News

Doctor Who TV movie writer Matthew Jacobs has reunited with Paul McGann for a new Big Finish audio story.

To date, Paul McGann’s total screen time as the Doctor clocks in at under two hours, and the majority of that can be credited to screenwriter Matthew Jacobs, who penned the 1996 TV Movie. Though it’s perhaps not the most beloved piece of Doctor Who media, most fans now acknowledge that it’s an important bridge between the classic series and the glossy sheen and higher production values of the revived show.

The film saw Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor land in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve 1999, before promptly being gunned down outside the Tardis. He regenerates into Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor, and teams up with Doctor Grace Holloway (Daphne Ashbrook) to fight The Master, who’s taken over the body of a paramedic (Eric Roberts) and...

As reported by The Radio Times, Paul McGann, the actor who played the eighth Doctor in Doctor Who, will once again be reprising his role in a new audio drama box set produced by the iconic Big Finish Productions. The box set, titled "Deadly Strangers", will feature an array of new stories, all led by McGann's Time Lord, and will feature stories by Lisa McMullin and the pairing of Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle. The box set is already available to pre-order as a collectors edition 3-disc CD box set or as a digital download.

Cinema Retro issue #39 has now shipped worldwide. For subscribers, this is the final issue of Season 13. Please renew for Season 14 (see below) and keep supporting the world's most unique movie magazine. 

Issue #39 devotes a full 32 pages to celebrating the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film "You Only Live Twice", which starred Sean Connery as 007 and introduced Donald Pleasence as the immortal villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Why did we dedicate half of the pages in this issue to the film? Largely because of the outpouring of contributions from talented writers from around the world, not to mention esteemed names like composer David Arnold, actress Karin Dor, who played the villainous femme fatale Helga Brandt, Tsai Chin who played Bond's bedmate in the pre-credits scene, legendary lyricist Leslie Bricusse, assistant director William Cartlidge, future Oscar-winning production designer Peter Lamont and Nancy Sinatra, who recalls the nerve-wracking experience of singing the title song.

Stage and screen actor known for his roles in The Three Musketeers and Young Winston

In 1971 the actor Simon Ward, who has died after a long illness aged 70, was plucked from virtual obscurity by the director Richard Attenborough to play Winston Churchill in the film Young Winston, supported by actors of longstanding reputation including Robert Shaw, Anne Bancroft and John Mills. After the film's release a year later, Ward found himself a star on several continents. "That was a frightening role," he recalled. "You were playing someone whom everyone had very strong feelings about. As a movie, it had the most extraordinary mixture of adventure – the fighting, riding, running up and down mountains – and some wonderful dialogue scenes shot at Shepperton."

Swashbuckling and tongue-in-cheek slapstick were added to the mix when Ward, known for his aristocratic looks and high cheekbones, was cast as the Duke of Buckingham in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers...

In honor of Quentin Tarantino week here at Wamg, this column will tackle the 1968 British psycho-thriller Twisted Nerve. A music highlight of Tarantino’s first Kill Bill film in 2003 occurs during the scene when Darryl Hannah’s eye-patched Elle Driver is walking down the hospital corridors intending to dispatch Uma Thurman and she’s whistling this haunting tune that is at the same time both childlike and threatening. Curious, I read the closing credits and the strange song was identified as the theme from the movie Twisted Nerve composed by Bernard Herrmann. That title was familiar as I had its cool psychedelic U.S. one-sheet in my collection but I’d never seen the film and immediately became determined to track it down. I was able to secure a British Pal import of the film and was pleased to find Twisted Nerve an excellent, nasty little forgotten thriller about a warped young psychopath.