Category: Home Viewing with Peter

I usually know what to expect from a film before I see it. I’m rarely surprised to see one that is so much better than I expected, but such was the case with Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One which won the 2023 Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The visual effects are impressive but the film,…

Kino Lorber has released three films on Blu-ray originally released theatrically between 1947 and 1974 that seemingly have nothing in common other than that they all deal with death. Raoul Walsh’s 1947 film, Pursued was the first noir western. Based on a novel by Niven Busch (Duel in the Sun, The Furies), the film is…

Kino Lorber has released a three-film Blu-ray of Paramount’s historically significant Philo Vance Collection, the first of the three being the first murder mystery of the talkie era. There were twelve Philo Vance detective novels written by author William Huntington Wright under the pseudonym of S.S. Van Dine published between 1926 and 1939 when the…

Sony has released a Blu-ray of Frank Borzage’s newly restored 1933 film, Man’s Castle. Sony, which owns the Columbia Pictures catalogue, recently found the missing footage needed to restore the film to its original 75-minute length after it was cut to 66 minutes for its 1938 post-Code release. The restored film was shown for the…

The year’s biggest box-office success thus far has been Dune: Part Two which has been released on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra UHD by Warner Home Video. The film, a sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 film, Dune, is basically the second half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel. This is at least the third iteration of the…

The 1952 classic High Noon has been released on home video so many times in so many formats that it’s astonishing that it has taken this long to be upgraded to 4K UHD but that has finally happened thanks to Kino Lorer’s release of the film now owned by Paramount. The Stanley Kramer production was…

This week’s top Blu-ray upgrades are a diverse group of films stretching from the early 1990s all the way back to the mid-1940s, but they have one thing in common: change. 1991’s Dogfight gives us the premier sensitive boy actor of his generation, River Phoenix, as a cruel, foulmouthed marine whose sensitive side is a…

Studios and other rights holders continue to be stingy with new video releases. You must either see new films in theatres or streaming on your TV. Blu-ray and increasingly 4K UHD Blu-ray upgrades of films previously released on DVD make up the bulk of home video releases now. Among the new 4K UHD releases, all…

With the 2024 Tony nominations just a week away, now is the perfect time to catch up with or watch again some of the previous Tony award-winning performances that were later captured on film. Tonys were first presented in 1947 for shows that opened on Broadway in the 1946-1947 season. Ingrid Bergman, a Best Actress…

With streaming programs in full force across various platforms, there’s no excuse not to view something at home now, whether it be through one of the services or from the reserves of your DVD and Blu-ray collections. Here are a few examples of the remarkable films and TV series and miniseries that are streaming right…

There are lots of series and mini-series to watch on streaming, but not too many recent or new theatrical films worth delving into. The dwindling Blu-ray and DVD releases of the last week or so are a mixed bag as well. Best of the lot is Gregory Hoblit’s 1996 film Primal Fear, given a 4K…

Warner Archive has released a Blu-ray of the long in demand 1948 version of Peter B. Kyne’s 1916 novel 3 Godfathers. John Ford’s film was the 8th of 9 films to date made from the 1913 novel of the same name. The first two versions, released in 1913 and 1916, respectively, starred silent screen great…

Imprint has released a Blu-ray upgrade of Bob Rafelson’s 1990 film Mountains of the Moon, based on the historical biographical “Burton and Speke” novel by William Harrison, as well as the original journals of the 19th century explorers John Hanning Speke and Richard Burton. It was only the second film from prolific writer-producer-director Rafelson that…

The Criterion Collection has released William Dieterle’s 1941 film All That Money Can Buy on Blu-ray under its Oscar qualifying title. Previous home video releases of the film, as well as its numerous television showings over the years, were under its better-known alternate title, The Devil and Daniel Webster, which was a slightly cut version…

Now that the 2023 Oscars are over, this is a good time to look back at previous Oscars to get a perspective on how the year’s best film might fare over time. Looking back at the Oscars of the years 2003, 1983, 1963, and 1943 gives us a snapshot of those Oscar nominated and winning…