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AUDIOBOOK REVIEWS
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12th June 2007 AUDIOBOOK NEWS BBC Audiobooks will release a two-part adaptation of Toby Hadoke's autobiographical Edinburgh Festival show Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf on CD on July the 30th. The RRP is £9.99 (Play.com have it for £6.99). This adaptation was produced for BBC7, where it will be broadcast on the 20th and 27th of July. The cast includes Louise Jameson (who played Leela during the Tom Baker era of the series) as Toby's mother, James Quinn (Early Doors) as The Voice of the BBC and Toby himself. Colin Baker makes a cameo appearance. Here are a couple of photo's from the recording, and the sleeve image...
11th June 2007 DVD NEWS
The Umbrella release will include the bonus features from the R1 edition, from A&E, and the UK version, from Carlton, (including commentary tracks from both sets). It also adds significant new content, including a sixty-minute documentary from fan group Fanderson and an archive interview about the series' costumes, featuring series co-creator Sylvia Anderson. You can find full details of the new set in PDF format here. A Roobarb's DVD Forum thread devoted to the new set can be found here. Second Sight will release David Lean's 1955 love story Summertime on August the 6th. The film, which was released in the UK as Summer Madness, stars Katharine Hepburn as an American spinster holidaying in Venice, and Rossano Brazzi, as the antiques dealer she falls in love with. No technical details were announced. The RRP is £19.99. SOUNDTRACK NEWS
The label has released a CD featuring Jerry Goldsmith's score for John Stuges' slick 1965 hi-tech thriller The Satan Bug. Composed during what was arguably the composer's most creatively fertile period, The Satan Bug ranks alongside other classics of the era, like The Blue Max, Lilies of the Field and A Patch of Blue. It's long been thought that the original tapes for The Satan Bug - and many other Mirish Company films - were destroyed in one of the production company's several changes of ownership. The only material that was known to have survived was a mono 35mm music-and-effects (M&E) tape, (which was used for creating versions of the film dubbed into foreign languages). This was the master was used for the isolated music-and-effects track on M-G-M's 1996 laserdisc, and it was this that was subsequently used as the basis for several bootleg recordings. Happily, two half-inch three-track tapes, containing about half of the film's score (totalling about half an hour), have been rescued, thanks to world-famous film memorabilia collector Bob Burns, and it's these tapes that form the basis for FSM's new CD. The label has taken the bold - and somewhat controversial - step of creating a complete score presentation, using the available stereo material from the Bob Burns tapes, and filling in what's missing from those with the M&E source. Efforts have been made to minimise the the sound effects, of course, but they are present, and they are a little distracting. However, because Goldsmith scored the film so skilfully, the music flows very neatly around many of them, and they're nowhere near as intrusive as they might have been. In any case, Jeff Bond's extensive, lavishly-illustrated liner notes provide the formula for programming a presentation of the tracks from the Burns tapes alone. It's a very listenable, landmark Goldsmith score, and undoubtedly one of the most important CDs that the label has released. The composer's many fans are very, very happy with it. The release is limited to 3000 copies, and so seems likely to sell out quite quickly. Anyone aiming to eventually amass a complete collection of Film Score Monthly discs would be well-advised to pick up a copy sooner rather than later!
De Vol scored several films for Aldrich, including What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?, The Flight of the Phoenix, and The Longest Yard. It was a fruitful collaboration that spanned more than a dozen movies. De Vol's rich score interpolates influences from pop hits like You're In The Army Now and Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree (With Anybody Else But Me), with gutsy, percussive militaristic marches and a couple of songs of his own. A condensed version of the score has been released several times before (including the contemporaneous MGM LP, and, most recently, on a Chapter III CD, which coupled half-an-hour of the score with music from Dirty Dingus Magee). FSM's new CD marks the first release of the complete soundtrack, remixed and re-mastered from the original 35mm three-track magnetic film elements (supplemented in part by the film music dubbing stems, and the album master, for sections that have suffered some deterioration). An hour-long score presentation is offered, followed by twenty minutes of alternate album takes and source music cues (including several ballroom waltzes, from the scenes set in the chateau). The Dirty Dozen also comes with FSM's customary chunky booklet, featuring rare stills, and extensive notes by Daniel Champion. Film Score Monthly discs can be bought from specialist soundtrack retailers, including FSM's trading partner Screen Archives Entertainment. AUDIOBOOK NEWS I had a poke around at Outpost Gallifrey to see if the sleeves for the next three David Tennant Doctor Who audiobooks had been posted there, but couldn't find them, so here they are...
Here's the press release... Each of these brand new audiobooks is read by a member of ‘the Jones family’ from the current series of Doctor Who. Freema Agyeman plays Martha Jones, the Doctor’s companion, whilst Adjoa Andoh plays her mum, Francine, and Reggie Yates is her brother, Leo! The Last Dodo by Jacqueline Rayner Abridged reading by Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones in the TV series) CD: ISBN 9781846071775 Download: ISBN 9781405678841
Civilisations rise and fall, time moves on
– and species die out. Extinction is a fact of life in the universe. But
extinction doesn’t have to be for ever. The TARDIS arrives in the Museum
of the Last Ones – a facility dedicated to preserving the final specimens
of every species in the universe. But all is not well, and before long the
Doctor and Martha are in deep trouble. Abridged reading by Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones). Written by Jacqueline Rayner. Wooden Heart by Martin Day Abridged reading by Adjoa Andoh (Francine Jones in the TV series) CD: ISBN 9781405677752 Download: ISBN 9781405667111 The Castor, a vast starship, seemingly deserted, spinning slowly in the void of deep space. Martha and the Doctor explore the drifting tomb, and discover that they may not be alone after all...Who survived the disaster that overcame the rest of the crew? What continues to power the vessel? And why has a stretch of wooded countryside suddenly appeared in the middle of the craft? As the Doctor and Martha journey through the forest, they find a mysterious, fogbound village - a village traumatised by missing children and tales of its own destruction… Read by Adjoa Andoh (who plays Francine Jones in the TV series). Written by Martin Day. Sting of the Zygons by Stephen Cole Abridged reading by Reggie Yates (Leo Jones in the TV series) CD: ISBN 9781405677745 Download: ISBN 9781405667104 The TARDIS lands the Doctor and Martha in the Lake District in 1909, where a small village has been terrorised by a giant, scaly monster. The search is on for the elusive 'Beast of Westmorland', and explorers, naturalists and hunters from across the country are descending on the fells. King Edward VII himself is on his way to join the search, with a knighthood for whoever finds the Beast. But there is a more sinister presence at work in the Lakes than a mere monster on the rampage, and the Doctor is soon embroiled in the plans of an old and terrifying enemy. And as the hunters become the hunted, a desperate battle of wits begins - with the future of the entire world at stake... Abridged reading by Reggie Yates (Leo Jones in the TV series). Written by Stephen Cole. And here's a picture of Freema recording The Last Dodo...
Last week's Zeta Minor News can be viewed here. Previous Zeta Minor News entries can viewed here. |
COMPETITION
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Australian
label Umbrella Entertainment have announced an impressive package of
extras that will feature on their forthcoming UFO - The Complete
S.H.A.D.O. File DVD box set.
Film
Score Monthly has pulled off something of a coup with one of this month's
Silver Age Classics soundtrack releases!
This
month's other FSM CD release is no slouch, either. It's Frank De Vol's
score for Robert Aldrich's 1967 WWII blockbuster The Dirty Dozen.
