Back. Could it be? Without flipping my turn signal, I took the next right like Jimmy Johnson on the final lap of the Daytona 500, zoomed around the block and pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot where, upon gazing at the signage, my heart filled with the splendor hitherto known only to suicide bombers who’ve been greeted by the 72 Vestal Virgins in Paradise. The McRib is indeed back (at least in Southern California). And with its return, it gives me (though not my diet) the great pleasure to present you with: THE FIVE REASONS WHY THE McRIB IS THE GREATEST FAST FOOD ITEM OF ALL TIME 1. The McRib is the Last of its Kind. Let me come right out and say it: The McRib has no ribs. It is a patty of pork product with rib-shaped strips pressed into it. Even then, the rib-shaped strips don’t look like actual ribs as much as they do french toast sticks, yet that’s all the more reason to love it. We...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Black Friday Conventional wisdom has it that Thanksgiving is the one day where family and friends reunite, reconnect, and relapse over a grocery-store-bought feast of turkey, stuffing and wine. Football is watched. Happy tears are shed. Everlasting memories are made. Balderdash. Come on, admit it, if I put a gun to your head, would you be able to give me ten specific (not to even mention, beloved) Thanksgiving Day memories? What’s that, you say? The many years of chewing on dried turkey, hearing the same dull stories and watching the interminable parades and bad football games have melded together in the same way Aunt Jane’s viscid, feldgrau-colored gravy slithered into the cranberry sauce on your plate last Thanksgiving to create a ichorous blob of food that looked like the bloody brown mucus goo that was leaking out of your nephew Timmy’s nose at the kids table? Well, then, in that case, how about ten Black Friday memories? Ahhh. Now that’s easy. Without any prompting you rattle off a host of fond recollections… … Delicious cold turkey sandwiches (so much better than the dry, hot turkey slices of the previous night)…The entire family going to see the latest Disney, James Bond, Harry Potter or Twilight movie…Dad somehow getting that perfect parking space right in front of the mall’s entrance….Mom buying the very last Cabbage Patch doll…and the sales…oh, the sales… Now those are the memories for which ink is laid upon the Hallmark Card. According to Wikipedia, the term “Black Friday” was originally coined to describe the great stock market crash of 1869. “Black Friday” gained traction as the nom de plume for the day after Thanksgiving (and unofficial start of the Christmas shopping season) in 1969...

What an awesome week! Sami got her baby back on Days of Our Lives and Al Gore was on 30 Rock. Plus I’m in the middle of a really good book. Seriously could life be any better? HELLO FRIDAY re: FIERCE ANTICIPATION: November 13-15, in which Ryan Dixon dissed both 2012 and Cincinnati. Kyle: I just watched 2012 at midnight last night, and it was like 10,000 time better than I thought it would be, I actually kind of enjoyed it. Cincinnati has Graeter’s ice cream, and unless you have tried that you can’t really say anything bad about Cincinnati. I had to bribe a security guard at the school post office to brake in so that the ice cream my grandma send me would not melt… it was the best money I ever spent. PHILOSOPHICAL MONDAY re: Tall Drink of Nerd: Bonding Over Board Games, in which Amy Robinson confessed that she hails from a family of cold-hearted trash talkers and solicited suggestions for more board games for them diss each other over. (Thought) Chuck: My brother turned me on to “Settlers of Catan” and that’s a really fun one – too bad it’s only good for 4 players (6 with the expansion set.) Another one we played this weekend which we enjoyed a lot was “Bang” – it’s a spaghetti western card game where outlaws and renegades try to shoot the sherrif and vice versa. We played with about 10 people and it was hysterical. We also played a farming strategy game called “Agricola” which was cute. Another fun one that is similar is “Guillotine” – a card game where you collect nobles from a line of people on their way to be executed. You can play cards that screw other players...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon In which the Bengals are declawed, A Christmas Carol sings again and 2012 can’t come fast enough. FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Cincinnati Bengals vs. Pittsburgh Steelers It seems like once every other decade or so the Cincinnati Bengals manage to sew together a football season where they not only surface above .500, but threaten to give the denizens of that hitherto championship-less city Super Bowl wet dreams. Get ready to wash those sheets then Bengals fans, for your team is a surprising 6-2 and headed to Pittsburgh this Sunday afternoon to face the likewise 6-2 Steelers in a match that will determine who owns first place in their division, the AFC North. While Cincinnati beat Pittsburgh earlier this season, in meetings going back to 1970, the Steelers own a 53-28 advantage and the Bengals haven’t swept them in a series since 1999. In honor of this highly-anticipated game, I had originally planned on composing a long, discursive essay exploring various categories dealing with each middle-American metropolis to decide, before the teams do so on the field Sunday, which city is, well, better. I was going to compare, contrast and rank everything from the odd spellings of each city (the Pittsburgh “H” and the convulsion of consonants in Cincinnati), our iconic food versus their iconic food (Primanti Brothers vs. Skyline Chili) and achievements of its citizens such as Jonas Salk developing the Polio vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh or Cincinnati electing Jerry Springer their mayor. But why spend countless hours writing thousands of words when showing two key scenes from movie musicals that took place in each city can easily prove Pittsburgh’s dominance? After all, if a picture worth a thousand words than a musical montage must be worth millions....

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon In Which Applebee’s is Defended, the Minnesota Vikings Dissed and Saw VI Declawed… FIERCELY DEFENDING Eating at Applebee’s Are you an aspiring comedy writer? Do you need an easy joke to top off that last scene? Is mentioning George W. Bush a little too political and/or dated? Well, in that case, just say Applebee’s. From Talladega Nights to the recently released (and abysmal) Couples Retreat, writers seem to think that having an actor just say Applebee’s—or any other chain name of casual dining—is cause enough to provoke a gargantuan wave of guffaws. “Who’s On First?” is now “Who’s going to P.F. Chang’s?” Unfortunately, it’s just this sort of cultural ignorance and pretension that makes those in the middle of the country so resentful towards us on the coasts. While their multi-million dollar contracts probably ensure that they’re spending most nights chowing down filet mignon at Morton’s, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh understand something that Keith Olbermann and Arianna Huffington don’t: The majority of this country enjoys eating at Applebee’s without irony. Two weeks ago I was on assignment for a project that took me out of Los Angeles and into the surrounding farm fields near Williston, North Dakota, a small town of 12,512 about an hour east of the Montana border. As I had never seen the middle of nowhere, I eagerly embraced every site, sound and (often foul) smell.  One evening, as we drove past the mom & pop shop covered downtown area and towards the Wal-Mart Super Center, the familiar neon visage of Applebee’s appeared on the horizon. “Applebee’s is really expensive.” said the man who was taking me around the area. I chuckled to myself, thinking about all the Los Angelenos who have raised a...

From the comments of Ryan Dixon’s Fierce Anticipation, in which he laid out a video argument for just how bad Cleveland sucks (especially when compared to Pittsburgh). Jersey Joe: Cleveland is a rather clean and quiet city, but has very passionate sports fans […] When you say Cleveland to most Pittsburgh fans, they immediately think of the Browns. But me, why does Drew Carey come to mind, first? Ryan: Maybe because you watch more hours of TV than Joe Biden has hair plugs. Ernessa: Drew comes to mind for me, too, which proves the power of suggestion. If you sing something over and over again, people will start to believe it even if it’s clearly...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon In Which The Stepfather Arrives, Usher Falls and Cleveland Still Sucks… FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Choosing Between The Stepfather and The Fall of the House of Usher As I see it, if you’re in the mood for a gothic and gory tale of severe family dysfunction and death, you can either go to your local cinema, fork over ten bucks or so and see the newly released remake of The Stepfather or celebrate the bicentennial of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth by reading “The Fall of the House of Usher.” While the original Stepfather was a deserving cult hit, this new version looks to offer very little of redeeming value except for the welcome presence of Sela Ward, a personal favorite since her days playing the rambunctious free spirit “Teddy Reid” on the very-much-missed television show Sisters. On the other hand, “Usher” is short, freely available and considered by most critics  a masterpiece of horror, despite the fact that Sela Ward is not involved. For those of you who choose to curl up with “Usher“*, it will be apparent from the first sentence that the specter of familial tragedy hangs over the story like a thick, gag-inducing L.A. haze. And this shouldn’t be a surprise since the Raven of Tragedy came not-so-gently rapping at Edgar Allan Poe’s chamber door even in the earliest years of his life. In 1809, the year he was born, Poe’s father, David performed the lead role in King Lear. A year later he would abandon the family and, in 1811, Poe’s mother Elizabeth died of consumption (the same disease that would snatch Poe’s young wife from the land of living in 1845). After his mother’s death, young Edgar was sent to a horrific foster family right...

