Category: Home Viewing with Peter

New This Week Helen Mirren delivers another outstanding performance as Maria Altmann, the real life naturalized American citizen who took on the Austrian government in her 80s and won despite their efforts to stall the court case until she died. She would live to be 94. At issue was a painting of her aunt Adele…

New This Week With rare exception, Al Pacino’s films since winning an Oscar for Scent of a Woman on his eighth nomination twenty-two years ago have been disappointing. Aside from his occasional TV work, nothing he’s done in the intervening years has put him in awards contention. His latest, Danny Collins, won’t do that either,…

New This Week Criterion has released Blu-ray upgrades of two more cinematic masterpieces, The Fisher King and The Bridge. The only non-British member of Monty Python, Terry Gilliam achieved great success with 1974’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail which he co-directed with Terry Jones. He returned to the quest for the Holy Grail with…

New This Week South Africa’s Neill Blomkamp hit the big time with 2009’s epic science fiction film, District 9 which took in more than $115 million at the U.S. box office alone and went on to receive four Oscar nominations including Best Picture and one for writer-director Blompkamp and co-writer Terrri Tatcehll for Best Adapted…

New This Week Warner Bros.’ The Golden Year: 5 Classic Films from 1939 gives us four new-to-Blu-ray releases, Dark Victory, Dodge City, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Ninotchka, and yet another release of Gone With the Wind. Dark Victory was a huge hit when released in April 1939. Bette Davis considered it one of…

New This Week There’s cause for joy for lovers of movie musicals on Blu-ray this week as Sony releases the 4K- Mastered Director’s Cut of 1972’s 1776 featuring restored musical cuts from previous releases. While I contemplate the “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men” who “Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve”, I can’t help but think of the fifteen…

New This Week At some point, home DVD and Blu-ray releases may cease altogether with broadcast television and streaming the only way to bring movies into the home. That may be fine for the average consumer but not for collectors. Availability will then be totally at the whim of the copyright holder and licensee. Already…

New This Week A wise man once said that the best war movies are anti-war movies. Nine years ago Clint Eastwood made two of the very best. Flags of Our Fathers was a film about the men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. Letters from Iwo Jima told the story of the battle for…

New This Week Like Susan Hayward, Paul Newman and Geraldine Page before her, Julianne Moore had so many Oscar nominations over such a long period of time that it seemed inevitable she would finally take home an Oscar last January. Hayward was on her fifth nomination when she won for I Want to Live!, Newman…

New This Week Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner was nominated for four 2014 Oscars for its Cinematography, Production Design, Costume Design and Score. BAFTA nominated it for four awards as well, substituting Make-up and Hair for Score. Neither body nominated Timothy Spall for his portrayal of J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), England’s greatest landscape painter. Spall did start…

New This Week Numerous TV programs over the years have featured Paddington Bear who first appeared in a book by Michael Bond in 1958. Twenty-five books later he appears on screen in 2014’s Paddington. An early Oscar favorite, the film opened in London in November 2014 and received BAFTA nominations for Best British Film and…

New This Week Sometimes the story behind a film is as interesting as the film itself. Such is the case with four films new to Blu-ray, only one of which is making its home video debut. Described as an Iranian vampire western, Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is none of…

New This Week Another week, and another 2014 Oscar hopeful that ended up empty-handed has made it home to Blu-ray and DVD. Tim Burton’s Big Eyes, a biographical drama about artist Margaret Keane (born 1927) and her husband, Walter, was expected to be one of the major year-end releases and a serious Oscar contender for…

New This Week A Most Violent Year started out the 2014 awards season with promise, winning National Board of Review awards for Best Picture, Actor Oscar Isaac (tied with Birdman’s Michael Keaton) and Best Supporting Actress Jessica Chastain. Aside from a few critics’ nominations for Chastain, however, that was it for J.C. Chandor’s third film.…

New This Week It’s funny how the awards circuit works these days. For decades a film that won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival in September was automatically a major contender for year-end awards up to and including the Oscar for Best Picture. The 2014 winner, The Imitation Game, joined the discussion,…