Category: Home Viewing with Peter

Kino Lorber has released 4K UHD updates of two atypical John Wayne films, 1949’s The Sands of Iwo Jima and 1963’s Donovan’s Reef, both of which he initially turned down. Best known for his cowboy roles starting with 1930’s The Big Trail, Wayne starred in some of the most iconic westerns of all time including…

Warner Archive has released a Blu-ray upgrade of 1934’s Sadie McKee, a late pre-Code film that was one of Joan Crawford’s best films of the era. Warner Archive was a godsend for film collectors beginning in 2009 when it began releasing hard-to-find classic films on MOD (manufactured on demand) DVDs well into the DVD era.…

Kino Lorber has released a 4K upgrade of Al Pacino’s 1989 comeback film, Sea of Love. Pacino made his film debut in a minor role in 1969’s Me, Natalie starring Patty Duke. He then starred opposite Kitty Wynn (The Exorcist) in 1981’s The Panic in Needle Park in which they played co-dependent heroin addicts. His…

Criterion has released a sparkling 4K UHD rendition of Arthur Penn’s 1975 film, Night Moves which I remember as being my favorite Gene Hackman film in which the actor played a leading role. In it, he plays a private detective hired by a former actress to find her missing daughter played by Melanie Griffith in…

When Nicole Kidman won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival last fall for Babygirl, she joined a long list of contenders for the Best Actress Oscar. Nominated for an award here and there, she never broke through as one of the major contenders for the prize. Having finally seen the A24 release in…

Warner Home Video has released Amadeus on 4K Ultra HD. Nominated for 11 Oscars and winner of 8, Amadeus was based on Peter Shaffer’s acclaimed play originally performed in London with Paul Scofield as Antonio Salieri, the 18th Century court composer of Emperor Joseph II and Simon Callow as his rival, boy musical genius, Wolfgang…

In 2025, around 19.7 million Americans watched the Academy Awards ceremony. Oscar viewership fluctuates year by year, however, the last time the ceremony drew in a U.S. audience of more than 40 million was back in 2014. The figure recorded in 2021 was the lowest ever and marked a drop-off of over 50 percent from…

I am often asked what my favorite year at the movies was. The answer is I don’t have one but ask me what do I think the most interesting year at the movies was, and I will tell you without hesitation, 1968. What makes 1968 so interesting is that it was a transition year. The…

Just days out from this year’s Oscars, you can find all but two of this year’s nominees for Best Picture and other major awards streaming on your TV in the U.S. and in most other places in the free world. Some are also available on Blu-ray. The two not yet available are A Complete Unknown…

Whether you’ve seen this year’s Oscar-nominated actors in their currently-Oscar-nominated performances or not but would like to see them in other projects, here’s a rundown of some of the films in which they also gave outstanding performances. Someone the other day remarked that Adrien Brody is the male Vivien Leigh. British acting legend Leigh played…

Three of this year’s major Oscar nominees have just been given sparkling 4K UHD and Blu-ray combo releases. Universal is responsible for two of them, Wicked which it released theatrically, and Conclave, which was released theatrically by its subsidiary, Focus Features. Wicked was a box-office phenomenon that quickly became the highest grossing adaptation of a…

The Criterion Collection has released 4K Blu-ray upgrades of two legendary films of the last century, 1950’s Winchester ‘73 and 1990’s The Grifters. Anthony Mann, who rose to fame with such 1940s films noir as T-Men and He Walked by Night, turned to the western genre with the noir western, Winchester ‘73, his first film…

Kino Lorber has released two of 1958’s brightest comedies, Teacher’s Pet and Houseboat, on long overdue Blu-rays. Both films were nominated for two Oscars each. Both received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay, losing to The Defiant Ones. Teacher’s Pet was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Gig Young. Houseboat was also nominated for Best…

After several delays due to the horrific L.A. fires, we are just two days from the announcement of the Oscar nominations for films released in 2024. My expectation is that the ten films nominated for Best Picture will be Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Pérez, A Real Pain, Sing…

It wasn’t until after World War II ended that televisions became affordable. By the late 1940s, most homes in the U.S. had a 12-inch black-and-white TV set. Although most programming was live, TV stations also looked to old movies to fill the gap. By the early 1950s, you could find lots of movies from the…