Bond Stars Sweep Up At The Oscars

This year's Oscars were as tense and close run as any in living memory. But amongst that stars from the James Bond series took away coverted awards. Not only was our very own M, Judi Dench nominated once again but our next Bond girl Halle Berry famously took away the Best Actress Award, she is the first black woman to take away the acolade. The crowd were touched by the speech that will go down in Oscar history, in tears Halle said the award was for "every faceless woman of colour " and that now the door was open for them.

Away from the future "Jinx" and present "M" Julian Fellowes took away the award for best original screenplay. Julian played the Defense Minister in Tomorrow Never Dies and stars in the long running BBC series Monarch of The Glen. It was his debut script that won him the award.

Also a congratulations must go to Chris Munro who won an Oscar for his work on Black Hawk Down as the films production sound mixer. Chris is working on Die Another Day as the 'sound recordist'.

Well done to Julian and Halle and it just goes to show, especially with Halle's involvement in Die Another Day, that Bond is no longer blockbuster popcorn-muncher fare but returning to the classy thrillers they were where the emphasis is on the solid performance rather than the stunts. No doubt Halle will bring extra publicity and a few more dollars on the box office take for Die Another Day.

However, that wasn't all the James Bond related events at this years Academy Awards. The first James Bond refence was at the beginning of the Oscars a short film which asked ordinary people what they thought made a good movie. A Police officer responded with "James Bond"! Then, later in the night, Circue de Soleil performed on-stage stunts with famous stunts from movies playing on the screen behind them. One of the stunts was the Ninjas' rope decsent into the volcano from You Only Live Twice.

Thanks to Gary for writing most of this report and to the person who sent in the final paragraph. It's greatly appreciated!