Category: Home Viewing with Peter

New This Week Science fiction and horror are film genres that have stood the test of time. From the silent era to today, both genres have meant big bucks at the box office while often winning critical plaudits as well. Two of this year’s most popular science fiction films, Pacific Rim and World War Z…

New This Week One of the scariest reads ever, William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel, The Exorcist made just as scary a film when released in December, 1973. Eagerly anticipated, the film was a critical sensation and a world-wide box office phenomenon. Especially when seen at night in a darkened theatre, the film haunted audiences for…

New This Week By the end of the Great War, subsequently known as World War I, audiences were tired of films and plays about the war. In 1924, however, war stories were once again popular fodder. Broadway saw three plays that had opened in rapid succession, the most famous and popular of them being Lawrence…

New This Week No scandal ever rocked Hollywood more than that of Ingrid Bergman, the beloved star of Casablanca and The Bells of St. Mary’s who, leaving her neurosurgeon husband and ten-year-old daughter behind, went to Italy to make a movie and became pregnant with the director’s baby. The director was, of course, Roberto Rossellini…

New This Week So much for director Steven Soderbergh’s assertion that the made for TV movie, Behind the Candelabra would be his last film. He’s already at work on The Knick, a mini-series with Clive Owen due next year. Behind the Candelabra was a film he tried to get made for theatrical release but no…

New This Week Last year’s premiere season of Showtime’s Homeland won nine of the twelve Primetime Emmys it was nominated for including Outstanding Drama Series as well as Lead Actor (Damian Lewis) and Actress (Claire Danes) in a Drama Series. Just in time for next week’s Emmys, where it’s been nominated for eleven of the…

New This Week Michael Shannon turns in another excellent performance as another guy out of the mainstream, this time an introverted hit man nicknamed The Iceman. Ariel Vroman’s film may be the best American gangster film since GoodFellas, certainly since The Departed, it’s that’s good and that unsettling. The film opens with Shannon stalking and…

New This Week Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gasby is the fifth film version made from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel. A disappointing seller on its initial release, it was nevertheless turned into a Broadway play early the following year with James Rennie (Dorothy Gish’s husband) and Florence Eldredge (Fredric March’s soon-to-be wife). The first film…

New This Week It’s no secret that the movie business of today’s Hollywood is geared toward the overseas market which is where the big money is. Films that appeal to mass audiences both in the U.S. and throughout the world are more often than not sensationalistic action films, many of which are mindless and forgettable.…

New This Week There was more misinformation surrounding the release of George Stevens’ Shane in 1953 than other film of its time. One of the myths about the film is that it was filmed in widescreen. Another is that it was filmed in both standard and widescreen formats. Another is that it was filmed in…

New This Week Writer-director Jeff Nichols’ third film, Mud is his best film to date and the best new film I’ve seen so far this year. A coming-of-age story in the tradition of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the film’s main characters are two fourteen year-old Arkansas boys who live along the banks…

New This Week Released in a long-ago VHS version at 87 minutes, the film’s original 1951 release time, Budd Boetticher’s Bullfighter and the Lady was restored to the 224 minute director’s cut by UCLA labs in the 1990s and released on laser disc at that time. That version has now been given a long delayed…

New This Week In its fifth year, the Warner Archive continues to release DVDs of long unavailable films we thought we’d never see in the format. A case in point is the release of The Hildegarde Withers Mystery Collection, a collection of all six of the films made from Stuart Palmer’s novels and short stories…

New This Week Promoted as the life story of Jackie Robinson, Brian Helgeland’s 42 isn’t quite that, but it is a well-made, if limited account of the first black major league baseball player’s first year in the majors. Helgeland, who shared the 1997 adapted screenplay Oscar for L.A. Confidential with Curtis Hanson and was subsequently…

New This Week Last week I went on a rant about the three worst performances to have won Best Actress Oscars. This week I want to concentrate on a more positive note, showcasing the best actresses never to have won an Oscar despite multiple award-worthy performances. There are five that come quickly to mind: Irene…