First an apology – I had plans for some new reviews, but I just don’t have the time to sit down and write at the moment, so I’ll have to postpone that a little bit. But I assure you that I have something cooking with some discs lying around which really desperately need to be written about, and I’m going to do it sooner or later. Instead, I can only urge you to wander over to DVD Savant, where Glenn Erickson is always writing up a storm with two sets of reviews each week – I don’t know how he does it! But meanwhile a quick little news update, because I really want to keep up with what’s going on: Dreamworks’ two 2014 movies are coming to home video in the very near future, but first there’s a surprising announcement about one of my favourite musicals (plus another update from Criterion!)… 

Before I write anything else, I have some unfinished business with a certain master detective – this is the final part of my Quest for Sherlock Holmes and round two of Holmes vs. Holmes! Which Sherlock is the best? There were two great television adaptations of The Hound of the Baskervilles in the 1980s, one with Ian Richardson and the other with Jeremy Brett. In today’s double-header of reviews, which are based on earlier German-language articles, I have looked at both movies in detail and found some surprising differences. Both have their advantages and disadvantages and I tried to be neutral in the reviews, but my favourite version is, of course, the one with Jeremy Brett. Maybe there’s a bit of that coming through in the articles, which are less about the DVDs than about the movies themselves.

Continue to The Hounds of the Baskervilles (Ian Richardson) »
Continue to The Hounds of the Baskervilles (Jeremy Brett) »

Note that this will probably be the last of my Sherlock Holmes reviews – there are three other movies from the Granada series, but I have already written about them a little in the review of the third boxset and since they are the least successful parts of the series, I will skip them for now.

The sad news keep coming… the British actor and filmmaker Richard Attenborough passed away yesterday. The older brother of David Attenborough was 90 years old and his work both in front and behind of the camera was so vast that I won’t even begin to describe here it when the Guardian’s obituary and their film clip collection does it so well. He was one of the great ones of the British film industry, but at the same time a really humble man with many charity projects who never wanted to be just a movie star.

Richard Attenborough popping a champagne bottle in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park in 1993.

After some extensive slacking off, I decided to write more news articles and re-open the DVD News Index, now with three date columns for US, UK and German releases. To make things easier, I’m not only going to include the discs I intend to buy myself, but also some others as well, regardless in which format they come. The DVDLog “headquarters” are still standard-definition only and probably still will be for some time, but that doesn’t have to mean that I can’t give a few recommendations. I’m also going to muck out the Wanted List and add some new entries with movies which really need a transfer upgrade. I can’t promise that I will be able to keep this up, but I’ll try to read the usual suspects of websites more often and do at least one news update every month or so, depending on how much interesting news there is to share. But now finally for some news…  

More sad news from Hollywood – Lauren Bacall has died at the grand age of 89. While she will be mostly remembered by her professional and private partnership with Humphrey Bogart, she had a very distinguished film career in her later life and was even active until shortly before she passed away. She was an actress with attitude and never held back when it came to voice her opinions. Read the Guardian Obituary all the way to the end for a lovely anecdote about her feelings for the modern film industry.

Lauren Bacall presenting the murder weapon in Sidney Lumet’s Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.

Yesterday, the incredibly sad news that Robin Williams had died made the rounds. He apparently took his own life in a battle against depression, but this is not a time to talk about his death, but about how much joy and laughter he created. He was such a brilliant comedian, but also a very serious character actor, although he will mostly be remembered for his completely out-of-the-world improvisation skills. As a guest on television shows, he regularly had his hosts in stitches like in this 2002 interview with Michael Parkinson and his regular and almost anarchic visits to the Daily Show had similar effects on Jon Stewart. I could go on and on, but The Guardian has a wonderful obituary with a few additional articles about him very much worth reading. Robin Williams was one in a million, there will never be anyone like him again!

Robin Williams letting it rip in Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Münchhausen

It was just one year ago when the first glimpse of the new incarnation of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, now called Cosmos – A Spacetime Odyssey was revealed to the public – now, the series has not only been completed, but also broadcast and released on home video. Initially, I was not even sure if I could afford the DVD set, but then the price finally dropped and I was not able to resist importing the Region 1 release. The series is every bit as amazing as its predecessor and Neil deGrasse Tyson was a brilliant choice for the new host walking in the footsteps of the late Carl Sagan. Even the involvement of Fox has not hurt the series and the studio has also put together a solid home video release containing not only the complete episodes, but also some very worthwhile extras. Today’s article is first and foremost a long, in-depth review of the series itself, but I also have the usual look at the excellent DVD release itself.

Continue to Review »

In between writing something new, I finally did what I should have done a long time ago: to prepare a new Review Index with only the English-language articles in it. I replaced the older index, which I had not updated for over a year, with it, but still left a link to the original. This is just a quick fix to end the chaos of the old index, but in the future there will be three lists: the master index with the English reviews, a legacy list of the German reviews and a third index of all the DVDs in my collection, the latter two for requesting purposes. At the moment, there are “only” 44 reviews in the new main index, but I hope to write slowly, but steadily more. If anyone has requests for unreviewed discs or untranslated reviews, I’d like to hear them! You can always contact me here in the comments, via Email or over on Google+, Twitter or Facebook.

So, in lieu of any actually new reviews, please accept this index as proof that DVDLog isn’t dead yet! Two brand-new reviews are in the making, but judging from the extremely warm weather coming in the next days, they are still going to take a while – one of the discs hasn’t even arrived here yet!

Continue to Index »

Originally intended as a direct followup to last month’s Towel Day posting about the original television series, it’s better late than never with today’s article about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in its 2005 cinema incarnation. Completed four years after Douglas Adams had passed away, it was still very much a creation of its original author with a passionate crew of filmmakers and actors brilliantly succeeding in making not only a movie, but also a loving memorial. Sadly, the quirky humour and its utter Britishness failed to impress many viewers unfamiliar to Douglas Adams’ work and while the movie managed to financially break even, its success was so minimal that a sequel was never made – but it stands well enough on its own. Today’s review tells the story how the movie came about in a translated, expanded and improved version of an earlier German article.

Continue to Review »

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, I finally managed to translate and improve 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 twelve 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 article.

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