Author: Peter J Patrick
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Home Viewing with Peter #968
Oscar nominations will be announced this Thursday, January 22. Where can you see this year’s most critically acclaimed films? Hamnet, Marty Supreme, and The Secret Agent are still only in theatres as is the blockbuster Avatar: Fire and Ash. Hamnet, directed by Chloe Zhao (Nomadland, is based on the acclaimed novel about Shakespeare’s son whose…
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Oscar Profile: Terence Stamp Revisited
Born July 22, 1938 in London, England, Terence Stamp was the eldest of five children of Ethel and Thomas Stamp, a tugboat stoker. With his father away for long periods of time with the Merchant Navy, he was raised mostly by his mother, grandmother, and aunts. His family endured heavy bombing during the World War…
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Home Viewing with Peter #967
Newly released on 4K UHD are some of the best remembered films released at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st. They include 1990’s Awakenings, 1997’s Boogie Nights, 2002’s Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can, and 2005’s Jarhead. Penny Marshall’s 1990 film, Awakenings was nominated for three Oscars, Best…
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Oscar Profile: David Lynch Revisited
Born January 20, 1946, in Missoula, Montana, David Lynch’s father was a research scientist for the Department of Agriculture and his mother an English language tutor. Because of his father’s job, the family moved around a lot, the future writer-director having spent most of his formative years in Virginia. After attending the School of the…
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Home Viewing with Peter #966
The Criterion Collection has released both a 4K UHD and a standard Blu-ray upgrade of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1945 film, I Know Where I’m Going!. This release uses the 2023 restoration of the film previously released on DVD by Criterion in 2010 but imports the extras from that release including Martin Scorsese’s introduction.…
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Oscar Profile: Ethan Hawke Revisited
Born November 6, 1970 in Austin, Texas, Ethan Hawke has been actor since the age of 13. He is a great-grandnephew of Tennessee Williams on his father’s side. His maternal grandfather, Howard Lemuel Green, served five terms in the Texas Legislature and was a minor-league baseball commissioner. Hawke made his stage debut in a school…
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Home Viewing with Peter #965
The home video business continues to putter along with Warner Archive, Kino-Lorber, and the Criterion Collection being the primary caretakers of classic films on Blu-ray and UHD 4K while the major studios release much less of their current product in the formats. The business model today is theatrical release – video on demand – streaming…
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Oscar Profile: Rob Reiner Revisited
Born March 6, 1947 in the Bronx, Robert Norman Reiner was the son of Estelle and Carl Reiner, the renown comedian, actor, writer, producer, director. It would only be a matter of time before Rob followed his father into show business. Sure enough, he began his acting career in TV’s Manhunt in 1961 when he was only…
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Home Viewing with Peter #964
Warner Archive has released a Blu-ray upgrade of The Valley of Decision, the highest grossing film of 1945 and the most sought-after Greer Garson on Blu-ray title after the still missing Random Harvest from three years earlier. Critics of eighty years ago may have preferred The Lost Weekend, Spellbound, The Bells of St. Mary’s, The…
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Oscar Profile: Robert Rossen Revisited
Born December 4, 1913 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Mark Robson was a political science major at the University of California who found work in the prop department at 20th Century-Fox. Fired by Daryl F. Zanuck for asking for a raise, he moved to RKO. At RKO, Robson became an assistant editor under Robert Wise, working…
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Home Viewing with Peter #963
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the third entry in the franchise, is now streaming on Netflix. Unlike the first two in the franchise, 2019’s Knives Out and 2022’s Glass Onion, neither of which I liked, Wake Up Dead Man is an absorbing murder mystery with comic undertones. More serious than silly, with…
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Oscar Profile: Peggy Ashcroft Revisited
Born December 22, 1907 in Surrey, England, Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft, known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was a titan of the British stage who only occasionally appeared in films, but when she did, she was as amazing and unforgettable as she was in her lauded stage roles. Ashcroft’s mother had been an actress. Her father,…
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Home Viewing with Peter #962
The third of Netflix’s big four year-end Oscar contenders, Jay Kelly, has landed on the streaming service. The first of these films, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, lived up to my expectations, and the second, Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams exceeded them. Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, though, is a disappointment. The film has a catchy advertising line,…
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Oscar Profile: Meryl Streep Revisited
Born June 22, 1949 in Summit, New Jersey to Mary, a commercial artist, and William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive, Mary Louise (Meryl) Streep’s early performing ambitions tended toward opera. Raised in New Jersey, she received her BA cum laude from Vasser in 1971, and her MBA from Yale Drama School in 1975. Streep’s first…
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Home Viewing with Peter #961
Warner Archive has released the long sought-after restoration of 1959’s The Miracle on Blu-ray. The film, which until now has only been available in faded bootleg DVD releases if you could find them, was the Radio City Music Hall Christmas attraction in 1959, a big deal at the time. The previous year’s Christmas attraction had…