In Which Detroit is Rebuked, Cloudy Rains Again and Free Style is Disciplined… FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Detroit Lions If I were Detroit I’d really hate Pittsburgh right now. Think about it.  Last month, during the G-20 conference hundreds of articles were published revealing how Pittsburgh avoided the scythe of the Recession Reaper by focusing on green innovation, education and health care. In many of these same articles Detroit was mentioned as an example of how a city can really f*ck things up. In the eyes of the world it seems that Pittsburgh represents a 21st Century embodiment of Bensalem, the Utopian Island found in Bacon’s New Atlantis, while Detroit is a Bartertown where the Thunderdome has closed shop and Master/Blaster can’t find a job. Yet this socio-economic juxtaposition is nothing compared to the recent inter-city sports drama– in the realm of athletic competition, the specter of the Steel City continues to haunt the Motor City like Banquo’s ghost at Macbeth’s banquet. During the Stanley Cup finals in June, the Pittsburgh Penguins entered Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena and became the first team to win a Finals Game 7 on the road since 1971.  Not heartbreaking enough? How about this past Monday when the Detroit Tigers completed a historic baseball collapse, becoming the first team in major-league history to lose a division title after holding a three-game lead with four to play. And who is the manager of the Detroit Tigers? Jim Leyland, the beloved former skipper of the Pittsburgh Pirates who still resides in… (You guessed it) Pittsburgh. Now the Detroit Lions, fresh off last season’s historically execrable 0-16 season, play host to the Super-Bowl-winning Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday afternoon. Anyone willing to bet that this will be the weekend where Detroit’s luck...

Good Gawd, mama’s tired. Miss Betty is calling herself trying to cut a tooth, and she has been letting us know that she’s not happy about this situation at various times in the morning for like two nights now. Not cool, man. Not cool. But at least the comments did us right this weeked. Check ’em out! HELLO FRIDAY re: Fierce Anticipation: Sept. 18-20, in which Ryan Dixon rhapsodized about his love for Buffalo Wild Wings, which thankfully has opened a location in Burbank as of Monday, Sept. 21st. Ronnn: Ryan: I cannot believe that you like Buffalo Wild Wings over the awesome Quaker Steak & Lube Wings, or the huge Coney wings in downtown Indiana. PHILOSOPHICAL MONDAY re: Three Line Lunch: Red Waits, in which Jeff Rogers waxes poetic about his dog, Red, who is nearly blind and deaf, but continues to wait for him by the door, even though he often can’t see or hear him come in. marsha: sniff. and smile. at the same time. thank you for this OH, IT’S TUESDAY re: Political Physics: Will the Christian Right Be the Death of the Republican Party?, in which Monique King-Viehland wonders if the Republican Party is getting eaten alive by its right-wing, Christian base. CH: I do wonder if the Goldwater Republicans and Blue dog Democrats shouldn’t start a third party that reflects [their] views? It seems like both of them are being marginalized by the current system. WOW, IT’S WEDNESDAY re: Wonderfully Awful: Kitty Poop Chronicles, in which Robin Rosenzweig chronicled her cat’s battle with diarrhea puddles, which he made all over the apartment. Good times. AmyQOTWF: When our cat KoE had her glands expressed, she had the worst diarrhea. She would be laying next to me and get that...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon In which we ponder the mysteries of football while eating buffalo wings, but not Meatballs. FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Teaching My Girlfriend about Football One of the ancient rituals of courtship is the indoctrination into the habits, hobbies and areas of interest of your newly conjoined “other half.” This is a mandatory step in any relationship, if for no other reason than it can serve as a warning sign for future troubles. For example, one might want to think twice about marrying someone with a rabid passion for animal mutilation. Since the relationship prognosticators have thus far been proven wrong and my girlfriend of six months has yet to break up with me, I now find myself in the precarious position of having a “significant other” in September. Translation: If she wants to see me for the next sixteen Sundays, she better be prepared to say goodbye to mimosa-infused brunches and get ready to pound down IC Lights (or at least a nice microbrew or two) at Los Angeles-based Steelers’ bars. It’s football season in America. In an effort to help us get closer as a couple, I’ve embraced the challenge of teaching her about the mysteries of the pigskin for three reasons: 1. She’s a lot smarter than me in most other areas, so I don’t have a lot of other opportunities for “teaching moments.” 2. Many of my previous girlfriends knew a lot more about football than I. 3. There have been periods of my life when I didn’t have a girlfriend to teach anything to. (For the record, there’s been a lot more of the #3 than #2 in my life. In fact, I would say #3 is one of the major reasons I became a football...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon In Which a Diabolical Crime is Uncovered, Sorority Row re-visited and Michael Douglas dissected… FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Catching the Can Man They were two men. Both alike in many ways; late middle age, short and stout, beer bellies the size of bowling balls, skin so tanned and dry that it looked more like jerky than flesh, a mutual preference for mesh baseball caps (worn without irony), tight tank tops and two-snap polyester double-knit “gym teacher” shorts. But that’s where the similarities ended and the hatred began for Bill Miller and Bob Felton, the feuding Can Men. I grew up on a blue-collar public golf course in Western Pennsylvania that my family owned. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of golfers stroll over our fairways every week. This would leave a lot of garbage. And scattered within that garbage would be, without fail, a plethora of aluminum beer and soda cans. Since our area didn’t recycle (Recycle? We couldn’t even get cable TV.), our King Solomon’s Mines-like collection of aluminum gold went to waste until, during the great recycling renaissance of the mid-90’s, Bill and Bob arrived. As with most cutthroat industries, the competitive fire of those individuals who make it to the top of their professions often encumbers their ability to enjoy the other’s company. And it was no different will Bill and Bob. Even though there were enough cans to go around, whenever I would encounter one of them on the golf course, they never failed to find a single word or innocuous phrase from our introductory greeting to awkwardly segue into a searing invective aimed at other man… “Bill goes out and interrupts golfers when he’s getting his f*cking cans.” “Bob steals people’s cans when they’re not looking. With...

Whatta week! We celebrated our 1-year blogoversary and as it turns out it now takes me more than a week to clean up real good for a big event, like this weekend’s Technical Emmys. But enough about that, let’s get into the best comments of the week: HELLO FRIDAY re: Fierce Anticipation: Sept 5-7, in which Ryan Dixon told us about Jordan’s, magical furniture store with a Yankee-eating green monster at the entrance. At least one reader was offended: Jersey Joe: I am shocked and dismayed over the Yankee eating green monster. That sir, will assure the world, that I will never set foot in this chain, ever. Thank you for your excellent coverage, so I do not spend any of my hard earned dollars on a Red Sox loving establishment… OH, IT’S TUESDAY re: Political Physics: Is it Socialist to Care About “The Least of These,” in which Monique put forth the question of whether we as a people have a responsibility to take care of “the least of these” in our society. Of course the discourse quickly turned to health care. All of the comments were great, but I’m using this one, b/c it reflects the diversity of opinion that can be found at FaN: Debra: For the most part, I’ve kept my nose out of this issue with friends because I know very few of them agree with my political beliefs, but why not? I consider myself both a Christian and a Republican. I care about the less fortunate. I give to charities and donate to my church. I bake for bake sales to benefit people in need. I help with all the various charity drives they have at my office during the year. However, I do not believe in public...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon The Furniture Store as Theme Park Edition (with Complimentary Bonus Photos!) FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Jordan’s Furniture Over the past decade, when dinner party chatter would turn to the topic of the best themed furniture stores in the nation, my well-worn response would always be, “Gallery Furniture in Houston is the best of course. It’s not even close.” Like those pundits currently opining that there will never be a Senator (or President) who achieves a legacy that equals the legislative accomplishment of Ted Kennedy (R.I.P.), I was certain that I would never again walk through another furniture store that equaled the scale and invention of Texas legend Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale’s commerce masterpiece, which features an indoor water wheel, bowling alley, giant rocking chair, cafeteria, and roaming salesmen dressed in life-sized foam mattresses. And then I went to Jordan’s Furniture. While most would consider the mandatory stops in Salem, MA to be the various historical haunts like the House of Seven Gables and Witch Trial Memorial, I urge anyone with an appreciation of themed entertainment — that art of making the ordinary, extraordinary, of giving the gift of narrative to those institutions that previously lacked it (restaurants, parking lots, hunting supply stores, etc.) – to drive 12 miles east and enter an unparalleled wonder of the world. The only location, with the possible exception of some sheikh-owned mega hotel in Dubai, where under the same roof one can swing on the trapeze, adopt a child, buy a matching dining room set and eat ice cream, candy and a Fuddruckers burger while watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in IMAX 3-D. Like their slogan says, Jordan’s Furniture is not just a store, but an experience. Founded in 1918 by Samuel...

