As a huge fan of all things clay from Bristol, I have written about nearly everything coming from Aardman Animation – with one exception: somehow I never got around to write about a certain flock of animals. This is going to change now, because today’s review, the first completely fresh one in months, is the first series of Shaun the Sheep! The spin-off from Wallace & Gromit has only been around since six years, but Shaun has already become almost almost as popular as every other Aardman star and in spite of its target audience, the series is not just interesting for children. Because it’s a bit difficult to watch the series on television, there’s only one option: getting the DVDs, which, at least in the case of the british releases, are highly recommended and not expensive at all.

Continue to Review »

After reviewing The Dish recently, I actually wanted to start a series of space-themed reviews, but this got a bit derailed because I should have posted the predecessor The Castle first. But today, the series literally gets of the ground with Clint Eastwood’s Space Cowboys, one of the most enjoyable and unusual spaceflight movies ever made. Far from being just a simple geriatrics in space comedy, it’s actually a surprisingly good homage to the now long-gone era of the Space Shuttle with an amazing cast, a well-written script and breathtaking special-effects. Most of all, the movie is just plain fun, but far from dumb popcorn entertainment. Warner’s DVD is now over a decade old, but still nearly perfect – I reviewed this in German before, but as usual this English translation is a partly rewritten and expanded version.

Continue to Review »

After recently posting the newly renovated and translated article about The Dish, there is only one possible follow-up: Working Dog’s previous movie and cinema debut The Castle. This jewel of a film about the fight of an ordinary Australian family for their home was a huge hit in its home country, but it is relatively unknown in the rest of the world. With its likable cast of characters and a well-written script, the ultra-low budget does not matter at all, making The Castle a perfect little movie of its very own genre – it’s neither a complete comedy or a full drama, but very funny and thoughtful nevertheless. While I have only the older Region 1 DVD with the slightly modified American version in my archives, today’s post is more an article about the film itself than about the DVD. This review is again based on an older German version, but it’s a substantially expanded rewrite and not only a straight translation.

Continue to Review »
View Trailer on Youtube »

I usually don’t post many videos here, but this one is an exception: John Hess from the amazing website Filmmaker IQ talks the viewer through the History of Aspect Ratios from the beginning to end. It’s actually the first of a two-part course called Everything you need to know about Aspect Ratios, the second video is called Composition Techniques for Widescreen Aspect Ratios. This ties in wonderfully to the Film Format Guide and should be required viewing for everyone interested in how movies are made.

I’ve often written about Time Team here, so this is the right place for the incredibly sad news that archaeologist Mick Aston, one of the founders of the series, had died yesterday unexpectedly. He was a true original and the real heart of Time Team, not only with his vast archaeological knowledge, but also his unique enthusiasm for his profession and, of course, his trademark appearance with his colourful striped jumpers. But Mick Aston was much more than the funny-looking professor – he was a great communicator who wanted to tell the world that archaeology and history does not have to be stuffy and boring – and in this he has really succeeded. Time Team is his greatest legacy for which he will never be forgotten.

The Guardian has a short article, tributes and condolences are flowing in on the Time Team Facebook page and his colleague and friend Francis Pryor has also written a short tribute.

Also yesterday came the equally sad news that science-fiction author Richard Matheson has died – he was one of the really great minds next to Isaac Asimov, Richard Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.

It has been very slow going here on DVDLog because of the hot weather and I haven’t managed to write anything new yet. But why not write about someone else’s work for a change? There is somebody who I would really like to introduce properly, because he has been so generous to mention me on his site very often: Glenn Erickson, better known as DVD Savant, who is not only a world-class movie, dvd and blu-ray reviewer, but also a film editor with an amazing history.

Glenn has been writing on the web for now more than fifteen years, starting as the MGM Video Savant before becoming DVD Savant first at the now unfortunately vanised DVD Resources and later moving to DVDTalk – and he also writes for Turner Classic Movies. His output rate is amazing, he usually updates twice a week with three reviews each, and every of his words is worth reading. Glenn specializes in classic movies with a penchant for the obscure and virtually unknown, but sometimes also writes about current releases. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge about film classics and his articles often contain exhaustive original research, making them much more than simple reviews. They are always fascinating and interesting to read, even if you know nothing about the movie in the first place, because this is Glenn Erickson’s goal: to get his readers interested in the movies he cares about.

Glenn Erickson has also published two books with his reviews: the first, simply titled DVD Savant in 2004, followed by Sci-Fi Savant in 2011 – which, I must unfortunately admit, have still not bought yet for budget reasons. But all his reviews, hundreds of them, are archived on his website and I can only urge you to go over there and dive into Glenn’s brilliant world of film history. He is a huge inspiration for me and one of the reasons I still keep on writing – so, thank you, Glenn, for letting us take part in your continuing adventures in the land of movie history!

The flight of Apollo 11 to the moon is one of the best-documented events in human history, but some stories revolving around it are less known. The four Australian filmmakers Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro, Jane Kennedy, and Tom Gleisner, better known as the Working Dog team, had set out to tell one of them: the involvement of a radio telescope in a small Australian town in the moonwalk. The Dish is one of the most astonishing movies about the Apollo 11 mission, telling the story from a completely unique perspective. Wonderful actors, a compelling and funny script, beautiful cinematography and great music make it a truly amazing movie. My article about the movie and the equally fantastic DVD  is based on several older German-language reviews, but it’s actually a thorough re-write with much new information and not only a simple translation.

This review is dedicated to two very special people: the Australian singer and songwriter Meri Amber, who has exactly the same wonderful humor as the filmmakers, and the American astronomer Nicole Gugliucci, who has a deep affection for radio telescopes of all kinds.

Continue to Review »

The fifth and final review in the series celebrating the 30th anniversary of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is Going Postal, the latest live-action adaptation made by the british filmmakers of The Mob in 2010 after Hogfather and The Colour of Magic. This time, the script did not follow the book too closely and there were some questionable changes to the original story, but the movie made it up with an inspired casting, brilliant visuals and a perfect atmosphere matching Terry Pratchett’s unique universe perfectly. As a slightly alternative re-telling the movie is brilliant and fortunately the equally great DVD and Blu-Ray releases came only three months after the broadcast premiere.

This is the last Discworld article here on DVDLog for now, but I’m going to write something about the three adventure games soon over on my other blog. Also, sorry for the delay – I’m trying to do weekly updates, but occasionally time just seems to run away!

Continue to Review »

The fourth entry in the little series celebrating the 30th anniversary of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is admittedly not a good choice for the season, but Hogfather is next in the order of adapted books. The two-part, three hour television movie was actually the first live-action ever of a Discworld novel – after a long search, Terry Pratchett had finally found the right kind of filmmakers to bring his ideas to life in 2006. Hogfather was more or less a test balloon, but with a carefully written script, an inspired casting and brilliant design, this film really nailed it and opened up the door for more great live-action Discworld adaptations. The british DVD release came from Fox since the movie was a SkyOne production, but the studio really made a good effort and put together the great special features this movie deserved.

Continue to Review »

Today, instead of a new review, I want to rant a little about a trailer that surfaced this weekend. Apparently there’s a movie called Gravity from Alfonso Cuarón being released this Autumn and the trailer, actually more a teaser, first promises to be about the experiences of two astronauts on some unidentified Space Shuttle mission. But then all hell breaks loose, the shuttle and the space station seem to be destroyed and the two astronauts, played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, are marooned in space. This is all that’s known about the movie at the moment, but even based on this, my first reaction was: why does it always have to be destruction? So many great stories could be told on the ISS and generally in the realms of current human space exploration, but Hollywood has always got to be negative and serious.