Finally going back to SDCC!

Yes, it's a Virtual ComicCon being done entirely online, but the fact remains that I'm gonna enjoy myself at a convention again. And the admission is free. My favorite price.

Thursday

12:00pm - Cartoon Network Studios First Look - To be honest, I'm just here for the "Craig of the Creek" footage, and the voices of Craig and Jessica are hosting the panel, so clearly the people who put it together feel the same.

1:00pm - Amazon Prime Video: Utopia - Many years ago, I fell in love with a comic series, "Fanboys vs. Zombies", which saw a bunch of friends witness their convention experience get overrun with the living dead. Perhaps, it was at that point that planted a seed in gravitating toward stories placing comic geeks in real-life terror. This one sees a group of them facing a conspiracy from a graphic novel made real. Sounds crazy but fascinating.

2:00pm - Collider: Directors on Directing - Yes, I still want to direct. Who knows? I might pick up something useful.

2:00pm - The New Mutants - Assuming it ever comes out, this "X-Men" horror film sounds too good to miss.

3:00pm - HBO Max and Cartoon Network Studios: Close Enough - From the creator of "Regular Show", a fact borne out from the character designs, this takes a look at a budding family.

3:00pm - Thundercats Roar! - Another day, another reboot that (supposedly) takes a dump on the source material. I've been watching the show and it's pretty decent. People who look for things to complain about usually find them.

4:00pm - Bugs Bunny's 80th Anniversary Extravaganza - A look at the history of one of animation's most famous characters. However, it has to be said: much as I love Billy West, his Bugs from Space Jam was...not great.

5:00pm - Nerd Up or Shut Up Live - Yet another podcast I should bookmark, this promises to be a raucous good time.

6:00pm - 23rd Annual San Diego Comic Con Superhero Kung Fu Extravaganza - If I understand correctly, this is an assemblage of the best action scenes of the year. Sounds fun.

6:00pm - Mystery Science Theater 3000: A Panel Panorama - Okay, not quite the riff-fest I was expecting, but a Q&A. Could still be good.


Friday

10:00am - Charlize Theron: Evolution of a Badass - An Action Hero Career Retrospective - The potential for The Old Guard spoilers aside, this sounds like a neat way to pick the Oscar winner's brain. Maybe find out why the Moe Howard cut was a sensible choice for that Fast and the Furious movie.

1:00pm - From Idea to Hired: Books, TV, Film and Comics - I am increasingly desperate. My current situation isn't going to fulfill me or pay off my debts. I need to know how to get into the business and someone - anyone! - needs to tell me.

2:00pm - UnMasked: Rhapsody PR's Behind the Music Panel - This is not even close to the kind of film music panel I wanted; the names here very much recall my Desmondian rant from long ago: 'Who do we have now? Some nobodies!'. Jesus, maybe an older panel with names I recognize is on YouTube. Worth a shot.

4:00pm - Bob's Burgers - Holy merde! I may not get a chance to attend The Black Panel, but this is definitely happening. Having the voice cast bounce off of each other is worth any actual admission fee.

5:00pm - Deep Blue Sea 3: The Panel! - Because, fuck it, I'm bored.


Saturday

10:00am - Warner Archive's Secret Origins of Saturday Morning Cartoons - Okay, so they're going to be talking mostly about Hanna-Barbera shows, but it seems like they'll be digging into the history of what was once the best part of the week.

1:00pm - American Dad! - Who knows what the future will hold as a lot of the TBS episodes seem to prefer being weird-ass to being funny, but the last couple episodes have pointed in a promising direction.

3:00pm - Bill & Ted Face the Music - Unfortunate change in composers aside, I’m looking forward to this sequel. Here’s hoping that they can recapture the magic of the first two movies.

4:00pm - Cartoon Voices - Because duh! It's always fun times having voice actors yuk their way through a movie script.

4:00pm - The Stars and Executive Producers of ABC's Stumptown - This splendid mix of detective procedural and character comedy quickly became one of my favorite shows of the season and how they follow up on the mysteries has me intrigued.

5:00pm - What We Do in the Shadows - There must be something about Wednesday night at 10 (let's never speak of "American Horror Story: 1984" again). Based on (and ably surpassing) the cult hit movie, this show is a bright light of hilarity in the darkness of life.