. a subbing in by Michael Gutenplan [Ed. Note: Dear Ryan will be back next week, but meanwhile please enjoy Michael Gutenplan’s tale of going to Vegas alone. Yes, alone! And show him lots of comment love.] You Should Fiercely Anticipate (This trip for yourself!) Las Vegas Las Vegas is an amazing town and there’s something to do every single minute of the day.  Of course you can gamble, but you can also see a Broadway show, a magic show, a concert, go to a wax museum, an art museum or shop ‘til you drop and you can do it on your own and not feel like a loser! The drive to Vegas from Los Angles is actually pretty easy.  There’s always going to be a little traffic here and there and for some reason, no matter how fast or slow I go, the trip always takes four hours but with my Sirius Radio turned to the Broadway channel and a healthy amount of ice tea, the trip feels felt like no time at all. You should want to do this — it’s awesome! Before I arrived I had arranged for tickets to KÀ, the Cirque du Soleil show at the MGM Grand and dinner at a restaurant on the walk from my hotel (the Palazzo) to the MGM Grand.  It seems that if you want to open a hotel in Las Vegas you need to do three things: 1. Get a gaming license so that you can put a casino inside. 2. Get a big name chef from the Food Network to open a restaurant, and 3. Build a theater for a Cirque du Soleil show. Walking to the theater from my hotel, which happened to be from the north end of the...

Whatta week, and is it me or has this summer going by incredibly fast? How is it almost Fall already? Anywho, I’m a little too exhausted today to think up a good transition, so I’ll just say, here are the best comments of the week: HELLO FRIDAY re: FIERCE ANTICIPATION: August 14-16, in which Ryan compared Madden 10 to Oedipus. With a straight face. He also claimed his out-of-work roommate of watched Jerry Springer and Steve Wilkos all day. His roommate shot back with libel accusations. Joe: I have NEVER watched Jerry Springer or Maury Povich in the apartment. And I don’t know who Steve Wilkos is. Ryan’s just wants to protect the stores of Diet Coke in the apartment. I have to walk past him to the kitchen to get a drink, and I feel like Bilbo Baggins sneaking past the dragon Smaug to burgle something from his hoard of jewels. PHILOSOPHICAL MONDAY re: Single White Nerd: Wherefore Art Thou Creepy, in which Michael Kass asked readers to explain the motivations of aggressive creepy guys — so that he can avoid becoming one himself. AmyQOTWF: The creepy guy is like that because every so often a lady is so drunk or creepy herself that it works out for him. I have watched, in shocked amazement, at least a few times as the guy who was lean-y, aggressive and inappropriate with me earlier in the night, left the bar with a female. Creepy desperate chicks exist too and they aren’t helping the cause to chase off the creep. OH, IT’S TUESDAY re: NewlyNested: The First Rule of Book Club, in which Debra Goykhman goes from being an academic snob to a book club afficionado. Anne: I started a book club at our last house...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Madden NFL 10 “Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; effecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions.” – Poetics by Aristotle Anyone who’s taken a freshman year theatre class knows that in his seminal work, Poetics, the Greek philosopher Aristotle deconstructed Greek Tragedy (and thus all drama that has followed) into six distinct elements: plot, character, thought or theme, diction, melody or song, and spectacle. As a superlative example of the tragic form, Aristotle presented Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex, the plot of which is basically this: Parents try to kill son. Son kills father. Son f**ks mother. Gods f**k son. When Aristotle wrote the Poetics in 4th century B.C. he probably wasn’t thinking about the tackling ability of Troy Polamalu or the yards after catch average of Larry Fitzgerald. However, if he were around today, the chances are fairly high that he’d be a gamer and thus recognize the Madden NFL video game franchise— the 2010 version arrives in stores today– as an ideal example of his Poetics in (inter) action. Yes, I know what you’re saying, “But Madden has no plot!” That’s why it’s a perfect showcase for interactive drama. Unlike other non-sports games that have more formal narratives taken (directly or not) from movies, Madden’s multi-year “Franchise Mode” option allows you, the user, to craft a narrative within the seemingly plot-less action of playing the games. You’re given the ability to create your own team (or use an already existing team), build the stadium, launch marketing campaigns to fill the seats, draft and trade players and...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY REMEMBERING Flea Markets The middle of August is almost here and — if today’s release of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra wasn’t enough of a hint – that means we have officially entered the dreary days of dog.   For those attending or teaching school in the fall, I’m sure the familiar tinglings of stomach angst – a visceral warning of soon-to-come early mornings and exhausting afternoons trapped in overheated classrooms– have once again reared their ugly head. However, since I’m no longer in school (although that end-of-summer scholastic dread still occasionally slivers up my spine like a phantom tentacle), I now mostly equate August with bad movies, Country Time Lemonade ads (“The Official Sponsor of Summer”), and flea markets. Flea Market Photo Credit: looseends Yes, flea markets. Perhaps it was the fear of having to return their inventory into the bowels of their garage when the green leaves turned autumn brown only to have the swelling unsold piles confront them again the following spring, but August always seemed to be the month when flea market vendors were especially desperate to sell their haute ordures. As a child, my grandfather and I spent countless August hours walking through Pittsburgh’s Woodlands Flea Market (located on the site of a former drive-in movie theater) and I managed to  haggle, barter and beg my way into purchasing a cornucopia of merchandise ranging from musty Pittsburgh Steelers golf club headcovers to a bootleg VHS copy of Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge recorded in the very un-HD glory of SLP. And, for my money, there remains no better exploration of the anthropological rules and rituals that were followed by the denizens who dwelt within these almost certainly rusty gates than The...

Having written a book that somewhat revolves around the movie, Sixteen Candles, I’m still reeling from John Hughes death, but at least I have this week’s comments to give me comfort. HELLO FRIDAY re: FIERCE ANTICIPATION: July 31-August 2, in which Ryan Dixon confesses to cheating on The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A Caro, by diddling around w/ a bunch of other books at the same time. What a slut! Joe: The way I see it, as long as you don’t read another book in the apartment with The Power Broker, you’re golden. Be respectful of your book, but what The Power Broker doesn’t know won’t hurt it. PHILOSOPHICAL MONDAY re: Hippie Squared: A True Love Story About True Love, in which Jeff Rogers told us an oh-so-romantic story about an WWII officer forced to leave his true love behind in Japan after being denied permission to marry her by General MacArthur to marry her. One commenter and myself thought the officer was being a bit of a true love wuss by leaving his true love behind, but another commenter pointed this out: Molly: Sweet story! You didn’t say, but I expect the reason he had to ask permission during wartime is b/c he could have been charged w/ some sort of treason, aid & comfort to the enemy, throw in military jail, or worse. Not just a simple matter of deference to authority. OH, IT’S TUESDAY re: NewlyNested: The (Strange) Dog Days of Summer, in which Debra Goykhman told us about a blind Border Collie w/ his own seeing-eye dog and the dye in blue M&Ms being a possible cure for back pain. Don’t ask. keldoo: Border Collies are one of my weak spots. And...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Finishing The Power Broker   This column is a cry for help. While I normally wouldn’t use this space to talk about my personal life, this particular crisis has left me paralyzed to think or write about anything else: I am in a long-term book reading relationship and I’ve never been happier. After much hesitation and several false starts about a month ago I began to read The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro. A classic from the moment it was published in 1974, this biography of Robert Moses — America’s master builder who created more public works than any other human being in history — remains the story of New York City and an indispensable guide to backroom politics. It is also 1344 pages long and weighs 3.3 lbs. Those who know me well are aware that I often date many books before settling down with the one that I read to completion. While even the smallest distraction can cause me to put one book down and open up another, I can honestly say that The Power Broker is providing me with the most joyous reading experience of my life. As of today I am on page 491. Normally that would mean that I would be in the homestretch, powering to the end, but being 491 pages into The Power Broker only means that you’re a little over a third of the way through. Perhaps because of the monumental commitment needed to finish this magnum opus,  this past week has been a Manichean battle to stay faithful to my current literary love and not let my more rancid book slut tendencies rear their ugly head. To help...

