Category: Home Viewing with Peter

Random Harvest, the beloved 1942 film which had long been one of Warner Archive’s most requested upgrades to Blu-ray, has finally been released in the format. Based on the best-selling novel by James Hilton whose Lost Horizon and Goodbye, Mr. Chips had previously been made into equally beloved films, this one’s success equaled that of…

20th Century Studios has released a 4K UHD edition of The Devil Wears Parada 2, also available in a separate Blu-ray edition from the Disney subsidiary The original, released by the defunct 20th Century-Fox, may not have been a great film but it had some great things in it, mainly the performances of the film’s…

Universal has released Curry Barker’s Obsession on 4K UHD and regular Blu-ray. The horror film is the first feature length film from short filmmaker Barker. A major box-office success, pundits are already predicting a Best Picture Oscar nomination for the film as well as a possible nomination for leading actress Inde Navarette. I thought that…

Warner Archive’s impressive roster of June releases has finally been released after a delay of several weeks. From 1932’s Letty Lynton to 1969’s Last Summer, these six new releases run the gamut from pre-code glamor to post-code realism and everything in-between from operetta to mysticism to war to show music. Letty Lynton is of course…

It’s always nice to discover an old movie you didn’t even know existed. This week I found one that Kino Lorber released on Blu-ray five years ago. Called 13 Washington Square, the film was released in early 1928 making it eligible for the first Academy Awards but did not receive a single nomination. It’s a…

New from Kino Lorber is a 4K UHD release of Bill Condon’s 2025 film of Kander and Ebb’s musical version of Kiss of the Spider Woman, the third of Kander and Ebb’s trio of Broadway musicals about show business dreamers, and the third to be made into a film over the course of fifty-four years.…

The five films I viewed on home video this past week represent a wide swath of Oscar history. They span ninety-three years from 1928-2020 with twenty-four years between the first and second, twenty between the second and third, nineteen between the third and fourth and thirty between the fourth and fifth, four of them films…

It seems like only yesterday that film buffs were complaining that the younger generation knew nothing about films made before the 1970s, now that generation is complaining that the younger generation knows nothing about films made before the 1990s. Today, I’m looking back at the films of 1969, a year that neither of those generations…

This past week, the Academy announced the recipients of this year’s honorary Oscars to be given in November. They are actress Glenn Close, director Ridley Scott, animator Floyd Norman, and producers Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler. Now is the time to familiarize yourself with their work if you haven’t already. Neither Glenn Close nor Ridley…

The Criterion Collection has released sparkling new 4K UHDs of 1970’s Five Easy Pieces and 2025’s Sentimental Value. At first glance, it may seem that a film shot on the west coast U.S. fifty-five years earlier and one shot in today’s Norway are an odd combination, but the two films have a lot in common.…

Universal has finally released three of its most requested titles from 1936-1961 on Blu-ray. First up is 1936’s Three Smart Girls, the first of the Deanna Durbin musicals that the studio released between 1936 and 1948, though not one of her best. Oddly enough, though, that the publicity generated by the studio was enough to…

The oddest duo of presenters at this year’s Oscars was, to me, that of Bill Pullman and his son, Lewis Pullman. Not only was the scripted repartee between the two off-putting but I kept thinking, why these two? Bill Pullman has always been a good actor but his last starring role of any note had…

Project Hail Mary, the year’s biggest hit film thus far, is currently streaming on video-on-demand. The film, which opened in theatres in March, is not expected to be released on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD until August 11, so if you want to see it before then, video-on-demand is the way to go. The critically…

With all the home viewing opportunities available today, it’s still difficult to find all the great films we want to see whether on cable TV, streaming services, or on DVD or Blu-ray. Part of the problem is ownership of classic films which keeps changing. Warner Bros. currently still has ownership of the bulk of classic…

Sony has finally released Nancy Meyers’ 2003 film, Something’s Gotta Give, on Blu-ray. The prolific writer of 1980s comedies like Private Benjamin and Baby Boom, made her directorial debut with the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap for which she also wrote the screenplay. The next film which she both wrote and directed was Something’s…