The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
- Bond girls: From Ursula Andress to Eva Green
- The name's Bond, James Bond: 007 marks 50 years
- Bin Laden movie to premiere in US ahead of election
| Bond girls: From Ursula Andress to Eva Green Posted: 06 Oct 2012 06:08 AM PDT LONDON: Over 50 years of cinematic success, James Bond has exercised his masculine charms on a string of women, although the role of the "Bond Girls" has subtly evolved over the years. Bond author Ian Fleming gave the early women characters pastiche names - Pussy Galore in "Goldfinger", Tiffany Case ("Diamonds Are Forever") and Mary Goodnight ("The Man with the Golden Gun"). "Maybe that's an indication that we are not meant to take those characters seriously," said James Chapman, historian at Leicester University in England and author of "Licence to Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond films". But the women playing opposite Bond have evolved with the times, he noted. "The advent of the films in the 1960s coincided with the rise of Playboy magazine and there is a strong association between the kind of Playboy ethos of modern, liberated but very voluptuous and sexy feminity and the way in which women are presented in the early James Bond films," he told AFP. "In the 1970s things start to change, we have a response to the rise of the women's lib movement and from 'The Spy Who Loved Me' in 1977 there is an attempt to create more fully rounded female roles." Some of the best known Bond girls are: - Ursula Andress: The image of Andress emerging from the sparkling waters of the Caribbean, a large knife strapped around her white bikini, became a classic pin-up and exemplified the genre known as "Bond girls". Andress, who is Swiss, is now 76. Playing opposite Sean Connery in "Dr No", she became the standard by which all subsequent "Bond girls" were judged. - Lois Maxwell: Another longtime fixture of the Bond films, Maxwell played the role of Miss Moneypenny - the long-suffering secretary in M's office - in no less than 14 films, starting with "Dr. No" right at the start in 1962 and ending with "A View to a Kill" in 1985. Maxwell, who was born in Canada but lived for most of her life in England, died in 2007, aged 80. - Honor Blackman: The English actress was already well-known for her role in the TV series "The Avengers" when she was approached to play the character Pussy Galore in "Goldfinger" (1964). Blackman, who is now 87, was unusual in being no less than five years older than the actor who played James Bond, Sean Connery. - Michelle Yeoh: The renowned Malaysian-born actress starred opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 1997 Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies." The other "Bond Girl" in that film was the American Teri Hatcher, who was later to star in the TV series "Desperate Housewives." - Britt Ekland: The Swede had married comic actor Peter Sellars in the 1960s but achieved fame on the screen playing the hapless Mary Goodnight in "The Man with the Golden Gun", which was shot largely in Thailand and was released in 1974. Now 69, she acts on the stage in Britain. - Eva Green: The French actress played opposite Daniel Craig in "Casino Royale" in 2008 as Vesper Lynd, an agent for the British Treasury given the uneviable role of supervising Bond, but the spy falls for her. As the Bond franchise has worn on, the writers turned tables, putting women in charge of giving him the orders. - Judi Dench: The Oscar-winning British actress, now aged 77, has played in more Bond films than any of the string of young beauties cast, and typecast, as "Bond girls". Since 1995 ("Goldeneye"), Dench has played the role of "M" - Bond's boss in the secret services - in every Bond film. Her steely authority as "M" is based on an established career in classical acting; she started her career as a Shakespearean actress. - Lotte Lenya: Another woman who most definitely was not a "Bond girl" was the German Lotte Lenya, best known as a singer and actress in the operas produced by her husband Kurt Weill, in the 1920 and 30s. Lenya, who was to flee Nazism with her husband and arrive in the United States in 1935, was cast as the sadistic character of Rosa Klebb in the 1963 Bond film "From Russia with Love". She was 65 years old at the time, and she died in New York City in 1981. Related story: |
| The name's Bond, James Bond: 007 marks 50 years Posted: 06 Oct 2012 06:07 AM PDT LONDON: "The name's Bond... James Bond". Fans of 007 on Friday celebrated 50 years of the suave British spy's adventures on the silver screen with a day of themed events around the world. Bond strode stylishly into a film for the first time in the now classic "Dr. No", released on October 5, 1962, introducing himself with the immortal line over a high-stakes game of baccarat. The movie franchise has gone on to become one of the most successful in history, with the 22 Bond films taking more than five billion dollars (3.85 billion euros). To mark "Global Bond Day", British diva Adele released a clip of the theme song for "Skyfall", the 23rd and newest Bond film, on her website as anticipation built for its worldwide premiere on October 23. The rugged Daniel Craig is the latest of the six actors to play Bond, but some things have stayed the same - 007's taste for fast cars, beautiful women, high-tech gadgets and vodka Martinis. "For all the attempts at change, the core of the Bondian world remains the same: obsessed with sex and violence, hypermasculine, simplistically nationalistic, and addicted to conspicuous consumption," Christoph