Three Bonds On The Big Screen In Sydney

'White Persian' has just posted notice in the forums of three Bond films returning to the big screen in Sydney. The Greater Union at Burwood are commencing a series of 'Retro Late Escapes'. All films will commence at 10:30 and tickets will cost $10.

So far, the Bond films showing are;

A View To A Kill – 9th and 10th August
GoldenEye – 16th and 17th of August

If any other Greater Union cinemas are holding a similar event, we'll let you know.

007 Spy Files Now Available In Australia

[dark] has written in with this great report for us, so a big thank you is extended out to him;

007 Spy Files are now available to purchase in Australia. The TV ads have begun airing for the series in the last couple of days. The first issue comes at the special introductory price of $2.95, with each subsequent issue (coming out fortnightly) for $5.95 each.

The first issue is accompanied by a packet of various fact cards (which come with every issue) as well as a tin to store them in whilst carrying them about. It also contains a series of divider cards to break the cards up into their various categories. The second issue contains a box to store your magazines in. The third issue contains a second, larger tin, which is used to store your cards in permanantly. Both cases bear the 007 logo. The first issue also contains a subscription offer, whereby if you subscribe to future issues, you'll receive a nifty combination pen / voice recorder, as well as a free issue.

Unfortunately, the magazines are clearly aimed at a younger audience. They contain several puzzles, games and (in the first issue), a two-page feature on "How To Booby-Trap Your Room" (one part suggests spreading talcum powder on your floor – – guaranteed to be a crowd-pleaser with parents, I'm sure!). Not quite adult material. The magazine also focuses entirely on the films, with no references to the literary works of 007. However, if you're like me, any read about Bond is a good read. That said, even the language is aimed at youngsters, and one can't help but feel it's been signicantly dumbed down compared to the 007 books we've seen in the past ("007: The Secret World of James Bond" was a wonderful resource). Of course, all that is attributed to the fact it's been created with the young'uns in mind. On the plus side, parts of the first issue are nicely illustrated (the two-page spread on Atlantis comes to mind). However, some are awful (the main image on the "Booby-Trap Your Room" spread looks like a screenshot from a Game Boy).

Nonetheless, for $2.95, it's well worth the purchase to see if you enjoy it. If you're a little disappointed like me, it's still worth it for the handy tin case. If you, or you know of anyone, are at the right age for this (10 years old?), then this is the perfect way to introduce them to the world of 007. It's slightly more innocent than the films, but does an apt job at describing James Bond and his adventures for the kiddies.

A Review Of The International Spy Museum

Jim visited the International Spy Museum this past weekend and wrote up the following review of the event for CommanderBond.net readers;

The International Spy Museum is located on the 800 block of F Street in Washington, DC; diagonally across the street from the MCI Center. It contains the largest collection of international espionage artifacts around the globe.

You enter the museum (after purchasing a ticket – $11 Adult, $6 Child and Senior Citizen, and $8 if you are a member of the intelegence community) by riding up a elevator in which a computerized woman's voice tells you that you are a new agent in the spy organization and you will exit into a room where you will need to pick an alias, or cover. You are then ushered into a "Briefing Room" where you watch a video on spies. Then the computerized woman's voice returns and tells you that you must gain as much knowledge about espionage as you can before you may go on your mission. A new set of doors to the "Briefing Room" open and you are ushered into the museum. This whole setup was very cool although I was dissapointed that you could not choose to be a employee of Universal Exports as your cover.

In the begining, the different types of spying are explained : human inteligence and satalite inteligence. While the museum does not really focus on satalite intel, it does give a very thrurough explination of what it is and how it works. There is even a game where you are shown satalite photos and are asked to identify certain items. There are many other "games" throughout the museum; for example there is one on threat identification, and another on codes and cryptology.The interactiveness of the museum really helps to educate the visitors. The museum proceeds along in a timeline fashion begining with ancient times up through the present day. Begining in the halls dedicated to World War II and proceeding to the 21st century, the walls become lined with real-life gadgets that "Q" himself would have been pleased to have produced, such as a ring that contains a gun and glasses that contain a camera that even I couldn't find.

Now the important stuff: James Bond.

