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There’s been a lot of talk lately about how the studios have lost interest in physical media, with Disney outsourcing its discs to Sony and questions over where the business is going in the wake of Redbox’s demise and Best Buy’s decision to stop selling Blu-rays and DVDs. Yet not only have the rumors of physical media’s death been greatly exaggerated as boutique labels step in to pick up the slack, but even at the studio level, praiseworthy efforts to showcase archival treasures are alive and well. Take, for example, the new Warner Archive Blu-ray of Raoul Walsh’s 1946 classic “The Man I Love.”

“The Man I Love” is a film beloved by cinephiles but hardly famous — among Warners’ 1940s releases, it’s a long way down from “Casablanca” and “The Maltese Falcon” when it comes to widespread popularity. It’s the kind of movie that...

The name Errol Flynn is still synonymous with the Classic Hollywood era decades after his death and a look back on his best movies explains why this is the case. Errol Flynn was one of the first true movie stars. An Australian-born actor, Flynn moved to Hollywood in the early ‘30s after gaining a few minor roles in Australian movies. In California, Flynn became a bigger star than he could have ever dreamed when he got the lead role in 1935’s Captain Blood. This classic swashbuckling adventure movie proved that Flynn had charisma to spare and, before long, he was one of Hollywood’s most in-demand leading men.

A string of hits followed, as well as a turbulent private life and some legendarily troubled productions like Flynn’s infamous Adventures of Don Juan. However, despite Flynn’s hard-partying lifestyle and on-set spats, the actor remains one of the biggest and...

Max’s first full month without ‘HBO’ in its rebranded title has a selection that kicks off summer 2023 in fine fashion. Three of the four iterations of “A Star Is Born,” including the most recent remake starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, are streaming on Max in June. The 1954 and 1976 films land June 1, while the 2018 version arrives June 8.

To prepare for Margot Robbie’s performance in “Barbie” come July, one could watch one of her more intense roles as Tonya Harding in “I, Tonya” (2017). For some lighter summer watches, viewers might consider “Dolphin Tale” (2010), “Grease” (1978), “Hairspray” (2007) or “Tooth Fairy” (2010).

“Magic Mike’s Last Dance” (2023) starring Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek Pinault lands at Max after its theatrical release in February this year. Another major theatrical release from 2022, “Avatar: The Way of Water” (2022), swims onto the streamer starting June 7.

As for TV series, “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson’s “The Idol,” starring Abel...

HBO Max is no more. In its place are…HBO and Max. Warner Bros. Discovery’s big change to its premier streaming service was simply to take the “HBO” off of the name “HBO Max,” leaving just “Max.” But in announcing its list of new releases for Max in June 2023, Warner is highlighting all of the HBO content anyway. So here is everything you can expect to find on Max (including every new HBO show) this month.

Even though June 2023 is the first full month of Max’s existence without the helpful “HBO” modifier in front of it, literally all of its major original offerings are thanks to the pay cable network. June 4 sees the premiere of The Idol, the controversial TV project starring The Weeknd and written by Euphoria‘s Sam Levinson. After that, season 3 of Danny McBride evangelical comedy The Righteous Gemstones premieres on June 18. That will be...

Max, the new name of HBO Max as of May 23rd, will be adding a new food series with Zooey Deschanel, an animated series set in the world of Gremlins, and the rebirth of Clone High to its streaming lineup in June 2023. The Idol, starring The Weeknd and Johnny Depp’s daughter, Lily-Rose, arrives on June 4th after dividing the crowd at Cannes, and the much-anticipated third season of Warrior kicks off on June 29th.

Max’s June lineup also includes new seasons of And Just Like That…, Painting with John, and The Righteous Gemstones. Theatrical releases making their way to the streaming service include Avatar: The Way of Water and Magic Mike’s Last Dance.

Series & Films Arriving On Max In June 2023:

June 1

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

A Star Is Born (1954)

A Star Is Born (1976)

Army of Darkness (1993)

Balls of Fury (2007)

Beautiful Creatures (2013)

Big Daddy (1999)

Breach (2007)

Bulworth (1998)

Class Act (1992)

Click...

The highly discussed music limited series “The Idol” is set to premiere on Max on June 4. Starring Lily-Rose Depp, pop singer The Weeknd, and Dan Levy, the show involves a rising pop star Jocelyn (played by Depp) who gets involved with Tedros (The Weeknd), a sleazy nightclub owner who may also be a cult leader. She wants a rock career, while he’s focused on exploiting everyone he meets.

Watch the trailer for “The Idol”:

Also coming to the streamer next month is the second season of “And Just Like That,” the “Sex and the City” sequel. In Season 2 — which arrives on June 22 — Charlotte’s daughter is ready to lose her virginity, Carrie explores life and love after Big, and Miranda intensifies her relationship with Che.

Check out the “And Just Like That” Season 2 trailer:

Arriving on Max on June 27 is a documentary looking at the award-winning performance art...

