Two years ago, I put together a review series for the 30th anniversary of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, but I never quite finished it. Although I had covered all of the animated series and the television movies, I never got around to write about the Discworld Adventure Games, which are a part of this unique universe too. It was the first game released in 1995 and simply called Discworld that brought me to Pratchett’s books in the first place, so maybe I have a bit of a soft spot for it, but it is still one of the best adventures of its time. While it has its flaws, the hand-drawn graphics and the brilliant voice acting with none other than Eric Idle in the lead role make this practically another Discworld animated movie. Head over to my other blog to read the complete game review – the first one I’ve written for a long time!

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It’s that time of year again… the most amazing British television quiz show QI returns this Friday, October 16 at 22:00 BST / 23:00 CEST on BBC2 with the episodes of series M recorded earlier this summer. As usual, the 45-minute XL versions will air on Saturday around 21:00 BST, which is unfortunately slightly overlapping with the Doctor Who broadcasts on BBC1! There is already a preliminary episode list with all the guests on Wikipedia and it looks like it will be a lot of fun.

There are also some very sad and at the same time very good news: today the BBC revealed that Stephen Fry will step down as the quizmaster of QI after series M with thirteen years and 180 episodes under his belt. The good news is that his old friend and frequent QI guest Sandy Toksvig will take over in his place beginning next year, which – at least in my opinion – could not be a better choice. Stephen Fry will be missed, but QI will go on with a new, but familiar presenter and producer John Lloyd plus the QI Elves in the background. Meanwhile, there are still sixteen unaired episodes with Stephen Fry to watch this fall and winter!

I’m almost a year too late with this review, but I’ve had such a lot of fun with this movie that I decided to write a review anyway. It’s absolutely classic Dreamworks Animation material – The Penguins of Madagascar may not be the pinnacle of moviemaking, but it’s simply great and clever entertainment with the special twist the studio has become famous for. It also marks the end of an era as the last production of the original PDI studio, where it all began in the mid-1990s. With a fast and quirky script, a bunch of fantastic characters with a wonderful voice cast all brought to life by the brilliant animators, this movie hits all the right notes and while it was not enough to save the venerable PDI part of Dreamworks, it still remains one of their best movies. The DVD is, unfortunately, slightly disappointing with the now common lack of extras, but the technical quality is absolutely impeccable. This article is, like most of my recent ones, more focused on the fim than on the disc itself, so it’s more of a movie review.

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I had mentioned this a long time ago, but the planned release of My Fair Lady in its newly restored version had been delayed for unknown reasons. More than a year later, a new release date has been announced – now it’s finally coming out on October 27, although in the US only for now. Everything has been sort of hush-hush and not even Robert A. Harris, who has been working on both the 1994 and 2015 restorations, was able to comment much about the work on the movie – until now. A couple of days ago, the Home Theater Forum had scored an amazing interview with him, which has a lot of details about the earlier and current restorations of the movie and the huge differences between them. While digtal restoration technology was still in its infancy twenty years ago, this time it was possible to scan and restore the movie completely in the digital realm in resolutions that finally do the large-format 65mm source justice.

There are not much details about the single, combined Blu-Ray/DVD release – only that it will be a set with two Blu-Rays and one DVD. The second Blu-Ray reportedly will contain 90 Minutes of ‘never before seen’ archive material, but it does not look like this will be available on DVD. Keeping the old 2-disc special edition will be a good because most of the old extras including the documentary seem to have been jettisoned too – but the new release will be worth it alone for the new video and audio restoration. I’m still not sure if and when I will be getting this new release, but should it make the way into my collection, I will give it a full review.

The sheep are on the loose, but they’re on a mission – to get their farmer back home! Aardman Animations has done the impossible with successfully bringing Shaun the Sheep from the small to the big screen in the most amazing way possible. Simply called Shaun the Sheep Movie, it’s an instant Aardman classic every bit as good as their previous movies with just a few tiny faults. The concept of the original series was brilliantly expanded into a longer story and is not just a collection of the short episodes from the original series. Made possible by Studio Canal and an European film investor group, this is also Aardman’s first cinema adventure completely separate from anything Hollywood and it’s refreshing to see what they can accomplish independently. The DVD release is practically identical with the simultaneously released Blu-Ray and although low on extras (it’s the first Aardman movie without a commentary track), the presentation itself is absolutely first rate.

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For the anniversary of Orson Welles’ 100th birthday, Studio Canal has pulled something special out of the magic hat – a new restoration of The Third Man, this time in 4K made from a fine-grain positive copy of the original negative, done by Deluxe Digital in England. The new restoration has reportedly already been shown at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released in cinemas in both the UK and US on June 26 and “this summer” also here in Germany – but more importantly, new DVD and Blu-Ray editions are already coming on July 20th in the UK and on June 16th in Germany.

