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AUDIOBOOK REVIEWS
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31st August 2009 EVENTS NEWS
The new CD is released on Thursday. More details can be found at the BBC Shop section dedicated to the series, here. The remaining episodes of the Hornets' Nest adventure will be released as follows: 2 - The Dead Shoes - 8th October 3 - The Circus of Doom - 5th November 4 - A Sting in the Tail - 3rd December 5 - Hive of Horror - 3rd December Doctor Who actress Mary Tamm will be signing copies of her new autobiography, First Generation, on Sunday September 20th at 1pm, at Borders, David Morgan Building, 14 The Hayes, Cardiff, CF10 1AH. Two notes from the press release: "Those wishing to attend should arrive early to avoid disappointment. Only copies of the “First Generation” will be signed". INCOMING As always, many new titles have been added to Incoming over the last week or so. Among the biggest - and most anticipated - titles added this week is a tenth anniversary Blu-ray edition of Fight Club, which has apparently been meticulously restored frame-by-frame, under David Fincher's supervision, and has some very tempting new bonus features that take advantage of Blu-ray's capabilities. We've also added various versions of Summer blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: a single-disc DVD, a two-disc special edition DVD, a three-disc Blu-ray edition (with digital copy), and Blu-ray and DVD twin packs, with the first film; and three editions of 3D CGI hit Monsters Vs Aliens: a single-disc DVD, a two-disc Ginormous Edition DVD, and a Blu-ray edition (which, as is becoming increasingly common, features many exclusive bonus features). DVD NEWS
September 2009 sees the launch of Brain Damage Films, a brand new DVD label that’s guaranteed to satisfy the bloody cravings of gorehounds and fright fans by bringing a host of new indie horror movies to DVD at a price that won’t give you nightmares - although the films themselves certainly will! The first six shockers - Death of a Ghost Hunter, Silent Bloodnight, Serum, Prey for the Beast, Secrets of the Clown and Torture Me No More - hit the shelves on 21st September at just £2.99 each and stack up as a crazed carnival of fun-filled frighteners featuring ghostly goings on, vicious serial killers, mad scientists, reanimated corpses, flesh eating beasts, creepy killer clowns and twisted, sado-masochistic freaks. All in all, Brain Damage Films provide a welcome reminder that scary movies deliver much more when you don’t take them too seriously. Death of a Ghost Hunter, Silent Bloodnight, Serum, Prey for the Beast, Secrets of the Clown and Torture Me No More (certs tbc) will be released on DVD (£2.99 each) by Brain Damage Films on 21st September 2009. 24th August 2009 FILM NEWS Quentin Tarantino fans might like to know that a forty-five minute Q&A with the director has been added to Inglourious Basterds' Facebook page. INCOMING
There are lots of other new titles, including first sightings for many summer theatrical releases. Check it out! EVENTS NEWS With Frightfest, the UK's premier horror film festival, looming, Play.com have hacked and slashed the prices of forty horror DVDs in a special promotion. You can find them here. 17th August 2009 SOUNDTRACK NEWS
Expanded versions of several Star Trek movie scores, which were more-often-than-not poorly served by the LP and CD releases at the time (Star Trek - The Motion Picture and Star Trek V - The Final Frontier, for example), leapt to the top of the wish list of many film music fans recently, following ice-breaking licensing deals made with their previously-disinterested owner, Paramount. The new disc makes the 1991 CD, from GNP Crescendo, completely redundant. The new CD features half an hour of additional music, including several terrific cues that were inexplicably left off the original disc (The Eels of Ceti Alpha V, where Chekov and Captain Terrell encounter Khan's mind-controlling eels; Enterprise Attacks Reliant, featuring the triumphant fanfare for the decisive space battle between Kirk and Khan; and Spock (Dies), the music for the scene where Spock buys the farm, for example). The new disc also features the bagpipes-and-orchestra cue for Spock's funeral, Amazing Grace. Retrograde have re-built the score from the original three-track film mixes, (finally correcting some minor, but niggling, mixing problems that mar the GNP disc). The new disc also offers two different versions of the Epilogue (which was re-recorded, following re-shoots to make the ending of the film more open-ended), one with, and one without, Leonard Nimoy's "Space. The Final Frontier..." narration, which is guaranteed to bring a lump to the throat of even the most stalwart Trekker. Although the original CD has been widely praised for being an almost perfect album, the new disc (which, in any case, is presented in such a way that the original album sequence can be replicated, if required), is a darker, richer and more satisfying experience, with many new thematic nuances (including additional quotations from Alexander Courage's TV theme), which are likely to raise a smile, or a Spock-like eyebrow. The disc's presentation is first-rate, spearheaded by a cover sporting Bob Peak's terrific poster artwork (the back of the booklet features something very similar to the old LP/CD cover, if you prefer). The twenty-eight page illustrated booklet is a miniature masterpiece, covering the making of the film (with new contributions from director Nick Meyer), and in-depth track-by-track notes, written by Jeff Bond, Lukas Kendall and Alexander Kaplan. The CD tray features two rarely-seen alternative Wrath of Khan poster designs by Bob Peak. Knowing that the new Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan disc would have wide appeal among soundtrack fans, and fans of the franchise, Retrograde wisely opted to pay a higher fee, and make the disc available to everyone. Don't expect to find a copy in your local HMV, though - it'll still mainly be available through specialist retailers, like FSM's trading partner, Screen Archives.
