So last week, the official theme song for Quantum of Solace -- y'know, that new James Bond flick -- was formally released online, and above is the music video for Jack White and Alicia Keys' "Another Way to Die." This managed to slip past us, probably because we were all still drooling over Erik's chance to comandeer an Aston friggin' Martin (no, no, 'jealous' isn't quite the word...), and now that it's out, opinions are becoming considerably divided.

On his personal blog, Bond devotee David Cornelius of eFilmCritic.com said "it's, um, not good. Really, really not good. The Coke commercial focused on the catchy hook, which was good. But the rest of the song? Not good. We're talking "Die Another Day" not good. Argh."

Devindra Hardawar of /Film feels a little less harsh about it: "It's not a terrible song (see Madonna's for Die Another Day for a good example of that), but it certainly doesn't feel like anything new for the series. It seems as if it tries to do way too much, and the song ends up feeling overstuffed in the process."

Left in the apparent, admitted minority is Devin Faraci over at CHUD.com, who likes the song, if not the video.

As for me, I dig the thing, though it's stuck stubbornly in my head over the past couple of days, but I rarely think that's a bad thing. What say you guys? Is "Another Way to Die" worthy of our favorite double-0 agent? Or would you rather they had just adopted "Something of Boris" instead?

Hold on to your missile-launching cuff links, 007 lovers -- this bit of James Bond intelligence may leave you searching for solace in more ways than one.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the superspy's latest adventure, Quantum Of Solace, will open in India before the film has even had its U.S. red carpet premiere.

Solace, which first shows in the U.K. on Oct. 31, hits Indian theaters a week later on Nov. 7 and then bows in North American theaters on Nov. 14. The move by Sony marks the first time that a major U.S. film has opened in India before hitting theaters Stateside.

As you may remember, Solace was initially set to storm into theaters across America on Nov. 7, but Sony pushed the release date back a week when Warner Bros. decided to give a certain boy wizard the year off, pushing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to summer 2009.

But before you decide to drop your hard-earned cash on a plane ticket to England or India for an early peek at the flick, there is some good news on the 007 front. The very retro, super sleek new music video for Alicia Keys and Jack White's Quantum theme song, Another Way to Die, hit Yahoo! today. Guess we can take some solace in that. Check it out after the jump.

Check out these bits of casting, and a few actor's wishes for this Monday:

• Mario Van Peebles is whipping up an action thriller called Kerosene Cowboys, and the cast is about to be set. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Cam Gigandet, Shane West, and Rachael Leigh Cook are in negotiations to star in the flick that follows "hard-living pilots of an elite Navy attack squadron." Gigandet will be a "hot-shot pilot," West will play the nemesis who used to be his best friend, and Cook will wrap things up as a journalist who dates Gigandet. At the very least, it looks like a welcome vacation from some of Cook's recent work (from The House of Yes to Blind Ambition ... my, how they fall).
• Vin Diesel is all about the returns lately. First came the latest Fast and Furious pic, and now more triple-X. Variety reports that both Diesel and director Rob Cohen have signed on for another XXX pic, this one titled: XXX: The Return of Xander Cage. While it's not the most unique title out there, at least it's showcasing the plus points -- the return of Mr. Vin.
• Meanwhile, Adam Arkin is taking on the world of Coen. Variety reports that the Life actor has grabbed a role in A Serious Man. There is no word on who he's playing.
• Having just recorded "Another Way to Die" for Quantum of Solace, MTV reports that Alicia Keys would like to be a Bond Girl. Methinks this is something that would work best as a Bond girl/song mixture -- the sexy, iconic Bond girl having the pipes to also belt out the theme song. But no matter what happens, she has this positive report about the film: "it's damn good."

After the jump: De Niro and Pacino ... as women?

