….or afternoon for you late sleepers on the other side of the world. I thought I’d treat you right with a nice bit of music.
This is Mike Patton of Faith No More and Phantomas fame and the Netherlands Metropole Orchestra covering one of Ennio Morricone’s first tries with pop music, Deep, Deep Down.
I know what you’re saying. “Royal!! What does this even have to do with Geekdom!?” Get yourself a nice cup of tea and I’ll tell you.
Deep Deep Down was the main theme to, in my opinion, one of the greatest comic book movies in history, Danger: Diabolik. Based off the Italian romance (yes, romance) comic, it stared the great John Phillip Law as the title character and was one of the best films Mario Bava has made. Also on the team was producer Dino De Laurentis, who would later on go on to produce such films as Flash Gordon, both Conan films, Army of Darkness and many other features. As I said earlier The score and some of the compositions Morricone did for this movie was his first foray into pop music and does create several catchy tunes. On top of all this, Diabolik is the first film to be considered faithful to it’s source material by many of my peers in the “grindhouse” genre and the most faithful comic book film of the 20th Century.
Here’s an English version of the piece
By the way, Mike Patton also covers a few more Morricone comps as well as stuff from Riz Ortolanni, Giovanni Fusco and other noted Italian film composers in his Mondo Cane tour in Europe last year. Keep an eye out for the album coming out next year.
The Rondos, an award that recognizes achievements in the Horror and Fantasy community. They not only hand out these awards to best movie, book, TV show, etc., but they also recognize the achievements in dvd restoration and archiving of the history of the fantastic.
The award and it’s likeness is named after Rondo Hatton. He was a handsome actor who was struck with Acromegaly, an illness that distorts limbs and facial features. He later did roles in horror films and serials.
The Rondos is an open ballot award. Anyone can vote. Just hit their website at http://www.rondoaward.com/ , copy the ballot to an email, fill it out and send it to taraco@aol.com .
Now I love my movie soundtracks and I especially love a good James Bond theme song. In the past we’ve had such classics as Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let die, OHMSS, License to Kill. The new theme song Another Way to Die by Alicia Keys and Jack White isn’t one these classics. To me it seemed a bit jumbled and it just didn’t have that James Bond feel for me. Some of the lyrics are cool but overall it definitely left me feeling less than shaken and stirred (come on I had to get in at least one cheesy Bond joke).
This felt more like Madonna’s attempt where you get a big name in who doesn’t really get that the Bond theme song is almost as big as the movie.
I’m sure loads of people will love it as a song in it’s own right but for me that was the problem; it was too much of a song in it’s own right when I wanted a James Bond Theme song. I’m interested to see how well this goes with the opening credit. I started out hating Chris Cornell’s “You know my name” and then finding it worked really well with the opening credits.
Having posted the news about this, I thought it only fair I forced myself to listen to it and let you know my thoughts! (It’s online for five more days!)
What’s it about?
Here’s the official blurb:
Torchwood go to Geneva where Martha Jones, ex-time traveller, is now working as a doctor for a UNIT task force at the world’s biggest physics laboratory, CERN. Deep in an underground tunnel, a giant particle accelerator is about to be activated for the first time. But something strange is happening. Scientists are hearing voices and collapsing with a strange illness. Is something lurking in the underground tunnel? Do the dead ever really stay dead?
Review it:
The episode was written by a certain Joseph Lidster who has a good history of Doctor Who related writing, from Big Finish Audios to short stories as well as being the scripter of several Sarah Jane Adventures episodes and the Torchwood episode “A Day in the Death“. This experience shines through as the writing is solid Torchwood stuff. Not incredibly deep, but then I don’t expect depth from Torchwood. The script provides a solid core and I couldn’t find any obvious “wait a minute” loopholes in the plot or (pseudo) science.
My only main problem is that UNIT are in charge of security but they don’t realise anything is wrong. Martha Jones calls in Torchwood who obviously have no jurisdiction but may well save the day. This of course is forgivable. This is a Torchwood story after all, not UNIT! I just wish someone would give UNIT a chance to make a difference. Grr.
The cast perform their roles on audio superbly. I imagine acting on audio to be extremely different from TV acting and the cast all manage to get their characters over perfectly. Ianto in particular getting a good quota of quips which are well delivered.
Sound design is also superb, with the Torchwood theme used throughout to denote scene changes which works really well in my mind. Background effects are unobtrusive and the instances of voice treatment don’t grate at all.
Rate it: 4 / 5. Not quite what I was expecting but a really nice 45 minutes of Torchwood fun. Get it while you can (5 days remaining!)