Lindner, editor of "The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader", told AFP. A collection of cars from the films, including the iconic Aston Martins, were gathered at Pinewood Studios near London where the movies are made. An auction of memorabilia at Christie's in London was another highlight of the day before the action moves across the Atlantic. In New York, the Museum of Modern Art was unveiling an installation dedicated to the title sequence of 1964's "Goldfinger," which it said "captures the sexual suggestiveness and wry humor of the James Bond mythos." James Chapman, historian at Leicester University in England and author of "Licence to Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond films", said the "Bond Girls" - a fixture of all the films - had subtly evolved with the sexual politics of the time. "The villains have become rather more bland whereas the female characters have been given a little bit more depth (with each new film), although I say a little bit more, because they still ultimately conform to stereotypes," he said. Another key feature of the films, the music, was being celebrated at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, which was hosting an evening of "memorable title songs and indelible scores" from the films. British session player Vic Flick, 75, who laid down the signature guitar riff for the James Bond theme song, is due to attend. In Washington, the International Spy Museum is staging an interactive exhibition, "Exquisitely Evil," which pays homage to Bond's adversaries with more than 100 artefacts from the Bond movies as well as "real stories from real spies", recalling their own Bond-like moments in espionage. London's Barbican Centre has put on an exhibition showcasing the design and style of "the world's most influential and iconic movie brand". It will move on to Toronto later this month. Britain's tourist agency has joined forces with Bond for the first time, launching a campaign across 21 countries based around the slogan "Bond is GREAT Britain." A new feature documentary "Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007", will also be unveiled, focusing on producers Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and 007 author Ian Fleming, the three men most responsible for building the brand. The release of "Skyfall" caps a busy year for 007, who provided one of the highlights of the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony by "parachuting" into the stadium with Queen Elizabeth II, in a well-received spoof film. Few would have believed that Bond would become a global institution when "Dr. No", an adaptation of Fleming's 1958 novel, was released. Critical reaction to the first film was mixed, with Time magazine calling Sean Connery's Bond - still many fans' favourite - "a great big hairy marshmallow". Meanwhile, Adele's new track was revealed as a soaring orchestral number that seemed a return to classic Bond themes in the mould of Shirley Bassey's songs for "Goldfinger" and "Diamonds are Forever". -AFP Related story: |
| Bin Laden movie to premiere in US ahead of election Posted: 06 Oct 2012 06:06 AM PDT WASHINGTON: A big-name Hollywood fundraiser for Barack Obama is releasing the first feature film about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden two days before the US presidential election. "SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden" is distributed by Harvey Weinstein, the respected movie mogul who hosted the president at a celebrity-studded fundraising event in New England last month. In a press release, the National Geographic Channel said it would premiere "SEAL Team Six" on November 4 after its president Howard Owens and Weinstein discussed "the insight the film is sure to evoke in all Americans." The film - directed by John Stockwell and produced for theatrical release by Nicholas Chartier, who produced the Oscar-winning war film "The Hurt Locker" - will then go onto Netflix movie screening website. In a trailer posted online Friday, characters are heard saying "We're going to be the team that takes out Osama" and "the president of the United States is going to be staking his presidency on this call." Obama personally gave the green light for US Navy SEAL commandos to target Bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan on May 2, 2011 in a daring night-time raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader responsible for the 9/11 attacks. "This portrayal of the events that took place that night is moving, to say the very least," said Weinstein in the National Geographic Channel press release. "I anticipate audiences will be as captivated as I was from the beginning to the end," he added. "And I'm extremely proud as an American citizen to play a role in making sure this stunning portrayal over very recent American history is available in as many homes as possible." Opinion polls had put Obama, gunning for a second White House term, ahead of Mitt Romney prior to a televised debate Wednesday in which Romney came out the victor in the eyes of most political analysts. Weinstein, executive producer of films as diverse as "The English Patient," "The Artist" and the most recent "Rambo" movie in a filmmaking career dating back to the 1970s, is a well-known supporter of the Democratic party. His exclusive Obama fundraiser in August at his seaside compound in Westport, Connecticut was attended by about 50 people, the Hollywood Reporter trade journal reported. Tickets cost $38,5000 each. -AFP |
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