Category: Home Viewing with Peter

New This Week A Midnight Clear has finally been given a U.S. Blu-ray release by Shout Select. The anti-war film directed by former actor Keith Gordon (Dressed to Kill) has been a cult favorite ever since its debut in April 1992. Taken from the novel by William Wharton (Birdy, Dad) with a screenplay by Wharton…

New This Week Dance, Girl Dance, the best-known of Dorothy Arzner’s sixteen films, has been given a Criterion Collection Blu-ray release from a new, 4K digital transfer. Arzner was a founding member of the Directors Guild of America and the only female director during Hollywood’s Golden Age from the 1920s-1940s. She made Dance, Girl, Dance…

New This Week Thunder on the Hill, Douglas Sirk’s 1951 film, was the director’s first for Universal, the studio where he would make such classics as Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, and Imitation of Life over the next eight years. He was the perfect choice for this female-driven murder mystery based on a successful…

New This Week A Thousand Clowns was an unlikely contender for Best Picture at the 1965 Oscars, yet there it was nominated over such stronger possibilities as A Patch of Blue, The Collector, and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, along with Darling, Doctor Zhivago, and Ship of Fools, all of which were destined…

New This Week Sweet Bird of Youth and Reflections in a Golden Eye were among the most controversial films of the 1960s. The former was among the best of that decade, the latter was among the worst. Both have been given sparkling new Blu-ray releases from Warner Archive. Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth first…

New This Week Connecting Rooms and Love Among the Ruins are not films we tend to think of when we think of Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn, but both films have been newly released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber to remind us once again what extraordinary actresses these two legends were throughout their lives. Connecting…

New This Week Destry Rides Again was the name of a 1932 Tom Mix western taken from Max Brand’s serialized novel, Twelve Peers. Universal owned the title, which it used in the celebrated 1939 pacifist western that bore no resemblance to the 1932 film, which had been a run-of-the-mill shoot-em-up. The 1939 film, given a…

New This Week Little Women is the last of the nine 2019 Oscar nominees for Best Picture to make it to home video. Winner Parasite, as well as 1917, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, and Ford v Ferrari have all been previously released on DVD and Blu-ray. The Irishman and Marriage Story…

New This Week Show Boat first appeared as a best-selling novel by Edna Ferber (Giant) in 1926. It was adapted into a legendary musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, which opened on Broadway in late 1927. It has been made into a film three times, in 1929, 1936, and 1951. Fans have been…

New This Week 1917 is the best film about the foot soldier since 1998’s Saving Private Ryan and the best film about the foot soldier in World War I since the triumvirate of All Quiet on the Western Front, Journey’s End, and Westfront 1918, all from 1930. What director Sam Mendes (Skyfall) couldn’t have known…

New This Week How Green Was My Valley had its world premiere at the Rivoli Theatre on Broadway between 49th and 50th streets on October 28, 1941. It wouldn’t open in Los Angeles until January 8, 1942 in a year when the cutoff for Oscar consideration was January 12 instead of December 31 of the…

New This Week Bombshell is a highly entertaining take on the Fox News scandal that evolved when Gretchen Carlson, one of the network’s star news anchors, sued network news honcho Roger Ailes for sexual harassment when she was fired by the network. Although the film is classified as a drama, much of it is played…

New This Week Dark Waters may not be at the top of anyone’s list of the best films of 2019, but it may be the most important. Directed by Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven, Carol, Wonderstruck), the film is about Rob Bilott, the corporate defense attorney who successfully sued DuPont on behalf of its Parkersburg,…

New This Week Knives Out is a film that has grossed $164 million to date and has received considerable award recognition including an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. While I can understand the film’s popularity given the moviegoing public’s hunger for a great murder mystery, even if this isn’t that, it’s the film’s awards…

New This Week Jojo Rabbit is the seventh of the nine films nominated for Best Picture at the 2019 Academy Awards to be released for home viewing. The Irishman and Marriage Story are available for screening through Netflix. Ford v Ferrari, Joker, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, and the winner, Parasite, have previously been released…