Just what is in Sauce Americaine and how should one properly spell “yay?” We’ve learned a lot this week at good ole Fierce and Nerdy. Check it out: HELLO FRIDAY re: Fierce Anticipation: July 24-26, in which Ryan Dixon told us the worst guinea pig story in the history of ever. Seriously, you’ve got to read it to believe it. Larry: Was that the original script to “G-Force”? Troma Films present…a Lloyd Kaufman film…”G-Force: The Carnage.” I’ll have to show this to my daughter when she grows up. Oh…and thanks for mention of my late mother’s breast. Classy! PHILOSOPHICAL MONDAY re: Tall Drink of Nerd: Recession Recess, in which Amy Robinson gives us a bunch of great free, recession-ready workout tips, including monkey bar pull-ups. Her husband co-signed that check in the comments: Seen: Just to reinforce what Amy said, she does look ridiculous when she’s doing her exercises. (I’m just kidding, she looks sexy, but she’s too modest to say that), but it’s not about how you look, it’s about feeling better and I can tell you that nothing makes you feel better than getting out in the fresh air. Here’s a website and podcast to prove it. http://www.alleghenyfront.org/story.html?storyid=… OH, IT’S TUESDAY re: Political Physics: Dying for Reform, in which Monique King-Viehland put forth that self-serving, insurance-company pandering Democrats may be the biggest obstacle to getting healthcare reform passed. Donna: See this reminds me of the old saying……You Cannot Trust Anyone!! WOW, IT’S WEDNESDAY re: How Do You Spell “Yay!”, in which we wondered after the proper spell of this popular exclamation: is it yea, yay, or yeah? Final verdict: slpc: I’m usually a nice person, but not when it comes to people who write “Yea” for “yay.” It’s “Yay! I’m excited!” Like...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING In the Loop In the graveyard of movie genres, the traditional, door-slamming farce (celluloid and digital descendants of French playwright Georges Feydeau’s oeuvre) must be one of the first tombstones. Movies that fit this form (A Fish Called Wanda or Victor Victoria, for example) arrive in cinemas with the same regularity of a professional athlete remaining faithful to his wife. Thus, we self-professed farceurs should be ecstatic over today’s release of In the Loop, a political farce that spins a comic web out of the U.S.- British build up to the Iraq war. In an age when most cinematic comedies are erector sets built to hold together a series of second cousin comic set pieces and pop culture references, it’s a very rare treat indeed to see a film whose humor comes from the machinations of the actual plot. Of course, during the gold age of cinematic farce, the majority of writers were arriving to Hollywood by way of Broadway, where the genre was (and is) far more prevalent and, truth be told, impressive to watch (actors hitting all cylinders in an onstage farce is an achievement in concentration and comedic calisthenics that can never really be matched onscreen). More likely than not, the opening sentences to the biographies of those names under the “written by” credit of today’s comedies usually begins with the initials SNL, a basic training course where the main goal is to stretch a comedic idea out for five minutes, not 90. And, unlike most other contemporary cinematic farces (Blame it On the Bellboy, The Pope Must Die(t), Oscar), In the Loop is actually supposed to be funny, which, in of itself, is cause for a good old-fashioned door slamming celebration. Now...

On Saturday, July 11th, “John Dunn’s Last Run,” a 30-minute film I wrote and directed that revolves around nighttime jogging, ghosts, underage sexual temptation and unwanted back hair will screen at the Johnstown Film and Wine Festival in Pennsylvania.* Since I’m sure that many of you are planning to see the film and sip some of Appalachian Pinot Grigio, I thought I would helpfully provide you with two pre-festival dinner ideas by giving you brief descriptions of Johnstown’s must-eat destinations. FIERCELY RECOMMENDED Sheetz Photo Credit: Via Bulatao Whether at a dinner party or on a first date, bringing up the topic of convenience stores is a risky proposition that will often be met with scorn and derision. However, talking about Sheetz is different. It is a convenience store like Citizen Kane is a movie, Moby-Dick a novel or the Pittsburgh Steelers a mere football team. It is the convenience store by which all other convenience stores are judged. Founded by Bob Sheetz in 1952 — the first store was in Johnstown’s neighbor city of Altoona, Pa – and now a robust franchise with 344 locations in six states stretching all the way down to North Carolina, Sheetz has eclipsed steel and coal as single greatest export in the history of Western Pa. At the heart of Sheetz’s success is the “MTO”. While these three letters (which stand for “made-to-order”) once solely represented the process of how the subs were made, the “MTO” has now grown to encompass the means of production for a cornucopia of 24/7 culinary delights ranging from juicy, delectable burgers, freshly tossed salads and a smoothie bar. Sheetz not only revolutionized the type of food found in convenience stores but the way we humans order it. Upon entering the store, patrons...

Oh, man, I’m leaving you in the more than capable hands of slpc next week, but I’m like already missing you guys super big time. But let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about all these awesome comments. HELLO FRIDAY re: Fierce Anticipation: June 12-14, in which Ryan Dixon puts forth the theory that you can predict how whether an Eddie Murphy movie will flop by looking at the movie poster — basically if it doesn’t feature children, animals, or a morbidly obese person along with red font, it will flop . He predicted that Imagine That would flop, according to his poster code theory, and lo and behold it only netted 5.2 million dollars its opening weekend. If Eddie ever gets work again, hopefully the marketing people will listen to Ryan this time. KaseyB: The Murphy Code…wow! I never noticed. Of course my disdain for children, grotesquely fat people, and red fonts have been keeping me away from Murphy films for years. PHILOSOPHICAL MONDAY re: Fierce in Seattle: Indoorsy goes Outdoorsy, in which Kelli Bielema applies her black thumb to her back yard garden. Josh G: Use ladybugs for pest control, they eat many types of bugs, mostly aphids. Also if you have bug problems plant some marigolds and the bugs will eat them instead of everything else. We planted our first garden this year also and these seemed to help. OH, IT’S TUESDAY re: Political Physics: Are Hate Crimes a Form of Domestic Terrorism?, in which Monique King-Viehland argues that the answer to that question is yes. Yolanda: Yeah, they may have just developed the term “hate crimes” in the last few years but a lynching in 1960 was still a crime of hate. I haven’t looked at the statistics but I’m...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING IMAGINE THAT or: The Eddie Murphy Code Hollywood has been trying to crack the secret code to making box office hits since the day the brothers Warner hopped on that train from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles. While that mystery will probably forever remain unsolved, your dear blogumnist has uncovered the heretofore unknown formula to prognosticate the box office fate of none other than the constellation known as Eddie Murphy. In 1996, after a bleak run of playing vampires, congressman and reprising old roles in lackluster sequels  (see, or rather don’t, Vampire in Brooklyn, The Distinguished Gentleman, and Beverly Hills Cop III), Eddie Murphy made a mid-career comeback with The Nutty Professor. At the time of the release, most in the industry attributed the film’s success to Murphy returning to the crazy, “character” comedy style that made him one of the biggest box office stars of the 1980’s. They were wrong. The real reason behind The Nutty Professor’s success was that, for those patrons walking past it in a mall or driving under the billboard, the film’s poster hid a number of visual symbols and hieroglyphs that made the film impossible not to go see. Together, they form what I like to call the (Eddie) “Murphy’s Law of Posters” Like dealing with a Mogwai after midnight, the rules may be simple, but they must be followed fully or certain box office doom will follow: 1. The title must be in red font. 2. A white background is mandatory. 3. Eddie Murphy must share the poster with children, animals, or grotesquely weird and/or fat men, preferably played by him as well. 4. If Eddie Murphy is by himself on the poster, he must appear as a fat man...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Up Seemingly every review and article about Pixar’s Up mentions the fact that this new movie gives the Emeryville, CA studio a perfect 10 for 10 streak of critical and box office success for their films. In fact, many refer to this streak as some kind of record. So, if this is a weekend where we celebrate the most impressive run of a movie studio in modern times, shouldn’t we also memorialize the worst financial and critical streak a movie studio has ever had? Before I reveal the studio to which I refer, let me first say that in doing my research to find the dream factory that will forever lurk at the bottom of Hollywood’s dark belly, my focus was restricted to major commercial studios. For example while Roger Corman’s New Horizons Pictures (which has given the world Carnosaur and Cheerleader Massacre 2) would surely be a top candidate for such a list, that studio’s goal was not to make quality hits, but fast and cheap movies that turned a quick profit and often only as appeared straight-to-video titles. I’ve also excluded specific franchises or genres that a single studio produced. Thus, 20th Century Fox’s seemingly never ending streak of crappy movies based on Marvel Comics characters (Wolverine, The Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, et al) was removed from consideration. And the winner is? Savoy Pictures Under the direction of Victor A. Kaufman, who had been the founding CEO and Chairman of Tri-Star Pictures, Savoy Pictures (which featured a herd of Buffalo as their logo) was an independent studio founded in 1992 with the expressed intention of competing head-to-head against the major studios like Warner Brothers, Paramount and Universal. Their goal was to develop a...

TGIF. I don’t know about you, but this week has been super-exhausting. Lots of work, lots of worry, and lots of sadness about the court’s decision not to overturn Prop 8. But at least we had great comments to keep us warm at night. HELLO FRIDAY Photo by Ariel Boston re: Fierce Antipation: May 22-24 (Robot Edition), in which Ryan Dixon says that he’s looking forward to a (near) future shared with sentient robots. KyleB: I think that you are underestimating the potential and complexities of the human body and the human mind. Why do you and so many others think that we can create in 5000(giving the benefit of the doubt) years of improvement what nature made in millions of years of improvement? Our mind keeps track of an almost infinite amount of cells/neurons/movements/actions/thoughts in an incredibly complex mechanism that we barely understand. My body can actually defend and recover and replace many vital parts without my conscious work. And when i take medication to supplement what my body does, there are lists of problems that it causes at the same time. My computer breaks down and needs serious and expensive repairs in a 3-5 year window. I keep my information spread out across many computers in case I lose it to a bad hard drive or something brakes down. Do you believe that in only 41 years robots will be able to do all of that? Don’t get me wrong, I want to have a house robot to help me clean, garden, cook, and serve guests intelligently and smoothly. But I expect that I will have to have a repair man over to fix it, and I expect that I have it sell itself on craigslist and order a replacement every 3-5 years....

