The third entry in the little series for the 30th anniversary of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is the animated adaption of Soul Music, one of his most fascinating novels. The story about the evolution of music on the Discworld had been considered as completely unfilmable because of the musical requirements, but Cosgrove Hall nevertheless did the impossible and came up with not only brilliant animation and wonderful voice actors, but also a fantastic soundtrack with a lot of amazing songs. All this makes Soul Music much more than just an average animated television series besides being one of the most creative Discworld adaptations. The British DVD release is much better than the simultaneously produced Wyrd Sisters, but unfortunately it is also still out of print at the moment in England.

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Today’s review is the second in a series for the 30th anniversary of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Coming after last week’s The Colour of Magic in the order of the books, Wyrd Sisters was actually the sixth Discworld novel, but the first one to be filmed for television in 1997 by Cosgrove Hall as an animated series in close cooperation with the Author. This was not simple children’s entertainment, but a surprisingly well done adaptation of the novel, overcoming its few limitations with great voice acting and stunning sceneries, bringing the Discworld successfully to life for the first time. Unfortunately all available DVDs have a disappointing image quality and the British release reviewed in this article is even out of print, but there is still a German release with English Soundtrack available.

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About four years ago, I was really happy that Matt Groening’s other animated series Futurama had been renewed by Comedy Central after they had produced four direct-to-dvd movies. Now, after four half-seasons with together 52 episodes, Comedy Central has decided not to order any more, effectively cancelling the series again. Once again, I read this first on Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy Blog – and I can only agree with what he wrote – Futurama is not only a simple animated series, but amazing science-fiction storytelling that is completely unique in television history. This untimely cancelling is especially sad because the new episodes had become better and better and even reached the brilliant heights of the early seasons.

The remaining 13 episodes, which are already produced, will air in the USA this summer with the DVD and Blu-Ray releases following shortly before Christmas. The final episode has already been conceived as a possible ending of the series, so there will be at least some closure. Maybe Futurama will just take a break for a few years and come back on a different channel… the producers certainly haven’t given up hope and are already talking about looking for an alternative home for Futurama!

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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After an unscheduled, but much needed post-easter-break DVDLog is back this week – not with the latest and newest, but a translation of an article I had already posted last autumn in German: Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers alias Dance of the Vampires is a perfect companion for Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows and even one of its inspirations. Famously cut to pieces on its American release and only shown much later in its original version in the USA, Polanski’s little masterpiece has always been very popular in Europe and is still a great classic which delightfully refuses to be a typical vampire or horror movie. Warner’s DVD release from 2004 was unfortunately a disappointment, but even today it is the best version available and technically at least acceptable. This article, a slightly improved and expanded translation of the German version is more about the movie itself than a technical review of the DVD.

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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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I don’t have anything new this week to post, but I’ve finally made a decision: DVDLog is going to make a switch from German to English this year. It’s going to be a very gradual process, but I am going to write all new reviews in English now and there will be translations of my favourite older articles to fill some gaps when I haven’t got new material to write about. There are two reasons for the change: I want to expand my readership with the help of Google+, which has already begun to work, and writing in English has proved to be much more fun than in German. I hope that the regular readers won’t mind, probably most of you understand enough English to follow my articles.

Apart from some slight language changes in the blog template, nothing else is going to change. I still try to do a weekly update and I’m actually working on something new right now which should be ready next Monday. I’m slowly beginning to get my groove back after the winter and in April and May a few fresh DVDs should be coming in, so maybe it’s going to be a busy spring here on the website.

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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In the last few years, Brian Cox has become somewhat omnipresent on british television. The rockstar-come-physicist-come-television star had first presented six Horizon documentaries between 2005 and 2009 for the BBC with his own two full-length series Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of the Universe following in 2010 and 2011. Together with comedian Dara O Briain, he was also the co-host of three Stargazing Live events and gave a televised physics lecture at the end of 2011. David Attenborough has said that if he would need to choose a successor, it would be Brian Cox. But is the popularity of the good-looking scientist just a hype? His new five-part series Wonders of Life shows that this is most definitely not the case. Mixing physics and biology for the first time, Brian Cox once again succeeds brilliantly in bringing a sense of wonder to the television screens.