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Assistant Editor / Co-moderator: Terence Nuzum
Established A.D. 2000, March 19. Now in our eleventh calendar year!
Number 561 (Vol. 11, No. 52). This edition is for the week of December 20--26, 2010.
The Year That Was, Part Two Last night I had the closest thing to a religious experience in some time. Off and on, I went outside between 1:30am and 5:00am to watch a total lunar eclipse---the first eclipse of the moon to coincide with the Winter Solstice in over 400 years! Space nerds like myself get off on such phenomenon. At the moment of totality, right about 3:17am, I went out on the middle of the street, looked carefully for oncoming traffic (there was none as far as the eye could see), and let it bathe me stark naked. I'm an eccentric like that.
This year's aggregated Lettercol contains all the relevant PCR-related emails I received during the year, plus any that were forwarded to me by staff writers. As I stated last year, the weekly Lettercol was discontinued a couple years ago as too labor-intensive and time-consuming, BUT I still save all of them for these end-of-the-year issues. Funny coincidence: both the 2009 and 2010 Lettercols feature a vintage Romper Room pic! Enjoy.
Terence and Chris decided on the Chili's near the stadium for this year's event which was held Sunday, December 19th. Despite a slight wait and a tricky time arranging our connected tables (via the "party room", scene of past Tampa Film Network meetings) our early arrival after seeing TRON: Legacy (great eye-candy, so-so movie, see it in 3D if you can spare the $$) at least got Terence, Irma, and yours truly on the list before the others arrived.
Returning for this year's festivities were Joel and Cathy Wynkoop (who we hadn't seen in months), Mason Troupe, Jainie Tyler, and Andy Callahan (all at or about 20 years old and in various stages of arriving or departing Tampa on Christmas stuff--timing was lucky), Lisa Scherer (we hadn't spoken since October, I'm so glad she came), Terence Nuzum & Irma Diaz (this would be a first-time PCR Christmas for Irma), Lonnie Dohlen, Chris Woods, and, of course, Ye Olde Editor, Nolan B. Canova.
Included are some pics for your amusement. About the pictures: the original camera I used for PCR for years was a 1.3-megapixel Hewlett-Packard C200 from, like, 1999. That broke around 2006 and since then I've been using a 2.1-megapixel HP 315 (circa 2000), a gift from ED Tucker (thanks, ED!). That camera developed an error that could not be fixed in time for the party, so I borrowed one from a good friend---and it turned out to be another HP C200! Yep, just like the original I had. The resolution (and flash-throw) fell back to our pre-2006 standards, but hey, I'm very grateful to have had a camera at all! And it at least gives an idea of what the scene was like. Thanks again to the friend who lent me his camera.
As I was preparing an "Awards" section, I realized any awards for this year would practically duplicate last year's, especially in light of our rate of attrition. Copying-and-pasting last year's list would be a cop-out, so instead...
IN RECOGNITION.... I submit that CHRIS WOODS was the Most Valuable Player in 2010. Thanks Chris. We couldn't have done it without you.
SPECIAL THANKS Terence Nuzum is pretty much the closest person to me on the planet, especially in creative matters, so it comes as no surprise that I must recuse myself from lavishing praise as he finds it embarrassing, and I tend to gush. But it's obvious to everyone how much he means to me personally. Without him, I literally wouldn't be here.
I don't want to exit this section without a special nod to Lisa Scherer. Despite personal challenges on many fronts, she always managed to contribute outstanding columns whenever she could, and many are classics. Well-researched and personal, her articles stick with you well after initial reading, which is the mark of a great writer. It isn't the same around here without her.
My God, where do I begin with this?
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2010
I'm not sure how much time I'll have at the computer this week, so I want to start right off with the simple message to all our readers to have a safe and happy holiday season!
As submitted by PCR writers, compiled by Chris Woods
EVERYTHING SUCKS NOW?
This is the final memorable moment! From 2009, PCR asks the question, does everything suck now? A debate on if all things pop culture were better then than now.
RARE LUNAR ECLIPSE
POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2010
LETTERCOL 2010
POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2010. UPDATED DECEMBER 22, 2010
THE PCR CHRISTMAS PARTY 2010
POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2010
Click on images to enlarge. A new browser window will open. 
