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‘Sonic The Hedgehog’ Blu-ray Giveaway!
I’m very excited to announce that I have Five (5) Blu-rays of Sonic The Hedgehog up for grabs. The discs, all of which are sealed, also come with the Digital Code and the DVD! Entry details are below!
Friday Blu-Ray News: ‘KPop Demon Hunters,’ ‘Gone With the Wind,’ ‘Rush’ (PM Weekly Issue #18)
Last week I left a thread hanging. Writing about Criterion’s Frankenstein and the 158 minute cut that nobody will discuss, I noted that KPop Demon Hunters was dated for November and that nobody yet knew what it would carry.
It arrived four days later, on Tuesday. The answer is stranger than the question.
Frankenstein came in a four disc set with two feature length versions of the film, each with its own 4K master and its own Dolby Atmos track, and a del Toro commentary recorded for the longer cut alone. KPop Demon Hunters comes in three discs and there is no audio commentary on any of them. Not from Maggie Kang, not from Chris Appelhans, not from anybody. The 4K is an upscale, which blu-ray.com’s resolution field states plainly and Criterion’s own booklet does not address at all. There is no alternate version of the film.
What there is instead is the single most unusual extra I have seen on a studio animation release in years: a full length animatic, running ninety five minutes and twenty seven seconds and divided into eleven chapters. That is the entire film in storyboard form, very nearly as long as the ninety six minute feature itself.
The rest of the package is substantial, and more of it is Criterion’s own work than I expected. KPop Demon Hunters: The Journey runs forty eight minutes and fifty nine seconds and was produced exclusively by Criterion this year. Then two new featurettes by Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou, the pair behind Every Frame a Painting: How It’s Done: The Airplane Sequence at eleven fifty two, and Song & Story at thirteen twenty six. Seven lyric videos and the two and a half minute trailer sit on the movie disc, and everything above is on a fifty gigabyte third disc given over to supplements. Collectible postcards and an essay by the critic Karen Han in the package. Three discs, one BD-66 and two BD-50s, Dolby Atmos with a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 track alongside it, Dolby Vision and HDR10, 2.39:1, and a list price of $49.95.
So on consecutive Tuesdays Criterion has taken two Netflix originals and treated them in ways that have almost nothing in common.
One got the version of record, a cut no other release carries, with the director talking over the whole of it. The other got the construction drawings and no commentary at all.
I want to be careful here, because the easy reading is that somebody withheld something, and I have no evidence of that. Nobody has described either deal. I have found no comment from Netflix on either one, and Criterion does not publish its licensing terms.
One explanation is already off the table, though, and it is the kindest one. The directors were not unavailable. Criterion’s own announcement describes the animatic as carrying a new introduction by Kang and Appelhans. Randy Miller III, reviewing the disc for blu-ray.com on 29 October, describes what is actually on it as a one minute forty two second introduction by Kang alone. Those two accounts do not match and I cannot reconcile them, so take both. Either way somebody sat down and recorded something new for this release. They simply did not record a commentary, or were not asked to, and nobody is going to tell you which.
But that is rather the point.
A spine number is supposed to be a promise about the edition. It is the reason people buy Criterion discs they have never seen, of films they have not heard of, which is a genuinely remarkable thing for a consumer product to be able to do. The promise is not that every disc gets a commentary. It is that somebody thought hard about what this particular film needs and then went and got it.
What these two discs show is that the promise now has a second party to it. When the film belongs to a streaming service, the edition is the output of a negotiation, and the collector cannot read the outcome off the spine in advance. Frankenstein and KPop Demon Hunters are seven days and a world apart in what they contain, and the only thing that reliably predicts which kind of disc you are buying is opening the specification sheet before you order.
There is a version of this column that treats the missing commentary as a scandal. I do not think it is one. A ninety five minute animatic is a real piece of film history, a forty nine minute documentary that Criterion produced itself is a genuine commission, and two new featurettes from the Every Frame a Painting pair is another. Most labels would not have bothered with any of it. The thing worth noticing is narrower and more useful: the Criterion standard, the thing the spine is for, is now partly outside Criterion’s hands, and nobody involved is going to tell you where the line falls on any given title.
Welcome to PM Weekly. Let’s get into the week.
