Category: Home Viewing with Peter

One hundred and twenty hours of film were recorded and eight hours of it were put on screen in the final product through its multiple screen images in the “you-are-there” documentary, Woodstock. Woodstockthe film was as remarkable an achievement as the three day celebration of music, love and mud it documents. Michael Wadleigh’s box office…

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reunite eleven years after Titanic. No crowd pleaser this time out, Revolutionary Road is a bleak melodrama about discontented suburbanites in the 1950s. Richard Yates’ novel met with critical acclaim when it was published in 1961, but was not a commercial success. Indeed, none of the writer’s seven published novels…

Paramount has released three more films in its Centennial Collection. As with previous releases, these are re-mastered editions of previously released DVDs with tons of extras. Initial reviews of John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in May 1962, ranged from respectful to indifferent. It wasn’t until the 1970s when Ford was dead and…

A huge hit early in the year, Pierre Morel’s Taken is a French film done in English with Liam Neeson as the U.S. government agent whose daughter (Maggie Grace) is kidnapped by slave traders while on vacation in Paris. The film is completely implausible from beginning to end. Neeson single-handedly kills so many bad guys…

Several long requested classic films are now available on DVD. Dalton Trumbo wrote his acclaimed anti-war novel, Johnny Got His Gun, about a victim of World War I – the war to end all wars – in 1938. It was published on the eve of Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939. It won a National…

Now that all the films that make up my 2008 ten best list have been released on Region 1 DVDs, it’s a good time to take another look at those films. It used to be that films made from proven works, major novels and play, and films from A-list directors and stars, were highly anticipated…

One of last year’s best films, John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, based on his Pulitzer Prize and Tony award-winning play, has come home to Blu-ray and standard DVD. Shanley’s film, like his play, is set in 1964. The Catholic Church is on the cusp of great change. Vatican II with its sweeping mandates has already occurred…

Warner Bros. had already decided to release Slumdog Millionaire straight to DVD in the U.S. when Fox Searchlight picked up the distribution rights last fall and released the film to U.S. theatres instead. The result was a word-of-mouth hit and an eventual worldwide awards winner. Among its haul of awards – 8 Oscars out of…

Here are some new DVD releases and a few recent ones that may have slipped through the cracks: Daniel Craig is back for a second go at James Bond in Quantum of Solace. With a screenplay co-written by Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash) and direction by Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball, The Kite Runner), this…

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, what better time to talk about my favorite Irish films? Here then my chronological evaluation of a baker’s dozen. Ten are available on DVD, and three that aren’t, but should be. No one made more films about the Irish than John Ford whose characters seemed to be Irish even when they…

Now that the Oscars are over, last year’s major award winners and contenders are being released on DVD and Blu-ray. The first Best Picture nominee to hit home video is Gus Van Sant’s Milk,nominated for eight Academy Awards and winner of two for Sean Penn’s portrayal of California’s first openly gay elected official and for…

Buz Luhrmann’s long-in-gestation epic Australia, about life in that country’s northern cattle country at the outset of World War II was one of last year’s most anticipated films. Lackluster reviews and tepid box office have culminated in an earlier-than-anticipated DVD release. Given the mostly negative reviews, I found the film better than I would have…

Guy Ritchie has had a checkered career. The audacious British director burst onto the international scene with the manic crime caper comedies, 1998’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and 2000’s Snatch, and then squandered his talent with 2002’s Swept Away, a dreadful remake of the classic Italian film as a star vehicle/vanity production for…

This coming Sunday brings with it the presentation of the 81st Annual Academy Awards. Though none of this year’s Best Picture nominees is yet available on DVD, films with other major nominations have been released. Joining the previously reviewed WALL-E, The Dark Knight, Tropic Thunder, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and The Visitor are two films featuring…

Improperly marketed as a satire, Oliver Stone’s W. is a sobering look at the man who was president of the United States for the last eight years. Sure, there are some funny moments, but most of those are the ones that are overly familiar from the much seen trailer. The film covers the presidency of…