Settled down at the stadium Chili's, yours truly disappears for a moment to do photog duty from the head of the table. L-to-R, Irma Diaz, Terence Nuzum, Chris Woods, Jainie Tyler, Joel Wynkoop, Lisa Scherer, Cathy Wynkoop, Andy Callahan, Mason Troupe, Lonnie Dohlen. 
From the other end of the table, L-to-R: Lisa Scherer, Cathy Wynkoop, Andy Callahan, Mason Troupe, Lonnie Dohlen, Irma Diaz, Terence Nuzum, Chris Woods, Jainie Tyler, and Joel Wynkoop. 
Terence snapped this pic as yours truly takes my place in my original seat between Mason Troupe (left) and Lonnie Dohlen (right). The shiny bauble dangling from my neck is a TRON medallion souvenir.
A pretty good turn-out for this year's Christmas party, all things considered. We'd seen ED Tucker and Will Moriaty earlier in the month, although Will considered this event, too. Unfortunately, he and Jason Fetters were the only no-shows. Otherwise, everyone invited arrived, happy to say. A particularly pleasant surprise was Lisa Scherer who I didn't think was coming due to our recent...er...estrangement. So, hey, what do I know?
Click on images to enlarge. A new browser window will open. 
Just goes to show we can play nice if we want to. For old times sake, Nolan B. Canova and Lisa Scherer, together again. Well, at least for this occasion. 
By special request of Miss Irma Diaz, L-to-R: Irma, legendary Creature Feature Database architect Lonnie Dohlen, and Terence Nuzum. (Ter and Irma are wearing the same TRON medallions as me, all a gift from Ter, thanks buddy!).
AWARDS & RECOGNITION...
POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2010
...of outstanding service to this website, including the preparation of the weekly installments for this year's "Memorable Moments" feature, continuing his amazing monthly "Growing Up Fanboy" column without missing, unfailingly maintaining the "Schlockarama" section, assisting Terence Nuzum on all matters regarding creative, business, and social agendas for PCR, and contributing time and talents to the preparation of several of our videos...
ED Tucker, Mike Smith and William Moriaty all have awards in their name for quality and consistency. Jason Fetters is the recipient of such an award for his reliability and consistent quality, so deserves another! It goes without saying how valuable they are to this website. Neither ED nor Mike nor Jason has missed an issue since they started, and have kept up very high standards. Will, I hope you can join us more frequently in 2011 with more outstanding forays into the world of Florida history and pop culture.
THE GRAVEYARD OF FALLEN PCR COLUMNS
What an awful year. Some of these deserve much more space than is practical here, but I've attempted to encapsulate the major points as best as I can. If and when I write my memoirs, more will come out...
Yes, I realize this one is way overdue. It wasn't until I was doing a little "inventory" of past graveyards that I discovered I'd never officially retired this classic litte gem. But I know why. Corey Castellano, a best friend of mine going waaaay back, now a world-traveling make-up artist for motion pictures, had started this column in late summer of 2007 as a way of communicating and educating aspiring filmmakers on the ins and outs of the profession from an industry insider. Well-written and informative, Corey kept it up pretty admirably until Fall of 2008, when his work and travel schedule made any kind of regular writing output impractical. He continued to express an interest in resuming his column, however, which is why he didn't get a tombstone in either 2008 or 2009. But without a single contribution in over two years, we both knew it was time to offically retire it. Nevertheless, the door is always open and we may, one day, get him back on here in a similar capacity.
In 2008, then 25-year-old Chris Munger was my overnight co-worker and we used to talk about lots of things as we passed the time. I began to notice that Chris was not only a pretty smart fellow, but he had a surprisingly prodigious scope of knowledge about sports. I began to casually pitch the idea to him of writing a sports column for PCR. Didn't take long to get going and he was a very regular writer from April 2008 through the end of December 2009. An unfortunate set of circumstances, some personal, some financial, seem to come on all at once this year. That...and our work schedules were changed, putting us out of regular contact. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess? With a few reminders from me, Chris managed to contribute one single column in 2010, around mid-summer. Though possessing the best of intentions to resume his sports commentary, it just was not meant to be, so, Sports Talk was officially retired.
