Category: Home Viewing with Peter

New This Week By the end of World War II audiences had had enough of films about the war, but by 1949 Hollywood rightfully concluded that enough time had passed to make the topic marketable again. Three hugely successful films about the war figured heavily in the 1949 Oscar race. Two of them (Twelve O’Clock…

New This Week CLICK HEREfor other new releases this week. Hollywood’s studio execs were beside themselves when not one, but two, British made films were nominated for Best Picture of 1948. Warner Brothers’ Johnny Belinda led the nominations with 12 nods, but Hamlet and The Red Shoes equaled that number between them and would win…

New This Week The Oscar year 1947 is mostly remembered for two things – Hollywood’s acknowledgement of anti-Semitism in the Best Picture race and the sweep of the major technical awards by the British. Laura Hobson’s Gentleman’s Agreement had been a best-seller but ironically most of the studios, which were run by Jewish moguls, wouldn’t…

New This Week CLICK HEREfor other new releases this week. The best films are those which are about a specific time and place but which are also universal in their theme and appeal. Such is the case with the 1946 Oscar winner, The Best Years of Our Lives, which is a film about homecoming American…

New This Week CLICK HEREfor other new releases this week. The war was over but not in the movies as war themed films continued to be popular at the box office, several winning major Oscar nominations for1945 but none nominated for Best Picture. Alcoholism, heretofore a side issue in melodrama and comedy, took center stage…

New This Week By the time of the 1944 Oscars in March, 1945, the end of World War II was in sight. Only one of the year’s five Best Picture nominees dealt directly with the war. The big winner was of course Leo McCarey’s Going My Way, which won seven of the ten Oscars it…

New This Week World War II continued unabated in real life and on the screen in 1943. The Oscar race was once again dominated by films about war. The 1942 New York Film Critics Award winner, Noel Coward and David Lean’s In Which We Serve, was not eligible for Oscar consideration then because it did…

New This Week World War II raged on the screen in 1942 just as it raged in reality. No less than half of the year’s Best Picture contenders were about the war, culminating in an astonishing total of thirty nominations and ten wins. The British home-front in the early days of the war served as…

New This Week 1941 is remembered as the year in which How Green Was My Valley beat Citizen Kane for the Oscar, a travesty in many people’s eyes but not mine. Both were great films, Valley the better of the two in my humble opinion. The front-runner in terms of nominations was Sergeant York which…

New This Week Almost as impressive as the year that preceded it, all ten films nominated for Best Picture of 1940 are available on DVD. Two of Hollywood’s most legendary directors, John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock, both had two films nominated for Best Picture and they themselves were both nominated for Best Director. Hitchcock’s Rebecca…

New This Week Often cited as the greatest year in movie history, all ten films nominated for 1939’s Best Picture Oscar have been released on DVD. Indeed, some of them have been released over and over. For example, perennial favorites Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz were both given deluxe packaging in…

New This Week Seven of 1938’s Oscar nominated films have been released on commercial DVD in the U.S. Two of the remaining three are available from the Warner Archive and since the tenth film is an MGM film, expect that to eventually be released by the Archive as well. A comedy classic that was right…

New This Week [EDITOR’S NOTE: Today marks the beginning of Peter’s 4th year writing The DVD Report for Cinema Sight. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Peter for his wonderful work these past three years. Your insights and commentary have been an invaluable asset to me and to our readers and we wish…

The Oscars stabilized in 1936 with a strict ten picture roster nominated for Best Picture, a practice that would last through 1943 and return with the 2009 awards. The acting and directing categories were stabilized as well at five nominees each, a practice that has remained in force. Supporting acting awards were handed out for…

Oscar repeated its record twelve Best Picture nominations of 1934 the following year. 1935’s Oscar race gave us equal helpings of action, drama, comedy and music – three nominations for each genre. Action was very much in the forefront this year with Mutiny on the Bounty; Captain Blood and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer…