Category: Home Viewing with Peter
-
The DVD Report #495
New This Week Meryl Streep is an extremely lucky actress. Not only has the 67-year-old’s career flourished at an age when most of her contemporaries are either retired or given little to do in the films they do manage to make an appearance in, but she’s in the conversation for year-end awards for just about…
-
The DVD Report #494
New This Week Presented at this year’s Cannes Film Festival last May, Cohen Media Group has released a sparkling new 25th Anniversary 4K Restoration of James Ivory’s film of E.M. Forster’s Howards End on both Blu-ray and standard DVD. The is the first of most films in the Merchant-Ivory library that will be restored by…
-
The DVD Report #493
New This Week Disney continues to rake in the big bucks for many of its films, but two of its highly hyped 2016 releases underperformed at the box-office so much so that in their first week of release on DVD and Blu-ray, neither The BFG nor Pete’s Dragon gets the spotlight at Walmart and other…
-
The DVD Report #492
New This Week Travis Knight is making his directorial debut with the brilliantly conceived Kubo and the Two Strings, but he is no stranger to the world of animated films. He was the lead animator on Coraline, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls, all of which were among the finest animated films of recent years. Although Kubo…
-
The DVD Report #491
New This Week Two of the screen’s great fantasy films, Frank Capra’s nearly 80-year-old Lost Horizon and Nicholas Meyer’s nearly 40-year-old Time After Time, have been given very welcome Blu-ray upgrades. 1937’s Lost Horizon was originally released at 132 minutes, but over time lost 25 minutes of its running time mostly due to cuts made…
-
The DVD Report #490
New This Week One of the most exciting shows on TV the last two seasons has been the Starz cable TV series, Outlander based on Diana Gabaldon’s series of historical fantasy novels. There have now been eight in Gabaldon’s series published between 1991 and 2014. In the first season of the show, based on the…
-
The DVD Report #489
New This Week The Star Trek phenomenon is fifty years old this year. If you want to understand the phenomenon, it’s best that you immerse yourself in Star Trek – The Original Series, which ran on TV from 1966 to 1969. Failing that, you should at least familiarize yourself with Star Trek – The Motion…
-
The DVD Report #488
New This Week Captain Fantastic, including the prestigious Cannes Un Certain Regard Directing Prize. The film, which is a modern take on Swiss Family Robinson, stars Viggo Moretensen as the father of six who is raising his children in the rugged Northwest wilderness to be self-sufficient. Home-schooled, the oldest (George MacKay) is smart enough to…
-
The DVD Report #487
New This Week Pan’s Labyrinth has been given a new 2K mastering by the Criterion Collection and released both separately and as part of the Trilogia de Guillermo del Toro on both Blu-ray and standard DVD. The trilogy also includes the previously released Chronos and The Devil’s Backbone. While del Toro’s fantasy films are generally…
-
The DVD Report #486
New This Week The opening sequence of David Yates’ The Legend of Tarzan makes us think we’re going to see a sequel to Hugh Hudson’s excellent 1984 film Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, but soon deteriorates into another unnecessary remake of a classic. In this case, an oft-filmed one. Edgar Rice…
-
The DVD Report #485
New This Week Douglas Sirk (1898-1987) left Hollywood in 1959 just as his career was beginning to be reassessed by French critics, who like their American counterparts, had pretty much taken him for granted during his long career. Long acclaimed in retrospect for his 1950s melodramas, Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, Written on the…
-
The DVD Report #484
New This Week The war was over, but not for the Polish nuns who were persecuted by the Germans and raped by the Russians, who left many of them pregnant in Anne Fontaine’s The Innocents set in 1945 Poland. This remarkable film is a French/Polish co-production with a female director and cinematographer, supported by other…
-
The DVD Report #483
New This Week Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Disney’s crowning achievement is now a quarter century old. To celebrate, Disney has released an immaculate Beauty and the Beast: 25th Anniversary Edition on Blu-ray and standard DVD, as well as a five-disc version that includes the 3D release of the film.…
-
The DVD Report #482
New This Week Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection on Blu-ray, Universal has released Blu-ray compilations of Frankenstein: Complete Legacy Collection and The Wolf Man: Complete Legacy Collection, which expound on two of the classic monster characters. The Frankenstein collection, in addition to the original 1931 Frankenstein and 1935 Bride of Frankenstein included in the…
-
The DVD Report #481
New This Week All the Way, the 2014 Tony winner for Best Play and Best Actor (Bryan Cranston) is now nominated for eight Primetime Emmys including Best Television Movie, Actor (Cranston), Supporting Actress (Melissa Leo), and Director (Jay Roach). Roach is no stranger to political drama made for TV, having previously won an Emmy for…