This Week on Disc
- KPop Demon Hunters (2025), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, three discs, Criterion
- Harold and Maude (1971), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, spine 608, Criterion
- Gone With the Wind (1939), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, three discs, Warner Bros
- Gone With the Wind (1939), 4K UHD SteelBook, Walmart exclusive, Warner Bros
- White Christmas (1954), 4K UHD and Blu-ray SteelBook, Paramount
- Scrooged (1988), 4K UHD and Blu-ray SteelBook, Paramount
- Shrek (2001), 25th Anniversary Edition, 4K UHD and Blu-ray, three discs, Universal
- The Family Man (2000), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, Shout
- The Last Airbender (2010), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, Paramount
- The End of Oak Street, 4K UHD and Blu-ray, standard and Limited Edition SteelBook, Warner Bros
- The Uprising, 4K UHD and Blu-ray, standard and Limited Edition SteelBook, Universal
- Mutiny, 4K UHD and Blu-ray, standard and SteelBook, Lionsgate
- The Strangers: Chapter 2, 4K UHD, Lionsgate
- The Strangers: Chapter 3, 4K UHD, Lionsgate
- EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert (2025), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, Decal
- Game of Thrones: The Complete Series, 4K UHD, Fire & Ice Limited Edition SteelBook library case, Warner Bros
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, season one, 4K UHD, Amazon MGM
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, season two, 4K UHD, Amazon MGM
(Three notes. Criterion put out two 4K discs on the same Tuesday and they are opposite cases, which is the Market Signal below arriving in one shipment: KPop Demon Hunters is a 2025 animated feature whose specification sheet reads upscaled, and Harold and Maude is a Hal Ashby picture from 1971, old enough that a negative scan is at least possible, though Criterion has published nothing about its master that I could read. Gone With the Wind forks three ways, so know what you are buying: $24.95 standard, $34.99 for the three disc SteelBook, already marked sold out at Amazon, and $64.96 for the Walmart exclusive with lobby cards and a replica ticket. And Paramount put White Christmas and Scrooged out as SteelBooks on the same day, which is a Christmas slate arriving in the first week of November.
Not on the 3rd, whatever you have read. The Last Airbender that streeted Tuesday is Paramount’s 4K of the 2010 Shyamalan film. At least one roundup listed it as Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, and I could find no disc under that title on Tuesday at all, so check the box before you order. The Shrek SteelBook is dated the 17th on HD Report’s calendar and unconfirmed by Universal. And seven titles that circulated for Tuesday, Super Troopers 3 and Rick and Morty’s ninth season among them, carried no label I could attribute, so they are not above.
Next Tuesday, the 10th: Criterion’s Marie Antoinette and Shoot the Piano Player both on 4K, Radiance’s Cutter’s Way and Planet of the Vampires, Kino’s Four Rooms, Sony’s Memoirs of a Geisha and Lionsgate’s Saw SteelBooks. All from an aggregator calendar rather than from the labels, which this week is a sentence worth reading twice. And Cinema Guild’s Moving, one of the four we pulled off last week’s list, now shows on the 17th.)
Market Signal
Three big catalogue titles came out on the same Tuesday. Two of them are upscales, and you can establish that in about forty seconds, though not from anybody who made them.
Criterion’s KPop Demon Hunters, a film from 2025, is listed on blu-ray.com as Upscaled 4K at 2160p. Universal’s Shrek 25th Anniversary Edition, a film from 2001, is listed there the same way. Warner’s Gone With the Wind, a three strip Technicolor picture from 1939, is reported by HD Report as coming from 8K sourced transfers, though no outlet I read names the element it was taken from.
The eighty seven year old film is the one with the most resolution behind it. The two animated features are the ones that have been enlarged.
Before anyone reaches for a pitchfork, this is not a scandal and the piece that treats it as one would be wrong. A feature finished at a 2K digital intermediate has no 4K in it to recover. You cannot scan a master that does not exist. An honest upscale from a good 2K master, with a properly done HDR grade on top, will beat a careless native scan most days of the week, and the Shrek disc is a three disc set with a BD-100 in it, which is not what you spend when you are cutting corners.
The point is not quality. It is who is telling you.
Not one of these three facts comes from a label. Two come from a disc database maintained by enthusiasts, which carries a field marked Resolution and takes the trouble to fill it in. The third comes from a review site reading an announcement. Criterion does not print upscaled on the box. Neither does Universal. On the KPop disc Criterion has not printed anything at all: Randy Miller III notes in his blu-ray.com review that the label “has uncharacteristically *not* included any details about the master in their accompanying booklet,” which from a label whose booklets are half the reason people buy the discs is its own small signal. Criterion’s press release says a new 4K master approved by the directors. The resolution field says upscaled. The booklet says nothing. On the slipcase all three of these products say the same thing, which is 4K Ultra HD, in the same typeface, at a comparable price. The distinction between a disc carrying everything an 8K scan could find and a disc carrying a good enlargement of a 1080p master is not a distinction the packaging is built to make, and the companies that know the answer are not the ones publishing it.