Cain's Hundred is an obscure - but apparently well-crafted - 1961-62 TV series, produced for M-G-M by The Man From U.N.C.L.E's Norman Felton. As was often the way, the production hired a composer to score the initial episodes, building enough music in the process to enable the show's music editor to track in existing material into the rest of the series. FSM's disc features almost every cue that Goldsmith wrote for the show (one cue was unusable), including the Main and End titles. Goldsmith scored four episodes, creating about twenty minutes of material for three episodes (Crime and Commitment, Rules of Evidence and Degrees of Guilt - the show's pilot, although it was transmitted as the fifth episode), and a further six minutes for a fourth, Markdown on a Man, which was otherwise tracked with existing cues. The disc also contains music from a further episode, Cost of Living, written by Morton Stevens. Though dark and brooding, there's a lot for the Goldsmith fan to get their teeth into here. Goldsmith was a master of crafting little gems, even when faced by limited TV budgets. His modest ensemble here nevertheless produced a big sound, with brass and French Horns often to the fore. If Goldsmith is Cain's Hundred's chief attraction, the material by Morton Stevens is no less welcome. Morton's work will be familiar to anyone who's bought FSM's great Man From U.N.C.L.E. discs (or anyone who's seen episodes of Hawaii Five-O). Morton's most important single contribution to Cain's Hundred was to revamp Goldsmith's Main Title, extending it significantly, and giving it additional oomph. Incidentally, the music on this disc comes from the same period that Goldsmith and Stevens were working on the Boris Karloff anthology series Thriller (which is sorely in need of a DVD release - and a soundtrack disc would be very welcome, too!) FSM's Cain's Hundred disc comes with an informative sixteen-page booklet, written by TV music expert Jon Burlingame. The booklet includes numerous images, which give you a good idea of what the series was like. The disc is a limited edition of three thousand copies. 12th August 2009 AUDIO BOOK NEWS Here's a look at the sleeve art for the second part of the Doctor Who - Hornets' Nest audiobook series, which features Tom Baker's return as The Doctor. The cover is by Ben Willsher, with design concepts and Hornets' Nest logo' by Anthony Dry.
It's been released to mark the launch of a dedicated Hornets' Nest section at the BBC Shop, where you'll find photo's from the recording sessions, an interview with Tom, audio clips and more. The Dead Shoes will be available to buy from 8th October 2009 with an RRP of £9.78. 10th August 2009 IMAX NEWS The IMAX cinema at the South Bank will be screening the Lord of the Rings trilogy on August the 22nd. Here's the details... Now a regular feature of the BFI IMAX programme, the next After Dark All-Nighter on Saturday 22 August at 11.59pm is the eternally popular The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (12A). Once again fans can sink back into sheer heaven - the whole night spent watching all of Peter Jackson's Oscar-winning films together; The Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers and Return of the King. Back by popular demand and showing courtesy of Entertainment Films, all three films will be shown in their original theatrical 35mm versions (NB. not IMAX or IMAX DMR); the image will fill approximately one third of the giant screen. There is one ticket price for the entire night which is £26, with £18 for concessions and £16 for students. As usual, there will be free tea and coffee and prize give-aways during the breaks between the films to help everyone stay awake. 4th August 2009 EVENTS NEWS Torchwood's Gareth David-Lloyd (who plays Ianto), will be signing copies of the latest Torchwood release from BBC Audiobooks, The Sin Eaters, at the Borders bookshop, in The Hayes, Cardiff, on August the 15th, at 1pm. DVD / BLU-RAY NEWS I've added press release details for the DVD and Blu-ray releases of JJ Abrams' science-fiction series Fringe to Incoming (among many other titles!) Last month's Zeta Minor News can be viewed here. Previous Zeta Minor News entries can viewed here. |
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Tom
Baker will be signing copies of BBC Audio's especially-commissioned
Doctor Who audio adventure, Hornets' Nest - The Stuff of Nightmares,
at HMV's Oxford Street store on Friday (the 4th of September), starting at
1pm (you need to collect a wristband at the store on the day of the
signing to get in - first come, first served, and numbers are limited!)
Here's
a bit of a stop-press addition to today's update... a press release for a
new budget horror DVD label, Brain Damage Films:
Recent
additions to the Incoming database of forthcoming releases include
the
