Author: Peter J Patrick
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Oscar Profile #480: Antonio Banderas
Born August 10, 1960 in Malaga, Spain, the son of a Civil Guard police officer and a schoolteacher, José Antonio Dominguez Bandera, known professionally as Antonio Banderas, wanted to be a professional football (soccer) player until a broken foot at 14 drove him in a different direction. The aspiring actor began his studies at the…
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The DVD Report #656
New This Week Holiday was such a huge hit in 1930 that they remade it eight years later. Ironically, the much better 1938 version was a flop at the time, but has long since been considered one of the greatest sophisticated comedies of all time whereas the 1930 version has been all but forgotten. Based…
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Oscar Profile #479: Jonathan Pryce
Born June 1, 1947 in Carmel, Wales, John Price was the third child and only son of a former coal miner who ran a small general grocery shop with his wife. His primary education was in Wales, but the brilliant student entered college in Lancashire, England at the age of 16. While studying to become…
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The DVD Report #655
New This Week 1917 may well be on its way to becoming the fourth film about World War I to win an Oscar for Best Picture, following Wings (1927/28), All Quiet on the Western Front (1929/30), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Those films and few others about the war have even been nominated for Oscar’s…
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Oscar Profile #478: Ann Harding
Born August 7, 1902 at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, Dorothy Gatley, known professionally as Ann Harding, was the daughter of a prominent Army officer and his wife who spent her formative years traveling with her West Point educated father to wherever he was sent. Having graduated from New Jersey’s East Orange High…
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The DVD Report #654
New This Week The Peanut Butter Falcon, Wild Rose, and Luce are three under-the-radar films that have factored into year-end 2019 awards but are not considered major players in this year’s Oscar race. The Peanut Butter Falcon was among the Top Ten Independent Films of the Year singled out by the National Board of Review.…
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Oscar Profile #477: Peter Yates
Born July 24, 1929 in Hampshire, England, Peter Yates was the son of an army officer. He attended Charterhouse School as a boy, graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked for some years as an actor, director and stage manager. He directed plays in London and New York. He also spent two…
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The DVD Report #653
New This Week Judy, newly released on Blu-ray and standard DVD, is a musical drama about the last days of the legendary Judy Garland, or to be precise, about her five-week run of concerts at London’s Talk of the Town (now the Hippodrome Casino) in early 1969, a few months before her death in June…
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Oscar Profile #476: Sophia Loren
Born September 20, 1934 in Rome, Italy, Sophia Scicolone and her younger sister, Maria, were raised by their maternal grandmother in the slums of Pozzuoli, their construction engineer father having refused to divorce his wife and marry the girls’ piano teacher mother. Encouraged to enter a beauty contest at 14, the young would-be actress was…
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The DVD Report #652
New This Week The Irishman, Marriage Story, and The Two Popes are among the most critically acclaimed films of 2019 but don’t look for them on home video any time soon. These three films, all of which have figured heavily into year-end awards consideration, were given limited theatrical showings in major cities and then mass…
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Oscar Profile #475: Christmas Movies Updated
With lame cable TV channels now cornering the market on Christmas movies, it’s again worth examining what a treasure occasional big screen movies have been. It’s nice to remember that there once was a time when not every Christmas movie was filmed in Canada in the summer with fake snow and was about the same…
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The DVD Report #651
New This Week Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is Quentin Tarantino’s most accessible film ever. In an era in which there are supposedly no real movie stars, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are real movie stars. What’s more, DiCaprio plays one, albeit one of fifty years ago, with Pitt as his friend and stunt double…
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Oscar Profile #474: Edward Lachman
Born March 31, 1948 in Morristown, New Jersey, Edward (Ed) Lachman is the son of Rosabel and Edward Lachman, a movie theatre distributer and owner. He attended Harvard University and studied in France at the University of Tours before pursuing a BFA in painting at Ohio University. Mentored in cinematography by such masters as Robby…
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The DVD Report #650
New This Week The Goldfinch was one of the year’s most eagerly anticipated films until the critics got hold of it and audiences decided to give it a pass. The film version of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has its faults, but it is a film that deserves to be seen. The main criticisms of…
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Oscar Profile #473: Celia Johnson
Born December 18, 1908, Celia “Betty” Johnson was the second child of John Robert and Ethel Collins, who made her first public appearance at the age of 8 in a charity performance of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid to raise funds for returning World War I soldiers. The young actress attended St. Paul’s Girl…