And the direction of travel is the part that should bother anyone building a shelf. The 1939 film can be scanned again in twenty years at whatever resolution exists then, because the photochemical element still physically exists and will still exist then. The 2001 and 2025 films are limited by something else, a finished digital master made at the resolution somebody chose at the time, and going back past it would mean reassembling a film rather than rescanning one.
We are used to thinking of digital origination as the permanent format and film as the fragile one. On the evidence of one Tuesday in November, the opposite is true in the only sense that matters to a catalogue. Photochemical elements get better every time the scanning technology improves. A digital intermediate is finished the day it is finished.
Store of the Week
The Little Movie Store, 2001 South 10th Street, at Tenth and McKean in Passyunk Square, South Philadelphia. Dylan and Keri Wise. Grand opening Saturday 24 October, Thursday to Saturday noon to seven, Sunday ten to four.
I want to start with a single line of dialogue, because the owner did.
Talking to Elijah Fischer at Broad Street Review a few days before opening, Wise got onto the subject of films that streaming has quietly altered, and he did not make the case with a speech about ownership. He reached for one film and one missing moment. “You know the line in Adventures in Babysitting where she says ‘you don’t [expletive] with the babysitter’? They edited that out on Disney+, and that’s the best part of the movie.”
I went and checked, because that is what this journal is for, and the answer is better than the claim.
The line is not edited out. It is edited. On Disney+, Elisabeth Shue does not say “don’t fuck with the babysitter.” She says “don’t fool with the babysitter.” The word has been replaced in her mouth, the scene runs the same length, and if you had never heard the original you would never know anything had happened. Worth saying that most of the trade coverage got this wrong in the other direction: CBR reported that Disney+ cut the f-bomb out, and it did not.
It is not the only one. A comparison published by Movie-Censorship.com in February last year logs sixteen changes, and thirteen of them work this way. A homophobic slur becomes “weirdo,” three times across the film. “Bitch” becomes “witch” four times inside seventeen seconds, so that a gang leader ends up shouting “sit down, witch.” “You gotta be shittin’ me” becomes “you gotta be kiddin’ me,” which is a problem, because the next line is Chris telling Daryl to watch his mouth and it is unchanged. Only three of the sixteen are actual cuts: two seconds after the “dead, murdered, stabbed” exchange, two of Mrs Pruitt’s lover pulling his trousers up, about ten in the fraternity house. The usual caution applies, since this journal runs on them. That is one user submitted comparison and it does not say which disc it used as its reference.
But the substance holds, and it holds in a better way than Wise said it. The line was not removed. It was rewritten and re-voiced, which is the version that leaves no gap for anyone to notice. That is a sharper argument for a shelf than any amount of talk about owning things. A disc is not merely a copy you keep. It is a copy that cannot be edited after you have bought it.
Now the shop, which is a good one.
The inspiration was a trip to the last surviving Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon. The business runs on a household membership at $160 a year, and Wise does the arithmetic for you himself. “That breaks down to $3 a week,” he told Broad Street Review, which is right, since $160 over fifty two weeks is $3.08. The rest of the sum is not. “It works out so that if you’re watching three movies a week, that’s roughly 75 movies a year.” Three a week is a hundred and fifty six a year. The point survives the arithmetic, because either figure makes the membership cheaper than renting, but I am not going to print a number that does not add up without saying so.
How many you can hold at once depends on who you ask. PhillyVoice says three titles at a time. Broad Street Review says a year of unlimited movies. Ten percent off purchases either way, a free film on your birthday, and non members can buy but cannot rent. VCRs and DVD players are available to rent too, per CBS Philadelphia in October.
The collection is where the reporting diverges, and I will print both versions because I cannot reconcile them. The Inquirer, on 1 November, puts the library at about five thousand titles, largely donated. PhillyVoice, in September, puts it at roughly twenty thousand held with seven thousand on the shelves at opening, assembled from the Wises’ own collection, a friend’s collection, thrift stores, eBay and Facebook Marketplace, with donations arriving after Dylan solicited them on Instagram. Donations are one stream among five. If you see “largely donated” repeated, treat it as unsettled.
What is not in dispute is the direction of travel. The Wises became approved resellers, and Criterion, Arrow, MVD and A24 supply new releases to the shop. A shop with a couple of hundred members has a trade account with the label that made the Kubrick box.
Wise’s best line is not the one about Disney+. It is this, on what people are doing in the aisles: “Seeing people pull out movies as they browse our store and say ‘Oh, I’ve been wanting to see this one, this isn’t on streaming.’ is what it’s about. You go on streaming and look for something just to see ‘sorry this title isn’t available.’ People are sick of the bait and switch.”