A 2-Disc DVD set contains the movie with the same great extras including an audio commentary and the Shadowing the Third Man documentary as the earlier StudioCanal editions, the Single Blu-Ray contains the same extras and there is also a slightly expensive Limited Edition Blu-Ray/DVD-Combo with the three separately available discs plus a soundtrack CD and some print material. The German editions seem to be identical, but only the 2-Disc-Set and the Blu-Ray are being released by StudioCanal’s Arthaus label. The prices are actually quite decent especially in Germany and if you haven’t bought the movie recently, this set is really recommended and is also a good replacement for the unfortunately out-of-print Criterion edition from a few years ago.

[Update & Warning 15.7: I received the German DVD edition today and it’s worthless because the 1.33:1 image has been encoded in 16:9 with thick black bars at the sides, making it virtually unwatchable on 4:3 displays and wasting almost half the resolution of the DVD! DO NOT BUY THE DVD EDITION OF THIS DISC – the authoring is messed up either on purpose or by accident. It’s also false packaging, because the rear cover says “1.33:1 (4:3 Full Screen)”! This concerns all European editions of the DVD, since the disc has English, French and German menus. Highly disappointing of Studio Canal! I’m trying to contact the German and English offices with a complaint, but I have no great hopes that this will properly be re-authored. Unfortunately I will not be reviewing this disc now in this shape.]

It’s been a while since the last review, but here’s the continuation of the review series about that other thing Matt Groening once did: Futurama! This article is not only a review of the DVDs, but mainly an in-depth piece about Futurama Season Two, when the series became even better than the already amazing first season and hit its stride that would almost constantly continue for a long time. There are only few slightly weak episodes and some of the biggest classics of the series with lots of new character development, introductions and plenty of crazy stories. Even those early episodes hold up very well and it’s almost unbelievable that they are already over one and a half decades old. The DVDs suffer a little under the somewhat less than optimal image quality, but make more than up for it with great extras including the enormously entertaining audio commentaries on each episode.

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Note: As I wrote in the previous review, the next reviews are going to follow when they’re ready. That means not necessarily in weekly installments – but they’re coming! I’m just taking things slow – stay tuned!

Today is Towel Day, the annual rememberance of Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in its multiple incarnations. Because I certainly know where my towel is, last year I translated and improved my original article about the original 1981 television series, which was based not on the books, but actually on the radio series. It might be corny and low-budget over thirty years later, but next to the radio play and the 2005 movie, it remains simply the best and most original incarnation of Douglas Adams’ story until today. Watch the earth get blown up with Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect making a narrow escape! Vogon poetry reading! Space battles! Two-headed presidents on the run from the law! Listen to Marvin, the depressed robot argue with a smug talking door! All lovingly restored with many interesting extras on DVD from the BBC and even though the release is already over a decade years old, it’s still the best way to watch the series. Read all about the beginnings of the Hitchhiker’s Guide and the creation of the radio play and television series in today’s articles – and also about the quite different, but still amazing 2005 movie incarnation, whose review is now finally translated together with the original!

Continue to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy [1981] Review »
Continue to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy [2005] Review »
Bonus Youtube Link: Douglas Adams on the South Bank Show »
Bonus Youtube Douglas Adams Playlist » from the Towel Day posting on my main blog.

Somehow this completely slipped by me this weekend – the amazing british science-fiction comedy Red Dwarf is going to return for not one, but two series in 2016 and 2017! The announcement came on Saturday at the Dimension Jump convention and had also been heavily hinted at by series’ co-creator and current show runner Doug Naylor on his Twitter stream, which I didn’t even notice because I had no idea he even was on Twitter. Not much is known about the new two series, especially the number of episodes, but the return of the original cast and shooting in front of a live audience has been mentioned. Given the enormeous success of Red Dwarf X back in 2012 they will probably go back to a very similar and classic format.

The series will be again produced by UKTV and will be aired on Dave like the Back to Earth special and Series 10 – the BBC apparently does not want to be involved anymore with their former hit show. This unfortunately means we won’t be able to see it officially in Germany until the DVDs and Blu-Rays are released because the channel does not broadcast on the Freesat platform. Nevertheless, this is absoultely fantastic news and the lead up to the first new Red Dwarf episodes since 2012 will be very exciting!

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. This post is the same as last year and 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 there are now quite a few 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 four-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. The series is available on DVD, but can also be found on Youtube.

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.