So we already know that White Stripes' frontman Jack White and Alicia Keys are all set to record the latest Bond song, titled Another Way to Die, but what about those folks who missed the cut. Ya know, the songs that almost were ... or tried to be ... or pretended to care? Case in point: You simply have to check out Joe Cornish's proposed version of the Quantum of Solace theme song up above because it's just ... fabulous. Seriously, not only does he work in a number of plot points that bring us up to date on the story and the characters, but he also works in the title of the movie. I mean, sh*t, shouldn't the theme song for a movie include the title of the movie? If not, you might find people who like the name of the song (ie: Another Way to Die) better than the film's title (ie: Quantum of Solace).

But enough babbling from me -- check out the video above, listen real closely to those captivating lyrics and maybe we can get enough people together to convince Bond producers to use this somewhere in the sequel.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for The Secret Life of Bees (click above image to enlarge), based on Sue Monk Kidd's best-selling coming-of-age novel. And talk about an all-star cast of top-notch female talent, Bees stars Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, Dakota Fanning, Alicia Keys and Sophee Okonedo. The film, which is set in South Carolina in 1964, follows two friends (Fanning and Latifah) who run away from home in order to solve the mystery surrounding one of their mothers. Eventually, the three Boatwright sisters (Latifah, Keys and Okonedo) take the two girls in and teach them how to care for and raise bees. The book itself has a ton of fans, and I expect the film -- especially with this cast -- to win over a slew of new ones as well.

The Secret Life of Bees buzzes into theaters on October 17.

Super-not-so-shocking news today: Dakota Fanning is about to sign on to play another kid with a dark life. Variety reports that she is in negotiations, along with Alicia Keys, for the upcoming drama The Secret Life of Bees -- which has already nabbed the likes of Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifah, and Sophie Okonedo. Gina Prince-Bythewood, who wrote and directed Love & Basketball, adapted Sue Monk Kidd's bestselling novel, and will direct it when shooting begins in January in North Carolina. (I guess the South Carolinian book locale was too pricey to shoot in.)

Set in the 1964 south, the year the Civil Rights Act came to be, the film will focus on Lily (Fanning), a 14-year-old girl who lives with her abusive father and memories of her dead mother. It seems that her mom died when a 4-year-old Lily accidentally shot her during a fight with her husband. Meanwhile, her nanny Rosaleen (Hudson) gets into some trouble with some white men while going to register to vote and has to flee the Georgia town. Lily joins her and the pair run off to South Carolina, which somehow holds secrets about her mom's past. They are then taken in by the "eccentric" Calendar sisters (Latifah, Okonedo, and Keys), who make Black Madonna Honey. So, that's where the bees come in. If this slice of drama sounds interesting, the project has a quick turnaround -- Fox Searchlight plans to release it in 2008.

I finally saw Smokin' Aces on DVD this past weekend, and for what it is -- basically a feature-length expansion on the ending to True Romance -- I kinda liked it. One of my favorite things about it is Alicia Keys, who I figured would simply be another recording artist making an unworthy movie debut. But I loved both her performance and how gorgeous she looked. Now I'm looking forward to her acting career, which continues later this year with a co-starring role in The Nanny Diaries, alongside Scarlett Johansson and Laura Linney. She may have another part lined up, too, now that her production company, Big Pita, Little Pita, has picked up a project titled Catfish.

The script for the project, written by newbie Charisse Waugh, was unveiled at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, and the deal has been made through the Tribeca Film Institute's Tribeca All Access program, which allows new filmmakers from unrepresented communities to build relationships with film execs. The script's focus is the true story of a small-town Mississippi woman who spearheaded the biggest strike in U.S. history. The Variety article doesn't mention what strike is represented, but I easily assume, mostly because of the title, that it is the 1990 Delta Pride Catfish strike, which was organized by 44-year old grandmother Sarah White. The story has already been the subject of a little-known documentary called Standing Tall, directed by Donald Blank.