And he is explicit that nostalgia is not the business model. He does not want people coming in once to rent something familiar and never returning. He wants, in his words, “a community and culture of people in Philadelphia who are willing to take a detour in their movie-watching habits.” Seventeen weeks into this column, that is still the rarer ambition.
(Next week: Hi-Voltage Video in North Miami.)
The Stack
What I pulled off the shelf this week.
Rush (2013).
Format: 4K UHD and Blu-ray, two discs, Shout Select, 19 November 2024. One BD-100 and one BD-50. 123 minutes, rated R. HEVC, 2.40:1, Dolby Vision and HDR10. Dolby Atmos, with Dolby TrueHD 7.1, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 listed alongside it. English SDH. The 4K disc is region free, the Blu-ray is locked to region A. List price $39.98. And in blu-ray.com’s resolution field, where Shout’s own packaging says nothing at all: Upscaled 4K at 2160p.
Bonus Features: A newly filmed introduction by Ron Howard, fifty three seconds, on both discs. On the Blu-ray, Universal’s original supplements licensed over: Race for the Checkered Flag: The Making of Rush at 24:39, The Real Story of RUSH at 18:43, Ron Howard: A Director’s Approach at 7:24, and deleted scenes running 10:56. That is the entire package.
I pulled this out because of the Market Signal, and it turned out to prove the point harder than Shrek does.
Rush was photographed digitally, apart from the archive 8mm, 16mm and 35mm footage cut into it. Anthony Dod Mantle shot most of the live action on ARRI Alexa Plus and Studio bodies recording ARRIRAW to Codex, and then threw everything else at the racing: Phantom, a Canon C300, DSLRs, RED, and the IndieCams he had used on Trance, one of which went inside a helmet. His own description of the range is the part that matters here. The cameras were capturing, in his words, “across a range of different resolutions, 2K, 3K, 5K.”
Five thousand pixels across, bolted to a racing car, in 2013.
And you cannot buy any of it. The 4K disc is an enlargement, because the finish was HD. The only published statement of the finishing resolution I could find is in Dr Stephen Larson’s blu-ray.com review of this very disc, dated 2 December 2024, which says the film “was scanned and finished as a 1920×1080 HD master.” Nobody in the cinematography coverage says it. Dod Mantle’s own interview about the film describes about three weeks of digital intermediate work at Company 3 in Soho with Adam Glasman, around eight hundred visual effects shots, and roughly two hundred and fifty camera moves created in the grade rather than on set, and never once mentions a resolution. It is not a secret. It is simply not a thing anyone thought to write down.
So the 5K material went into a pipe no wider than 2K, two hundred and fifty camera moves were baked in at that size, and that master is now the ceiling. Forever, barring a conform from the original camera files that nobody is going to pay for on a thirteen year old racing picture.
Thirteen years. Gone With the Wind is eighty seven, and the disc that arrived this week is reported to come from an 8K scan.
There is a puzzle inside the disc’s own review, which I will flag because it is exactly the sort of thing that gets repeated. Larson writes that the feature is “sourced from a new 4K restoration of the movie’s Digital Intermediate,” and then, a little later, that “the 4K disc is an upscale because the film was scanned and finished as a 1920×1080 HD master.” Both sentences are on the same page and the review does not reconcile them. A third figure sits between them, because the same review says the footage was transcoded into 10-bit DPX at 2K anamorphic, and that the German Universum disc uses the same 2K DI. So the review gives 2K twice and 1920×1080 once, and those are not the same number. I think the 4K restoration line describes a new pass over an existing master rather than a new scan of anything, and I lean to 2K as the finishing resolution, but I am reading a reviewer’s phrasing rather than a label’s statement, and Shout has not published one.
The disc is still worth owning, which is the awkward part. The Atmos mix is new and by Larson’s account it genuinely helps, with the low end opening up as the cars come round, though he puts Zimmer’s score across the rear channels on the older 5.1 track as well. The HDR grade is the real upgrade. That is the honest position on a great many catalogue 4Ks: the resolution is not the improvement, the dynamic range is, and the box does not distinguish between those two things either.
The extras are the sad part. Shout licensed Universal’s originals and added fifty three seconds of Ron Howard. Meanwhile, by the same review’s account, the German Universum Blu-ray carries all of Universal’s supplements plus nearly fifty five minutes of cast and crew interviews, Niki Lauda among them at nine minutes and eleven seconds. Lauda died in 2019.
And this material has been available in English before. The same review notes that StudioCanal UK put the English interviews on a standard definition disc inside a Blu-ray and DVD combo, and that the release is out of print. So the interviews were licensed, authored and sold in English once already, and the 2024 American 4K does not have them.
