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THIS WEEK'S COMPETITIONS |
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29th September 2005
27th September 2005 MUSIC NEWS I don't propose bringing you news about music CD releases very often, just on special occasions (and very much dictated by my own personal tastes - sorry!)
The wait will apparently soon be over. SonyBMG Music Entertainment (UK) Ltd will release eight of the group's studio albums on November the 7th: In the Garden (1981), Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (1983), Touch (1983), Be Yourself Tonight (1985), Revenge (1986), Savage (1988), We Too Are One 1989) and Peace (1999). Each album has been re-mastered by Dave Stewart and engineer Ian Cooper, at Metropolis Studios, London. Each album will feature between four and seven bonus tracks, including ten tracks that have never been released before, and several notable cover versions. (The press release says it's eleven tracks that have never been released before, but I have it on good authority that their "unreleased" cover version of Satellite of Love was actually made available to the public, on an NME cassette). Each album will be available in two formats: a six-panel digipack, and a standard jewel case. Each reissue has been re-designed by Laurence Stevens of LSD Studio (the agency responsible for all the original albums since In The Garden). The digipacks will feature re-mastered sleeve artwork, rejected and alternate concept designs, unseen archive photo's, and single sleeves, along with detailed liner notes by Eurythmics historian Phill Savidge. RRP for the digipack versions is £9.99. The jewel case versions are £8.99. There'll also be Boxed, a Deluxe Collector's Box set, which will feature custom artwork by original Eurythmics designer Laurences Stevens. This set has an RRP of £60. A new nineteen-track greatest hits album will also be released. Titled Ultimate Collection, the disc will feature two newly-recorded tracks: I've Got A Life and Was It Just Another Love Affair? The former will be released as a single, on October the 31st. The Ultimate Collection will be released on November the 7th, with an RRP of £10.99. The bonus tracks are: In The Garden
1. Le Sinestre - Taken from 'Never Gonna
Cry Again' 7" Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
11. Home Is Where The Heart Is - Taken
from 'This Is The House' 7" Touch
10. You Take Some Lentils… And You Take
Some Rice - Taken from 'Who's That Girls?' 7" Be Yourself Tonight
10. Grown Up Girls - Taken from 'There
Must Be An Angel Revenge
11. When Tomorrow Comes (Extended Version)
- Taken from 'When Tomorrow Comes' 12" Savage
13. Beethoven (Extended Philharmonic
Version) - Taken from 'Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)' 12" We Too Are One
11. Precious - Taken from 'Revival' 7" Peace
12. Beautiful Child (Acoustic Version) -
Previously Unreleased A Roobarb's DVD Forum thread discussing the Eurythmics can be found here. DVD NEWS Warner Home Video will release John Huston's classic 1981 football movie Escape To Victory (a.k.a. Victory) on DVD on October the 24th. The disc will be exclusively available via HMV. The film will be presented in it's original 2.35:1 ratio, with Dolby Surround Stereo audio. The RRP is £15.99.
The first, for the Luc Besson-produced action flick Transporter 2, marks the first collaboration between the label and Recall Music, and Besson's Europa Corp. The disc features four powerful score cues, totalling about ten minutes, by Alexandre Azaria (a.k.a. Replicant), Grand National's hypnotic Talk Amongst Yourselves, Mylo's (Paris Four Hundred), DJ Cam (Voodoo Child), and a couple of tracks by The Servant, including Cells, (an instrumental version of this track was recently used to good effect in the Sin City theatrical trailer).
The disc is a delightful collection of Eastern European folk tunes, many of them composed by Paul Cantelon, a former musical prodigy (who, following a car accident as a teenager, suffered from amnesia, and had to learn his craft again from scratch). His contribution accounts for more than half of the hour-long album. Some of you may know Cantelon from his association with 90s folk-tinged band The Wild Colonials. The disc also features two tracks by Eugene Hütz's gypsy / rock group Gogol Bordello (Bublitschki and Start Wearing Purple). ZETA MINOR NEWS There's a new DVD review on the site today: contributor Mark Aldridge has taken a close look at the BFI's Early Cinema - Primitives and Pioneers two-disc collection of short films made before 1910. Is it a set worth adding to your collection? Check out Mark's review, by clicking here, or on the sleeve image, right. I've added a new page to the Cult Television section today. It features photo's I took on the set of the BBC TV series Neverwhere, way back in 1996. Click here to go to the new Neverwhere page. The Incoming page has been given a quick update - all the titles listed as coming out today have been checked against a couple of online retailers, to make sure they're still expected today. There are a couple that were due, but seem to have been delayed. Lots of good stuff out today, including the second volumes of Pipkins and Goodnight Sweetheart, and a number of essential Dennis Potter titles. DVD NEWS
The six-disc box set will feature twenty-two episodes, and more than four hours of bonus material. Guest stars include Kelly Macdonald and Isabella Rossellini. Bonus material includes an extended episode, Nocturne, which includes a previously-deleted Russian Roulette scene; deleted scenes; Jennifer Garner interview; Meet Mia featurette (on actress Mia Maestro): Director's Diary; Marshall's World featurette; blooper reel; Guest Stars featurette; and an unspecified number of audio commentaries. RRP for the set is believed to be £49.99. The recent American remake of the Japanese ghost story Dark Water, which stars Jennifer Connolly, Pete Postlethwaite, Tim Roth and John C. Reilly, will be released on DVD by Buena Vista Home Entertainment on November the 28th. The disc will feature an "in depth" documentary, Beneath the Surface: The Making of Dark Water (which appears to be broken down into segments: Beyond the Horror, An Island Apart, A Director's Vision, Mother and Daughter, Water by Design and Deep Water). Other features include things titled The Sound of Terror and Extraordinary Ensemble; deleted scenes (Dahlia at the Laundromat, Ceci and Kyle In The Car); Analysing Dark Water Sequences (Blue Robe and Wall of Water); an interactive Bathroom Scene (which will apparently allow the viewer to see the scene with music only, dialogue only, sound design only, etc, or with audio commentary); and an alternate sequence, Wall of Water. Sounds like a feature-packed disc! No technical details were announced. The RRP is apparently £19.99.
