Word: queens
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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That the Bond Girl rising from the sea is the reigning Oscar queen says plenty about the staying power of the understated British spy whom Ian Fleming created 50 years ago. Though Fleming's 14th and last Bond book was published 36 years ago--two years after his death--his character launched the most successful franchise in film history. Now celebrating its 40th anniversary with the release this month of the 20th official Bond film, the series has come roaring back from its midlife crisis of the 1980s. The past three outings, all starring Pierce Brosnan, have together grossed more...
...Queen Elizabeth will go to the movies for the only time this year, to Die Another Day's world premiere at London's Royal Albert Hall. We will never really know whether the Queen was amused, but it's only proper that she should come out to support Bond: after all, he has been in Her Majesty's public service for 40 years (50 if you count the books) as a stalwart of the British film industry and global ambassador of British cool--even before Cool Britannia existed...
Broccoli and Wilson have maintained the momentum, with bigger budgets and global talent such as Asian action queen Michelle Yeoh and the enigmatic French actress Sophie Marceau. At MGM, 007's financier and U.S. distributor, vice chairman Chris McGurk insists that "everything is really mutual in terms of approvals," but the studio's only contractual power is to green-light (or not) a film. All else, from script to cast to crew...
...ever forget their picnic on a grouse moor? - they have thought they could control the terms on which they revealed themselves, and hence shape a "modern" relationship between sovereign and people. It's been a disastrous policy, one that hit its nadir (for now) with suspicions that the Queen intervened to stop the trial of Diana's butler, Paul Burrell, because of royal fears that Burrell might tell stories about wrongdoing inside the Palace. After the trial had ended, of course, those stories did emerge - filling the tabloids with allegations of homosexual rape among the Prince of Wales' staff...
...mother and daughter spoke. He called Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, a hypocrite for championing her against the Windsors in his famous eulogy at Westminster Abbey, because "in life she had been unacceptable to him." But Burrell's most intriguing disclosure was an account of the meeting with the Queen when he mentioned he would be keeping some of Diana's things. He said they talked for three hours, both standing, the Queen occasionally misting up as she recalled her former daughter-in-law. He claimed she told him, "Nobody, Paul, has been as close to a member...