And there may be a third bite coming, from that same company. A news item on blu-ray.com dated April this year says StudioCanal has announced its own 4K release of Rush, scheduled for 29 June. I could not read which year, and I could not find what it is sourced from. Given everything above there are now two questions about it worth asking, and the second is whether the interviews StudioCanal has already paid for once will be on it.
The Corrections Desk
We got this wrong last week. Issue #17 said Criterion had just opened its first permanent Canadian shop inside Cinema Cellar. The shop belongs to Cinema Cellar, an extension of the distributor Blue Fox Canada, which opened its own first permanent location at 129 John Street on Friday 16 October under its president Dave Hudakoc. Criterion took the place over as a pop up during TIFF in September and keeps a permanent section in it now, alongside Arrow Video and Kino Lorber. It is a tenant of those shelves, not the landlord. The September trade coverage led us there and we read it carelessly.
Two things we flagged as open have closed, and those are resolutions rather than errors. We said nobody yet knew what Criterion’s KPop Demon Hunters would carry, and it shipped four days later with the answer at the top of this issue. We said Vinegar Syndrome’s November batch had not been announced and would land on the 30th or 31st, and it landed on 1 November.
A method note, because this one generalizes. The useful question this week was not whether a date was right but who had published it. Three releases reached collectors this week with full specifications and street dates attached, and in each case the label’s own side of it either said something different or said nothing. Ask who signed it.
The Sign-Off
That is Issue #18. Criterion’s second Netflix film in seven days arrived with no commentary, an upscaled master and the entire picture in storyboard form, which is a reminder that the spine number is now a promise two parties have to agree to; a Tuesday on which the 1939 film had an 8K scan behind it and the 2025 and 2001 films were enlargements, with all three sold in the same typeface at the same shelf; a video store in South Philadelphia whose owner makes the case for discs with one line of dialogue that Disney+ quietly re-voiced rather than cut; a racing film shot on cameras running up to 5K that cannot be released in native 4K because somebody finished it at 2K in 2013; and a correction of our own about who actually owns a shop in Toronto. If you know one person who still alphabetizes their shelf, forward this to them. That is the whole engine we have, and it is a good one.
See you Friday.
PM Weekly
Sean Reid
Film & TV Production
seanreid@worldonetv.com
Bryan Jaymes Talks ‘The Voice,’ Gaining Singer’s Confidence, And “Intimidating” Cut Week
Cut Week airs tonight on The Voice, and Team Queen artist Bryan Jaymes admitted that it was “intimidating.” Jaymes, however, has a wealth of music experience and he brought refreshing level of candor to the interview. He received a three-chair turn for his Blinds rendition of “Every Time You Go Away,” and Jaymes advanced in the Battles Round with his spirited team-up with Brandon Diaz for Stevie Wonder’s “As.” Even with all his vocal chops and overall talent, Jaymes did not see himself as a singer. This is just one of the candid insights doled out by Jaymes, and check out the full video interview below!
Read more: Bryan Jaymes Talks ‘The Voice,’ Gaining Singer’s Confidence, And “Intimidating” Cut Week
“Every Time You Go Away” was in the top 10 of songs that Bryan Jaymes was opting for in his Blind Audition.”That was a song that they felt like the producers and everybody felt like I would do well with,” said Jaymes. “So when they chose that song for me, I found an acoustic version on YouTube. I was like, ‘Okay, this is gonna be really awesome for me to be able to showcase, like, my tone and just kinda the emotional qualities of my voice’ I brought it to the band and they changed the key right there within two minutes, and they’re like, ‘You ready to go?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, great,’ and they made me sound like a million bucks. It went off pretty well. I got three chairs, so I’m grateful.”
As for the Battles, Jaymes accurately noted that a Stevie Wonder song is “nothing to play with,” so it would definitely take time for him and Brandon Diaz to craft their version of “As.” “That song is insane,” said Jaymes. “So it took me a little while to kind of wrap my brain around like, ‘Okay, how can I make this song work for me?’ I honestly think that Brandon kind of got it a little bit quicker than I did, and it was actually quite a pleasure performing with him because he helped open me up a little bit more, and I think we pushed each other. We’re both kind of like consummate performers (and) we love being hams on stage. But at the same time, we’re mature guys, and so we were able to respect one another’s space and one another’s talent and voice.”
