It’s been over five years without new posts on DVDLog, but that doesn’t mean I have completely abandoned the site. This unplanned hiatus was basically caused by two main factors: not having enough time to write reviews and not being able to watch movies and tv series properly, causing a general lack of motivation to work on the site.

But I’m glad to say that this is going to change because some time ago I was finally able to replace my almost two and a half decades old Sony Triniton 28″ TV with a new, inexpensive 43″ High-Definition TV! Together with a new-ish computer equipped with a Blu-Ray drive and also an Amazon Fire Stick, I’m finally able to watch movies and series in an enjoyable way again. In short, I’ve had proper home cinema for quite a while now and the offline media collection has even grown by quite a few Blu-Ray discs too. Adding to that has come a triumvirate of streaming services made up out of Amazon Prime, Netflix and Disney+ so I have plenty of high-definition content to talk about.

So, what does this mean for DVDLog? It once started as a collection of mostly technical disc reviews that slowly evolved into more in-depth articles about movies and tv series – and I think this is the future of this site. I may still write the occasional complete disc review, I may also uncouple the actual reviews from the technical parts to build an archive independent from the disc reviews. There is still a huge stack of untranslated German reviews around that will also contribute to this as well as occasional shorter tv show reviews. I’m not sure if I’m going to continue the news section though, because it’s a lot of additional work – but if something really exciting catches my eye, I might post about it.

DVDLog will also be renamed very soon – I will keep the domain name for now, but since DVD as a medium is now literally over 25 years old and may not be around much longer in favour of Blu-Ray and streaming media. I’ve already picked a new name that will focus more on content than on the medium itself and I’m working on a slight redesign of the site.

There’s no timeline, though – the new site will not be a firehose spewing content every day, instead I will just post something when I feel like it. But a few new posts are already in the pipeline and the first will go up very soon! Stay tuned… 

It was no secret that Dreamworks had been looking for a prospective buyer recently, but this still came out of the blue: the studio was bought by Comcast for $3.8 Billion Dollars, making it a part of the NBCUniversal empire when the deal is finished at the end of this year. At first it was reported that Jeffrey Katzenberg might leave Dreamworks altogether, which is still sort of happening because Dreamworks Animation will be headed by Illumination’s Chris Meledandri, while Katzenberg will be head of Dreamworks New Media, a new branch of the company focused on streaming and television.

The X-Files have returned with a limited six-series run and with the second episode called Founder’s Mutation they’re really back – as in business as usual in a very good way. Mulder and Scully are in the FBI again running the good old X-Files department, meaning they are called out to all the strange cases… and that means the Monster of the Week concept is back too. This could have meant a boring, paint-by-numbers affair, but instead this episode is as classic as it gets – even more so than the first one, which now feels more like an introduction. This new season of The X-Files is currently being shown on Channel 5 in England with a three-episode delay compared to the US broadcast, but the episodes are also available on Amazon and iTunes everywhere following the American schedule – although I’m sticking with the UK TV broadcast, so the reviews are a bit delayed as well.

Fifty-three years ago, mankind had reached space for the first time when Yuri Gagarin had made his flight and since about a decade, this event has been celebrated as Yuri’s Night all over the world. I have already written another article on my other blog about the event, but for this occasion I’d also like to bring a little something together from my archives, because this year I at least have some new English-language reviews. There is nothing specifically about Yuri Gagarin, but the movies and television series are covering the early years of spaceflight very well.

Documentaries and Dramatisations:
The Right Stuff » – The Mercury program, as told by Tom Wolfe (1959-1963)
From the Earth to the Moon » – Gemini & Apollo – the way to the Moon (1963-1972)
For All Mankind » – The Apollo Program in original footage & sound (1969-1972)
The Dish » – The moon landing from an Australia perspective (1969)
Apollo 13 » – Dramatisation of the near-catastrophy (1970)
Although I have never written about it before, I can also recommend the BBC six-part miniseries Space Race, an excellent docudrama about the beginnings of spaceflight from the perspectives of the rocket designers Sergei Korolev and Wernher von Braun.