In the halls of the International Spy Museum, the coolest exhibit was of course, a working replica of the Aston Martin DB5 in Goldfinger. There is first a video on the wall about two other real-life spy vehicles, a mini-sub and a power boat, and then the action starts. The video ends and then the James Bond theme song starts blaring through the speakers. First the engine roars and the battering-ram bumpers shoot in and out, then the license plate spins, then the tire-slashers spin, then the bullet-proof sheild pops up, and finally the lighs flip down and the machine guns come out and fire. It is so amazing. The signs on the gaurd rail around the car explain how after Goldfinger came out, many inteligence services made "Q-Branch" like improvements to some of their vehicles and there is a list of examples.

Later on in the museum, towards the end, there is a room dedicated to James Bond and the spy-craze of the '60s. There are many cool colectors items in glass cases, such as a kite with Sean Connery's picture on it where he is portraying Bond wearing the Jet Pack in Thunderball, there are containers of "007 After Shave and Talc Powder", a toy briefcase as seen in Connery's movies, a huge poster from The Spy Who Loved Me, 007 playing cards, action figures, and various other things all still in their original condition. I was very dissapointed in the fact that only two of the actors who portrayed Bond were given head shots on the wall: understandably Roger Moore was given one and the other was given to none other than TIMOTHY DALTON!!!??? I was quite surprised at that. I mean he was in only two movies and only gave the caption that "The series was still going strong in the late '80's when Shakesperian actor Timothy Dalton was selected to portray James Bond." One has to wonder why he was chosen rather than either current star Pierce Brosnan or the one who many claim to be the best and the definitave James Bond: Sean Connery. Infact the only place Connery's picture was to be found was on the previously mentioned toys. I mean come on…I know that when I think of James Bond I don't think of Dalton. He made the second fewest movies, and they were mediocre ones at that.

Proceeding to the Store.

The store was one of the best parts. They had practically anything that a spy afficionado could want, except that the lady behind the counter explained that they were waiting for the James Bond DVD reissues (they had plenty of VHS tapes) and Ian Fleming book reprints to come in. You could even by a real briefcase! While not like the ones in the Bond films, they would make "Q" proud. They contained everything from a phone scrambler to a voice changer to a pair of sunglasses with a (VERY) hidden camera in them. All of these gadgets were really expensive though so if you want them, you had best save your money as they range in the thousands of dollars.

Conclusion.

On the whole, the International Spy Museum was quite fun. I increased my knowledge greatly and got to see things that I had only read about in books. It was well worth the wait (I waited in line an hour and a half to get in) and I would love to go again…..and maybe ask someone about that Dalton picture…….ha ha just kidding. It is fun for the whole family and it gets a 5 out of 5 stars.

More information on the International Spy Museum can be found at its official site, http://www.spymuseum.org/.

A big thanks to Jim for sending in his review. It's greatly appreciated.

UK 00Heaven Rolls On

With Moonraker 'raking' in 6.6m viewers last wednesday, its seems nothing can stop the Roger Bond season as he continues to dominate the ratings war. Although not as good as the 8.85m viewers Moonraker pulled in on its last UK Terrestrial showing back in 1999, it is clear the season continues to be a success.

With 'For Your Eyes Only' showing, next Wednesday – 24th July and 'Octopussy' showing on – 31st July, the success is set to continue.

Be sure to check the Calendar regularly for other such dates.

Bond Wins UK Ratings Wars Again

James Bond has done it again. According to The Gaurdian Wedndesday nights screening on The Man With The Golden Gun attracted 6.9 million viewers, which gives it a 32% share of the available audience.

BBC1, Bond's only competition, only managed a 25% share of the audience which equated to 5.1 million viewers.

Live And Let Die Brings In 6.6 Million UK Viewers

James Bond has done ITV1 proud. When Live And Let Die aired last Wednesday it brought in 6.6 million viewers which equates to one-third of the available audience. According to Guardian Unlimited the films main rival, Childrens Hospital, only managed to bring in an audience of 4 million.

ITV1 will try for reprise the success this Wednesday when they air The Man With The Golden Gun.

Meeting Raymond Benson In London; Book Signing

The day couldn't have been better!

As soon as we got to London, we checked out the Swatch Shop in Liverpool Street Station and saw the 40th Anniversary Bond watches – they looked absolutely fantastic – it would have looked better on my wrist I have to admit.

