This won’t interest my film score peeps but it’s NFL playoff season and I discovered a podcast by Julian Edelman, former Patriots receiver, that I’m finding super fun and entertaining—“ Games With Names .” He has great guests from the Pats’ dynasty years and good stories.

I saw a YouTube video (natch) about what happened to Vimeo. It was pretty big 10–15 years ago but I barely use it anymore—and I’m not the only one: A shame!

Check out this very well done video of the top ten funk-jazz scores, per Chanan Hanspal on YouTube: Some of these I’m not very familiar with, I will have to check them out! I love this stuff.

I caught up with One Battle After Another and enjoyed it. It was a reminder how powerful it is when something is shot with real people on real locations. I’m sure there was VFX, out of necessity, but it was subtle. Nothing is more real than reality, especially when it comes to how cars, bullets and people obey the laws of physics.

The great star and icon Brigitte Bardot has passed at the age of 91. Deadline news item here . In her honor, one of the all-time great film themes, Le Mepris ( Contempt ) by Georges Delerue: I know Marty Scorsese agrees with me!

Deadline did a wrap-up of 18 canceled movies over the decades . What a crazy waste of money and talent. I wonder if any of them were any good? It’s more likely they were not, but you never know.

Merry Christmas, everybody. Have a wonderful day! Thinking of David Lynch, who is no longer with us this Christmas. My favorite holiday special!

Now this is my kind of Christmas music: the time Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly recreated David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy.” For reference: Watch to the end!

A friend posted this YouTube video about what it was it like to grow up in the 1980s. It’s totally patronizing, of course, but it was fun to reminisce: I definitely remember jumping things on dirt bikes and it didn’t take long before somebody suggested we jump each other!

Check out this reduction Patrick Suiter posted a couple of years ago of the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban quidditch match by John Williams. I guess I missed it at the time? It would take me hours to go through it carefully. This movie is like the Empire Strikes Back of the Harry Potter movies—where all the choices work together to make the very best version of the franchise. It’s not even a matter of being “darker,” just in elevating everything into more mature

I stumbled on a YouTube video about one of my guilty pleasures, Logan’s Run . (Nothing guilty about loving the Goldsmith score, though!) Here’s a playlist to a series of videos meticulously trying to reconstruct the lost bits, using audio from a preview screening.

I was sorry to hear the news that Bob Burns has passed away. He was an institution in the sci-fi/horror/fantasy community— read here —and so generous and kind. I was given a tour of his collection in the early 1990s and it blew my mind the stuff he had, and how open and friendly he was in sharing access with likeminded fans. He and his wife Kathy (who passed a few years ago) were such gracious hosts. He also, by the way, was the person who rescued the stereo master tapes to T

Very sorry to hear of the passing of jazz artist Gordon Goodwin . He suffered a stroke while fighting pancreatic cancer. I emailed with him briefly when we were working on the Deluxe Edition of Star Trek: Nemesis ; he did the arrangement of “Blue Skies” for Brent Spiner at the Troi-Riker wedding. Super talented and super nice.

Was Tron ever cool? I remember in the ’80s it was this kind of also-ran sci-fi movie that had a unique look and cool concept—but dramatically, was pretty inert. It was this sort of intriguing flop that we’d revisit once in a while. I never would have pegged it as a franchise, but Disney has tried anyway, and, well, zzzzzzz . The original Wendy Carlos score is super cool and here’s a video on it which I enjoyed: It comes from a unique point in time when mixing synthesizers wi

I see that Paramount is now trying a hostile takeover of Warner Bros., to beat Netflix’s offer . I’m sure there are lots of corporate-merger subtleties to it that I don’t understand, but that’s the gist of it. This whole thing is depressing as all of these mergers will result in more consumer costs and less choice. That’s why we have monopoly rules. Or used to, anyway. The 1996 Telecommunications Act did a ton of damage. The concept is simple: when you allow vertical integra

Let’s hear it for the “white slavers,” as George jokingly called Disney after selling them Lucasfilm (and had to walk it back afterwards, so much fun): they have restored the original Star Wars Trilogy, without all the dumb changes, for theatrical re-release in 2027. And I’m sure for Disney+ afterwards. Clips have been leaking online: And here: Looks great! So strange—I feel like it was just yesterday that we were going to see the Special Editions. The new VFX were amazing,

It’s crazy that Netflix is acquiring Warner Bros. So now there’s just, what? Disney/Fox/ABV, Paramount/CBS, Amazon/MGM, Netflix/WB, Universal/NBC. And Apple, where making movies is a hobby. And Sony, who will probably be gobbled up next. Years ago somebody explained to me why TV movies are never any good: because they don’t have to be . They make some sensational piece of crap, people tune in, and by the time they realize it’s junk, they’ve gotten the ratings. (This is circa

David Newman is conducting John Williams’ score to Home Alone live to film at the Hollywood Bowl December 5–7. Go here for tickets , and use the code SPWDCH for 20% off select seats. Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody, and here’s something to be thankful for: Thomas Newman is scoring the Star Wars: Starfighter movie . High hopes!

What an outstanding cliffhanger on Pluribus last night! Now I am annoyed I have to wait over a week for the next episode. Meanwhile, Stranger Things season 5 premieres later today, in which the kids schedule their first colonoscopies.