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon NOTES ON A ROBOT REVOLUTION Photo by Ariel Boston I awoke with tears in my eyes. Being only eight years old, it was the first time I had ever had a dream emotionally powerful enough to make me cry. It was a dream that not only provided me with a sense of what true happiness could be, but also what abject loss felt like. I had been in love. With a robot. And what a robot she was. Tall, sleek, silver and shiny. Thick, long and dark flowing hair made from coaxial cables. Her humanoid features a perfect synthesis of the two female fantasy objects of my adolescence: Helen Mirren in Excalibur and Lea Thompson in Howard the Duck. In the dream I was the captain of a starship, but a broken arm had forced me into several weeks of house rest. The robot had come to clean my house, but the instant she entered a spark — not of the electrical kind, but one of the heart — lit up between us. It was love. Despite the fact that humans and robots were not allowed to date in my dream world, for the next several weeks she continued to arrive and we lived a life of covert romantic bliss, which led to a hushed marriage ceremony in a blue school bus driven by my dog. For the briefest of moments, the two of us thought we could actually have a normal life together. But then, the dark shadow of tragedy entered stage left. Three government inspectors who looked like Boba Fett (except for the fact that they carried broad swords, not laser guns) broke into my house and caught us in a kiss. They arrested her and...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon THE SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION EDITION Author’s Note: The continuing economic crisis has finally hit FaN. Earlier this week all contributors received a memo from our editor, Ernessa T. Carter, stating that from this time forward, we would have to find sponsors for our postings or risk being laid off. As opposed to plastering my weekly blogumns with so many banner ads that it would be in danger of resembling a NASCAR vehicle, I have decided instead to do one full blogumn dedicated to my new sponsors. A blogomerical, if you will. FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Life is a Dream by Josh Tarjan I have a friend named of Josh Tarjan. A few years back he wrote a novel entitled Life is a Dream, which is a funny and swashbuckling meta-tale of adventure based on the famous Spanish Golden Age drama by Calderón. After years of suffering through countless false leads, dead ends and cold shoulders, he finally found a publisher and the book came out last month. While I did in fact sign a sponsorship agreement with Josh binding me to state how much I enjoyed Life is a Dream by Josh Tarjan, I would also like to tell you — honestly, truly and from the bottom of my heart — that I actually did very much enjoy Life is a Dream by Josh Tarjan.  If you enjoy the works of Umberto Eco, Jorge Luis Borges, Shakespeare, Milton, Homer, Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas and Judith Krantz you’ll probably enjoy Life is a Dream by Josh Tarjan too. And after the jump, I turn over the remainder of the “Fiercely Anticipating” section to Josh Tarjan, author of the very enjoyable novel Life is a Dream… 10 Reasons Why People Should...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Star Trek Many of us use cultural and artistic touchstones as signposts to measure our lives. While for some it may be the albums of Bob Dylan or the ever-receding hairline of Nicholas Cage, the seminal moments of my life have always seemed to converge around Star Trek. Thus, to celebrate the release of the new film, may I present… Star Trek Through (My) Ages: A Brief and Abbreviated History June 7th, 1984 – Four and a half year-old Ryan Dixon is at Grandma’s house in Pittsburgh. He enters the living room to find mustached Uncle J. –wearing stripped tube socks, short shorts and an Iron Maiden tank top– lying on the floor watching TV.  On TV: a man in a tight, long-sleeved puce shirt battles a lizard monster that looks like a shrunken Tyrannosaurus Rex fresh from an overnight stay in WeHo. Uncle J. tells Ryan that show is called Star Trek. Ryan says that it looks boring and asks Uncle J. if he can turn the channel to Sesame Street. Uncle J. says no. Ryan hates Star Trek. July 17, 1985 – Cousin E. tells Ryan that he loves Star Trek. Ryan tells Cousin E. that he hates Star Trek and loves Star Wars. Later that day Cousin E. and Ryan are out playing when they are called inside for dinner. While running to the house, Ryan trips Cousin E. to punish him for liking Star Trek. Cousin E. doesn’t fall. Ryan does. Ryan gets 56 stitches in his mouth and hates Star Trek even more. December 16, 1986 – Ryan watches Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. He laughs when Captain Kirk says, “Double dumb-ass on you.” Ryan now likes Star Trek. October...

I’ve never seen Fiddler on the Roof, but this Japanese take on the Fid makes me want to see the English original. Thanks to Ryan Dixon from “Fierce Anticipation” for the heads...

