criterionforum.org

No

bad future wrote: Wed Jun 09, 2021 4:22 am I guess it’s possible that Warner is not going to produce any more stock of their WAC releases, but it seems more likely to me that they’re simply between runs on a lot of titles.

bad future wrote: Wed Jun 09, 2021 4:22 am Out of curiosity, what are some titles that are “no longer available from this seller”?

It's so widespread, that I don't think it's just some titles. Since the "last 4 for $44" WB shop thing, I've panic-bought loads of stuff (including many DVD-Rs that used to be actual DVDs but whatever, I snoozed, I loosed; I'm going to back up every last disc anyhow) incl every Norma Shearer film, all of the Forbidden Hollywood sets, and losts of odds n ends stuff I caught on TCM once I knew I'd never see again. Most of these were ordered in February and at the time said "ships in 2 to 4" or "4 to 6 weeks" and I had the whole lot of em by May. This timeline was present in any title I ordered though sometimes they arrived much sooner.

I've kept my Saved for Later cart filled with titles I wanted but hadn't gotten yet and would add them now and then as budget allowed. That's where I observed them all change to "Temporarily out of stock" to "No longer available from this seller." However, some of those today are back to "Temporarily out of stock" and can be ordered. I'll order a few and see what happens. Maybe the Amazon computers are just doing funny things.

Please don't judge me for wanting to own all of these movies. I have suspect taste.

All of these said "No longer available" and still do:
Upperworld
The Widow from Chicago
A Very Honorable Guy
The Crash/Registered Nurse
Blessed Event
An American Tragedy (not WB but other MOD studio discs like this are similarly going funny with different statuses)
The Crowd Roars
Pick a Star

All of these said "No longer available" but are back to "Temporarily out of stock" and can be ordered:
Rasputin and the Empress
Beauty and the Boss
Showgirl in Hollywood
The Star Witness
Broadway Babies
Playing Around
The Dark Horse
Ah Wilderness
Gold Diggers of 1933 (which is insane there's no Blu of this)
It's Love I'm After
Warren William Perry Mason Set
Gold Raiders/Meet the Baron
Hollywood Party
Philo Vance Collection

Stuff I got recently is now Temporarily out of stock like On Borrowed Time and The Last Flight. Meanwhile the Bert Lahr comedy I recently got, Flying High, is listed as "1 in stock (more on the way)." For such an oddball title, I'd be shocked if there was really always "more on the way" when meanwhile a big title like MGM's Romeo and Juliet is "Temporarily out of stock. It might really be "usually there are more available so let's say there are but our computers don't understand what's going on right now."

And some are clearly pressed in bigger quantities than they may have realized like the William Powell at Warner Brothers set was upmarked to almost $100 the other day and not available for less but now is $29.99 with "10 in stock (more on the way)."

Also formerly listed as "No longer available" but now say "xx in stock (more on the way)" is a conspicuous amount of collections/sets:
Torchy Blane
George Sanders The Saint

I know this is all likely to change again by the minute but I guess I'm so confused as to actually who it is that is manufacturing these discs at this point if anyone. The WB Archive FB group is a mess of naive blueberries requesting Blu-ray titles (though it's a fan group and nothing else) from the soon-to-be-expired range, to folks declaring "It's dead, and you'll never see these movies again."

The prices on Amazon have increased a lot since March for the Forbidden Hollywood sets which I got all for $20 or less back then but are now sometimes closer to $30-35. Most of the Norma Shearer movies I panic-bought back then are "Temporarily out of stock." Her Cardboard Lover is unavailable. I have a feeling TCM will die in my lifetime and hopefully when that happens, they just put all their WB/MGM/RKO titles on a permanent streaming service and call it a day. Oh wait, I want that movie too! It's so cute. Nope. Call it a Day is "Temporarily out of stock."

I ordered The Phantom Tollbooth from Amazon back in the spring and it took seven weeks or something similarly wacky but it did get to me eventually. I wonder if it’s just supply chain hiccups.

These look like the July releases, so far

Objective: Burma! - July 13
The Herculoids: Complete Original Series - July 27
I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes - July 20
Step by Step - July 20
Take Me Out to the Ball Game - July 20

Finally some Walsh. Am I right in saying he's been neglected by WAC?

I Wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes is a decent enough programmer noir based on the completely absurd complication that arises when a man throws his shoes out into the alley to shut up a cat. The big news here is obv Take Me Out to the Ballgame, which was inexplicably MIA in the Sinatra box

Weird, I just watched I Wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes yesterday, and that's one obscure title!

domino harvey wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 2:12 pm I Wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes is a decent enough programmer noir based on the completely absurd complication that arises when a man throws his shoes out into the alley to shut up a cat. The big news here is obv Take Me Out to the Ballgame, which was inexplicably MIA in the Sinatra box

It was in the Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly Collection box, along with On the Town and Anchors Aweigh.