I won't dwell on the various King Kong DVD sets being released by WHV in the US, suffice to say that there are three different sets, all featuring what is expected to be a meticulously-restored print, and packed with what should be worthwhile bonus features like commentary tracks, Turner Classic Movies and BBC-produced documentaries, and, in the case of the four-disc set, two classic films that the film spawned, Mighty Joe Young and The Son of Kong. You might as well put your orders in now, because the Warner Home Video sets wipe the floor with the Universal Pictures offerings. Universal Pictures is releasing two editions of the film on December the 5th, both featuring the restored version of the film. The first is a single-disc edition, which will apparently only have a trailer for Peter Jackson's remake as a bonus feature. It doesn't even appear that the creaky twelve-year-old documentary It Was Beauty Killed The Beast, which is on the current edition, will be included. This disc will have an RRP of £9.99. There will also be a four-disc edition. That's where the good news ends! This set will feature the It Was Beauty Killed The Beast documentary, a twelve page collector's booklet, and two additional films: King Kong Escapes and King Kong Versus Godzilla. The fourth disc - and I advise you to clear away any sharp objects before continuing - will contain a colourised version of the film. RRP for this set is £29.99. I will say no more, except to apologise for the poor quality of the sleeve image, which came attached to the press release. I asked for a bigger version, but was told it wouldn't be ready for a couple of weeks.
The set, which will be exclusive to HMV, will feature six Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmuller, spread across three discs. The films are: Tarzan The Ape Man (1932), Tarzan and His Mate (1934), Tarzan Escapes (1936), Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939), Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941) and Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942). All the films are presented in 1.33:1 format, with mono audio. Potential customers should note that the films may well be cut versions, to conform with the BBFC's obligations under the Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937, which makes it illegal to show “any scene...organised or directed in such a way as to involve the cruel infliction of pain and terror on any animal or the cruel goading to terror of any animal to fury”. This is, of course, in addition to the lack of bonus material on the HMV set (the US edition features a new feature-length documentary, vintage shorts, and theatrical trailers). The pack-shot here is the US set, but it was issued as part of the UK press release, so it's likely to form the basis of the UK set. RRP for the UK edition is £34.99. Warner Home Video will release three classic 80s movies on DVD on November the 21st: Ken Russell's Academy Award-nominated Altered States, Sidney Lumet's 1988 film about anti-Vietnam activists on run from the FBI, Running on Empty; and the 1982 adaptation of John Irving's novel The World According to Garp. No technical specifications were announced, (Running on Empty is only available as a 4:3 edition in the US). Neither is there any indication that the various trailers and production notes that are on the US counterparts will be included. RRP for each film is £15.99. Here's the US snapper sleeve art, which will, presumably, be adapted for the UK editions...
Last week's Zeta Minor News can be viewed here. Previous Zeta Minor News entries can viewed here. |
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It's not often I beat the mighty
Fans
of 80s synth-pop group the Eurythmics have been waiting for an official
announcement about the re-mastering of their back catalogue for a very
long time (the discs were originally scheduled for release last year, but
mysteriously shelved without explanation).
TVT
Records has released two new soundtrack CDs this month. 
The
disc of Transporter 2 couldn't be more unlike TVT's soundtrack for
Everything is Illuminated, Liev Schreiber's directorial debut,
which is about an eccentric young man searching for the woman who saved
his grandfather's life during World War II. 
Buena
Vista Home Entertainment will release the fourth season of the popular TV
spy series Alias on November the 21st.
A
licensing quirk means that it falls to Universal Pictures UK to release
the 1933 version of King Kong in the UK, rather than Warner Home
Video, who are releasing the American editions. This is rather unfortunate
for UK consumers, of course, because Universal Pictures UK have a terrible
reputation among DVD enthusiasts. If you didn't know why that is, then
you're about to find out.
Warner
Home Video will release what appears to be a cut-down version of the US
Tarzan Collection DVD set on October the 31st.