Usually the Burger King ad king creeps me out with his plastic face and perma-smile. Shiver. But this ad for the Spongebob Squarepants meal  is kinda funny, though I do feel a little guilty about feeling that way after Gawker pointed out that it basically promotes obesity and sexuality to children.What do you...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Gore Vidal on Real Time with Bill Maher It was really happening. In less than one hour I was going to meet one of my honest-to-god heroes. And not just meet him. To sit, talk, and hang out with him. I needed to tell someone, share this amazing news. But as I picked up my phone, I wondered… who? Who would actually be excited and, well yes, jealous to hear that I was going to meet Gore Vidal and not treat the news with the faux interest that would greet me if I were telling them how I beat the mile-long lines at Denny’s to become the first recipient of a free Grand Slamwich. Then, it hit me; I’d call my father. He was at least old enough to remember when Vidal was at the height of his popularity and a regular fixture of television, film, theatre and the literary scene. So I dialed his number and, after exchanging a few quick pleasantries, I eagerly revealed my news: “I’m going to meet Gore Vidal.” “Gore Vidal. Is he still alive?” The recent passing of Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr. and George Plimpton has made the 83 year-old Gore Vidal the last remaining Intellectual Entertainer. A unique brand of public persona that came about at the dawn of the television era, these renaissance men were looked at by society as experts on, well, just about everything. Their bylines would seamlessly swing from periodicals as variant as The New Review of Books and Sports Illustrated to novels of seemingly any genre; from the marquees of Broadway to the opening credits of movies.   And when they weren’t writing, they became almost extended family members to the legions of...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Rock of Ages As anyone who has attended the theatre with any regularity can attest, leaving a play feeling satisfied is, like Halley’s Comet, an event whose very rareness only serves to magnify the power of the experience. And God bless theatre critics. Like captives in solitary confinement who form emotional bonds with their malicious captors, these poor souls will often heap praise on work that doesn’t deserve it because, well… they have to praise something. Although, I can think of nothing worse for an audience member then those times when one enters a theater under the pretense of critical Hosannas only run smack dab into a brick wall of boredom.  As Ron Rosenbaum so trenchantly put it in his essay “My Theater Problem – and Ours”: “I always seem to be seeing plays that seem utterly unlike what everyone else seems to have seen. … Is it possible I went to the wrong theater; this second-rate, self-satisfied, soporific contrivance can’t be the same stuff that people are taking seriously, can it?” It was this theatrical fatigue that in part caused me to write back in September that I only “kinda” wanted to see the new off-Broadway musical Rock of Ages.  It was after all a dreaded jukebox musical, where the songs were taken from various acts from the 80s like Journey, Pat Benatar, Night Ranger, Twisted Sister, and Whitesnake. In its short Broadway history, this musical sub-genre has seen only three hits in Mamma Mia! (ABBA), Movin’ Out (Billy Joel) and Jersey Boys (The Four Seasons), while productions based on the music of such luminaries as the Beach Boys, Johnny Cash, John Lennon, Elvis, Bob Dylan and Queen were quickly banished from the Great White...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING YOU going to see Duplicity and The Great Buck Howard The complaint never goes away: movie studios are so consumed with churning out product that appeals to those (mostly males) 25 and under that they ignore everyone else. A glance at any weekly movie listing will tell you that this is, of course, only half true. There are indeed plenty of films targeted for those who have more than a quarter century of life under their belts, but the reason for this perceived paucity is that very few of these films are actually any fun. One can only take so many quirk-addled indies or Oscar bait like the putrid Revolutionary Road or somewhat gripping, but still medicinal Doubt without falling into a cinematonic coma. It is thus a minor miracle that Duplicity and The Great Buck Howard (both released last weekend) are not only films targeted for those of us old enough to rent a car, but are also  a hoot to watch. The reviews for Duplicity have mostly all been positive, despite some odd quibbles that the film is hard to understand (for whom I’m not sure) and the critical consensus is indeed correct. Duplicity is a perfect example of the subtitle Graham Greene gave to his novels that weren’t bathed in Catholic guilt and were instead intended to do nothing more than thrill the reader and provide them with a side dish of some lighthearted satire or philosophy: “an entertainment.” In addition to its pristine script and direction, one of the more subtle examples of Duplicity’s genius lies in the casting. Take away the all-around excellent lead performances of Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti and you will find lurking right...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon The Existential Despair Edition or: A Chronicle of a Fugitive Weatherman, the Letters of Samuel Beckett and the Ignominy of the Pittsburgh Pirates FIERCELY ANTICIPATING The Continuing Criminal Exploits of Jay Patrick, the Felonious Weatherman Having been born and raised near the small city of Johnstown, located in the heart of Western Pennsylvania, I know of one unchanging rule to which the area always abides: the local weatherman is a near deity. Charged with revealing the whims of a climate that can go from frigid to nearly tropical within a period of several hours to an ever eager (at least according to the ratings), yet nervous (when a snow storm approaches) populous, his influence is that of a modern day Oracle at Delphi. Of course, in Western Pa to only be a weatherman is to not exist at all. Unlike Los Angeles, where weathermen with names like Dallas Raines and Johnny Mountain are respected and listened to, those who dare enter the borders of Pennsylvania with the hope of delivering climate news must not only hold a degree in meteorology, but must also be intimately familiar with the high-tech, cutting edge weather forecasting technology that each station advertises with the same enthusiasm as Steve Jobs introducing a new Apple product. So it is no surprise that continuing scandalous saga of one Jay Patrick Holcomb, aka “Jay Patrick”, the laconic former chief meteorologist at Johnstown’s WJAC Channel 6, the area’s NBC affiliate, remains one of infinite fascination. While 2003 will always be remembered as the start of the Iraq war, it was also the year the weatherman formerly known as Jay Patrick started his own war… with the criminal justice system.  In May of that year he quit his...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING The Shamrock Shake In the pantheon of fast food items McDonald’s Shamrock Shake stands at the pinnacle. Like the chirping of a robin, its annual appearance heralds a sure and glorious sign of spring’s imminent arrival. Originally released in 1970 to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, over the years the Shamrock Shake has become a cult sensation, developing a rabid fan base that eventually created a robust online community of forums and discussion groups to share their love with the world. In the 1980’s, it even inspired a new McDonald’s character, Uncle O’Grimacey, who, as the verdant uncle of that beloved purple foam blob Grimace, was featured in one of most infamous (and surreal) McDonald’s commercials ever made: It is an example of the magic inherent within the souls of McDonald’s Culineers that they took a standard vanilla shake, flavored it with mint extract, dyed it green and created a product that not only satisfies the cravings of any sweet tooth, but also leaves you as refreshed as you would be taking a drink from the springs of Évian-les-Bains. Unfortunately, even a product with a taste and intentions as pure as the Shamrock Shake has taken some hits to its reputation during its 39-year history. While they’ve been few and far between, its legacy will always be besmirched by three dark marks: 1. The Shrek Shake. In 2007, McDonald’s attempted to mess with perfection and created the “Minty Mudbath” shake to celebrate the release of Shrek the Third (as if any form of celebration for that film was at all necessary). The heretical act of mixing the original formula with chocolate was met with howls of criticism by S.S. devotees and instantly took its ignominious place in...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING, FIERCELY DISAPPOINTED The Ring Cycle In the world of opera and classical music, Richard Wagner‘s four-part Der Ring des Nibelungen is the closest thing there is to epically popular movie franchises like the Star Wars saga or The Lord of the Rings trilogy. This operatic epic was Wagner’s attempt to create a mythology for Germany and over the course of 15 hours we watch and hear Wagner’s vision of Norse mythology come to life with Gods, heroes, fair maidens and a Gollum-like dwarf creature obsessed with, you guessed it, a ring. It is the Mt. Everest of operas; companies who undertake a production do so at their own considerable financial risk, but the reward, both financial and artistic, can often be great. And so it is now with the artistically daring Los Angeles Opera. They’ve jumped head first into the Wagner pool and spent $32 million dollars to create an original production, LA’s first Ring. Of course, if the production of Das Rheingold, the first part of the cycle now being performed through March 15, is any indication of what is to come, the only comparisons to Star Wars will be to the much maligned prequel trilogy. While Jar Jar Binks thankfully remains off stage, Das Rheingold is filled with plenty of its own cringe inducing moments, including a host of costumes seemingly bought at a Bread & Puppet swap meet and an enslaved band of black-clad Nibelungens wielding what look like red, Sith-favored light sabers. Unfortunately, with their shiny and over-sized head gear, they are far more reminiscent of Rick Moranis’ Darth Helmet in Space Balls than Lord Vader. I wish I could say I didn’t see this coming, but I had my hesitations when...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon   FIERCELY ANTICIPATING The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann David Grann‘s book about the mysterious disappearance of British explorer Percy Fawcett, a contemporary of Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle and a sort-of real life Indiana Jones, has all the hallmarks of becoming a non-fiction classic on the same level as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, The Devil in the White City and Into Thin Air. For those of you who can’t wait till the book is released on Tuesday, I’d recommend digging into some of Grann’s other writings for The New Yorker, all of which have that jaw-dropping “I can’t believe this is true!” and “How come everyone doesn’t already know about this?” quality that makes The New Yorker stand like a Sequoia over forest of shrubs in the magazine jungle. Two of his best pieces are on the mysterious death of the world’s foremost Sherlock Holmes expert and the strange tale of Polish novelist who may have planted clues to a potential real-life murder in one of his novels. In Bookstores on Tuesday KINDA WANT YOU TO WATCH The Midnight Meat Train After months of hype this film fell through the cracks when, in an oft-repeated ritual, a studio (in this case Lions Gate) went through a major executive turnover and, in an act of reverse alchemy, one administration’s gold was magically transformed into celluloid junk. Thus, instead of a planned wide release last August where I could have see the film at my local theater, I ended up having to drive 45 minutes south of Los Angeles on the 5 with a friend to see the film on the one screen it was playing in...

