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ARCHIVED NEWS - 26th JUNE - 3rd JULY 2005 |
NEW AUDIO REVIEW
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30th June 2005
The disc will have what looks like a good array of bonus materials: a commentary track (with writer / director Don Mancini and star Jennifer Tilly); Family Hell-iday Slideshow; Conceiving The Seed of Chucky; Jennifer Tilly's Diary; and cast and crew biographies. These don't seem to tally with the US edition, which was released earlier this month. It appears to have substantially more bonus material, but I'd advise waiting to see what the final spec' of the Momentum disc is before making a purchasing decision. The press release didn't mention any technical specifications, and it didn't mention if the 15-certificate UK disc would feature the unrated version of the film. The RRP is £15.99 Here's a roundup of MGM's releases for August: The sword-and-sandal spoof Gladiatress, which features the Smack The Pony team, premieres on DVD on August the 8th. It looks like the disc will be bereft of extras. The RRP is £12.99.
A whole bunch of Westerns are being
released on August the 15th, all with an RRP of £12.99 each. These are:
Sabata, Return of Sabata, Death Rides A Horse (all
starring
28th June 2005 Time to play catch-up with some news from the last couple of days...
In another move to woo people who might ordinarily have imported a new title like this, the UK disc will also feature an exclusive featurette titled Don't Crash: The Making of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Other extras will include "audio commentaries"; a second Making of... documentary; deleted scenes; "really deleted scenes" (!); an "Additional Guide Entry - Babelfish"; a sing-along for the dolphin song So Long & Thanks For All The Fish; and a set-top game, Marvin's Hangman. Sounds groovy! The RRP is believed to be a not-so-groovy £22.99. Buena Vista will release Wes Craven's limp werewolf flick Cursed on August the 22nd. According to the press release it's "a white-knuckle ride" and "a snappy, stylish and sexy teenage horror" that "will have you running scared from start to finish". Lies, damn lies! The film had an extraordinarily rocky production, from Scream scribe Kevin Williamson's script, to screen. It would have made for a fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary, if they had had the courage to reveal it. As it is Craven is notably absent from the bonus features, for reasons that are easy to guess. The film stars Christina Ricci and Shannon Elizabeth (in what's not much more than an extended cameo). The disc will feature a behind-the-scenes documentary, Behind The Fangs: The Making of Cursed (8m); a creature creation feature, Becoming a Werewolf (8m); a featurette on the editing, Creature Editing 101 (6m); and The Cursed Effects (7m), which reveals the secrets of the "spectacular" CGI used in the transformation scenes. (Bonus feature running times are taken from the US edition). It seems that the "selected scenes" commentary on the US disc, by special effects maestro Greg Nicotero and actor Derek Mears, won't be included on the UK edition. Neither is there a mention of whether the film is the PG-13 version or the R-rated version (both are available on disc in the US). The press release merely mentions that it's certificate 15, and runs for 84 minutes, which doesn't really help.
The first is a "bigger, better, ruder, and cruder" Special Edition version of Scary Movie 3, titled Scary Movie 3.5, which will contain new features (deleted scenes?) titled Baby oil spill, Office chase and Twin's dream. Other new items include things called Cindy meets Orpheus, Ferry and Boarding up the house. Material held over from the original release includes: Annie in the kitchen; Call from Orpheus; Tractor fix; Rap club extended; Weather forecast; George Burns stuff; George & Cindy date; Cindy gets fired; Alternate ending; MJ hits Cody; Making Scary Movie 3; Making Scary Movie 3...FOR REAL; outtakes and bloopers; and Hulk vs. Aliens - Behind the scenes of the alternate ending. Buena Vista are also releasing a Special Edition version of Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (or, as the press release calls it, Don’t Be A Menace To South Central While You’re Drinking Your Juice in the Hood). This time the film is "bigger, blacker and badder than ever before". The Special Edition will feature a commentary track, "two behind the scenes" (behind the scenes what?); and deleted scenes. As usual with Buena Vista's press releases, the subject of filthy lucre was not brought up, and neither were any technical spec's revealed (let's face it, if you can't even get the name of the movie right, what chance do you have with complicated stuff like aspect ratios?)
