Author: Peter J Patrick
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The DVD Report #537
New This Week The Book of Henry is one of the most unfairly maligned films of the year. Written by Gregg Hurwitz and directed by Colin Trevorrow, this character study of a three-person family comprised of a child genius, his impressionable younger brother and his fragile mother is an emotional tour-de-force even if the underlying…
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Oscar Profile #360: Holly Hunter
Born March 20, 1958 in Conyers, Georgia to Opal, a homemaker, and Charles Hunter, a part-time sporting goods company representative and farmer with a 250-acre farm, Holly Hunter was the youngest of seven siblings. Hunter’s parents encouraged her acting talent from an early age. Her first on-stage role was in a fifth-grade play in which…
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The DVD Report #536
New This Week The Piano Teacher, Michael Haneke’s 2001 film from Elfriede Jelinek’s 1983 novel, is his only film not based on an idea of his own. The story of a masochistic music professor looking for perfection in her student lover, while maintaining an untenable relationship with her mother, was also Haneke’s first commercial success.…
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Oscar Profile #359: Gene Kelly
Born August 23, 1912 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Eugene (Gene) Kelly was the third son of a phonograph salesman and his wife. His father had once been Al Jolson’s road manager. Although it was Gene’s dream to play shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates, his mother enrolled Gene and his older brother James in dance classes when…
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The DVD Report #535
New This Week Beggars of Life, not Wings, the first Oscar winner, was the film William Wellman always cited as his favorite among his silent films. It was the Oscar-winning writer-director’s last before turning to talkies, as well as the last Hollywood film made by Louise Brooks before she went to Germany to make the…
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Oscar Profile #358: Christopher Walken
Born March 31, 1943 in Astoria, Queens, the son of a bakery owner and his wife, Ronald Walken, named by his mother after her favorite actor, Ronald Colman, and his brothers Kenneth and Glenn were child actors on television and in the theatre in the 1950s. Initially billed as Ronnie, the actor changed his first…
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The DVD Report #534
New This Week Beatriz at Dinner, which opened theatrically in June, was one of the most heavily promoted independent films of the year. The hilarious trailer made it seem like a modern-day version of Ruggles of Red Gap in which an English butler teaches a bunch of rubes what it means to be an American.…
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Oscar Profile #357: Helena Bonham Carter
Born May 26, 1966 in London, England, Helena Bonham Carter was the youngest of three children of Elena, a psychotherapist, and Raymond Bonham Carter, a merchant banker. She is the great-granddaughter, on her father’s side of the family, of former Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith, and the great-niece of director Anthony Asquith (Pygmalion, The Importance…
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The DVD Report #533
New This Week Rebecca, Alfred Hitchcock’s first American film, was long disavowed by the director as “not a Hitchcock film”. That was because of his many disagreements with producer David O. Selznick, fresh from making Gone with the Wind. Time, though, sees it differently. Although Selznick overruled Hitchcock’s many ideas to deviate from Daphne DuMaurier’s…
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Oscar Profile #356: Lester Persky
Born July 6, 1925, Lester Persky was an independent film producer who either co-financed or co-produced more than 30 films, many of them high profile successes, primarily between 1968 and 1979. The Harvey Weinstein of the 1970s, information on him remains as fragmented as his credits, which were parsed between The Devon Company, The Claridge…
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The DVD Report #532
New This Week My Cousin Rachel, like other famous films made from the works of the prolific Daphne DuMaurier, such as Rebecca, The Birds, and Don’t Look Now, was first filmed immediately after the release of the printed work on which it was based. The 2017 version, however, which has been newly released on Blu-ray…
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Oscar Profile #355: Milton Krasner
Born February 17, 1904 in Brooklyn, New York, Milton Krasner entered the film industry as an assistant cameraman in 1917 at the age of 13. While working at the Vitagraph and Biograph studios in New York City, he was promoted to camera operator. He became a cinematographer in 1933. Krasner’s first film of note as…
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The DVD Report #531
New This Week Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, newly released on Blu-ray and standard DVD, is at its best when it sticks to the interplay between the main characters in the original as played by Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel (voice), Bradley Cooper (voice), Michael Rooker and Karen Gillan. They are…
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Oscar Profile #354: Gig Young
Born November 4, 1913 in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Byron Barr (screen name Gig Young) was raised in Washington, D.C. and Waynesville, South Carolina. Having developed a passion for theatre, he won a scholarship to the famed Pasadena Playhouse. While appearing in a play in Mexico, he and fellow actor George Reeves were spotted by a…
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The DVD Report #530
New This Week Murdoch Mysteries: Season 10 has been released on Blu-ray and standard DVD. It’s hard to believe that the innovative Canadian detective series, initially set in the 1890s, has been around for ten years, churning out thought-provoking murder mysteries week in and week out during its annual run. Retitled The Artful Detective on…