Well, we wasn't hear to buy James Bond watches, but it was too early to go to the bookshop, so we decided to have lunch at Planet Hollywood at Picadilly Circus. No queue at all, we was straight in. Unfortunately the "James Bond" room was full, so we couldn't sit inside the gun barrel to eat our BBQ ribs.

However, just because we wasn't sitting in the Bond room, we did get to see the Die Another Day trailer on the big screens to both sides of us! The day couldn't have been better!

After eating we made our way to the bookshop, situated near to Kensington Palace. Although the bookshop was small, it was one that you wish you have down the end of your road. It had too many copies of the first edition Fleming books (made me very jealous as I wish I had such a collection). Making our way down to the back of the book store, we saw the man with a pen in hand!

After signing mine and Greg's book's, and the other people's attending, Raymond Benson told of his trip to Japan.

All of the places in "The Man With The Red Tattoo" Mr Benson visited. If you've read the book, you'll know of the part where the train stops half way down the Seikan Tunnel. Well, Mr Benson took the maitenance train half way down the tunnel to take a look around. After he'd finished with his notes, the staff member had the train the passenger train stop to pick them up, and that the look on the Japanese passengers was one of curiosity as to why the train had stopped to pick up two Westerners in the middle of the Seikan Tunnel!

Along his travel's in Japan, he met up with Akikio Wakabayashi and Mie Hama (Aki and Kissy Suzuki from You Only Live Twice) aswell as interviewing a member of the Yakuza, the manager of a Soaplands establishment and a Soaplands girl!

Raymond Benson recommends a trip to Japan anyday!

After his great talk, questions were asked. One gentleman asked about the Die Another Day novelisation. The book is all finished and now ready for publication, however the release date was unknown, however, Amazon.co.uk still lists it as the 7th of November.

Another was about film rights to his books; as Eon hold the rights to the Bond character, they can use any of the storylines or titles for a Bond movie, which he'd love to see done.

After questiontime, we said our farewells and headed home.

Meeting Raymond Benson in person finally, and getting to see the Die Another Day trailer in Planet Hollywood's – what a day!

Brosnan Interview On Rove Live

Rove Live was lucky enough to have the opportunity to interview Mr Pierce Brosnan, via satellite direct from the UK.

Before the add break they played a snippet from the Die Another Day trailer, then the interview began… Pierce was wearing a normal white shirt and he appeared to be at the Omega conference set. Rove started off by asking how he was offered the role of Bond. Pierce explained that after Remington Steele was axed, he was rung and simply asked to play. He agreed, but because of the recent hype around Brosnan, NBC furthered the series with only 6 more shows, and that he was ‘pissed off’ and that he got ‘The short shift’ by greedy men in suits.

Using the ‘Ice Cube’ scene in The World Is Not Enough as an example, Rove asked if it was difficult to film the Bed scenes. Pierce slowly went on saying (with comedic interruptions from Rove, where Pierce jokingly yelled out ‘Shut up Rove let me finish answering the question!’) that it does get uncomfortable, but despite that, not even a woman’s nipple is allowed to be shown in a Bond movie.

They moved on to how the Bond movies have become more Family Orientated, rather then the ‘dark’ and ‘perverted’ books by Ian Fleming, and that Pierce thought the change was good, in some respects.

Also a few nights ago former Bond Girl Britt Ekland (Mary Goodnight, The Man With The Golden Gun) was on the show and commented on the current women in the series, she picked out one Girl in particular… Teri Hatcher, saying that she was a terrible choice, an opinion not shared with Brosnan.

Then they had to quickly rap it up, so Rove quickly asked if he will be do any more films and if he is being replaced. Yes. Brosnan said nodding. He will be replaced, but he would like to round off his total to five.

Short and not shedding light on anything new. Wasn’t pleased with the questions asked but still good enough to keep me pumped. Hopefully there will be a better interview sometime soon.

Pierce Brosnan On Rove Live Tonight

I've just received word that Pierce Brosnan will be interviewed in Rove Live tonight!

No word yet on what Rove and Pierce will be discussing, but you can be sure that we'll let you know later on.

Rove Live shows on the Ten Network around Australia.

Sign Up For International James Bond Meet-Up Day

A new initiative aims to create an International James Bond Meet-Up Day, and the first is only 15 day away.

You can sign up for various countries around the world and cast your vote on where you think people in your area should meet up.

So check it out at http://bond.meetup.com/.