Author: Peter J Patrick
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The DVD Report #522
New This Week The Marseille Trilogy, the title under which Criterion has released Marcel Pagnol’s immortal Fanny trilogy, was, whether you call it The Marseille Trilogy, Pagnol’s trilogy or the Fanny trilogy, the screen’s first trilogy. Pagnol (1895-1974) was born near Marseilles where he was raised, but moved to Paris in 1922 where he taught…
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Oscar Profile #345: Joseph LaShelle
Born July 9, 1900 in Los Angeles, California, Joseph LaShelle was trained as an electrical engineer, but went to work at Paramount as a lab technician in order earn money for tuition at Stanford University. Promoted to superintendent of the printing room within three years, he decided to forego his college education and stay on…
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The DVD Report #521
New This Week Frantz, the new film from Francois Ozon, the noted French director of Under the Sand, 8 Women, and Swimming Pool, is a remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1932 classic Broken Lullaby, which was the film version of Maurice Rostand’s post-World War I play The Man I Killed. As with the previous version, Frantz…
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Oscar Profile #344: Nancy Meyers
Born December 8, 1949 to an executive at a voting machine plant and his wife, an interior designer, Nancy Meyers is an American director, producer and screenwriter. At the age of 12, Meyers became interested in the theatre after reading Moss Hart’s autobiography, Act One. Upon graduating college, she spent a year working in public…
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The DVD Report #520
New This Week Beauty and the Beast was a tale old as time put to song old as rhyme when Disney’s animated classic first appeared 26 years ago. The first fully animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, it won for Best Original Score and Best Original Song (the beloved title tune).…
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Oscar Profile #343: Maximilian Schell
Born December 8, 1930 in Vienna, Austria, but raised in Zurich, Switzerland where his family fled after Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938, Maximilian Schell was perhaps the most famous of all non-English speaking born actors in Hollywood history. He was the second child of an actress mother and poet father. He and his…
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The DVD Report #519
New This Week Pelle the Conqueror, the 1988 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language film, has been given a magnificent 30th anniversary restoration. The new Blu-ray and DVD from Film Movement features a superb narration by film historian and scholar Peter Cowie. Cowie’s narration fills in the blanks that puts into perspective for modern audiences…
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Oscar Profile #342: Mildred Dunnock
Born January 25, 1901 in Baltimore, Maryland, Mildred Dunnock was a schoolteacher who did not start acting until she was past 30. Once she began to act, however, her rise was swift and her career meteoric although she never rose above the ranks of character actress, albeit a superb one. Dunnock’s first Broadway role was…
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The DVD Report #518
New This Week Get Out and Logan are two of the best reviewed films of the year so far, and with good reason. I was initially skeptical of Jordan Peele’s Get Out as the trailer seemed to indicate another in the almost weekly releases of generic horror films cluttering the market. The directing debut of…
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Oscar Profile #341: William Hurt
Born March 20, 1950 in Washington, D.C. William Hurt’s mother Claire worked for Time, Inc. and his father Alfred worked for the State Dept. After their divorce, his mother married Henry Luce II and young William lived abroad in Lahore, Mogadishu and Khartoum where he father was stationed. Educated at Tufts University and Julliard, Hurt…
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The DVD Report #517
New This Week Universal Classic Monsters Collection, released in September 2015, was supposed to be the be-all and end-all of Universal’s classic monsters on Blu-ray. Well, not exactly. Although collectors were happy to have the eight greatest monster films from Universal’s vaults all in one Blu-ray collection, many were disappointed that Universal didn’t also upgrade…
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Oscar Profile #340: Kate Winslet
Born October 5, 1975 in Reading, Berskshire, England, Kate Elizabeth Winslet was one of four children of a barmaid and a swimming pool contractor, both of whom were part-time actors. Actor Robert Bridges was her mother’s brother. Winslet made her acting debut in a TV commercial at the age of 2, and as a teenager…
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The DVD Report #516
New This Week Things to Come, the new to home video film from Mia Hansen-Love, is not a remake of William Cameron Menzies’ film of the same name from H.G. Wells’ classic novel that captivated audiences eighty years ago. Rather, it is a wistful French film about an aging philosophy professor coping with the changes…
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Oscar Profile #339: Leonardo DiCaprio
Born November 11, 1974 in Los Angeles, California, Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is the son of a German born mother of German and Russian descent and a father of Italian and German descent. His mother worked as a legal secretary and his father as an underground performance artist. They separated when he was just a year…
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The DVD Report #515
New This Week Although it was shown at numerous U.S. film festivals in 2016, Iran’s The Salesman did not have an official run in the U.S. until January 2017, making it ineligible for most 2016 year-end awards. Perhaps that’s why its Oscar nomination and win came as a surprise to many who thought that Germany’s…
