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ARCHIVED NEWS - 11th - 17th JULY 2005 |
NEW AUDIO REVIEW
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13th July 2005
The four-disc box set will feature twenty-two episodes, and bonus features, including commentary tracks on six episodes (My Overkill, by Bill Lawrence, someone apparently called "Zach Bragg" and Donald Faison; My Case Study, by Bill and Ken Jenkins; My First Step, by Bill and Donald; My Sex Buddy by Bill and Sarah Chalke; His Story, by Bill and "John C. MnGinley"; and My T.C.W., by Bill and Judy Reyes. Other bonus features include a featurette called A Rare Condition (which is "on the entire production which takes place in a 'real' abandoned hospital); Musical Stylings (about the show's use of music; Johnny C. Keeps Talking (interview); Secrets & Lies (about the on-set practical joking); J.D.'s Mojo (about Zach's character's love life); Stunt Casting (about the show's stunts); Imagination Gone Wild (about the show's dream sequences); Scrubbed Out (deleted scenes) and Practice, Practice, Malpractice (outtakes). Just so you don't forget - it's out on the 12th of September. The 12th of September. This piece of information was included in the press release five times, so it must be jolly important. And yet the press release didn't mention the RRP (which is £34.99, apparently), or any technical specs. September the 12th!
The four-disc set will include twenty-five episodes. As you can see from the sleeve, this season features Pamela Anderson, as Lisa (make the most of it, she leaves at the end of the season!) Apparently, there are no bonus features. The RRP is believed to be £29.99. No technical spec's were announced. Buena Vista will also release the second series of The Golden Girls on August the 1st. The four-disc, twenty-six episode set will feature a trivia game (that;s enough to qualify it as a "Special Edition", apparently!) Guest stars in the second season include Burt Reynolds (oh, how the mighty hath fallen) and a "young" George Clooney, as a Miami cop. The set might have an RRP of £29.99. Tartan has announced their September line-up. The final part of the Infernal Affairs trilogy, Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs 3, combines cast members from both of the earlier films. Tartan's DVD, due on September the 26th, will offer a choice of Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1 audio tracks, and an anamorphic transfer. The extras will include a behind-the-scenes feature; a documentary; and a UK-exclusive mini documentary. The RRP is £19.99.
Pablo Berger's saucy comedy Torremolinos
73, also due on September the 26th, features two of Spain's most
popular character actors, Almodóvar
regulars Javier Cámara and Candela Peňa. The Region 0 disc will
Chi-Leung Law's ghost story Inner Senses
was the last film to star Farewell My Concubine's Leslie
Cheung. Tartan's disc, due on September the 26th,
Solondz doesn't like DVD bonus features, so
there aren't any on the disc, although it will offer Tartan's customary
choice of
Finally, for September the 26th, Tartan has three films to celebrate contemporary French cinema: Jean-Pierre Limosin's sex comedy Novo (18), Laurent Baffie's comedy of misadventure Les Clef de Bagnoles (Car Keys), and Jean-Claude Brissau's cruel office drama Les Choses Secretes (Secret Things). Each film will have an anamorphic transfer, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 audio tracks, trailers, and a four page booklet. (Booklet? More like a pamphlet!) RRP is £19.99 each.
Some Tartan date changes: Contender Home Entertainment will release a "fully restored and re-mastered" version of George Romero's seminal 1968 zombie flick Night of the Living Dead on September the 5th (four days before the theatrical release of Romero's new movie, Land of the Dead. The disc will feature a 5.1 Dolby Digital audio track. The disc will come in limited edition packaging, with some apparently previously unavailable extras, including two commentary tracks (one by Romero, the other by cast members); star Duane Jones' last interview; an interview with co-star Judith Ridley; trailers and TV spots; photo galleries; selected scenes from Romero's "lost" film There's Always Vanilla "and much more". How much more? We demand to know! The RRP is £19.99.
The bonus features are: Chita Rivera's encore; From Stage to Screen: The History of Chicago; the following extended performances - All That Jazz, Good To Mama, Cell Block Tango, Reach For The Gun, Mr Cellphone; rehearsal footage for Reach For The Gun, I Can't Do It Alone and Hot Honey Rag; something called Catherine Zeta Jones & All That Jazz; something called Renee Zellweger & Now a Days; and something called Richard Gere & All I Care About Is Love. The RRP might be £19.99. It's a secret. DVD has been around long enough that Buena Vista will release a fifteenth-anniversary edition of Pretty Woman on September the 12th, to will replace the tenth-anniversary edition. (In the US, the fifteenth- anniversary edition is the third time the film's been released on DVD!) This Director's Cut version apparently has "even more magic than the original". Bonus features will include unseen footage from the original wrap party; "original" bloopers; Wild Women Do, performed by Natalie Cole; LA: The Pretty Woman Tour; all-new commentary by snooze-fest king Garry Marshall; and the 1990 production featurette.
