Duran Duran’s salute to John Barry

Duran Duran, in a performance in California on April 17, paid tribute to the late John Barry, according to a short account in the U.K. Express newspaper, which you can read BY CLICKING HERE. A (very) brief excerpt:

After they finished the set, Duran Duran returned for an encore and dedicated the first track to late musician Barry, who co-wrote their hit song A View To A Kill for the Roger Moore movie of the same name.

There are a number of bootleg videos on YouTube of the performance. Here’s one:

Bond 23 starts filming in November, Judi Dench says

Judi Dench, at a public appearance last week, said Bond 23 will begin production in November, according to a STORY ON THE WEB SITE OF THE U.K. EXPRESS NEWSPAPER.

Here’s an excerpt:

Dame Judi revealed the start date for filming during a visit last week to Hever Castle in Kent, to plant a rose bred for its gardens.

She said: “I am going to do the next Bond in November. I don’t know the location yet but hopefully it will be somewhere nice. I can’t tell you much more but I do enjoy ­playing M as she is such a strong character. I like being bossy and my grandson thinks its cool that I’m in Bond.”

Bond 23, which will have Daniel Craig’s third turn as 007 and be directed by Sam Mendes, has a release date of Nov. 9, 2012. The film was affected by the financial problems at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which led to the studio filing for bankruptcy. MGM shrunk itself and brought in the founders of Spyglass Entertainment, Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum, to run the studio. MGM controls half of the 007 franchise, along with Eon Productions/Danjaq LLC, controlled by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.