Because of the film's pitch and because of Keys' outfit in Smokin' Aces, my imagination has me thinking of this as another Erin Brockovich, but due to White's age at the time of the strike, I doubt Keys will be playing the lead. Maybe she would fit better as White's daughter instead, or a fellow striker. Either way, I hope she does appear. Also, I'd like to suggest a director: Barbara Kopple. Sure, she hasn't been too successful with narrative films (except for making Anne Hathaway's male fans happy), but there's no filmmaker who has better documented the goings-on of a strike, whether it feature miners (Harlan County U.S.A.) or meat packers (American Dream). Maybe she could even win her third strike-related Oscar.

If this film was to come out a few years ago, say in the time of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Bridget Jones' Diary, there would probably be a horde of chick-flick enthusiasts cheering, while the rest of the movie-going public gives it a collective....eh. However, The Devil Wears Prada seems to have changed things a bit -- some typical chick-flick fare unexpectedly became a big-buzz movie, mainly due to a certain Ms. Streep. Now, we've got The Nanny Diaries, which has its own high-calibre cast. If the just-released trailer is any indication, it hits all of the mainstays of quirky, mainly-for-ladies comedy, but this may or may not be a good thing.

The players: Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, Alicia Keys and Chris Evans (I second Martha's huh?). The story: The X family get a new nanny and treat her terribly. She's frustrated, but she's also falling for a neighbour, Harvard Hottie. Wackiness ensues. The trailer looks fun, but I'm a bit concerned with all of the familiar bits. Sure, movies take from other movies, but while watching the trailer, my brain kept a running count of spoofs -- the music from Metropolitan as they scan the NYC neigborhood, the poor girl meeting the dashing beau at her low-riding worst, continually seeing him during embarrassing run-ins a la Bridget Jones, the challenging kid and the frazzled nanny like Uptown Girls, the advice reminiscent of Prada and of course, the spy-cam scene from Meet the Parents. Regardless, the film looks like fun, light fare, and it's hard to go wrong with Linney.

When I saw Pulp Fiction back in 1994, I was convinced that its brand of daring, post-modern intelligence and sheer, movie-crazed enthusiasm would usher in a new era of cinema -- a golden age of joyous, raucous movies that would be alive in new and exciting ways. I once believed in the tooth fairy as well. What actually happened is what I should have expected: a tidal wave of half-baked knockoffs, lame attempts to copy the formula behind Pulp Fiction instead of the thought process that made it possible.

Someone should come up with a name for this Quentin Tarantino rip-off subgenre of action films, and it should be something that takes into account the fact that there have been good ones (Bound, Go, Snatch, Amores Perros), as well as bad ones (Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, 2 Days in the Valley, 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, Knockaround Guys). It should also take into account that these films have kept coming more than a decade past the original -- much longer even than the Star Wars knockoffs lasted. In the past year or two, we've seen Domino, Running Scared, Lucky Number Slevin and now Smokin' Aces, from director Joe Carnahan.

Despite the fact that neither of her two (count 'em -- two) film roles has yet actually appeared on screen, Disney apparently had no concerns about signing a multi-year first-look deal with Alicia Keys, a woman that most of us think of as a singer first an an actor about sixth. Already in the can for Keys is Smokin' Aces (she's an assassin, obviously), and she also has a supporting role in The Nanny Diaries. It seems, however, she wants to be able to act in movies without the risk of having producers want someone else, so she and her partner Jeff Robinson developed Big Pita, Little Pita (And yes, "Pita" in this case stands for "Pain in the Ass" -- at least they've got a sense of humor about something) to "create vehicles [for Keys] that will prevent her from falling into predictable roles."

The first project from the new collaboration with Disney will be, yes, a remake. Keys will star in a new version Bell Book and Candle, taking over for Kim Novak as the witch who accidentally complicates her own plans by falling in love. No word on who will play her love interest, a role originally played by a guy named Jimmy Stewart, or her wacky, bongo-playing brother (if you ask me, Matthew McConaughey is a natural to replace Jack Lemmon for that one).