Next up for Jaymes is tonight’s Cut Week and over half of the artists will be eliminated when this round is completed. “It’s quite intimidating,” added Jaymes. “But I think it’s just all about your perspective on things. For me, I just look at that as an opportunity to share my talent and my heart and my abilities with the world, and I let everything else handle itself. You know, there’s a lot of things that are beyond my control. Singing (and) music is such a subjective thing. And I think the benefit that I have of being a little bit more mature at this point of my life versus if I was 19 or 20. I just have a more settled understanding of just kinda how these things work. So I mean, yeah, of course you’re competitive and you wanna go out there and put your best foot forward, but then you just have to let it go. And whatever happens on the other side of that, you let it do what it needs to do.”
Jaymes gained confidence from his experience on The Voice. Jaymes, in his IG bio, described himself as an artist, producer, songwriter, worship leader. “I’ve been singing for a long time, but I never really saw myself as a singer per se,” said Jaymes. “I always viewed singing with this whole thing where it’s just like you had to have the shawl and you had to walk around look- looking like a singer (laughs). And I just never felt like that guy. So it’s been a bit of a mental struggle for me to kind of buy into that aspect of my identity. But going through this process and getting some of the validation from Queen Latifah and Adam Levine and Kelly Clarkson and all of that, it’s just been like, okay, like you got it, dude. Go forth and be great, you know? And that’s what I plan to do.”
Full interview with Bryan James:
Catch Bryan James tonight on The Voice (9/8c on NBC, streaming next day on Peacock).
Alt Bloom Reflects on ‘The Voice,’ Queen Latifah Moment And “Rediscovering The Joy In Life”
Singer-songwriter Alt Bloom received chair turns from Queen Latifah and Riley Green for his rendition of Maren Morris’ “The Bones,” and he chose Latifah as his coach. Bloom and fellow Team Queen member Morgan Lett successfully tackled Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor” during the Battles, and their vocal stylings were the perfect blend. Tonight Bloom is among the artists competing on the Cut Week episode of The Voice. Check out our full interview with Bloom, who also talks about his own music, in the post below!
Read more: Alt Bloom Reflects on ‘The Voice,’ Queen Latifah Moment And “Rediscovering The Joy In Life”
A Memorable Moment With Queen Latifah
Alt Bloom said he wanted a coach that he could vibe with the most, and Queen Latifah was a great fit. “Vibe is like the definition of Queen Latifah,” said Bloom. “The second she starts expressing herself, the room really changes. She has a way with words (and) she has an energy about her – she’s beautiful. When she starts to speak, you really tune in immediately.”
Latifah also sang to Bloom after his Blinds, and of course that was one for the books. “It was something that was kind of unbelievable in the moment,” said Bloom. “Then looking back at it, I was surprised that I handled it without falling apart up there. I was surprised that I sang back to her looking at her. The fact that it got all to air and they showed all of it was just a wonderful experience. Queen gifting to me (is something) to have for the rest of my life.”
Alt Bloom’s Music
Listen to Alt Bloom’s latest EP Welcome (Back). One of the tracks, “Leave You,” was penned during his time on The Voice and its arrangement was inspired by his work with Lett on “Ex-Factor.”
A Return To Montana And The Voice Outlook
Along with his work on The Voice, Bloom also made a huge transition with his move back to Montana. ”Since moving out of (Los Angeles) and moving back to Montana and getting in touch with my roots, I really have taken things a touch less seriously and things with a grain, things, things with more of like a grain of salt approach,” said Bloom, who lived in the City of Angels for 12 years. ”When I came out and did The Voice, I really the whole time was telling myself like, ‘Of course do this respectfully, put your all into it, but don’t feel like it’s a the most serious thing in the world. Enjoy this process as much as you can.’ And it really helped me come into my own.”
Full interview with Alt Bloom:
Catch Alt Bloom tonight on The Voice (9/8c, next day on Peacock).
Brandon Diaz Talks “Full Circle” And “Healing” Journey of ‘The Voice’ And Cut Week Craziness
Brandon Diaz auditioned for season four of The Voice but did not receive a chair turn, and thankfully that “full circle” moment occured this season with turns from Queen Latifah and Kelly Clarkson. After advancing past the Blinds with his rendition of Justin Timberlake’s “Drink You Away,” he joined Team Queen member Bryan James for an electric rendition of Stevie Wonder’s uplifting track “As.” Diaz gave an in-depth interview about his journey on The Voice, which includes tonight’s Cut Week, and he explains why it was “healing” to return for Season 30.
Read more: Brandon Diaz Talks “Full Circle” And “Healing” Journey of ‘The Voice’ And Cut Week Craziness
Being part of The Voice for this season was perfect timing for Brandon Diaz. “When I was young and I went through that experience, it knocked me for a whirl,” said Davis, who admitted he tended to overthink certain things after his Season 4 audition. “And now that I’m more confident in who I am, even just from one of the first auditions I did for the show, something about this experience – specifically seeing familiar faces. While it’s been a long time since I’ve been on the show, they have a tight family there. A lot of the producers and a lot of the people are the same, so it’s been a very healing process. That’s the only word I can really put to it.”
