Yes, friends. Bitchy Lonestarr is back in business...but this time, my griping is only peripherally connected to my job.

It goes without saying how hard film music fans have taken it up the ass in regards to the Motion Picture Academy's inexplicable nominations and wins racked up over the years for Best Original Score:

- Midnight Express over The Boys from Brazil and Superman
- A Little Romance over Star Trek: the Motion Picture
- Chariots of Fire over Raiders of the Lost Ark
- The Last Emperor over The Witches of Eastwick and The Untouchables
- The Full Monty over...Jesus, anything else in the category
- Shakespeare in Love over Mulan
- Brokeback Mountain over Munich

One can imagine how cool the prevailing heads were that decreed that the score for The Dark Knight not be nominated (the official reason being that Zimmer's subordinates were able to cosign the music sheets, making for a 'too many cooks' situation...but I know better). An IMDb poll yesterday asked the Joe Schmos of the world what they thought.

24.3% had no opinion, which is fine; one can't expect a regular person to follow the film music world. However, 44.1% were "disappointed, truly". Maybe these people are yanking me and maybe they mean it.

Still, to paraphrase John Doe in Se7en, "Only in a world this shitty could we say that this score deserves awards consideration and keep a straight face." (Some people might defend this by saying, "It's what Christopher Nolan wanted." And have those people ever considered that what the director wants isn't always what's best for the film?! Two words: George Lucas.)

Speaking of a shitty world, I heard about the poor Wal-Mart employee who was trampled to death during the tomfuckery known as Black Friday. Even more, the stuff-happy mouth-breathers kept shopping. (There's a Rod Serling teleplay or cautionary novel in here, somewhere. I just know it.)

Much to my deepest chagrin, this proves what I've said all along: some, if not most, people cannot and will not conceive of a world beyond themselves.

Even if such a tragedy had not occurred, there would still be the insane notion of getting up at four in the morning just to shop. Doesn't it fuck up the body chemistry having a person eat a five or six course meal, only for them to drag out of bed hours later? That can't be healthy.

If Christmas had magically been moved to the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I could maybe, possibly, conceivably see the need for the madness of Black Friday, but Christ on the rag! These people have a fucking month to get their shit done. If a person can't wait to take care of business (much like the Darwin Award candidates who were turned away in the wake of the trampling, only to bitch about being in line since Thursday morning), it's a pretty safe bet that neither they nor the person they were shopping for deserve to have the item they were seeking.

"But Black Friday is when all the best bargains are available!" Fuck you and die. It's called 'comparison shopping', asshead, and it's not difficult. Those nude Megan Fox pictures and "Twilight" lemons will always be there, so get your hand out of your pants and do some honest work.

People have a right to be ignorant once in a while, but talk about abusing the privilege.

A Thanksgiving wish granted.

It took two years, but someone at YouTube posted the Marathon Rent-A-Car scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles (in English and Dutch, for some reason):



Even more, someone else finally uploaded Chuck Jones' 1944 cartoon "Tom Turk and Daffy". It doesn't matter what time of year it is; I could never get sick of it. And, remember...the yams did it:

Thankfulness.

Because I can think of nothing else to post (and because I hate going without posting something for more than a week), I'm going to rip off a concept from a more popular blog. Here are but a few of the things I'm thankful for:

Sudoku
Kakuro
film music (and the many ways in which it can be obtained)
YouTube (when its powers are used for good)
shipping (likewise)
the creativity and cleverness required to craft screenplays
cartoons and the people who bring them to life (save, of course, for the three douche-nozzles who raped and murdered a once-beloved show...it's not that hard to guess who they are)
free samples (free food samples, that is; free perfume samples can eat a dick)
breakfasts that don't have anything to do with oatmeal
big meals, in general
stumbling upon sitcoms I've missed and laughing myself stupid
reading comic books on the bus
the comedy of Patton Oswalt (okay, I pretty much stole this one from Ken Levine's blog, but the man is freaking funny)
the Ain't It Cool News message boards
the Ondes Martenot
the chances to change my life
a sense of humor
the ability to appreciate beauty, in its many forms
the Wilhelm Scream
going to see movies
the value of a dollar
the 'kid on Christmas morning' feeling I get waiting for a specialty soundtrack label to announce new titles
kittens
keeping things organized
the adorability of Amy Adams
remembering favorite moments in movies and TV
my family

I hope I haven't rambled too much. Whether I have or not, I'll probably add to the list later on.

Childhood memories of music.

In one of the more positive WTF?! moments of my life, two respected soundtrack labels have released CDs of two of the first scores that I ever noticed in the film.

When I was but a lad, I was obsessed with watching cartoons on TV (my, how things have changed...). Every so often, I would run across a number of movies, some I probably shouldn't have been watching (Better Off Dead) and some I really shouldn't have been watching (Class of Nuke 'em High, Critters). One that didn't quite scar me was the 1986 adventure-comedy, Short Circuit, the third part of director John Badham's unofficial military hardware gone amok trilogy (following Blue Thunder and WarGames).

Two decades on, I remember quite a bit about the film, like the Three Stooges routine, the amusing (if questionable) character of Ben Jabituya and David Shire's score, which Varese Sarabande released through their CD Club (and, as of this point in time, the only one of yesterday's releases not to sell out or be in danger of doing so). The score contains the end credits song "Come and Follow Me", which, I only recently noticed, is used as a motif throughout the score, from a light variation of Number 5 discovering the world to a driving action melody for the truck chase. Though not one of the Shire masterpieces (I did manage to discover the significantly superior The Taking of Pelham One Two Three in the intervening years), praise be to Varese for delivering this sentimental favorite of mine.

Years later, I happened upon the Encore network, which showed movies from the 60s, 70s and 80s and featured a number of hosts introducing the movies (again, how times have changed...only not so sarcastically, this time out). One of those movies was Nine to Five. It's not quite as well-remembered as Short Circuit, but several aspects stick in the memory, like the various fantasies of the three leads, one of my all-time favorite movie lines* and Charles Fox's score. The music was originally released on an LP, but Intrada has rescued it from obscurity, providing listeners a chance to hear it on CD. The baroque trumpet of "Violet Steals Body". The Western-flavored "Dora Lee's Fantasy". The soap opera-esque "Ajax Warehouse". The delightful title song (which lost the Oscar to "Fame"...I don't know why, either). The action-packed "Judy's Fantasy" (with a shooting gallery gag that's perhaps one of my favorite parts of the score). The bubbly "Violet's Fantasy". I can't thank Intrada enough for this (among other things).

I can only assume coincidence...or they've been mining my subconscious for new release ideas. A release of John Morris' High Anxiety would've confirmed the latter.

* - "Now I've got a gun in my purse and up to now, I've been forgivin' and forgettin' 'cause of the way I was brought up, but if you say another word about me or make me another indecent proposal, I'm gonna get that gun of mine, and I'm gonna change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot!"

DUNH (dididid) DUNH (dididid) DUNH (dididid) DUNH-DUNH...!

There's not that much doubt that The Dark Knight will be nominated out the ass for prizes next year...but one aspect of the film is getting left out in the cold:


The score for "The Dark Knight" has been disqualified by the executive committee of the Academy music branch.


(As trailer music, the score is acceptable, but as film music, it just plain sucks.)

In any event, this proves that there is a God.

Late to the party.

As an African-American, I can't help but feel a little proud. What more can be said, but 'Congratulations, President(-elect) Obama and here's to change'?

Remember, friends...

Vote...or else: