Bond for Success

It's another Box Office triumph for Pierce Brosnan.

Brosnan, who virtually single-handedly turned around the James Bond series, has another success on his hands with Die Another Day.

It opened the weekend, always the indicator of even better things to come, with a take of $47.1m in the US, the biggest ever for a Bond film.

Brosnan's Bonds have consistently earned mega-bucks for MGM and Die Another Day even managed to beat Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets into second place on $42.2m.

What do Critics Know?

All this success is in spite of some carping Stateside critics ...

a quick round-up of some of the leading reviews sees a general thumbs down.

'Prefab and formulaic all the way' ... 'Bond has never outgrown the '60s' ... 'The films have entered a steep downward trend' ... 'Another dud like this would test the loyalty of the fans' ... 'Contains much of the same Neanderthal gender politics that have marked the series' (this from a female critic!) ... 'Bond is beginning to creak with age' ... 'The world-weariest James Bond picture yet' ...

Critics! Eh! What do they know!!

When in Cuba ...

... do what the Cubans do.

Only in the case of Pierce Brosnan, doing that can lead to all sorts of problems. The cool super-agent 007 has angered anti-smoking groups in Die Another Day by lighting up a cigar.

It's the first time that Brosnan has smoked in a James Bond film, and the first time the character has smoked on screen for 13 years (back in Licence to Kill days), but since the new movie is set in Cuba, home of the world's best cigars, Brosnan agreed to drop his personal anti-smoking policy for a quick puff.

Museum Pieces

Nothing escapes the Bond bonanza.

Everybody gets into the act whenever a new James Bond movie hits the screen. So if you find yourself in Dearborn, Michigan - as you would - around December you should nip into the famous Henry Ford Museum for a glimpse of a Bond Exhibition of over 100 items from 20 of the 007 films.

You should visit this wonderful museum anyway - it's a fascinating place, with or without Bond.