Film Fact: Azerbaijan

To celebrate the weird and wonderful Eurovision Song Contest, we present weird and wonderful film facts about this year's finalist countries.

Amongst the many aficionados of James Bond movies Azerbaijan will unfortunately always be remembered as the setting for one of the franchise' most dubious efforts. Released in 1999 and directed by the normally reliable Michael Apted, The World is Not Enough had Pierce Brosnan returning as 007, with his assignment this time requiring him to protect a billionaire's daughter (Sophie Marceau) overseeing the construction of an oil pipeline through Azerbaijan. What truly sets the movie apart, however, is the addition of the future Mrs. Charlie Sheen Denise Richards as Dr. Christmas Jones, your standard nuclear physicist hiding inside the body of a Californian cheerleader. Perpetually clad in shorts and tank top and delivering line readings which suggest she has memorised dialogue she cannot comprehend, Richards is an insult to the legacy of Ursula Andress and Honor Blackman. Bond really needed to make use of that licence to kill.