Ultimate Dolph

Olly Smith presents this two hour special as family and friends pay tribute to Sir Roger Moore.

Deborah Moore, Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson, Gareth Owen and Sir Michael Caine look back at the life and career of Sir Roger Moore from The Alaskans to Maverick; from The Saint to The Persuaders; from The Wild Geese to The Man Who Haunted Himself; from Bond to Unicef.

Deborah Moore recalls happy times spent with her father as she and her brothers were growing up.
Barbara Broccoli remembers Roger and Cubby Broccoli's notorious games of backgammon on the set of Bond.
Gareth Owen talks of the importance of Unicef in Roger's life.
Sir Michael Caine laughs as he remembers the first time he met the man who would become one of his closest friends.

And in archive interviews Roger himself discusses his life and his work, his family and his friendships.

Peppered with anecdotes and first-hand accounts from the people who knew Roger best, mixed with the music Roger loved, pour a glass of something warming and join Olly Smith for Sir Roger Moore: Nobody Did It Better, from 8 till 10, Boxing Day on Radio 2.

Jox wrote:The Grace Jones doc GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI will be released theatrically in Australia in March 2018
http://www.umbrellaentfilms.com.au/movi ... -and-bami/

Viewers expecting a gossipy chronological account of Jones’s career will be disappointed. Her early days as a model, cocaine-fueled days at Studio 54, the evolution of her androgynous image, and details of her romances with the photographer and graphic designer Jean-Paul Goude (who nevertheless makes a cameo appearance) and Dolph Lundgren are passed over. Fans desiring more salacious tidbits should consult Jones’s entertaining memoir, which, with characteristic Jonesian cheek, is titled I’ll Never Write My Memoirs.

It was also important for Jones and Fiennes to shoot on film and have access to an environment that gave them meticulous control of the results. Jones explains: “Sophie filmed a number of live performances, but it was frustrating for her because she didn’t have the control of the space, the control of the camera and lighting. She could make it more cinematic and shoot on film. I agreed that we just had to stage our own performances “

Fiennes concurred and added: “We shot on super 16, which is a risk and one of the magazines actually jammed. David Lynch once said to Ralph when he met him that ‘something cosmic happens when you shoot light through celluloid.’ You have the grain; film is more about how we actually see and video is about definition and pixels.”

Fiennes contrasts this approach with Beyoncé’s shows, where “she’s just an image on a screen surrounded by toy soldiers.” Jones retorts, “But now they’re all looking at little screens.”

Even though, like Edith Piaf, Jones appears to regret nothing, she does admit that not accepting the role of Zhora, the snake-charming replicant in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner—that eventually went to Joanna Cassidy—was a mistake (in I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, she maintains that, in the original script, Zhora’s part was considerably larger than what ended up in the finished film).

“Oh, yes. That’s my one regret,” she says. “When I did decide to take it, it was too late. Ridley was pissed off. We still party together and I saw him once when my mother was making rice and beans. In fact, I see him all the time. The actress who took my part broke his heart. I learned a lesson: read the script and then make up your mind. Whatever anyone else says, go with your own instincts. That’s what we say about empowerment: If you give up your power, you have no one to blame but yourself. It was my fault. But I’m trying to think positively.”

Fiennes knows this and doesn’t try to overstuff the film. Rather than cram seven decades’ worth of biographical events into 120 minutes — there’s a glimpse of Andy Warhol but you can forget learning anything new about Dolph Lundgren — Fiennes approaches Jones’ unique position with a clear, unsentimental directness, unburdened with shaping an easy narrative or lazy hagiography, resolutely concerned with the present.