More Fiction than Science:
Space Cowboys » – Clint Eastwood, the Space Shuttle and a broken Soviet satellite. A fond spaceflight comedy from the shuttle era.

And in closing another tip: First Orbit was made for the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagrin’s flight in 2011 with footage from the ISS, recreating his flight in space with amazing visuals and original sounds. The 99-minute movie can still be viewed on Youtube for free, but it is now also available on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Today DVDLog is coming back from the summer break with a continuation of the Spaceflight Series, which I had started a few weeks back with The Dish and Space Cowboys. While these were more of a fictional kind, for today I have translated and extensively rewritten my earlier review of Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff, the seminal movie about the early days of American spaceflight. In spite of its title, the film is actually not a painfully patriotic story, but a surprisingly realistic, exciting and sometimes even funny depiction of the early space race from an American perspective. Today, the movie is already thirty years old and the DVD I reviewed in this extensive article ten years, but they are both highly recommended.

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This year is the 30th anniversary of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld – which does not really need an elaborate introduction. For this occasion, I’m going to translate my reviews of the few, but amazing animated and live-action adaptations, starting today with The Colour of Magic. This was actually the second of three live-action films produced by SkyOne and the british filmmaker group The Mob, but as the two original books, on which the two-part, three-hour mini-series is based, are the very first two Discworld stories, they are a perfect beginning. The adaptation is not completely faultless and makes some necessary changes to the original, but it retains Terry Pratchett’s very unique humour and is actually a brilliant and respectful representation of the books. The british 2-dvd-edition is quite okay apart from a very disappointing absence in the extras department.

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At this time of year, I usually try to post a review somehow related to Easter, and in 2013 I’m pulling out an old classic from the archive. I’ve written about Who Framed Roger Rabbit before, but today’s review is a translated, improved and enhanced version of the German article I had last posted four years ago. The movie is not exactly Easter material, but at least it has a kind of bunny as the title character – and it’s also very far away from the usual Disney cartoon fare. The DVD is actually ten years old this year, but it holds up very well and could have been released yesterday. This spring the movie has also been released on Blu-Ray and most of this review also corresponds to the HD version.

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It had been Johnny Depp’s childhood dream to one day play Barnabas Collins, a vampire character from a popular daytime soap opera, but it took him and his old friend Tim Burton half a lifetime to make a movie version of Dark Shadows. The result is a delightful mix of horror and drama carefully sprinkled with bits of Burton’s particular brand of macabre and sarcastic humour, making it one of the most enjoyable recent movies of the director even if the script is slightly overloaded with plots and characters. Because the movie had not been a particular financial or critical success, Warner did not make much of an effort for the home video releases. The DVD is especially disappointing, containing only one short featurette as bonus material, but this does not make Dark Shadows less amazing.

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When I had posted my collection of english-language reviews in February,I completely forgot about one very special article: the review of Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner, one of the most amazing British television series of the late 1960s. I had already reviewed a German boxset of the series back in 2006, but in 2010 I finally bought the wonderful UK boxset from Network which had been released two years previously and not only came with brilliantly restored transfers, but also an exhausting collection of bonus materials and even a whole accompanying book. This week’s article is a repost of my review from nearly three years ago – but thoroughly updated, corrected and improved. Be seeing you!

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The first exclusively english-language article on DVDLog is also one of my very few negative reviews: I’ve actually been a big fan of Blue Sky Studio’s Ice Age-Franchise up to now and I still like the first three movies, but Ice Age – Continental Drift was a big disappointment. There’s not much left of the witty and satirical humour of the predecessors and the still stunning visuals can’t hide the problem that the story and particularly the dialogue seems to be written for pre-schoolers only. It’s just another mindless computer-generated action-adventure and the old-established characters are only shadows of their former selves. While technically more than acceptable, the German DVD also suffers from the lack of good bonus materials – but even the Blu-Ray does not have an audio commentary. One of the very few instances when I wish I hadn’t bought the disc unseen.

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