Author: Peter J Patrick
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The DVD Report #784
New This Week Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World is the kind of film that sneaks up on you and grabs hold when you’re not expecting it to. This is just the fifth film from the 48-year-old Norwegian director of Reprise, Oslo, August 31st, Louder Than Bombs, and Thelma. Although marketed as a…
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Oscar Profile #605: Robert Wise
Born September 10, 1914 in Winchester, Indiana, Robert Wise was the youngest of three sons of a meatpacker and his wife. An avid moviegoer, he came into the film business through an odd job at RKO Radio Pictures when he was 19. Initially a protégé to a sound effects editor, he worked in that capacity…
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The DVD Report #783
New This Week Giant has been given an Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray upgrade by Warner Bros. The 1956 film was the fourteenth film made from the works of author-playwright Edna Ferber. Ferber’s 1924 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel So Big was made into a film three times. The 1924 silent version with Colleen Moore is a lost…
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Oscar Profile #604: Oscar’s Tenth Decade (2018-2021)
Peter Farrelly’s Green Book won Best Picture of 2018 over Best Director Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, kicking off the decade. Among the other six nominees were Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther and Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. Not nominated were such films as Damien Chazelle’s First Man and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. 2019’s Best Picture award went for the…
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The DVD Report #782
New This Week Father Stu is an odd duck of a movie. Based on the true story of Stuart Long, a Golden Gloves champion boxer turned would-be actor turned priest, the film was the brainchild of star Mark Wahlberg who began working on the film in 2016 with writer-director David O. Russell who directed him…
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Oscar Profile #603: Oscar’s Ninth Decade (2008-2017)
Best Director Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture of 2008 as Oscar ended its 65-year tradition of five nominees in the category. It won over David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, Gus Van Sant’s Milk, and Stephen Daldry’s The Reader. Not nominated were such films as John Patrick Shanley’s…
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The DVD Report #781
New This Week Sony has released a 70th Anniversary Edition of David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia and a 65th Anniversary Edition of the director’s The Bridge on the River Kwai in Ultra 4K UHD Steelbook editions of the films. These are, however, not restorations. They are reissues of previous 4K releases of the film, but…
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Oscar Profile #602: Oscar’s Eighth Decade (1998-2007)
John Madden’s Shakespeare in Love surprisingly won Best Picture of 1998 over Best Director Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. Also nominated were Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful and Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth. Not nominated were Bill Condon’s Gods and Monsters, Walter Salles’ Central Station, and Kirk Jones’ Waking Ned Devine.…
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The DVD Report #780
New This Week Double Indemnity, 1776, and The Untouchables have all been newly released on 4K Ultra High-Definition discs. For those unfamiliar with the format, 4K UHD discs contain digital optical data storage that is an enhanced variant of the Blu-ray format. They are incompatible with non 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray players but 4K HD…
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Oscar Profile #601: Oscar’s Seventh Decade (1988-1997)
Best Director Barry Levinson’s Best Picture, Rain Man prevailed over Lawrence Kasdan’s The Accidental Tourist, Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons, Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning and Mike Nichols’ Working Girl at the 1988 Oscars. Overlooked were Philip Kaufman’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, and Sidney Lumet’s Running on Empty. Non-nominated Bruce Beresford’s Driving…
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The DVD Report #779
New This Week Flower Drum Song is the last of the filmed versions of a Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway musical to be released on Blu-ray. Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music, as well as two versions of the made directly for the screen State Fair had been previously…
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Oscar Profile #600: Oscar’s Sixth Decade (1978-1987)
The Vietnam War was the backdrop for both Best Director Michael Cimino’s Oscar winning Best Picture, The Deer Hunter, and Hal Ashby’s also nominated Coming Home. Other nominees were Alan Parker’s Midnight Express, Paul Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman and Warren Beatty and Buck Henry’s Heaven Can Wait. Overlooked were Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, Ingmar…
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The DVD Report #778
New This Week Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza is a film that it took two viewings for me to appreciate. Initially, I dismissed it as an improbable take on California teenagers in 1973, but on second viewing found the breezy relationship between 15-year-old actor-turned-entrepreneur Cooper Hoffman and 25-year-old Alana Haim, his former babysitter, now his…
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Oscar Profile #597: Oscar’s Fifth Decade (1968-1977)
Musicals were on the downswing in 1968 but two of them, William Wyler’s film of Funny Girl and Carol Reed’s film of Oliver! , which was a surprise winner for both Best Picture and Best Director, were among Oscar’s five nominees for Best Picture. Joining them in the first Oscar race of the decade were…
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The DVD Report #777
New This Week Uncharted was originally planned several years ago as a David O. Russell film with Mark Wahlberg, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci starring in the film version of the popular video game. By the time it finally got made, Russell, De Niro, and Pesci had dropped out and Wahlberg was reassigned to…