a blogumn by Ryan Dixon   FIERCELY ANTICIPATING He’s Just Not That Into You While the six words that make up the title of this newly released romantic comedy are probably endowed with more romantic truth than anything since Shakespeare’s 18th sonnet (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?), when discussing the triumphs and travails of dating with my own friends I prefer equally direct analogies and metaphors from sports. Here’s just a brief taste of my Football Dating Handbook: Note: To properly understand the analogies, just replace the football terms with dating terms. 1. The frustration felt during a long stretch of bad dates: 2. When an easy hookup turns into a disaster due to your own actions: 3. A reminder that dating is a serious business: Now in Theaters KINDA WANNA SEE Pink Panther 2 Speaking of dating, I was on one a few weeks ago with a French girl relatively new to the U.S. In an effort to bridge the cultural divide between us, I mentioned my excitement to see The Pink Panther 2. (Yes, the film doesn’t star Peter Sellers nor is it directed by the criminally underappreciated Blake Edwards, but it’s still Inspector Clouseau!) Even before I finished my sentence, she rolled her eyes, sneered and then said her French accent: “You Americans think the French accent is so funny. Not being able to pronounce hamburger is not funny. It’s stupid.” Somehow, I was able to finagle a second date during which we where discussing what to do for dinner. It was during this conversation that she said, without even thinking about it, “ I’m in the mood for a humbugggar.” J’accuse! I began to laugh, looked to her and said, “You’re wrong. A French person not being...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Re-Watching The Dark Knight in IMAX Even though it was criminally shut out of both the Best Picture and Best Director categories for this year’s Oscars, it still doesn’t alter the fact that if you haven’t seen The Dark Knight in IMAX, then this re-release is cause for celebration.  Unlike many studio features screened in IMAX, large portions of The Dark Knight were shot with IMAX cameras, creating a unique, breathtaking experience that rivals many of the best rides found at theme parks. Now in IMAX theaters KINDA WANNA SEE Poison Ivy 4: The Secret Society Note: This past November, I received a lot of criticism for placing the lesbian romantic comedy I Can’t Think Straight under the category of “Wouldn’t Watch It If You Paid Me”. Many of my readers correctly pointed out that any movie that included a make-out session as hot as the one included in the trailer for that film couldn’t be all that bad. In an effort to avoid a similar controversy, I’ve preemptively put PI4:TSS in the “Kinda Wanna See” category, under the assumption that many of the elements I criticize in the paragraphs below will only serve as further enticement to see the film. While Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy 2 and the aptly named Poison Ivy 3: The New Seduction starred a Murderer’s Row of Maxim cover girls (Drew Barrymore, Alyssa Milano and Jaime Pressly) and smartly tapped into the illicit “my daughter/sister’s slutty teenage friend” archetype that remains one of the preeminent sexual fantasies for males ages 10 through 85, the fourth film of the saga, which premiered last year on Lifetime, takes its inspiration more from The Da Vinci Code by way of Animal House. In the...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING My Bloody Valentine 3D What exactly about My Bloody Valentine 3D is there not to like? Not only does it promise three dimensional gouging, stabbings and the occasional beheading, but it also features an appearance by the legendary Tom Atkins (who I wrote about last week) and was filmed in that great American city that is hosting this Sunday’s AFC Championship game: Pittsburgh. In fact, why are you still reading this blogumn? Why aren’t you in line at your nearest 3D theater, waiting to see this masterpiece? Turn off your computer and go. Now. Seriously. Now in Theaters FIERCELY ANTICIPATING (1A) Re-watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona For those few remaining readers who obviously aren’t connoisseurs of high culture entertainment like My Bloody Valentine 3D, how about a weekend watching the lowbrow, nut-kicking pratfalls of Woody Allen?  Unlike many of the other septuagenarian directors who have hit sage status in recent years (Eastwood, Lumet, the late Robert Altman), Allen has seen his own brand erode to the point where the majority of discerning audience members look upon the release of each new film with all the excitement of a late night enema. To take one example: The marketing departments of the studios distributing Allen’s recent slate have gone out of their way to convince potential audiences that the trailers for Allen’s films are in fact, NOT Woody Allen films. Anyone, say, watching the trailer for Vicky Cristina Barcelona would have needed the Urim and Thummim of Joseph Smith to see Allen’s name anywhere in the trailer. Thus, one of the most pleasant surprises about Vicky Cristina Barcelona is that Allen refreshingly avoids many of his hallmarks that were once so refreshing, but have now grown sour in the...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING The NFL Playoffs: The Pittsburgh Steelers vs. The San Diego Chargers Three quick questions: Which NFL team has the best dynasty ever? Is responsible for the single greatest play in sports history? And has the most loyal fan base? Answer: It’s not the San Diego Chargers. While there is sadly not enough server space on FaN (or the entire web, for that matter) for me to tell you why the Pittsburgh Steelers are the Alpha and Omega of sports teams, I just want to share one piece of evidence with you in preparation for their AFC Divisional round game against the Chargers this Sunday: Is there another city where the major regional theater’s yearly traditional production is not A Christmas Carol, but a one-man show about the hometown team’s late owner?  Highly doubtful. And if there is, it’s definitely not as rousing as The Chief, Gene Collier’s and Rob Zeller’s one-man show about the late and legendary Steelers founder Art Rooney, Sr., played, every year so far, by the almost equally legendary character actor Tom Atkins (he of Maniac Cop fame). If you are ever in this great American city — and you should reserve at least one week per year to visit — and The Chief is playing, head downtown to the Pittsburgh Public Theater and see it. There isn’t 90 minutes anywhere that better captures the soul of a city. And, for the one or two readers who may not be familiar with the most amazing play in sports history– dubbed “The Immaculate Reception”-– which, just like the Parisian woman forgetting her coat circuitously lead to Cate Blanchett’s character getting hit by a car in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, allowed the 1970’s...

A blogumn by Ryan Dixon . On the Exegesis of the Soul or: Why I Love Beef Stick   FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Hickory Farms Beef Stick “May I try a free sample?” After I spoke those six simple words, a smiling gray-haired clerk at a Hickory Farms Christmas stand set up in one of the many Western Pennsylvania malls I traversed during my childhood would poke a toothpick into a delicately cut square of meat, hand it to me and the door to paradise would open… I love Hickory Farms Beef Stick. As a child, even though no adult ever had the prescience to buy me Beef Stick for Christmas, my eyes would hover on my parents and other relatives as they opened their gifts, for I hoped, nay prayed, that the wrapping paper being torn apart would reveal the iconic packaging of the Hickory Farms Gift Pack. As I think back now to the specter of my adolescent self, in a post-presents state of euphoria, continually re-entering my Grandmother’s kitchen to gobble up, slice by succulent slice, an entire 3lb Beef Stick* during a two or three hour period, I realize that those moments are some of my most precious Christmas memories. Sitting at that small kitchen table, under a hazy magic hour glow from the window overlooking the backyard, I would chew on that extra large, two-inch end-slice of Beef Stick like a granny smith apple, never believing that my caloric innocence would one day end. (If you too wish to feel same orange-hewed glow of melancholic nostalgia and innocence  this Christmas, try eating your Beef Stick to the accompanying chords of this selection from Patrick Doyle’s score to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) *If anyone’s counting that’s 4560 calories, 384g...

. A blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirit by Les Standiford We’ve seen Shakespeare in Love, now get ready for Dickens In Debt. That’s the starting point in this fascinating non-fiction work that chronicles how, after being the most popular writer in England, 31 year-old Charles Dickens suddenly found himself a broke and nearly destitute man stuck with five kids and a wife (like a Victorian Eddie Fisher, our dear Charles would eventually leave Mrs. Dickens #1 for a much younger woman). It is at this low point that he becomes inspired to write a little story about a man named Scrooge and publishes it with his last bit of money, which leads to very happy endings for both Dickens and the story. Standiford’s great triumph in the book is illuminating how A Christmas Carol ended up having a bigger influence on our Yuletide rituals than any other event in human history, including that supposed barnyard birth some 2000 years ago. “Bah, humbug!” indeed. In Bookstores Now. KINDA WANNA SEE Shrek: The Musical Will Green once again equal green on the Great White Way? DreamWorks Theatricals is betting many millions that Shrek will defy box office gravity and follow his hue-sharing neighbor Elphaba in doing the Blockbuster Grapevine. Recently, critics have taken calling Broadway Las Vegas light. However, now that 42nd Street is populated with mermaids, monsters, ogres, disfigured opera ghosts, witches, anthropomorphic lions, the occasional appearance of flopping Vampires (talk about being in the red) and a soon to be singing Spider-Man, maybe it’s time to rename it Fantasy Island? Now in Previews. Opens December 14th. WOULDN’T GO IF YOU PAID ME Christmas Cat...

A blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING George C. Scott in A Christmas Carol You can have Seymour Hicks, Alastair Slim, Albert Finney, Mickey Mouse and the Muppets, I’ll take George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge. The elaborate 1984 TV movie that starred the always cantankerous (and often drunk) Mr. Scott arrived upon the Dixon family’s TV set at Christmas time with the same clockwork regularity as the annual post-presents brawl between my sisters and I over, well…just about anything. And while it’s always a special treat to watch the criminally underused David Warner (as Bob Cratchit), Scott’s performance stands out both as a showcase for a rare feat of onanistic scene-stealing and because his character seems just as grumpy, deranged and misanthropic after finding yuletide redemption as in the early goings when he gives the Christmas spirit the smackdown. Thus, Scrooge’s shout-out to the poor street Urchin on Christmas morning, “Boy! What day is it?” — it’s very hard to transcribe any dialog George C. Scott ever said without italicizing it — is delivered with all light-hearted élan as the opening speech in Patton. Airs on AMC Sunday, December 7th at 7pm and Monday, December 8th at 12:15pm *** KINDA WANNA READ Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling While countless articles have tried to zero in on the reasons for Harry Potter’s popularity, I’ve always thought that Stephen King went to the heart of the wizard’s success in his NY Times review of Goblet of Fire: “Although they bear the trappings of fantasy, and the mingling of the real world and the world of wizards and flying broomsticks is delightful, the Harry Potter books are, at heart, satisfyingly shrewd mystery tales.” Often times I find that those who love contemporary fantasy...

I don’t want to complain any more than I already have about my first trimester of pregnancy. But alas I fear that it’s in my very core nature. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a terrible sick person, which is why I think I rarely get sick — being a kind deity, perhaps God wanted to spare my loved ones and therefore decreed me off-limits to most colds, flus, and other sicknesses that are just annoying for some but seemingly unbearable for me. And indeed, as if motivated to stop me whining about it, my morning sickness has faded to the point that I enjoyed a full appetite during Thanksgiving and was able to ride the waves with my trusty ginger gum. Also, I’ve actually learned to work my fatigue into my general schedule in the form of naps. But now a new (though common pregnancy) problem has reared its head: Nightmares. I think I’ve had about two nice dreams over the past two weeks. The rest have been beyond terrible. So far my newborn baby has been kidnapped from the hospital and taken hostage by evil men with machine guns (2 separate dreams). And, I myself, have been chased by zombies in a small town, scared into submission by invading aliens, been told that the last super-boring writing project that I’ve been working on at work will now go on indefinitely, woken up crying because the head of my grad writing program had died, and perhaps worse of all, been the sad sack wife of a Mad Man. My husband was sympathetic about all but the last one, snorting and saying, “I don’t think you have to worry about that, honey.” At first I thought he might have said this because of the lack...

