Category: Home Viewing with Peter

There was a time not so long ago when holidays in America meant more than a day off from work. Now, aside from Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, what holidays do Americans really celebrate? Certainly not the 4th of July (Independence Day), except as an excuse to watch fireworks displays or, in some cases, set…

The American Film Institute (AFI) has revamped its decade old list of the greatest American films. Called 100 Years…100 Films, the original list was used as a selling tool by DVD marketers to bring public awareness to films that might otherwise have been overlooked. The marketing strategy has come full circle. Just as the original…

The Criterion Collection scores again with two eagerly-awaited releases: Lindsay Anderson’s If… (1968 UK, 1969 US) and Claude Berri’s The Two of Us (1967 France, 1968 US). Thematically, If…, about a repressive boys’ school, resembles Jean Vigo’s Zero for Conduct (1933). Artistically, it’s very much a film of its time. 1969, the year it was…

This week’s DVD releases run the gamut from the original Nancy Drew, personified by the delightful Bonita Granville, to Jack Benny in drag in a long lost treasure, to Chris Cooper at his nutty best. The new Nancy Drew seems to be marketed to nine- and ten-year-olds, the kind of film you plop a child…

This week’s DVD releases offer a little something for everyone, from vintage Eddie Murphy to the film that torpedoed his Oscar chances this year. From a boxed set of World War II films to a foiled film version of a beloved stage musical. Norbit, directed by Brian Robbins, was one of the most poorly reviewed…

May 12 marked the 100th anniversary of Katharine Hepburn’s birth. Other actors and actresses may have had longer careers, but none ever stayed at the top for as long as Hepburn did in her remarkable 62 year screen career. That career spanned from 1932’s A Bill of Divorcement to 1994’s made-for-TV One Christmas neither of…

This week’s plethora of DVD releases is enough to start even the heartiest DVD collector’s head spinning – what to buy, what to buy, what to ignore… This being the Tuesday before Memorial Day, Warner Bros. is releasing Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-nominated Letters from Iwo Jima in a two-disc special edition and reissuing his Flags of…

She was Winston Churchill’s favorite actress. She was so popular at the height of her career that Mussolini wrote her begging her to intercede with Franklin Roosevelt on behalf of America’s young men and ask him not to enter World War II. She didn’t. Everyone’s idea of the perfect daughter, Deanna Durbin (Audio CD of…

As a child I dreamed of one day becoming a movie mogul with a vast collection of films in my personal library. I never became a mogul, but I do have the library. Anyone can build one thanks to the wealth of films available on DVD. As this is an Oscar site, I plan to…