And now for something completely different...I would like to mention two people who died recently, and honor them in my own klutzy way. First, the death of Star Trek, The Omen and Total Recall (among a jillion film scores) composer Jerry Goldsmith. It was actually pretty touching to see just how many people who went to Comic-Con said good things about him...many panels actually acknowledged his passing with a moment of silence. He was certainly not as well known as the John Williams-es, Randy Newmans and Danny Elfmans of the world, but his prodigious output of film scores going back to the Golden Age of Television and extending to the movie Picasso At The Lapin Agile which is still in post-production. If Goldsmith had only given us the stirring Star Trek: The Next Generation theme music, originally written for the first Star Trek movie, it would have been enough.

Next is an unlikely person to be honored on this blog, but somehow or another it's fitting. Irwin Yeaworth, Jr. was not a well known filmmaker, and liked to keep it that way. He was deeply religious, and most of his output fell under the category of Christian religious propaganda. However, he did make at least one secular film, one that has been a guilty pleasure of many, many people. Yeaworth was the man who directed the cheesy 1958 movie The Blob. Sure, the movie was just a couple of notches better than an Ed Wood opus, but it was fun and good-natured and gave diverse film personages like Steve McQueen (the hero) and Burt Bacharach (composer of the curiously catchy theme song) their starts. It also spawned a genuinely frightening 1988 sequel.

After making The Blob and a couple of other similarly cheesy monster movies, Yeaworth went back to making religious movies and TV shows, and was helping the Jordanian government design a theme park ride when he collapsed behind the wheel and died instantly.

In a weird way, both of these recently deceased made an impact on my life. I just want to honor them both here.