Articles by Ed Peters
Superman II
1981’s ’Superman II, ’ continuing the adventures begun in Richard Donner’s 1978 epic, makes its DVD debut with considerably less fanfare than its newly restored predecessor. While Warner Home Video clearly directed its efforts in repairing the [...]
Superman: The Movie
Wednesday, December 20, 1978. I had just gotten over a bout with walking pneumonia. One benefit was it kept me out of the 10th grade for four days. The down side was that it prevented me from seeing "Superman: The Movie" during its opening [...]
Defending Your Life
What is it about our favorite films that make us cling to them so dearly? Maybe because when we "adopt" a film, we hope that the film’s vision or philosophy becomes our own. We pass along our "favorite films," sometimes to complete [...]
Being There
I miss Peter Sellers. There was something gentle, something very real about his comedic performances. Whether it was the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, the megalomaniac Dr. Strangelove or the Italian master criminal "the Fox" from 1966’s [...]
Demetrius And The Gladiators
"Demetrius and the Gladiators, " released in 1954, was the sequel to Fox’s box-office smash "The Robe, " which came out one year earlier and ushered in movie going with the introduction of Cinemascope. Whereas "The Robe" [...]
The Great Gatsby
My slacker days have just come back to haunt me. I’ll come clean: I’ve never read "The Great Gatsby." I took American Literature in college, but the syllabus in that class required "Tender is the Night," which I still managed to [...]
A Passage To India
When David Lean’s "A Passage to India" opened in 1984, some saw it as a showdown between the glory days of literate epic filmmaking and the "feel-good" ethos of the Lucas/Spielberg popcorn juggernauts. Who better than the director of [...]
Lust In The Dust
In Paul Bartel’s ’Lust in the Dust, ’ everybody’s favorite transvestite Divine plays Rosie Velez, a luckless chanteuse who crosses paths with taciturn drifter Abel Wood (Tab Hunter) on the road to dusty Chile Verde, New Mexico. Rosie plans to [...]