Category: Home Viewing with Peter

New This Week A number of films previously released on DVD have been given recent Blu-ray upgrades. Among them is The Time Machine, George Pal’s legendary science fiction film from H.G. Wells’ novel. Filmed numerous times and copied too many others to count, this is the definitive version of Wells’ visionary masterpiece set in 1900…

New This Week Broadway musicals made from hit movies are nothing new. Some of Broadway’s greatest hits came from such movies, many of which had their origins as straight plays or novels. The twice filmed Liliom became Carousel; Charley’s Aunt became Where’s Charley? and Anna and the King of Siam became The King and I…

New This Week The British rock invasion that began with the Beatles fifty years ago was immortalized in the 1964 film, A Hard Day’s Night in which the Beatles self-satirize themselves while at the same time advancing their legend. Filmed on a six week schedule beginning just a month after the group’s legendary appearance on…

New This Week Animated features are generally not my favorite type of film. I am more drawn away from films with “movie” in the title than drawn to them. The word in the English language I find most abhorrent is “awesome”. These are three reasons why The Lego Movie shouldn’t work for me, but surprisingly…

New This Week Not new to DVD, but of renewed interest because of last week’s Tony Awards, Small Town Girl was one of the first films released by Warner Archive when it began releasing hard to find films five years ago. Hugh Jackman opened the Tonys by hopping for four minutes along Manhattan’s 53rd St.,…

New This Week A war film with the title Lone Survivor obviously forecasts how it will end, but how it gets there is what makes the most violent and yet most moving war movie since Saving Private Ryan worth your time. Peter Berg’s film chronicles the 2005 mission of a group of Navy SEALS in…

New This Week Howard Hawks directed his first film in 1926. He was a prolific filmmaker who excelled in all genres from psychological war movies (The Dawn Patrol) to gangster films (Scarface) to screwball comedies (Bringing Up Baby) to action-adventures (Only Angels Have Wings) to gender-bending remakes (His Girl Friday) to biographies (Sergeant York) to…

New This Week Two of the films that were expected to earn major Oscar nominations last year were not released until early this year making them ineligible for consideration for the 2013 awards. Will they factor into the 2014 race? Perhaps not, but they shouldn’t keep anyone from enjoying them. Held back because it wasn’t…

New This Week Films about men falling in love with other-worldly creatures have long been a staple of movies as they were in mythology going back to the Greeks. We’ve had films about men falling in love with angels (I Married an Angel; witches (I Married a Witch; statues One Touch of Venus and more…

New This Week Diehard fans of Veronica Mars, which ran on the CW TV network from 2004-2007, contributed money to the on-line Kickstarter website to finance a new film based on the series. The film was made for $6 million, but grossed only $3.4 million partially due to Kickstarter contributors receiving free tickets or downloads…

New This Week Second generation director Jason Reitman began his film career like a house-afire with his first film, 2005’s Thank You for Smoking which earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor – Musical or Comedy, Aaron Eckhart. His second film, 2007’s Juno earned Golden Globe nominations for…

New This Week William Friedkin was riding high. His last two films, The French Connection and The Exorcist were world-wide box-office hits and multiple awards magnets. His next film, a reimagining of Henri-Georges Clozot’s 1953 French film classic, The Wages of Fear was intended to be his masterpiece. Instead, that film, titled Sorcerer was a…

New This Week Based on Martin Sixsmith’s The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, Stephen Frears’ Philomena takes the emphasis off the child and puts it squarely on his mother. Writer-producer and co-star, Steve Coogan, not Frears, is clearly the auteur on this one. He and his co-writer, Jeff Pope, collapse about 80% of the book…

New This Week One of last year’s most eagerly anticipated films, John Wells’ film of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize winning August: Osage County met with mixed reviews at last September’s Toronto Film Festival from which it never really recovered. Part of the problem was the film’s marketing as a dark comedy which it is not.…

New This Week Just in time for the new FX series of the same name, the Coen Brothers’ 1996 classic, Fargo has been given a spiffy new Blu-ray release. The riotously funny black comedy features an Oscar winning screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen as well as an Oscar winning performance by Joel’s wife, Frances…