I've thought this one through a thousand times and there's just no way to do this case justice in a short paragraph and without getting emotional, so, I'll try to be as brief as possible. In the summer of 2007, Lisa Scherer (then Lisa Ciurro) came on board PCR already a "celebrity blogger" and I was extremely honored she took me up on my invite to join PCR as FANGRRL. Her standard of writing and craftsmanship was always sky-high, I never had to worry about editing or subject matter. She reviewed books and indie films attending many of the local film festivals. Our friendship grew very close over the next two years. A series of intense personal issues and dramatic health battles shifted Lisa's priorities, and her contributions to the site dropped in frequency, but never in quality, sending in some genuine classics. However, I was not as sensitive as I should've been to her personal situation or her input on various issues, and our relationship began to deteriorate and get argumentative. Miscommunication and misunderstanding culminated in a phone call last October that ended with her quitting the website. I feel the loss nearly every day.
John Miller first met up with the Tampa PCR gang in October of 2007 (gee, that year is coming up a lot) at our Cult-O-Ween event staged at Unique Video, organized by Andy Lalino and Frank Granda. We had invited the public, but the only new face to actually show up was John's. Turns out he'd been a fan of this site for some time. John was about 25 and I was taken aback by his penchant for rap lingo and urban swagger, but when I referred to him as our "hip-hop boy" or "urban correspondent" he seemed to bristle. In any event, we hung out with John and discovered he had many talents, most notably drawing and writing. I encouraged John to contribute to PCR, which yielded some innovative stuff like the "Canova" comic, the "Dragoon" comic (with Terence Nuzum), and finally, his own column, Lampin' @ The 6th Borough, which was original and pretty amazing. Over time, however, work and social distractions ate away at John's focus and his creative enthusiasm began to diminish. When Terence and I started enforcing deadlines for the weekly e-zine format of PCR to stay promotable, John rebelled and a subsequent communication breakdown of profane proportions led to his dismissal from the website.
This is undoubtedly among the most nerve-racking and painful column obits I've ever tried to compose.
Mike Smith has been here since the beginning, and I mean from Issue #1 in 2000. Through the proverbial thick-and-thin, lean and rich times, he never missed contributing to an issue of PCR and always kept the highest standards.
"Mike's Rant" started in the Lettercol of PCR Issue #1, then called Nolan's Newsstand. While we both considered what we were doing little more than a lark at the time, we never thought we'd still be at it ten years, several DVD box quotes, some newspaper articles, and more than a few interviews, later. We've had some rough times and didn't always see eye-to-eye, but we managed to work things out and kept an eye toward the big picture.
But Mike, like so many of the rest of us, is not exactly who or where he was ten years ago. Life changes and unpredictable work commitments made it increasingly difficult to maintain the quality and timetable our readers came to expect. But he did it anyway.
Early this year when Mike had the opportunity to start his own website with another partner, he jumped at the chance, as he would not be held to weekly deadlines and could post at will if he wanted to. His next order of business was to promote this new site on PCR. This led to some unpleasant confrontations over what I saw as a conflict of interest. Unable to resolve this (and some minor issues regarding direction) by about mid-summer, Mike communicated that he would be leaving PCR at year's end, at least as far as The Rant was concerned. This week's "Mike's Rant" is the final entry after ten years.
Mike will still have a footprint in PCR however, as he plans to keep up This Week's Movie Review. His reviews are syndicated, and not exclusive to Nolan's Pop Culture Review, but I'm glad to have it and it's a piece of Mike that's still with us.
