The son of TV producer Dorothea Petrie and director Daniel Petrie (and brother of screenwriter/director/producer Daniel Petrie Jr), he began his entertainment career playing small roles on "Quincy", "The Waltons" and "Three's Company" and in features such as in "The Turning Point" (1978), "H.O.T.S." (1979) and "Fort Apache, the Bronx" (1981).
Petrie shifted to features with "Mystic Pizza" (1988), a modest effort that flirted with sentimentality but was buoyed by fine performances from Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor and Vincent D'Onofrio.
Petrie fared somewhat better with "Grumpy Old Men" (1993) if only due to enjoyable contributions from a trio of old pros: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Ann-Margret (he did not, however, direct the film's 1995 sequel).
Son of director Daniel Petrie and brother of director/writer Daniel Petrie Jr., Donald was born in Manhattan and moved to Los Angeles while still in his teens.
Petrie accepted the challenge and sat in the director's chair for the "Mister Magic" episode, starring Sid Caesar.
Petrie continued working in television and began a fruitful period directing several hours of a number of series, but only within their first seasons.
DonaldPetrie's Miss Congeniality has something to do with an ugly, bitter, uncouth woman discovering true happiness (love, career success, respect) by waxing her area and strutting down a runway.
Petrie the shoehorn, fond of ease and convention, dabbles in a trio of crowd-pleasing templates here: Bullock's standard Cinderella bullshit; the rogue cop/angry chief bit (Ernie Hudson with the honours this time around); and the fish-out-of-water intrigue.
Three "Missing" scenes (6 mins.), narrated by Petrie, have the dude justifying the replacement of a dance scene with the standard montage, the removal of a wedding sequence in which Gracie's father asks her the one pertinent question of the film, i.e.
DonaldPetrie, a graduate of the American Film Institute, landed his first career break when Steven Spielberg viewed his film, The Expert, and hired him to direct an episode of the popular television series, Amazing Stories, which starred Sid Caesar.
Petrie made his feature film directorial debut with the critically acclaimed, Mystic Pizza.
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DonaldPetrie has signed on to helm the ensemble romantic comedy Chasing Dinner for the Yari Film Group, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Written by the team of Bruce Evans and Ray Gideon (Starman, Stand by Me), "Dinner" is set in a small town whose residents' lives are turned upside down when three pigs escape being butchered to become "hams on the lam," spurring a media circus during the holiday season.
Petrie has directed such films as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Miss Congeniality.
Director DonaldPetrie (of the insufferable "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days") and writer Tom Schulman -- whose track record ranges from the banal ("Dead Poets Society") to the bloody awful (the Eddie Murphy bomb "Holy Man") -- don't seem to realize they're working with a cast full of unsympathetic characters here.
Even though Hackman hires a campaign guru (Rip Torn) and starts playing dirty election politics, "Mooseport" treats him as a misguided co-protagonist alongside Romano, who spends most of the movie with his foot in his mouth.
Just about the only element of the film that doesn't ring false is the outrageous amount of press coverage this little mayoral race attracts -- something Petrie and Schulman use only for unimaginative narrative purposes, completely failing to exploit for its satirical possibilities.
Amazon.ca: Mystic Pizza (Widescreen): DVD: Donald Petrie,Annabeth Gish,Julia Roberts,Lili Taylor,Vincent ...(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-17)
Both Daisy and Kat fall for guys during the summer, Daisy with a lazy, knockabout trust fund kid Charlie (Adam Storke) and Kat with Tim Travers, a wealthy architect whom Kat is babysitting his daughter Phoebe.
The movie is basically a predictable romantic comedy, but the actors are so likeable, that youll find yourself being caught up in their stories and director DonaldPetrie perfectly captures the beautiful southern Connecticut coast (the film was shot in Mystic as well as other Connecticut towns and Rhode Island).
This film marked the first starring role for Julia Roberts and while it didnt catapult her to immediate stardom it set the blueprint for the type of role that would make her into the most popular actress in Hollywood.
For about four minutes of screen time a short-lived spark of real romantic chemistry erupts between them -- and it was just enough to keep me from walking -- scratch that -- running out on this otherwise unendurably unfunny and wholly one-dimensional movie.
But then director DonaldPetrie ("Miss Congeniality") takes us right back to the city, where the skin-crawling tripe is kicked into high gear by a big gala event for McConaughey's company at which Hudson can embarrass him completely, once and for all, by making a scene as they break up.
Had it ever occurred to the filmmakers that this picture would constitute a horror movie for half the population (even those of us who fell in love with the genuinely neurotic Bridget Jones), it might have been salvageable.
Amazon.ca: Miss Congeniality: DVD: Donald Petrie,Sandra Bullock,Michael Caine,Benjamin Bratt,William Shatner,Candice ...(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-17)
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Michael Caine Director: DonaldPetrie MPAA Rating:
But in the hands of director DonaldPetrie, who's overly friendly with the lowest common denominator, the watered-down final product is too eager to please.
At its core, however, Miss Congeniality is an entertaining farce that prevails in its chief effort -- putting Bullock back on the mainstream map.
As she desperately races to find Jake and reverse her misfortune, Ashley discovers that her terrible twist-of-fate is the luckiest thing that ever happened to her.
Ashley (Lindsay Lohan) and Jake (Chris Pine) in DonaldPetrie's Comedy Romance, Just My Luck - 2006
Ashley (Lindsay Lohan) and Jake (Chris Pine) in DonaldPetrie's Comedy Romance, Just My Luck - 2006 : Just My Luck - Movie Still, Celebrity Images and Posters
DonaldPetrie (Miss Congeniality) has signed on to direct the ensemble romantic comedy Chasing Dinner, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The story is set in a small town whose residents' lives are turned upside down when three pigs escape being butchered to become "hams on the lam," spurring a media circus during the holiday season.
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Just My Luck (2006): Lindsay Lohan, Christopher Pine, Samaire Armstrong, DonaldPetrie
"I have no problem with Lohan desiring to be Lucy, but she's got to find a better director than the torturous DonaldPetrie to help get her to that level."