Each film will be presented in a new, anamorphic transfer, with newly-created subtitles. A sixteen-page booklet by film historian Peter Schepelern will be included. Bonus features for the three films are as follows: Element of Crime - Original documentary on Von Trier; newly-created documentary of cast anecdotes; exclusive Easter egg: Von Trier’s short film, Nocturne (1980); commentary with Von Trier, director of photography Tom Elling and editor Tomas Gislason; Commentary with expert Peter Schepelern and author Stig Bjørkman Epidemic - Newly-created Making of... documentary; exclusive Easter egg: short film, Befrielsesbilleder (1982); commentary with Von Trier and Niels Vørsel Europa - Newly created Making of... documentary; documentary of anecdotes from cast and crew; commentary by Von Trier and cast members Jean Marc-Barr and Udo Kier; commentary by Von Trier and producer Peter Aalsbaek The fourth disc will feature: Von Trier in conversation with journalist Bo Green Jensen; Europa featurettes; original TV documentaries from Denmark, France, and Germany; trailers; documentaries on Tom Elling (storyboarding Element of Crime) and Joachin Holbek (Europa composer).
24th June - Torremolinos 1st July - Dig, Who Killed Bambi? 8th July - Sky Blue, The Car Keys, Novo 15th July - The Heart is Deceitful... Above All Things, Process, Tiresia 22nd July - Silver City, Pleasant Days, Secret Things, Errance 29th July - Twenty-Nine Palms 5th Aug - Arakimentari 12th Aug - The Secret Lives of Dentists 19th Aug - Primer 26th Aug - No Rest For The Brave, The Intruder 2nd Sept - Beautiful Boxer 16th Sept - R-Point, Tell Me Something
23rd Sept -
30th Sept - Public Enemy, Vital Unscheduled Tartan titles - 36, A Letter to True, Battle in Heaven, Bittersweet Life, Blood & Bones, The Bow, Calvaire, CSA: Confederate States of America, The Devil and Daniel Johnson, Edmond, Hidden Blade, Guy X, The King, Marebito, PS, The Proposition, Saraband, The Tulse Luper Suitcases Animated classic Watership Down will be released on DVD on August the 29th (by Warner Home Video, according to the BBFC). The two-disc set will feature the following, according to the press release: A Conversation with the Film Makers; The Voices of Watership Down; Hazel and Fiver Sneak Into Nuthanger Farm; Bigwig Leads Ecape From Efrafa; Hazel is Injured & Storyboard Comparisons: Opening Sequences x 3. RRP for the set will be £15.99.
Warner Home Video will release the
genre-bending thriller The Jacket on September the 12th. The film,
which stars Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley and Daniel Craig, will be
presented in 2.4:1 widescreen format, with 5.1 Dolby Digital audio. The
movie will be supplemented by additional scenes and alternate endings;
The Jacket: Project History and The Look of The Jacket
featurette.
Fantom Films will soon release a CD containing an hour-long interview with Catweazle star Geoffrey Bayldon. The regular CD will have an RRP of £7.99, or there'll be a Limited Edition autographed version with an extended version of the interview in MP3 format and some PDF information. The Limited Edition version will cost £10.99, and will be limited to a hundred copies. Details from Fantom's website. 27th June 2005
But wait, it doesn't end there! Ceri has updated the Offers page, clearing out all the cobwebs and clutter, and adding a whole bunch of new bargains, especially tailored for Zeta Minor's DVD connoisseurs! Click here to go there! My own humble contribution this morning is a modest update to the Incoming page. I've checked all the titles that were due out today against the online retailers, to make sure that they're still expected to make it to the shops today. Any title that was due today, but which has been delayed, has a "New Date" marker next to it. This includes Network's much-anticipated Coronation Street box set, and 2 Entertain Video's McCallum set.
Speaking of Network, their
even-more-anticipated Thriller box set started filtering through to
customers last week. Unfortunately, there have been several reports that
some of the sets have two copies of disc thirteen in them, and no copy of
disc fourteen. There are also reports that there may be a problem with the
layer change on disc ten.
Previous Zeta Minor News entries can viewed here. |
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Momentum
will release the well-received Child's Play sequel Seed of
Chucky on September the 26th, following a two week rental window.
Disney's
recent film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will
make it's DVD debut here in the UK, with a two-disc set due on September
the 5th (eight days before the US edition). 
Buena
Vista is releasing two Special Edition versions of spoof films on
September the 19th.
Tartan
will release the three films that make up Lars Von Trier's E-Trilogy
(Element of Crime, Epidemic and Europa (aka
Zentropa)) as a four-disc collector's box set on August the 22nd.
It's
nice to be able to announce the addition of something substantial to the
site on a Monday morning, so I'm delighted to say that today I've added an
article about the surviving clips from otherwise-missing episodes of the
BBC's groundbreaking science-fiction anthology series Out of the
Unknown. The article was written and kindly contributed by Lee Rose,
who used to host something similar on his own website. Thanks, Lee! Click
on the Cult Television button, left, or 
