Category: Home Viewing with Peter

New This Week British drama or American made films about the British have been a mainstay of film as long as film has been around. The British TV series, Downton Abbey has been a phenomenon on both sides of the Atlantic for the last three years. Following the formula of the 1970s British series, Upstairs…

New This Week Olive Films has rectified the decades old problem of putting out a home video release of The Quiet Man that does picture and audio justice to John Ford’s beloved 1952 film. The previous DVD release was a direct transfer from the 1992 VHS release with its garish red faces, purple sheep, way…

New This Week I’ve always had a problem with those who outright dismiss John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley for winning the 1941 Oscar for Best Picture over Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Despite its cinematic brilliance and storytelling bravery, Citizen Kane is at its heart a very cold movie, whereas How Green Was My…

New This Week Warner Bros. has given four of its Oscar winning classics well-earned Blu-ray upgrades. The Jazz Singer was nominated in only one category at the 1927/28 inaugural Oscars, for Best Adapted Screenplay, but the studio received a special Academy Award (they weren’t yet the Oscars) “for producing The Jazz Singer, the pioneer outstanding…

New This Week Ironically after compiling my list of the best recent films to come out on DVD in 2012, the very best of the lot, Looper, was released on December 31st just missing my cut-off. This is one of the most intelligent, impeccably written science fiction films of recent times, coming from a surprising…

New This Week Hollywood films typically come to DVD three to six months after their theatrical release. Since Hollywood typically saves its best for last, the best theatrical releases of one year become the best DVD releases of the following year. That was not the case this year as 2011’s year-end theatrical releases were generally…

New This Week Sometimes you just have to ignore the critics and watch a movie they don’t like on instinct. Such is the case with Trouble With the Curve, the new Clint Eastwood film that numerous influential critics have slammed, one of them even going so far as to name it one of the five…

New This Week Of the twenty-five novels credited to action/adventure author Robert Ludlum after his death at the age of 73 in 2001, only one was actually written by Ludlum himself. Those twenty-four other books are credited to Robert Ludlumtm with the name of the “real” author inside the cover of the book. The first…

New This Week It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a new action/adventure film that didn’t fall short of the hype. After a long dry spell there’s The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan’s final installment in his Batman trilogy. The trilogy began auspiciously with 2005’s aptly named Batman Begins bringing authority and awe to…

New This Week A wonderful time awaits anyone who seeks out A Cat in Paris, the constantly enthralling film noir masquerading as a cartoon in this beguiling Oscar nominated animated feature. It’s also a visually breathtaking hand-drawn confection that delights the senses as well as the intellect. This is not one of those cutesy-poo Disney-style…

New This Week Les Miserables, the most anticipated film of the year and the most anticipated screen musical since Chicago ten years ago or maybe even Cabaret forty years ago, got me thinking about the best musicals available on Blu-ray vs. the best musicals not yet on the best home video format ever. Let’s list…

New This Week The first Blu-ray players appeared in the U.S. in 2006. After fighting for supremacy in the Hi-Definition market with competing technology, Blu-ray players and discs were here to stay by 2008. One of the most anticipated early releases in the new format was David Lean’s Oscar winning 1962 masterpiece, Lawrence of Arabia,…

New This Week Aside from the obvious greed factor, one wonders why Columbia found it necessary to re-boot its successful Spider-Man series just ten years after the first film in the trilogy, five after the last. Except for a decent Andrew Garfield performance, nothing in The Amazing Spider-Man adds to the original. It’s the same…

New This Week It hasn’t been officially declared, but this has to be the year of Alfred Hitchcock. Opening this month is the new film Hitchcock with Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren as the director and his writer/collaborator wife Alma Reville during the making of 1960’s Psycho. Previously released this year have been Blu-ray upgrades…

New This Week Two years after British director John Schlesinger made Midnight Cowboy, the definitive film about life in modern day New York, he returned to England to make the definitive film about life in modern day London. Whereas 1969’s Midnight Cowboy exposed the grit and grime of a city few filmmakers were willing to…