July--December, 2010
July. A Tampa manhunt for a cop-killer increases concerns that we're losing too many of our uniformed officers to maniacs. "Fangory Yours" a public access vid from 1985 comes to Radioactive Television with more to follow! Ringo Starr turns 70 and Prince says the internet is dead. Chris Munger (Sport Talk) and I get in trouble at work for posting videos on YouTube of us at work! ED Tucker reviews "Eyeborgs" a film directed by a man I knew since he was a teenager. Jason impresses Bruce Lee fans with his review of Way of the Dragon. An attempt to cap the Gulf Oil Spill is not successful. George Steinbrenner and Harvey Pekar pass away. I wonder who's running the board at FOX13 News in Tampa, ED goes to see Ringo Starr in concert, and Lisa reviews Chris Dumais' book "Empty Rooms Lonely Countries" giving it her highest rating. I'm impressed by "McCloud Meets Dracula" and Jason recalls "Ultraman". August. The first of many videotaped Crazed Fanboy roundtables debuts as a World of Nolan episode on the legacy of "Psycho". I catch Lon Chaney, Jr. on an episode of "Bat Masterson", but we lose Mitch Miller at the age of 99, and Patricia Neal at 84. Chris remembers Storytown USA, and we all meet up at the Tampa Comic Con. I caution people about Consolidated Debt ads and Will returns with some South Florida Adventures. ED tortures himself (and us) recalling "Legends of the Superheroes", haha. Jason coaches us on Woking, something Ye Olde Editor used to do all the time. I wonder why we have ghost ships wash up on shore and why Ebonics still lives. September. Deranged preacher Terry Jones wants to burn the Koran...or maybe not. A few of us catch "Machete" and are not as impressed as we'd like to be. Stephen Hawking says God did not create the universe, and Lisa reviews the "Strip Club King" DVD. I write what turns out to be my magnum-opus column or this year: "Six Florida Stories That Went Global But Probably Shoudn't Have". We lose Kevin McCarthy. Chris recalls when MTV played music. Nobody wants to believe the Recession is over, probably 'cuz nobody's working! A UFO conference promises disclosure for the thousandth time, a old issue of Terence's "The Enlightenment" is finally repaired for inclusion into Memorable Moments, and NBC wants to reboot "The Munsters". Then we lose Gloria Stuart and Tony Curtis. Will's Florida architecture series is back, we learn the history of a certain "Social Nework" and Terence looks at Neil Young's latest album. October. Reboot talk continues with "Superman" and "Wonder Woman" and ED recalls the "Friday the 13th" franchise, but you can find me at "The Apocalypse Boyz" premiere. The country discovers a new way to get high this month on K2, but we here at PCR are at Spooky Empire! After he dined on some offensive Japanese pizza, Jason's review of "Oldboy" stirs quite a reaction, and Lisa's book review of "Rapture" would turn out to be her last PCR column ever...unfortunately. We all talk of Halloween memories. Unfortunately at the same time we lose Barbara Billingsley, Johnny Sheffield, Tom Bosley, and James MacArthur. On a local and personal level the passing of Monsignor John Scully leaves Ye Olde Editor quite shaken. Guest writer Brandon Tomasello reviews Universal's Halloween Horror Nights, and on Mike's Record Shelf we find the "Dark Shadows" soundtrack. November. We are barely recovered from a particularly aggressive Election Day when we lose Dino De Laurentiis at 91. A "Mystery Missile" is spotted off California. Conspiratorialists have even more to conquer as airport patdowns become the talk of the nation. Tampa loses Karen Deal, sister of my good friend Doug and wife to Marty Balin. A preacher with an agenda bans his flock from using Facebook. "Harry Potter" kicks box-office ass and threatens to upset "Star Wars" old records. I reminisce about being a JFK assassination conspiratorialist on the anniversary of his death. Terence and Billy Corgan again tango over a Smashing Pumpkins album. December. I speculate on the future of PCR as we lose Leslie Nielson, Irvin Kirshner, and Ingrid Pitt. The Doors' Jim Morrison is finally pardoned after forty years, John Lennon is remembered on the anniversary of his death, and WikiLeaks springs into the national consciousness. It turns mighty cold this winter---and I wonder how the promised "warmer winter due to El Nina" forecasters are now! Thoughts turn to Christmas and the New Year as ED's Toy Box arrives and Chris Woods remembers the Simpsons Christmas special. The last Weekend Video of the year appears, subject: Christmas. We lose Blake Edwards. TRON's legacy is re-examined at the box office, as we here at PCR ponder our next move...
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