The disc will feature a "re-mastered and restored" anamorphic presentation of the film, with an orchestral soundtrack that was especially composed for the film's UK theatrical release (in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 variants, with a choice of English dubbed and Thai language versions). The disc will have a UK-exclusive commentary track by Asia cinema expert Bey Logan. The second disc will feature The Road To Glory, an eight-part Making of... documentary; The Art of Muay Thai, an exclusive documentary of the art of Thai boxing; From Dust to Glory, an interview with star Tony Jaa; Ong-Bak on Tour", promo tour highlights including live martial arts demonstrations by Tony Jaa; deleted scenes and alternate ending; Visible Secret, a rare and exclusive rehearsal montage featuring Tony Jaa and action consultant Don Ferguson; The Bodyguard, an exclusive interview with Don Ferguson; Mad Dog, an exclusive interview with co-star David Ismalone; Pearl Harbour, an exclusive interview with co-star Erik Markus Sheutz; UK promotional trailer. The disc will feature SDH subtitles. The RRP is £19.99. 11th July 2005 There's a new review for you today. It's of Revelation's first Goodnight Sweetheart DVD, which features the first six episodes of the Marks and Gran time-travel sitcom. I've fielded loads of emails about this series, since Zeta Minor broke the news of its release, and I know it has a loyal following. Click on the sleeve image, right, or here to go to the review page. The disc is in the shops now! Film Score Monthly has released another pair of soundtrack CDs in their Silver Age and Golden Age Classics ranges.
Neither of these composers is
well-represented on CD, and, indeed, they may only be familiar to
soundtrack collectors for their work on the original Star Trek
series. Indeed, in
Dunning's score for The Devil at 4 O'Clock has echoes of his Oscar-nominated music for Picnic (1955), and a hint of some of his Star Trek cues (principally mournful cues from Metamorphosis and The Empath, according to Jeff Bond's typically excellent sleeve notes). The composer's jazzy compositions and frantic action cues are complemented by an aching love theme, for the blossoming romance between the convict Harry (played by Frank Sinatra), and the innocent blind girl, Camille (BarBara Luna). The Victors is a film that's virtually vanished from circulation. The film was cut by twenty-or-so minutes shortly after it premiered, and this abbreviated version is the only one that's been seen in public in decades. Kaplan, like Foreman a victim of the McCarthy / HUAAC blacklist, wrote an idiosyncratic score for The Victors, (a splash of stabbing brass aside, it's quite unlike his Star Trek work). It eschews traditional dramatic underscoring, instead creating thematic counterpoint for the segments showcasing the film's female cast (which included cameo appearances by Jeanne Moreau, Elke Sommer and Romy Schneider). Both scores are in stereo, re-mastered from the quarter-inch tapes used for the original Colpix Records albums. The original Coplix album for The Victors featured a song by Frank Sinatra (Have Yourself a Very Merry Christmas) which, understandably, is not included on the Film Score Monthly version, because of licensing issues. Both albums make their CD debut here. The disc is available at a special price (because they're straightforward, unexpanded, re-issues of the original albums).
The disc features the famous synth-based theme music (co-written with Phillips' long-term collaborator, producer Glen A. Larson), and cues from six of the dozen episodes that Phillips scored (counting the pilot show, Knight of the Phoenix, as two episodes). The music has been re-mastered and re-mixed from the original half-track three-track masters. The theme music has been sourced from the original two-inch, twenty-four track master tapes, and sounds terrific! The programme itself was mixed down to mono, but this disc offers the music in stereo, for the first time. The disc features a very nicely illustrated booklet, with track-by-track sleeve notes by Lukas Kendall. It also includes Both discs are available from the usual specialist retailers, or directly from the label's trading partner, Screen Archives Entertainment. More details, track listings and downloadable samples, are available from the FSM website: here for The Devil at 4 O'Clock / The Victors, and here for Knight Rider. Previous Zeta Minor News entries can viewed here. |
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Buena
Vista will release the second series of the hit medical sitcom Scrubs
on September the 12th.
The
second series of Tim Allen's sitcom Home Improvement will be
released on DVD by Buena Vista on August the 1st. 
Todd
Solondz's controversial Palindromes, about a young girl who runs
away from home so she can become pregnant, will be released on September
the 26th. The film features Jennifer Jason Leigh and Ellen Barkin.
Buena
Vista will release a two-disc Special Edition box set of Chicago on
September the 12th. The new set will feature a "never-before-seen"
director's commentary track (not the one on the existing disc, then?) and
"a whole host of extended musical performances from the stars of the
show". Buena Vista press releases demoralise me.
Martial
arts smash Ong-Bak will be released as a two-disc Platinum Edition
DVD by Premier Asia on September the 19th (a month after a single disc
version is released on rental). 
The
Golden Age Classics release is a slightly odd match of George Dunning's
score for Mervyn LeRoy's 1961 pot-boiler about a band of misfits fleeing
an erupting volcano, The Devil at 4 O'Clock, and Sol Kaplan's score
for Carl Foreman's 1963 controversial WWII movie The Victors.
FSM's
Silver Age Classics release is another sign that the label is reaching out
beyond it's traditional licensees. The disc features Stu Phillips' music
for the first season of Knight Rider, Glen Larson's popular series
about a crime-fighting car.
