Category: Home Viewing with Peter

New This Week They Shall Not Grow Old, Peter Jackson’s remarkable documentary made to commemorate the centennial of the end of World War I, was released in the U.K. last November, but its U.S. debut, aside from special screenings, did not take place until February of this year. Warner Archive has now made it available…

New This Week Never Look Away is Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s return to grace after the disaster that was his second film, the 2010 Hollywood flop The Tourist. The German director, who grew up in New York, the son of a Lufthansa executive, hit the big time with his direction of the 2006 Oscar winner…

New This Week This Gun for Hire, The Big Clock, The Landlord, The Bedroom Window, and The House of Games have all now been given Blu-ray upgrades. Alan Ladd had been in films since 1932, mostly in uncredited roles, when talent agent Sue Carol took charge of his career and the actor himself, marrying him…

New This Week The Heiress, given a new 4K restoration by the Criterion Collection, is a prime example of a film that improves upon both Henry James’1880 novel and the 1947 Broadway play on which it is based. William Wyler’s 1949 film was adapted by Ruth and Augustus Goetz from their 1947 play starring Wendy…

New This Week A Face in the Crowd may have been a flop on its initial release in 1957, but the film, given a new 4K restoration by the Criterion Collection, has long since been recognized as one of the great films of its era. Released the same year as The Bridge on the River…

New This Week The House of the Seven Gables, a 1940 Oscar nominee for Best Original Score, has been given a Blu-ray upgrade by Kino Lorber. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1851 gothic novel followed the author’s oft-filmed The Scarlet Letter by one year, but unlike that work, The House of the Seven Gables had been filmed only…

New This Week None Shall Escape, a 1944 Oscar nominee for Best Original Story, has been given a Blu-ray only release by Sony. Although not a huge hit in its original engagements, this film, directed by André De Toth (House of Wax) was not a “B” picture as is commonly believed, but a major release…

New This Week Welcome to Marwen and On the Basis of Sex pose the same conundrum. What should we watch first, these recent narrative films about the real-life people portrayed, or the more acclaimed documentaries about their lives? I would say that if you have limited knowledge of them, watch the narrative film first, you…

New This Week Vice is the seventh of 2018’s eight Oscar nominees for Best Picture to receive a home video release. Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, A Star Is Born, and winner Green Book have all been previously released. Roma may never be released owing to the whims of streaming service Netflix, which…

New This Week If Beale Street Could Talk, based on James Baldwin’s 1974 novel, was one of the best reviewed films of 2018, a major year-end award winner that somehow managed to miss an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Writer-director Barry Jenkins’ prior film, Moonlight, won three Oscars out of the eight it was nominated…

New This Week Mary Poppins Returns tries to recapture the magic of the 1964 original, and mostly succeeds. The film is a mirror image of the original, with characters and situations in the same mode, but different. Emily Blunt is the practically perfect nanny without Julie Andrews’ lilting voice, but with the same ability to…

New This Week Green Book is an Oscar-winning film in the tradition of Wings, It Happened One Night, In the Heat of the Night, Midnight Cowboy, The Sting, Chariots of Fire, Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, Chicago, and The King’s Speech in which two disparate characters bond over unusual circumstances. As was the case with…

New This Week The Favourite is quirky, charming, and hilarious. It is brilliantly acted, superbly directed and beautifully designed, costumed, and shot. Just how much of it is accurate, however, we may never know. Queen Anne ruled England, Scotland, and Ireland for a little over seven years from 1707-1714 from the age of 42 to…

New This Week Mary Queen of Scots was one of last year’s most anticipated films. Oscar prognosticators were beside themselves predicting back-to-back nominations for Lady Bird‘s Saoirse Ronan and I, Tonya‘s Margot Robbie. Then, as they say, the movie came out. Its only Oscar nominations were for Makeup and Hairstyling and Costume Design. Ronan received…

New This Week A Star Is Born is a tale as old as the movies, the talking ones anyway. It made its first appearance under the title of What Price Hollywood? (1932), directed by George Cukor, in which waitress Constance Bennett becomes a star under the tutelage of a washed-up alcoholic director, the real-life alcoholic…