Author: Peter J Patrick
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The DVD Report #567
New This Week Winchester from the Spierig Brothers, German born Australia-based directors Michael and Peter Spierig, despite my initial misgivings is an interesting suspense thriller based on an episode in the life of eccentric heiress Sarah Winchester. It’s 1906, and 66-year-old Winchester, played by the enigmatic Helen Mirren, is the subject of a psychiatric examination…
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Oscar Profile #390: Jennifer Lawrence
Born August 15, 1990 in Louisville, Kentucky, Jennifer Lawrence is thus far the only person born in the 1990s to have won an acting Oscar. During her childhood, Lawrence performed in church plays and school musicals. Spotted by a talent scout when she was 14, her family moved to Los Angeles in support of her…
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The DVD Report #566
New This Week Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool and films about them don’t succeed at the box-office or apparently on home video either. The film, from Peter Turner’s memoir about the last days of Oscar-winning actress Gloria Grahame, was shown at various film festivals, most notably Telluride and Toronto in September 2017, and opened…
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Oscar Profile #389: Michelle Pfeiffer
Born April 28, 1958 in Santa Ana, California to Donna and Richard Pfeiffer, a heating and air-conditioning contractor, Michelle Pfeiffer has an older brother, Rick, and two younger sisters, Deedee and Lori, both of whom have acted. She made her acting debut in 1978 as the bombshell in the TV series, Delta House. In minor…
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The DVD Report #565
New This Week The Post was the last major film released in 2017 and the last 2017 Best Picture Oscar nominee released on Blu-ray and standard DVD. Advance word on the film was that it would be one of Steven Spielberg’s most prestigious in the vein of Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Lincoln and…
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Oscar Profile #388: George Pal
Born February 1, 1908 in Cegléd, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary) the son of stage entertainers, George Marczincsak was educated at the Budapest Academy of Arts, graduating in 1928 with a degree in architecture. Highly skilled at drawing, with no prospects for a job as an architect, he went to work for Hunnia Films in Budapest. There…
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The DVD Report #564
New This Week The Greatest Showman may not be a great movie, but it has great things in it. It’s not so much a biography of P.T. Barnum as it is a celebration of show business and as such, it works magnificently. The infectious joy of performing leaps off the screen as it did with…
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Oscar Profile #387: Toni Collette
Born November 1, 1972 in Sydney, Australia, Toni Collet(e) was the first of three children of Judith (née Cook), a customer service representative and Bob Collet, a truck driver. At the age of eleven, she faked appendicitis out of boredom, her act so convincing that doctors had to remove her appendix even though the tests…
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The DVD Report #563
New This Week It’s time to take-a-look back at the Oscar-nominated films of 2017 available on Blu-ray and standard DVD. Of the nine films nominated for Best Picture, all but The Post, which is coming out next week, have been released. Phantom Thread is releasing today. By now, you should have had ample opportunity to…
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Oscar Profile #356: Gary Oldman
Born March 21, 1958 in London, England to a welder and his homemaker wife, Gary Oldman’s alcoholic father left home when he was seven. Raised from then by his now 99-year-old mother, Oldman left school at 16 to work in a sports shop. A pianist as a child, and later a singer, he gave both…
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The DVD Report #562
New This Week Star Wars: The Last Jedi disappointed hardcore Star Wars fans, but I liked it. It’s true that some of the plot elements make no sense, but the storyline is simple enough for even the most casual viewer to follow. The characters, both heroes and villains, are well drawn and played. All the…
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Oscar Profile #385: Annette Bening
Born May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children of a church soloist and an insurance salesman, Annette Bening grew up in San Diego, California. She began acting in junior high school where she played the lead in The Sound of Music. She began her professional career with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival…
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The DVD Report #561
New This Week The Passion of Joan of Arc is a film of the time in which it takes place, the time in which it was made, a film for our time, and a film for all time, one of the few undisputed masterworks in cinema history. Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc in French) AKA…
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Oscar Profile #384: James Ivory
Born June 7, 1928 in Berkeley, California, the son of a sawmill operator and his wife, James Ivory grew up in Klamath Falls, Oregon. He attended the University of Oregon from which he received a degree in fine arts in 1951. He then attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts where he directed the 1953…
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The DVD Report #560
New This Week The Shape of Water is the first science-fiction film to win an Oscar for Best Picture, one of four Oscars it received out of thirteen nominations, putting it in a ten-way tie for the second most nominations ever of any film. All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land are tied for…
