Author: Peter J Patrick
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Home Viewing with Peter #892
What will win this year’s Oscars? At this point no one knows. There is no early favorite as there was at this time last year with Killers of the Flower Moon, which had already been seen at Cannes, and Oppenheimer which opened in wide release the third week in July on the same day as…
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Oscar Profile: Irene Dunne
This is a revision of the second article in this series originally published on CinemaSight in September 2010. Of all the great stars of the studio era, Dunne remains the least known to modern audiences. That’s largely because so many of her films were remade and the originals suppressed by the studios. Although most became…
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Home Viewing with Peter #891
A24 has released The Zone of Interest on 4K UHD and standard Blu-ray, each sold separately, and available only from their website. The 2023 Oscar winner for Best International Feature and Best Sound was also nominated for Best Picture, Directing, and Adapted Screenplay, the latter two going to writer-director Jonathan Glazer. The film had looked…
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Oscar Profile: Hugo Friedhofer
Born May 3, 1901 in San Francisco, California, Hugo Friedhofer was the son of cellist Paul Friedhofer and his wife. Following in his father’s footsteps, he began playing the cello at the age of 13. After studying at the University of California, Berkely, he was employed as a cellist by the People’s Symphony Orchestra. He…
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Home Viewing with Peter #890
Kino Lorber has released 4K UHD upgrades of two iconic films, one from almost twenty years ago, and one from almost seventy years ago: Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain from 2005, and Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers from 1956. Brokeback Mountain was so successful that it made back its cost in its first week…
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Oscar Profile: Dean Jagger
Born November 7, 1903 in Lima, Ohio, Dean Jagger grew up on a farm. Having caught the acting bug early, he practiced oratory on cows while working on th farm. He latr won several oraory competitions. At 14, he worked as an orderly at a sanatorium. Although he dropped out of school several times, at…
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Home Viewing with Peter #889
Warner Home Video has released a 4K UHD upgrade of Jan de Bont’s 1996 disaster film, Twister. The film opens in 1969 during a devastating tornado that destroys a small Oklahoma town culminating in the death of the father of a young girl as he is sucked out of the family’s storm cellar. The girl…
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Oscar Profile: Lee Garmes
Born May 27, 1898 in Peoria, Illinois, Lee Garmes came to Hollywood in 1916. His first job was as a painter’s assistant in the paint department at the old Thomas H. Ince Studios. Garmes and future director Henry Hathaway were property boys together at “Inceville” where Sunset Blvd, met the Pacific Ocean. The New York…
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Home Viewing with Peter #888
Kino Lorber has released Lewis Milestone’s The North Star on Blu-ray from the film’s 2022 restoration of the 1943 film along with Armored Attack, the heavily re-edited 1957 re-release of the film from its 2013 restoration. The North Star, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, was one of three 1943 films, along with Warner Bros.’ Mission to…
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Oscar Profile: Dan Dailey
Born December 14, 1915 in New York, New York, Daniel James Dailey, Jr.’s father ran a hotel for show people on Long Island. The star struck kid made his first appearance in show business as a performer in a minstrel show in 1921 when he was just five years old. He then moved on to…
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Home Viewing with Peter #887
Arrow Video has released a 4K UHD remastered edition of Paul Schrader’s 1980 film, American Gigolo, the third film directed by the writer of Taxi Driver. Schrader’s previous two films, 1978’s Blue Collar and 1979’s Hardcore were well received by the critics but not by the public. Like Taxi Driver, which Schrader wrote for Martin…
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Oscar Profile: Robert Towne
Born November 23, 1934 in Los Angeles, California, Robert Bertram Schwartz, known professionally as Robert Towne, was the older of two sons of a clothing store owner and property developer. Raised in the L.A. suburb of San Pedro, he graduated from Pomona College in Claremont. Seeking employment as an actor, he took acting classes from…
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Home Viewing with Peter #886
Paramount Presents has released a stunningly beautiful 4K UHD restoration of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, the enduring 1974 masterpiece that is one of the screen’s great murder mysteries. Nominated for 11 Oscars, it won just one for Robert Towne’s brilliant screenplay. Jack Nicolson stars in perhaps his greatest performance as the private detective who is convinced…
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Home Viewing with Peter #885
I usually know what to expect from a film before I see it. I’m rarely surprised to see one that is so much better than I expected, but such was the case with Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One which won the 2023 Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The visual effects are impressive but the film,…
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Oscar Profile: Edith Head
Born October 28, 1897 in San Bernadino, California, Edith Claire Posener became Edith Head when she married her first husband, Charles Head in 1923. The future costume designer received a Bachelor of Arts degree in letters and science with honors in French from the University of California, Berkeley (1919), and a Master of Arts degree…