One of this season’s highlights was Brandon Diaz and Bryan James battling it out during their rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “As.” The Team Queen members were in sync throughout the whole performance, with Queen Latifah accurately praising their harmonies. Diaz mentioned Latifah’s praise in the interview, and he also talked about another great part of working with James on “As.” Latifah chose James as the winner of the Battles, and Adam Levine used his save to bring Diaz over to Team Adam.
“ While music is about the music and about singing and about harmonizing and doing all those things, it’s about creating a connection with the person you’re singing with,” said Diaz. “And I think that’s what shined through for us the most, is that we actually enjoyed each other’s presence. We did another Stevie Wonder song (“Love’s In Need of Love Today”). That was at my house. And (Bryan’s) come over a couple times since then. We’re buddies now. That’s what music’s about – making friends and meaningful connections. So it definitely was a lot of work but we used that time wisely, and we made the best of it and had fun with it, too.”
As for tonight’s Cut Week episode, a lot of artists will be eliminated. Diaz, however, is looking at the sunnier side of the street. ”What an incredible environment to be in,” added Diaz. “I know it can be intense, and it can be a lot, but the producers are there to really just help you stay calm. And the makeup artists are touching you up, and you’re just like, ‘Okay just enjoy all the little things.’ It was an intense week, but what a fun thing to be a part of for the first time.”
Brandon Diaz’s music journey has had its share of trials and tribulations, and he cites his mother and wife (The Voice alum Jackie Foster) for helping him stay on that path. He talks about their support in the interview:
Catch Brandon Diaz and fellow artists perform on The Voice tonight at 9/8c (streaming next day on Peacock).
@brandondiazofficial I’m a singer not a dancer 🕺 #cutweek #thevoice #teamadam #teamqueen @NBC's The Voice @NBC ♬ original sound – BrandonDiaz
Brooklyn Marie Talks ‘The Voice,’ Learning From Kelly Clarkson, And “Emotional Decompressor” Of Songwriting
Brooklyn Marie delivered an evocative rendition of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Traitor,” leading to chair turns from Queen Latifah and Kelly Clarkson. The singer-songwriter picked Clarkson, who said on The Voice that she had a “very special tone.” For the Battles, Brooklyn and Kavi Nyx performed “Titanium” and she now moves to Cut Week. Marie talked to Deepest Dream about how The Voice has impacted her life and how she has an “emotional connection” to music.
Read more: Brooklyn Marie Talks ‘The Voice,’ Learning From Kelly Clarkson, And “Emotional Decompressor” Of Songwriting
A Different Kind of Summer For Brooklyn Marie
Brooklyn Marie joined The Voice when she was 14, and although she relished the experience, it was definitely a sacrifice. ”I left two weeks early at the end of the year at eighth grade,” said Marie. “I’ve been missing a lot of school for all these interviews which I’m so grateful for. But it’s definitely a big time crunch, and I feel like I have missed a lot. For really good things, but last summer I didn’t really have the traditional summer that I usually have with all my friends. Just because I was doing this amazing thing down in LA.”
Kelly Clarkson stated after the battles that Brooklyn Marie “has this sound that is so pure that it breaks your heart in the best of ways.” Evidence of Clarkson’s assertion can be heard on Brooklyn Marie’s rendition of “What Was I Made For” and her single “I Miss You.”
Songwriting is an integral aspect of Brooklyn Marie’s creative life. ”I just really feel like songwriting is my way to reflect on my day,” said Brooklyn Marie, who first went on stage at the age of 3. “It’s my emotional decompressor. It’s just a way to think about what I have been so greateful for and it’s kind of like my journal. It’s always there for me.”
Listen to Brooklyn Marie’s single “Tired”:
As far as her overall The Voice journey, Marie had only kind words to share. “I learned so much working with people, (and) learning from Kelly Clarkson. She gave so many tips on how to make it in the music industry and how to grow my vocal talent. Seriously I learned so much from everyone being there. I’m just really grateful that I got that experience.”
What To Expect From Cut Week
Cut Week is tomorrow, and Brooklyn Marie gave an insightful breakdown on what to expect. ”It was very fun to see what other people were doing, and I learned so much in the grand scheme of things,” said Brooklyn Marie. “Like how to spend an hour practicing a song. How to just prepare something that you feel really good about being sang on national television in a week. I feel like I am not very experienced under pressure because laid back Minnesota life is just where I come from. And I’m not having day-to-day pressure experiences like that. But I really learned so much from that and, and how to bounce back and adjust when I need to.