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By Doug Oswald

Errol Flynn leads a group of American paratroopers into WWII Burma on a pre-invasion expedition in “Objective, Burma!” released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection. The mission for the paratroopers is to parachute into Burma behind enemy lines, destroy a Japanese radar station and meet up at an old British air strip to be picked up and returned to their base in India. Everything goes as planned and they succeed in destroying the radar installation with no casualties. Mission accomplished. There wouldn’t be much of a movie if things ended with a successful mission and rescue. Naturally, the Japanese are at the airfield ready to destroy the soon-to-arrive C-47 transport aircraft. Flynn orders the aircraft to leave them rather than risk their destruction and he takes his men to a more defendable position in the jungle.

“What if my parachute doesn’t open?”…..”Then you’ll be the first one on the ground.”

Errol Flynn in Raoul Walsh’s Objective Burma (1945) will be available July 13th From Warner Archive.

A group of men parachute into Japanese-occupied Burma with a dangerous and important mission: to locate and blow up a radar station. They accomplish this well enough, but when they try to rendezvous at an old air-strip to be taken back to their base, they find Japanese waiting for them, and they must make a long, difficult walk back through enemy-occupied jungle. Starring Errol Flynn and directed by Raoul Walsh.

The post Errol Flynn in Raoul Walsh’s Objective Burma Available July 13th From Warner Archive appeared first on We Are Movie Geeks.

The war’s just begun, we’re definitely not winning, and your assignment is to make a movie about a tragic defeat that could be the first of many tragic defeats for the U.S.A.. Paramount’s careful morale-building war drama doesn’t exaggerate or over-sentimentalize the brutal fall of a tiny island in the Pacific. John Farrow directs a fine group of actors who knew the film ‘had to say the right things.’ It stands as a fine example of filmmaking reaching for hope in the face of disaster.

The first WW2 Hollywood combat film based on an actual battle is the beautifully made Wake Island. It’s even more beautifully conceived to achieve multiple public relations aims in a time of great crisis. Until 1941 Wake Island had been little more than a stop for Pacific-hopping Pan-American clipper ship airplanes; Japan bombed it a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Despite a riveting opening sequence, Tom Cruise fails to measure up as Lee Child's action hero

There have been a number of cases over the years when consideration for public opinion has led distributors to postpone the release of movies. In the last weeks of the second world war the morale-boosting Hollywood picture Objective Burma! was withdrawn from British cinemas shortly after it opened (and shelved for seven years) because of protests against the slighting of our "Forgotten Army" in Burma. In 1963 Dr Strangelove was postponed due to the Kennedy assassination, and a jokey reference to Dallas was changed to Vegas, thus puzzling lip-readers. The 1992 Los Angeles riots following the acquittal of Rodney King's assailants led to Walter Hill's Looters being cancelled; it appeared later, renamed Trespass. Many movies were anxiously re-edited after 9/11, and more recently the British release of Ben Affleck's kidnapping thriller Gone Baby Gone...

Back in February, Dmitry Martov and Larysa Smirnova spoke with Serge Bozon and Pascale Bodet about, among many other things, Beaubourg: la dernière major!, a series of presentations they staged at the Centre Pompidou in November looking back on 100 years of French cinema. Now, as Bozon arrives in New York for a gaggle of events — Free Radicals: Serge Bozon and the New French Cinema, a series of screenings beginning tonight at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and running through Monday, a panel discussion on Friday and Serge Bozon Presents, an evening of three films at Anthology Film Archives — there's an eagerness to draw parallels between this New French Cinema and the New Wave that broke in the late 50s and early 60s. Just as Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer, Chabrol and all had begun writing criticism for Cahiers du cinéma before picking up a camera, so, too, are these...

No doubt many prefer the swashbuckling stuff but Errol Flynn distinguished himself just fine in his less popular war films. There are so many special features here I'm just listing them straight from the site but no fan of classic cinema history or Flynn needs to be told to pick this up. 

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Desperate Journey (1942)

Warner Night at the Movies 1942 Short Subjects Gallery: Vintage newsreel, Oscar-nominated patriotic short The Tanks Are Coming, musical shorts Borrah Minnevitch and His Harmonica School and The United States Army Air Force Band, classic cartoon The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall, trailers of Desperate Journey and 1942's Murder in the Big House

Northern Pursuit (1943)

Warner Night at the Movies 1943 Short Subjects Gallery: Vintage newsreel, wartime short The Rear Gunner, musical short All-Star Melody Masters, drama short Over the Wall, classic cartoon Hop and Go, trailers of Northern Pursuit...

No 76: Errol Flynn 1909-1959

Flynn was born in Tasmania, the son of an eminent marine biologist, and early on developed a passion for the sea and a reputation as a rebel. Spotted by a Warner Brothers talent scout while a young, very minor actor in England, he became an overnight Hollywood star in 1935 as a last-minute replacement for Robert Donat as the swashbuckling hero of Captain Blood. By 1936 he was the leading contender to play Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind.

Flynn was tall, slim, graceful, debonair with a neatly trimmed moustache, a winning smile, a hearty, self-mocking laugh. Everything he did, both on screen and off, contributed to his legendary status: the colonial background (he claimed to be a descendant of Fletcher Christian); the celebrated characters he played (General Custer, Robin Hood); his sexual conquests; his prodigious phallic dimensions (according to Truman Capote in Music for Chameleons,...