. A blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Dry Storeroom #1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey Was there ever a place more magical than a museum? In the middle of my birthday party evolutionary chart, where fast food restaurant playgrounds begat roller skating rinks, swimming pools, movie theaters and, eventually, bars, stands my 11th birthday party at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. I don’t know if I ever again felt such genuine glee, awe and wonderment as when, accompanied by my likewise amazed friends, I stepped off the echoing marble floors of the museum hall and descended into the basement to come face to face with a group of paleontologists busily uncovering the fossil remains of a Dryosaurus. With that in mind, it is no understatement to say that the release of Dry Storeroom #1 has given me a geekgasm. In the book, Richard Fortey provides us with a backstage tour of the Grand Dame of them all: The Natural History Museum of London. Fortey takes us behind-the-scenes and, in the best you-couldn’t-make-this-up tradition, introduces us to a host of exciting, ingenious and unbelievably eccentric characters who seem better suited to populate a Monty Python sketch then to exist in real life. This is geek reading of the highest order. In Bookstores Now KINDA WANNA READ The 10 Big Lies About America by Michael Medved I sometimes feel bad for The Right. Al Franken runs for the Senate in Minnesota (result: To Be Continued…) and the only celebrities Norm Coleman can round up to star in an ad warning of the perils of electing a celebrity — Arnold, Ronald and Fred please collect $200 and pass Go — are John Ratzenberger, Victoria Jackson, Stephen Baldwin,...

. A blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING “Have You Seen…?” The Jews had Moses to deliver the Ten Commandments, and those of us who worship at the altar of cinema have David Thomson. The author of the magisterial The New Biographical Dictionary of Film has given us a holy treat with the release of his new book“Have You Seen…?” Unlike the Biographical Dictionary, which chronicled the whole history of cinema through Thomson’s own critical prism, “Have You Seen…?” focuses on the 1000 movies Thomson believes that you need to see before dying. Don’t worry, this is NOT a dry volume that will sit on your shelf unread. Along with Anthony Lane and Manohla Dargis, Thomson is one of the few critics whose interpretive brilliance is matched only by his gold medal prose acrobatics and each one-page review in “Have You Seen…?” sparkles with his quirky, intelligent and contrary nature. Take for example, Thomson on Rain Man: “Little more than a commercial for itself. Stuffed with self-admiration and gloating coups. I don’t think it goes too far to say that it’s the smug movie of a culture charging down a dead-end street.” I must warn you however, make sure your health care is up to date before buying; the book’s heft may cause a hernia while its addictive quality guarantees that hemorrhoids await any unsuspecting soul who dares enter a bathroom with it in hand. In Bookstores Now   KINDA WANNA SEE Quantum of Solace For those of you who want your action shaken-not-stirred, the release of Quantum of Solace should send a tremor of delight into your loins. While Pierce Brosnan’s well-coifed performance in 1995’s GoldenEye signaled a renaissance at the box office for the franchise after Timothy Dalton’s low-grossing twin pics, the series has...

. A Life In Review by Ryan Dixon Since the bad news came during the elation of the Obama election — a celebration rivaled in transcendent excitement only by the Rebel Alliance’s defeat of the Empire at the end of Return of the Jedi — perhaps the low-key response to Michael Crichton’s passing shouldn’t come as a surprise. Yet the brevity and superficial nature of the coverage seemed more along the lines of tribute that would be paid upon the death of a typical grocery store prose stylist like Judith Krantz or Dean Koontz, rather than a man whose books had sold over 150 million copies worldwide and who was responsible for creating the two most popular pieces of entertainment of the 1990’s: Jurassic Park and ER. The tone of the appraisals regarding Crichton’s work from mainstream literary outlets was, unsurprisingly, one of complimentary condescension: Crichton was an author (a very tall one, all managed to mention) adept at plot and concept, who abjectly failed at character and dialogue. And while Michael Crichton will never be remembered as a contemporary Balzac– a glance at the New York Times Trade Paperback Bestseller List will reveal plenty of authors trying to grab that mantle with their often purchased, but rarely read tomes– he does deserve a central position on the Mount Rushmore of Pop Culture. If Stephen King will eventually be remembered as the Charles Dickens of our time, then Michael Crichton was Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs rolled into one pulpy package (for example, the ever-expanding, multi-branding universe of Jurassic Park can be traced back directly to Burroughs’ innovative, cross-platform marketing strategy for Tarzan). In the 1990’s, each new Crichton book was looked upon not only as a publishing event, but as political, scientific...

. A blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCE ANTICIPATION Ghost-to-Ghost on Coast to Coast While it seems like truly bizarre radio programs can now only be found while driving deep into the desert or hiking through the dueling banjos territory of Appalachia, the nationally syndicated Coast to Coast AM with George Noory (airing 10PM-2AM, six nights a week) is perhaps the final outpost where the rest of us can experience the weird and wacky. Coast to Coast deals with a variety of topics, but frequently focuses on the paranormal or conspiracy theories. However, what’s particularly amusing about this show is that, no matter the crazy quotient of the content, host George Noory acts as a late night Larry King, believing the interviewee fully whether he is talking about the financial crisis or ghosts that haunt the White House. For those of you who want to give it a listen, there’s no better night than tonight’s Ghost-to-Ghost broadcast where listeners call in with their scariest “true” ghost stories. On Air tonight at 10PM PST (check local listings) . Note: Dear Readers, do you have ghost stories to share? Write about it the comments section below. Let’s make this a weekend of the Fierce and Ghostly. KINDA WANNA SEE The Miracle of Christmas Perhaps in an effort to beat the Devil at his own game, The Sight and Sound Theatre is opening The Miracle of Christmas at their Strasburg “Witness was shot here” Pennsylvania location this weekend. If Cirque du Soliel is too outré for you, than these religious extravaganzas might just be the spectacle fix that you’re looking for. With well over a million visitors per year and having just opened a new location in Branson “The Broadway of the Bible Belt” Missouri (now showing: Noah!...

. A blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING The Original Faces of Death: 30th Anniversary Edition Before the internet allowed us to watch footage of people being mauled by animals for free,  any aspiring video age Percival had to search high and low for quality smut, and there was no relic so highly prized as the Grail of gross, Faces of Death. Often shelved in the backrooms of those pre-Blockbuster video stores located in strip malls, grocery stores and along lonely roadsides, this mondo masterpiece was spoken of by those who had seen it in a hushed, foreboding tone reminiscent of Large Marge’s admonition to the hitchhiking Pee-Wee. A dark fate surely awaited anyone brave enough to press play. However, as the new 30th Anniversary DVD makes clear, aside from the rather pedestrian suicides, autopsies, and much deserved baby seal clubbing, the most fondly remembered scenes– everything from the eye-bleeding electrocution to that cute grizzly nibbling on a little foie gras d’ humain –were, alas, fake. In hindsight, the fact that a “Dr. Francis B. Gross narrated this film” should have been a red flag regarding its legitimacy. But like most of you, I too really wanted to believe–if only for a brief glimpse into the unfathomable Hellmouth very few of us will ever enter– that someone had actually shot footage of young women (surprisingly buxom, considering the supposed Third-world location) sacrificing a willing man, eating his flesh and engaging in an orgy where the corpse’s blood proved a far better lubricant than K-Y Jelly ever could.  In an age where unrelenting cruelty and violence is easily accessible both on our computer monitors and at any local multiplex, there is something magical about stepping into this not-so-long ago analog sideshow that returns you to...

. A blogumn by Ryan Dixon (Surgeon General’s Warning: May Cause Hemorrhoids if Read on the Toilet) FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Haunted Houses Halloween is here and that means it’s time to make the pilgrimage to haunted houses. Here are the three must-visit haunted destinations in Southern California: Spooky House Haunted Theme Park (Chatsworth, CA): Looks can be deceiving. Despite the fact that it’s stuck in an old strip-mall in Chatsworth, this two-attraction complex offers more scares per dollar than any other haunted park in So Cal. Halloween Horror Nights (Universal Studios): Even with a host of complex rebates that make the bailout plan look like a first grade math problem, H.H.N. remains one of the most expensive haunted destinations, but it does offer the best production value, even though the amount of time waiting in line is often far more frightening than the attractions. Shipwreck at the Queen Mary (Long Beach, CA): There’s nothing scarier than a haunted ocean liner, unless of course you find yourself walking up Long Beach’s post-apocalyptic Anaheim St. at night and confront a group of East Side Longos asking for trick-or-treat candy by putting a glock to your head. Since moving to Los Angeles my knowledge of other haunted destinations across the Heartland has diminished, but the rest of you have the great opportunity to explore one of the over 500 Hell Houses currently populating our nation. Instead of the usual black light encased rooms featuring the paranormal pantheon of ghouls, ghosts and guys who volunteer only to cop a multitude of free feels from unsuspecting nubile girls, Hell House’s provide Middle America with a litany of “Terrors from the Coasts” meant to scare the Jesus into you. Gay wedding chapels, suicide rave rooms and aborted fetus monsters make up...