Author: Peter J Patrick
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The DVD Report #403
New This Week Bennett Miller takes his time making feature films. His made his first, Capote, when he was 38; his second, Moneyball, when he was 44; and his third, Foxcatcher, when he was 47. I thought Capote, which received five Oscar nominations including one for Miller, to be one of 2005’s best films. I…
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Oscar Profile #256: Steve Carell
Born August 16, 1962 in Concord, Massachusetts, Steven John (Steve) Carell was the son of a psychiatric nurse and an electrical engineer. After graduating from Denison University in Granville, Ohio, he worked as a letter carrier but quit because his supervisor told him was too slow. Later a stand-up comic, he eventually moved to Chicago…
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The DVD Report #402
New This Week Winner of three Academy Awards, Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash is essentially a two-character study about a gifted young drummer and his sadistic music conservatory teacher. Both Miles Teller and Oscar winner J.K. Simmons are excellent in those roles. The film’s persistent and insistent jazz score is so omnipresent it’s almost a third character.…
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Oscar Profile #224: Julianne Moore
Born December 3, 1960 in Fort Bragg, North Carolina to an American military judge and colonel and his wife, a Scottish born social worker, Julianne Moore spent her early life in over two dozen locations around the world. A graduate of Boston University, she honed her acting skills on TV soap operas and movies in…
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The DVD Report #401
New This Week Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s multiple Oscar winner, Birdman, is an unusual take on show business. Filmed in what appears to be a single take, the film follows a washed up movie star (Michael Keaton) leading up to and during his Broadway debut in a dramatization of Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When…
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Oscar Profile #223: Tony Curtis
Born June 3, 1925 in The Bronx, New York, the eldest of three boys to Hungarian Jewish emigrants Helen and Emanuel Schwartz, Bernard Hershel Schwartz would rise to become one the screen’s best known actors after changing his name to Tony Curtis. Young Bernie had a rough childhood. His father was a tailor and the…
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The DVD Report #400
New This Week The Gilroys are probably one of Hollywood’s lesser known dynasties. 89-year-old patriarch Frank D. Gilroy is the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of The Subject Was Roses as well as a screenwriter, producer and director whose TV and film career goes back to the 1950s. His son Tony Gilroy earned Oscar nominations for writing…
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Oscar Profile #222: Piper Laurie
Born January 22, 1932 in Detroit, Michigan, Rosetta “Rosie” Jacobs moved with her parents to Los Angeles when she was six. Her parents enrolled her in elocution lessons in hopes that the pretty redhead would overcome her shyness. She studied acting in high school, leading to a contract with Universal. Changing her name to the…
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The DVD Report #399
New This Week Ned Benson went from making short films to the very ambitious project that was Eleanor Rigby. Filmed separately as The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her the two films were combined as The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them and released theatrically as simply The Disappearance of…
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The DVD Report #398
New This Week When I sat down to watch Fury, I thought of it as Brad Pitt’s World War II movie. I didn’t pay attention to the director. Even after the credits rolled, the name David Ayer didn’t mean anything to me. It was only when I checked his credits on IMDb that I realized…
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Oscar Profile #221: Roddy McDowall
Born September 17, 1928 in London, England, Roderick (Roddy) MacDowell was the son of a merchant mariner and housewife mother, both of whom had an interest in the theatre. His older sister Virginia (1927-2006) and he were both child actors. He made his screen debut in 1938’s Murder in the Family as the younger brother…
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The DVD Report #397
New This Week The Oscar-nominated animated film The Boxtrolls is another stop-motion masterwork from the creators of Coraline and ParaNorman. It’s a thoroughly engaging children’s film that provides strong entertainment for adults as well. The film, which takes place in fictional Cheesebridge in 1805, is about a boy raised by underground trash collectors who live…
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Oscar Profile #220 – Sorting Out the Nominees
This week I thought it would be nice to do something a little different in light of last week’s Oscar nominations. The films with the most nominations among this year’s Best Picture nominees are Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel with nine each, followed by The Imitation Game with eight, American Sniper and Boyhood with…
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The DVD Report #396
New This Week I have been a big fan of David Fincher’s films in the past. I thought Se7en, Zodiac and Girl With the Dragon Tattoo were among the best films of their respective years while The Social Network and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button were the very best of theirs. I just don’t…
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The DVD Report #395
New This Week From its initial screening at Sundance last January to its theatrical release in August and beyond, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood seemed poised to win the preponderance of year-end critics’ awards. What seemed less certain was its ability to win more middle-of-the-road recognition from the likes of the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild…
