Author: Peter J Patrick
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Home Viewing with Peter #930
The death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday and his funeral on Easter Saturday have put renewed focus on Edward Berger’s 2024 film, Conclave, which is available for streaming and on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD. Conclave is not the first theatrical film to focus on a Catholic pope or indeed the conclave that follows…
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Oscar Profile: Sidney Lumet Revisited
Born in Philadelphia, Pa. in 1924, Sidney Lumet was one of the most prolific film directors of his time. His films received a total of forty-six Oscar nominations and won four. He directed seventeen actors to eighteen Oscar nominations and was nominated himself five times. He won an honorary award at the 2005 Academy Awards.…
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Home Viewing with Peter #929
Kino Lorber has released 4K UHD updates of two atypical John Wayne films, 1949’s The Sands of Iwo Jima and 1963’s Donovan’s Reef, both of which he initially turned down. Best known for his cowboy roles starting with 1930’s The Big Trail, Wayne starred in some of the most iconic westerns of all time including…
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Oscar Profile: Natalie Wood Revisited
Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, California on July 20, 1938, the future Natalie Wood’s parents were Russian and Ukraine immigrants who barely spoke English. They changed the family name to Gurdin when they became U.S. citizens. At the age of four, while the family was living in Santa Rosa, the production company for…
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Home Viewing with Peter #928
Warner Archive has released a Blu-ray upgrade of 1934’s Sadie McKee, a late pre-Code film that was one of Joan Crawford’s best films of the era. Warner Archive was a godsend for film collectors beginning in 2009 when it began releasing hard-to-find classic films on MOD (manufactured on demand) DVDs well into the DVD era.…
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Oscar Profile: Hal Pereira
Born April 25, 1905 in Chicago, Illinois, art director Harold (Hal) Pereira and his brother, architect William Pereira (born in 1909), began their highly successful careers after graduating college in the 1930s. They designed, among other things, Chicago’s Esquire Theatre, one of the city’s best examples of Art Deco. They later moved to Los Angeles…
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Home Viewing with Peter #927
Kino Lorber has released a 4K upgrade of Al Pacino’s 1989 comeback film, Sea of Love. Pacino made his film debut in a minor role in 1969’s Me, Natalie starring Patty Duke. He then starred opposite Kitty Wynn (The Exorcist) in 1981’s The Panic in Needle Park in which they played co-dependent heroin addicts. His…
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Oscar Profile #739: Cary Grant Revisited
Born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England on January 18, 1904, the future Cary Grant grew up in a working-class family. When he was nine, he was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort. In truth, she had been placed in a mental institution. His father remarried when he was ten and young…
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Home Viewing with Peter #926
Criterion has released a sparkling 4K UHD rendition of Arthur Penn’s 1975 film, Night Moves which I remember as being my favorite Gene Hackman film in which the actor played a leading role. In it, he plays a private detective hired by a former actress to find her missing daughter played by Melanie Griffith in…
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Oscar Profile: Paul Schrader
Born July 22, 1946 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Paul Joseph Schrader was raised as a strict Calvinist and did not see a film until he was 17. The first film he saw was Disney’s The Absent-Minded Professor with Fred MacMurray and Nancy Olson which failed to impress him. His second film, however, was Philip Dunne’s…
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Home Viewing with Peter #925
When Nicole Kidman won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival last fall for Babygirl, she joined a long list of contenders for the Best Actress Oscar. Nominated for an award here and there, she never broke through as one of the major contenders for the prize. Having finally seen the A24 release in…
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Oscar Profile: Judy Garland
Born June 10, 1922 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Judy Garland, née Frances Ethel Gumm, was the youngest of three sisters known professionally as The Gumm Sisters. The sisters appeared in three short films between 1929 and 1930. Signed by MGM in 1935 when she was just 13 years old, Garland had a rapid climb to…
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Home Viewing with Peter #924
Warner Home Video has released Amadeus on 4K Ultra HD. Nominated for 11 Oscars and winner of 8, Amadeus was based on Peter Shaffer’s acclaimed play originally performed in London with Paul Scofield as Antonio Salieri, the 18th Century court composer of Emperor Joseph II and Simon Callow as his rival, boy musical genius, Wolfgang…
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Oscar Profile: Gene Hackman
Born January 30, 1930 in San Bernadino, California, Eugene Allen Hackman was raised primarily in Danville, Illinois where his family settled after several moves. He joined the U.S. Marines at 16. After being discharged from the Marines, he moved to New York where he worked in a number of menial jobs before studying journalism and…
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Home Viewing with Peter #923
In 2025, around 19.7 million Americans watched the Academy Awards ceremony. Oscar viewership fluctuates year by year, however, the last time the ceremony drew in a U.S. audience of more than 40 million was back in 2014. The figure recorded in 2021 was the lowest ever and marked a drop-off of over 50 percent from…
