Unusual Hollywood work choices.

You do what you do to make a buck in Hollywood, I suppose. Like everywhere else. Here's some contrasting job choices from directors and film composers:

• Ted Kotcheff directed the disturbing "Wake In Fright".... but also "Weekend at Bernie's".
• Another Canadian, Bob Clark, made the timeless "A Christmas Story" .... but also "Porky's".
• John Huston made classics in the 40's and 50's .... but also the abysmal "Annie" and "Casino Royale" (early scenes).
• Multi-talented Elaine May directed "A New Leaf" .... but also 80's turkey "Ishtar".
• Hitchcock's amazing films span over 50 years .... but there's "Under Capricorn" (1949) and the two 60's spy duds "Torn Curtain" followed by "Topaz".
• Charles Fox wrote the score for "Barbarella" (okay, it's a guilty pleasure) ... but also "The Love Boat" theme.
• Steven Spielberg's go-to composer John Williams started his film career as "Johnny Williams" writing incidental music for the first season of "Gilligan's Island".
• John Barry, early Bond musical scores, won an Oscars for "Born Free","Out of Africa"... also wrote a shampoo commercial for British television.

The best 5 minutes of any James Bond film: "You Only Live Twice"

Start at the 42 minute mark of "You Only Live Twice". In those glorious five minutes you get a lot of bang for your buck:

• Bond and Aki zipping around Japan's newly completed motorways in a nifty white sportscar (Toyota 2000GT) with rear seat Sony TV.
• The helicopter picking up the baddies' Toyota Crown with a giant magnet, dropping it in Toyko Bay (to the strains of John Barry's soaring "A Drop in the Ocean"). Tanaka (head of Japanese Secret Service) asking: "What do you think of Japanese efficiency now?"
• Cut to a cheesy front projection on a country road (Tokyo to Kobe is over 500 km!) with Aki not moving the steering wheel as they turn tight corners. 
• Next, the nifty chase/fight scene in Kobe docks with a splendid helicopter shot of Bond being pursued by dozens of surly stevedores, complemented by more sublime John Barry.

At 47 minutes (on board the Ning Po) it just gets silly. 

My favourite TV theme music/openings

• "The Name of the Game" 1968-1971 Dave Grusin composer
• "Search" 1972-1973 Dominic Frontierre
• "The Wild,Wild West" 1965-1969 Richard Markowitz
• "Hawaii Five-0" 1968-1980 Morton Stevens
• "The Father Brown Mysteries" 1974 ITV Jack Parnell
• "The Persuaders" 1971 ITV John Barry
• "The Avengers" 1961-1969 ITV Laurie Johnson
• "Banacek" 1972-1974 Billy Goldenberg music with George Peppard rowing up? down? the Charles River

The crappiest James Bond moments

In the interest of 'equal time', I am now going to slag off my favourite movie franchise.....

• the last few minutes of Goldfinger (Did they run out of money? The tropical island looks like they are in the local botanical gardens. You can see the wires on Goldfinger's plummetting Gulfstream jet.)
• Bond slapping his female colleague, Dink, on the bottom with the comment, "Run along, Dink... Man talk!"
• Roger Moore looking tired in A View to a Kill
• protracted underwater scenes in Thunderball
• in You Only Live Twice some of the space scenes look like an episode of Thunderbirds (thank God for John Barry's score)
• when Blofeld's white pussy goes apeshit (clawing desperately at Donald Pleasance) because of the explosions sounding off on the Pinewood set (volcano/rocket base), You Only Live Twice
• Bond and Tracey prancing around like some demented shampoo commercial to the strains of Louis Armstrong's "We Have All the Time in the World" in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
• all of Octopussy

I am sure you have others.

"Guilty pleasure" movies - from Columbia Pictures

I will begin when I was four years old, old enough to remember seeing the movie.

1960 Guns of Navarone *
1961 Mysterious Island
1962 The Notorious Landlady *  (great use of "A Foggy Day In London Town")
1963 Bye Bye Birdie *
1964 The Long Ships
1965 Bunny Lake Is Missing * (gripping black and white movie)
1966 The Silencers * (Dino is no Sean Connery, but Stella Stevens works)
1967 The Ambushers * (cringe-worthy dialogue, but great fun)
1968 Funny Girl *
1969 The Wrecking Crew * (last Matt Helm film - Sharon Tate is a trick)
1970 The Owl and the Pussycat * (stunning opening titles and score)
1971 The Anderson Tapes (great use of split screens); Dollars (another heist movie, ultra-long chase scene)
1972 Butterflies Are Free (Goldie Hawn again!)
1973 Oklahoma Crude *
1974 The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad (all hail, Ray Harryhausen)
1975 Bite The Bullet; Stepford Wives (another deadheat, couldn't decide)
1976 Murder By Death (wet Neil Simon effort but knockout cast)
1977 The Deep * (John Barry does disco, Nolte and Bissett in the Caribbean)
1978 The Eyes Of Laura Mars *
1979 All That Jazz *
1980 Seems Like Old Times
1981 Stripes
1982 Tootsie (a near perfect film, so I suppose it isn't a "guilty pleasure")
1983 Blue Thunder
1984 Body Double (Brian DePalma doing another Hitchcock hommage)
1985 Fright Night (stands up well, better than remake, Roddy McDowell - nice touch)
1986 Stand By Me (best ever Stephen King adaptation)
1987 Hope And Glory (watch for John Boorman's son, Charley as crashed German pilot)



1988 Vibes (Cyndi Lauper, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Falk in Machu Picchu - what is not to like?)

* denotes musical score of note (in my humble opinion)

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