6:00pm - Afrofuturism - "Black to the Future 3(D): Real A.F." - I have no desire whatsoever to make exclusively Black projects, but I can't help but be curious about this panel and what it entails.


Sunday

1:00pm - The Stars and Executive Producer of ABC's "The Goldbergs" - No doubt about it, they're gonna have to find a work around for Beverly's propensity for snuggies...though it's probably a moot point. Given that the last couple seasons have seen Barry, Beverly and Adam treating their respective friends like the floor around Stevie Wonder's urinal, maybe it's time to pack it in.

3:00pm - Masters of the Illustrated Film Poster - The Sequel - Posters drawn by actual human beings seems to be a lost art and there have been so many who specialized in this (pretty sure I've said this before, but I'd have killed to have one of my movies accompanied by a Jack Davis poster). I would love to have at least one of my movies so blessed.

4:00pm - Composer Squares Game Show - Okay, this is like "Hollywood Squares", but with composers as celebrities. I'm down with that...and even more so if I get to be a contestant.

Welp, this experience is new, but something I'm sure to enjoy. All times listed are PST. I hope I don't screw this up and forget.

Is Tenet even going to be that good?

Astounding. Just when there seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel, someone was determined to snuff it out.

Reports from health experts - people whose job it is to know what the shit is going on in terms of wellness - state that if everyone in America wore a mask, the curve of this virus could be flattened in six weeks. Hell, foreign countries are returning to hunky-dory because they have human beings in charge.

But then, you have people gathering together, throwing close quarters parties and increasing the chances of spreading the virus anew. Even more, you have people not wearing masks because 'it violates mah freedum!' or some other beyond retarded reason for being the biggest cunts in the country not currently serving in government.

People complain about these moronified numbskulls on Facebook and Twitter (myself included), but I'm gonna say something about this situation that I would never post on those sites, mainly because I want to have a career in showbiz and this would be just the thing to cancel me before I even get on the air:

I think that the people who refuse to wear masks shouldn't have to wear them. God willing, their stupid asses will get killed by the virus and this way, the curve will be flattened to shit because all that will be left are the smart little pigs in their brick houses who wore masks in public and social distanced. Easy as pie.

Worst comes to worst, I just might jump the border into Canada. Everyone needs a little danger in their lives. A little.

Well, it's not quite enough for the last few years of government to get people to show their ass. This virus is bringing out the worst in the worst in people.

Like IHOP, for example. Before everything shut down, I was able to go in and enjoy a Country Omelette. A few weeks back, I was craving one to get from the restaurant's online order service. Sadly, it was completely missing from the website. I would've thought that creating my own omelette would've worked, but it just didn't feel the same.

On a whim, I decided to see if anyone had posted a recipe for a Country Omelette online.

Lo and behold...

And somehow, I doubt that, even when this mess is settled, it will be restored to their menu. Schmucks.

Now, as you may or may not know, I love film music. In the years I've been doing it, one truism that I always come back to is that a film score without a theme or themes is just meaningless noise.

In listening to a handful of Chuck Cirino scores like Relentless Justice and Deathstalker II, as well as Harold Faltermeyer's The Running Man, it strikes me as strange that composers who deal primarily in synthesizers understand this, yet those who work with orchestras just couldn't be arsed.

Hell, even in a replacement score only to be heard on a VHS of the movie, the composer offered up a professional job, as with Kendall Roclord Schmidt's score for The Crimson Cult.

[This is where I would've posted the suite of Schmidt's music, if the uploader hadn't made the video private. This version of the film is available on DailyMotion. I can't do everything for you.]

Mark my words, when it comes to my movie and TV projects, people are going to be drowning in themes.

Ennio Morricone (1928-2020)

What can one say about, inarguably, one of the most prolific and uniquely talented composers to ever work in film? Who knows, but it is truly astonishing that Ennio Morricone could write as many as 500 scores in virtually every genre one can think of and yet (with, I presume, rare exceptions; I haven't heard them all), none of them sound like each other.

The haunting whistle and trumpet of L'Arena. The peppy excitement of So Fine. The beautiful gloom of White Dog. The noble heroism of The Untouchables. The crazed madness of Exorcist II: the Heretic. The idiosyncratic oddness of his spaghetti Westerns.

Let's face it: people more talented than myself will eulogize him much better than I ever could, so let's just let his music speak for itself:

Arrivederci, Maestro.