Almost exactly one year ago I had announced that DVDLog will be slowly transitioning completely into an English-language site and since then I have been writing exclusively in English. But the website template and the pages were still in German, something which I finally managed to fix yesterday – and it wasn’t as easy as it looks! Everything except all the old reviews, the review index and the caselist is now translated. The last two are going to need some more work, especially the unmanagable behemoth of the review index, which I still need to split up into German and English reviews and remove all the dead links and older reviews. I will keep a backup of the original list around, though.

I also moved everything over to the DVDLog domain, meaning that there will be no more linking over to Bibra-Online.de for the reviews and some other pages. This is only for new articles, because I don’t want to try a risky search and replace in the blog database – the old files are still on the server for “backwards compatibility”, but new ones will only be uploaded to the DVDLog domain to keep everything under one roof.

Now I just need to go back into writing mode, but don’t forget that I’m running this website alone, so I might not get back into the one-review-a-week rhtyhm very soon. I also still write on my old website at Bibra-Online.de and post photos on my Photography Blog, which is actually the most active of the bunch at the moment. You can also circle me on Google+ or follow me on Facebook and Twitter for all my website activities and the RSS feed of this webseite also works!

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.

Continue to Review »

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.

Continue to Review »

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.

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.

Continue to Review »

Because I haven’t got anything new ready this week and there are so many English-speaking people in my circles over at Google+, I’m going to try an experiment and repost the few reviews which I have already translated into English. I’ve been writing about DVDs, movies and tv-series for more than ten years now, but my articles are usually in German. If there’s at least some interest in my English-language reviews, I could translate more of them or switch languages altogether in the future. My reviews are always of specific DVDs, but they are also articles which are not primarily criticism, but rather reports with lots of background information to get readers interested in great movies and television.

First, there are a couple of movie reviews: Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece Metropolis in its restored 2010 incarnation, the wonderful 1974 adaption of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express with Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot, and a trio of articles about Jacques Tati’s first three movies, Jour de Fête, Les Vacances de M. Hulot and Mon Oncle.

There are also two very different television reviews: everybody at least in the USA might be familiar with the one and only spy-sitcom Get Smart, but the classic German science-fiction-show Raumpatrouille Orion is virtually unknown in English-speaking countries – but unfortunately equally hard to view.

And there is also the very popular Film Format Guide, a detailed article about most major film processes both historic and modern, complete with recreated example graphics of film strips, technical data and much more information.

If you are a “movie connoisseur” like me and interested in more articles about classic and current movies on DVD, I would appreciate a +1 on Google+ or a quick comment here on the blog or on G+. I’ll even take requests – a somewhat disorganized list of my archive is here.