EDIT: Sorry, domino, you're talking BD, and I'm talking DVD. You're right, of course. It wasn't in the Blu set, but the other two were.

One Crazy Summer (1986) has shown up on Amazon for a 8/10 release and seems to be the first title for August WAC releases.

Shadow Of The Thin Man has also appeared on Amazon for August.

Looks like more titles are up on Amazon...
Dangerous (1935)
The Champ (1931)
High Sierra (1941)
Kitty Foyle (1940)
Johnny Belinda (1948)
Captains Courageous (1937)

No release dates listed yet

FrauBlucher wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 11:01 pm High Sierra (1941)

YES! Definitely my second favorite Bogart film behind Treasure of the Sierra Madre. While a bit uneven in parts, his performance is a knockout. Absolutely excited about this one!

FrauBlucher wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 11:01 pm Looks like more titles are up on Amazon...
Dangerous (1935)
The Champ (1931)
High Sierra (1941)
Kitty Foyle (1940)
Johnny Belinda (1948)
Captains Courageous (1937)

No release dates listed yet

Ooo some really good films! Kitty Foyle and Johnny Belinda were both part of a cancelled DVD box set from WB and were released separately instead— anyone remember the other titles? Might be a good hint at what’s coming next

And to answer my own question, it was an Academy Awards Winners collection. The only MIA on Blu title from it is the Good Earth

FrauBlucher wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 11:01 pm Looks like more titles are up on Amazon...
Dangerous (1935)
The Champ (1931)
High Sierra (1941)
Kitty Foyle (1940)
Johnny Belinda (1948)
Captains Courageous (1937)

No release dates listed yet

Unfortunately it looks like these titles were too good to be true. According to a user over at Blu-ray.com they're just placeholder links and have been on Amazon since the dawn of time Considering they have no date or cover attached it sounds like he's right. So far the only confirmed/official titles (date and cover) are One Crazy Summer, In The Good Old Summertime and Shadow of a Thin Man.
One Crazy Summer is actually pretty fun, endlessly quotable and a quintessential 80's comedy, In The Good Old Summertime (a musical remake of The Shop Around The Corner) is a pretty good and enjoyable Judy Garland vehicle and Shadow of a Thin Man is the last essential sequel of the franchise. Anyway, hopefully at the very least The Champ and Johnny Belinda pan out. They're terrific films and are titles that for so long I have been hoping to cross off my wishlist.

We should have known something was awry, they’re all good movies and logical choices for upgrades!

A listing has been found for Sidney Lumet's 'Prince and the City' on Amazon with a release date of August 24.

FrauBlucher wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:00 am Step by Step - July 20

Given how rare it is for any label to release a noir I haven't even heard of, I dutifully picked Step by Step up and it like I Wouldn't Be In Your Shoes is a rando programmer unlikely to be in the top two thirds of anyone's noir wishlist, but it's watchable pap. Tips a bit over into wanting to be a Hitchcock movie (pssshhhh in its dreams) more than a noir, but the tropes are still loud and clear here. Speaking of, every character helpfully says out-loud every step of every plan several times, to the point that you could probably watch one out of every three minutes and still follow along seemlessly. Also, Lawrence Tierney's first line is "Hubba Hubba" and there's a major role for a cute dog, so those looking for art should keep looking.

At 61 minutes and 51 seconds, is this the shortest feature to receive a dedicated Warner Archive Blu-ray release? Padding is provided by one of the extras, though, the 20+ minute long mystery the Trans-Atlantic Mystery, pulled from the same author of Philo Vance and it is somehow worse than those movies with William Powell-- I couldn't even figure out which character was supposed to be the recurring "detective" figure of this series until reading about it afterwards. The mystery is solved by several characters reciting what sounds like a plot summary of the source text. There's another of these films on the Shoes Blu, but I'm not sure I can do it, even at just two reels!

September titles starting to show up, beginning with Santa Fe Trail (1940) on 9/14.

Someone on bluray.com found A Night at the Opera on Amazon. Hopefully it’s true

It seems they have decided September to be one of their "lol lets release multiple good movies" months, with The Naked Spur, Straight Time, A Night at the Opera, and The Window (well, they can't all be winners) all coming.

The Window is a great noir, what are you talking about?

I was just about to say, that may be the best of the bunch