Author: Peter J Patrick
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The DVD Report #649
New This Week All About Eve and Now, Voyager, the two films containing Bette Davis’ greatest performances, have been given new 4K transfers for their Criterion Collection Blu-ray releases, both with tons of extras. All About Eve was the first film to receive 14 Oscar nominations, the most of any film through 1950. Its record…
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Oscar Profile #472: Thanksgiving Revisited
If this seems familiar, it’s because it’s basically a reprint of last year’s Thanksgiving article. Holidays have been celebrated in films since their inception. There have been films about virtually all of them. 1942’s Holiday Inn with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire is in fact a celebration of all of the U.S. holidays. We have…
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The DVD Report #648
New This Week Cold War was nominated for three 2018 Oscars, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Directing, and Best Cinematography, all of which it lost to Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, the first time two foreign language films had vied for these awards in the same year. Newly released on Blu-ray and DVD by Criterion, Cold War…
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Oscar Profile #471: Richard Widmark
Born December 26, 1914 in Sunrise Township, Minnesota, growing up mostly in Illinois but moving frequently due to his father’s job as a traveling salesman. He attended Lake Forest College where he originally studied law but switched to acting after starring a school production of Counsellor-at-Law which he taught after graduating with a degree in…
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The DVD Report #647
New This Week The Farewell was a breakout hit at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival from Asian-American director Lulu Wang that became a critical and box-office hit when it was released theatrically later in the year. Based on a story Wang has been telling since 2012, the semiautobiographical film is about a young Chinese-American woman…
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Oscar Profile #470: Haley Joel Osment
Born April 10, 1988 in Los Angeles, California, Haley Joel Osment is the son of teacher Theresa and actor Eugene Osment. He was signed with a talent agent at the age of four. At an audition, he was asked to describe the biggest thing he had ever seen; his description of an IMAX theater screen…
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The DVD Report #646
New This Week Snow Falling on Cedars is a film worth discovering or rediscovering, whichever the case may be. The new 4K transfer and restoration by Shout Select was supervised by three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson (JFK, The Aviator, Hugo) who earned the fourth of his nine Oscar nominations so far for the film. Also…
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Oscar Profile #469: James Cromwell
Born January 27, 1940 in Los Angeles, CA and raised in Manhattan, New York, James Cromwell is the son of actress Kay Johnson (Madam Satan) and actor-director John Cromwell (Since You Went Away). His parents divorced in 1946 the year the senior Cromwell married actress Ruth Nelson (Wilson). The younger Cromwell studied acting at Carnegie-Mellon…
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The DVD Report #645
New This Week The Return of Martin Guerre has been given a brand new 4K restoration by the Cohen Film Collection which reissued the film theatrically before its new Blu-ray release. The French film classic based on the real-life 15th Century case that resonated through Medieval Europe was released in France in late 1982. A…
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Oscar Profile #468: Dorothy Malone
Born January 29, 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, Mary Dorothy Maloney was one of five children born to an AT&T auditor and his wife. When she was six months old, the family moved to Dallas, Texas where she grew up, her two older sisters dying of complications from polio. Intent on becoming a nurse, Maloney minored…
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The DVD Report #644
New This Week Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg, newly upgraded to Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection, features three of the Austrian-American director’s late silent films, 1927’s Underworld as well as 1928’s The Last Command and The Docks of New York. Underworld, which won Ben Hecht the first Oscar given for Best Original Story,…
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Oscar Profile #467: Olympia Dukakis
Born June 20, 1931 in Lowell, Massachusetts, Olympia Dukakis is the daughter of Greek immigrants. She is a first cousin of 1988 Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis (born 1933). Dukakis majored in physical therapy at Boston University, graduating with a BA. She practiced as a therapist during the polio epidemic, later returning to Boston University where…
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The DVD Report #643
New This Week The House of Hitchcock Collection, the newly released limited edition Blu-ray collection from Universal Home Video, is in essence a repackaging of Alfred Hitchcock: The Ultimate Collection first released in 2012, albeit with additional material including seven episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and three episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Hitchcock’s TV…
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Oscar Profile #466: Robert Forster
Born July 13, 1941 in Rochester, New York, Robert Forster was the son of an animal trainer for the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus, wo later became an executive for a banking supply company, and his wife. His parents divorced in 1949. Forster first became interested in acting while performing in school plays in…
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The DVD Report #642
New This Week Toy Story 4 is a pleasant surprise. After 2010’s Toy Story 3 provided a satisfactory conclusion to the then-trilogy of films that began with 1995’s Toy Story and continued with 1999’s Toy Story 2, I thought we had seen the last of Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and the rest of Andy’s toys, but…
