30th August 2007

DVD NEWS

Full details of 4 DVD's Man To Man With Dean Learner disc, which is released next week, are now available.

The two-disc set will feature all six episodes of the series, with extensive bonus material.

Episode-by-episode, the bonus features are...

Garth Marenghi - War of the Wasps with stereo full music mix; War of the Wasps with 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound mix; War of the Wasps storyboards; trailer

Steve Pising - Super-8 footage of Dean and Steve on racetrack; Extended Pising in the Driving Seat; Pising press conference; additional footage from The Learner; trailer

Glynn Nimron - Unseen footage of Glynn at the sci-fi convention; deleted 'Bot' scene with audio commentary

Merriman Weir - Unseen clip from Gallows Man video; Gallows Man live; Pilot episode; footage of Merriman backstage; trailers

Amir Chanan - Clip from Deano’s 'After Dark’ party; extended version of Bathtime with Amir; trailers

Randolph Caer - Bitch Killer! clip; alternate Inside Face interview; Full Crab Ball meeting; extended version of Bros Roads; Dean ‘Talking Crabs’; trailer.

RRP for the set is £19.99. The set will also be available as a box set with Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, which has an RRP of £29.99.

Universal Pictures will release a DVD box set featuring seven key fifties SF movies on October the 1st.

 The Classic Sci-Fi set features: The Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man, This Island Earth, Tarantula, The Thing From Another World, It Came From Outer Space, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

No technical details were announced.

The set features a great selection, certainly - and, at £29.99, it's very attractively priced - but genre fans will no doubt be disappointed, because most of the films are already available. Frustratingly, there's still no sign of the much rarer Universal SF movies released in the two difficult-to-get Best Buy-exclusive box sets released in the US (which include gems like The Mole Monsters, Dr Cyclops, The Monolith Monsters, and The Deadly Mantis).

CULT TV

Ian Beard has very kindly sent me a episode guide for Granada TV's Crown Court, which you can download here, as a Word document. It's a terrific check-list for anyone who's been watching the series on Legal TV, and it clears up a lot of the confusion caused by various regional opt-outs, and weeks where no TV Times was published. If you have any comments or corrections, I'd be happy to pass them on.

28th August 2007

DVD NEWS

Oops! I made a bit of a rookie mistake calculating the aspect ratio of Blue Underground's new Stendhal Syndrome disc in yesterday's News entry, below (I forgot the disc was NTSC, not PAL). The correct aspect ratio is 1.67:1. The screen grabs here have been corrected (the menu screens haven't!)

27th August 2007

ZETA MINOR NEWS

Ceri Laing has reviewed the recently-released BBC Audiobooks set of The Navy Lark - Series 4 - Volume 1. You can find his review by clicking on the sleeve image, left, or here. Thanks, Ceri!

The Incoming database continues to be updated regularly. Please visit it, and please use the affiliated links to order your DVDs. Every sale helps support this website!

DVD NEWS

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release 28 Days Later on DVD on September the 10th.

The film is presented in anamorphic 1.85:1 format, with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio (at 448kbps). The disc also features an descriptive audio 5.1 track, and English HoH subtitles.

Bonus features are a commentary track, by Director / Co-writer Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and Producer / Co-writer Enrique Lopez Lavigne; two deleted scenes with optional commentary (5m); Code Red: Making of 28 Weeks Later (13m); four featurettes (The Infected, 7m, Getting Into The Action, 7m, 28 Days Later: The Aftermath: Stage 1 "Development", 8m and 28 Days Later: The Aftermath: Stage 3 "Decimation"); and a theatrical trailer.

The RRP is £19.99. Menu screens from the disc can be found here.

Full details of Twentieth Century Fox's release of Danny Boyle's Sunshine are now available (the disc is released today!)

The film is presented in anamorphic 2.35:1 format, with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio (at 448kbps). There's also an descriptive audio 5.1 track. There are English HoH subtitles.

Bonus features include two commentary tracks: one by Danny Boyle, the other by Doctor Brian Cox, from the University of Manchester.

Bonus features include eight deleted scenes (with optional commentary, 19m); Web Production Diaries (47m); two short films (Dad's Dead, directed by Chris Shepherd (7m) and Mole Hills, directed by Dan Arnold (6m); and two trailers.

The disc also features adverts for 24 and Prison Break, trailers for Pathfinder, 28 Weeks Later and Day Watch; and an advert for Maltesers, which features The IT Crowd's Katherine Parkinson.

RRP for the disc is £19.99. HMV has a version with an exclusive sleeve. Menu screens for the disc can be found here.

I have some information for anyone wondering about Fremantle's forthcoming DVD release of the 1997 sketch show We Know Where You Live (which featured a host of rising stars, including Simon Pegg, Sanjeev Bhasker OBE, Amanda Holden and Fiona Allen).

The DVD, titled We Know Where You Live Remix, seems to features seven episodes of the show complete with opening and closing titles. The episodes run for a total of 166m. I assume from the title that some editing has taken place (possibly to avoid music right clearance complications).

Menu screens for Optimum's The Mind Benders DVD can be found here.

I've seen a copy of Blue Underground's two-disc Special Edition of Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome, and can confirm some details for the set, which is due on sale in the US on September the 25th.

The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen format, windowboxed to about 1.67:1, re-mastered from the original Italian 35mm interpositive, under the supervision of cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno.

There's a wide choice of audio tracks: English Dolby Digital Surround 5.1EX (at 448kbps), or DTS 6.1 (at 768kbps), or Dolby Digital 2.0 (at 192kbps). Two Italian language tracks are offered: a Dolby Surround 5.1 EX version (448kbps), and a 2.0 version (192kbps).

Bonus features are interviews with... Director: Dario Argento (20m); Inspiration: Psychological Consultant Grazeilla Magherini (23m); Special Effects: Sergio Stivaletti (16m); Assistant Director: Luigi Cozzi (22m); and Production Designer: Massimo Antonello Geleng (23m). The disc also features a theatrical trailer.

List price for the disc is $29.99. Menu screens and a couple of example screen grabs from this release can be found here.

Universal Pictures will release the original 1955 Invasion of the Body Snatchers on DVD on October the 1st, to co-incide with the theatrical release of the latest remake, which stars Nicole Kidman.

RRP for the disc is £9.99. No technical details were announced. Since this film has a virtually unique framing specification, I can only imagine the number of ways that Universal might screw this one up! Here's the groovy sleeve art...

Acorn Media will release the BBC's eight-part 1971 adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans on DVD on September the 10th.

The adaptation, widely agreed to be one of the most faithful versions of James Fenimore Cooper's novel, is also notable for the presence of a very high number of contemporaneous Doctor Who cast and crew members (including stars Philip Madoc, Kenneth Ives, Patricia Maynard, and John Abineri, who received an Emmy nomination for his role). The series was directed by Doctor Who veteran David Maloney, and featured music by Dudley Simpson.

RRP for the two-disc set is £19.99. Here's Acorn's sleeve art (which is completely different to the US version, from Koch Vision).

Last week's Zeta Minor News can be viewed here.

Previous Zeta Minor News entries can viewed here.