I absolutely love Brooklyn Marie’s introspective approach to her songs “Tired” and “i miss u,” and I’m definitely looking forward to more of her songs down the road. Share your thoughts on Brooklyn Marie in the comments!
Watch Brooklyn Marie Monday night on The Voice (Cut Week) at 9/8c and streaming next day on Peacock!
Full interview with Brooklyn Marie:
Owen Uffens Talks Adrenalilne Rush Behind ‘The Voice’ Journey: “It’s A Dream”
Owen Uffens got past the Blinds with his rendition of Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin,” as Kelly Clarkson and Adam Levine turned their chairs. Uffens picked Adam Levine as his coach, and during Battles he beat out good friend and Team Adam member Wade Turner after their performance of Ed Sheeran’s “Dive.” Although Uffens forgot a portion of the lyrics during “Dive,” Levine still had faith in Uffens and chose him to survive another day. Uffens continues his The Voice run Monday evening with Cut Week. Our full interview with Uffens is below, and he sheds light on the huge lesson he’s learned from The Voice.
Owen Uffens Reflects On Blinds Performance
Owen Uffens admitted during his Blinds interview package that being an “adrenaline junkie” is part of his aesthetic. Although there is now snowboarding or skateboarding involved with The Voice, the rush still exists.
”Performing is the greatest thing an adrenaline junkie could possibly do,” said Ufffens. “Because it’s like number one, you need to, put on a show so you’re being out there, so you need the adrenaline. But on top of that, it’s also personal. So you’re very closed off and scared to do this. But you’re doing it, so you know, of course it just hits. I think how I described it after my blinds was just like you’re just dizzy. It’s a dream. You don’t really understand what’s happening the entire time. You just know that afterwards you’re just so accomplished and feel so amazing.”
Along with Coach Adam Levine’s support, Uffens also received excellent feedback from Kelly Clarkson after the Battles. “Owen, you have this emotional way of singing that I am crazily drawn to,” said Clarkson.
“When Adam (Levine) started telling the story of him and Stevie Wonder – it was very human of him and very personal,” said Uffens. “It was just surrel, and then with Kelly and the emotion (comment) – it’s just nice to be recognized and (be) given that confirmation that you can still do this.”
A New Approach To Music Thanks To ‘The Voice‘
From his The Voice journey, Uffens has learned to be more true to his style and approach to his artistry. “Before The Voice, it was all, for me at least, structly like how do I do what’s treanding,” said Uffens. “How do I follow along with everyboyd else that’s getting successful. But it really just isn’t like that. The music industry is so desperate for something unique and I’ll say music and media industry as a whole because I feel like they’re kind of intertwined now. Human is a big word now (and) I think that’s definitely changed how I try to represent myself and try to see myself.”
Full interview with Owen Uffens:
Catch Owen Uffens Monday night on The Voice’s Cut Week (8/7c, streaming next day on Peacock).
‘Once Upon a Time in the Middle East’ Ending Explained And Spoilers: A Powerful Final Scene
Director Muye Wen’s Once Upon a Time in the Middle East may initially seem like a story about a Chinese chef working abroad, but the film ultimately becomes an ambitious anti-war epic about survival, sacrifice, and the devastating consequences of violence. For CinemAddicts co-host Bruce Purkey, the movie’s shocking twists and emotionally resonant ending were among its greatest strengths. Eric Holmes and I also love the movie, but for the purposes of this post, the spoilers were handled by Purkey. Check out our video below for more “ending explained” and “spoilers” insight into this remarkable feature.
Read more: ‘Once Upon a Time in the Middle East’ Ending Explained And Spoilers: A Powerful Final Scene
Once Upon A Time in the Middle East centers on a talented chef named Xu Fu (Teng Shen) who leaves family in China to take a lucrative restaurant job in the Middle East. His plan is to work for two years, pay off his debts, and return home. During his stay, Xu works with restaurant owner Zaid (Sherif Sabby) and restaurant manager Ma Jungsheng (Jiang Qiming). Although there is a lot of delicious looking Chinese food served up in the story, Once Upon A Time in the Middle East is ultimately a harrowing story of survival and regret.
For Purkey, who discussed the film on CinemAddicts, the most impressive aspect of Once Upon a Time in the Middle East is how it refuses to make its characters entirely heroic or villainous.
SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for Once Upon a Time in the Middle East, including character deaths and the film’s ending.
What Happens To Zaid And His Family?
One of the film’s most shocking sequences involves Zaid, the restaurant whose relationships with American authorities and local business interests make him a complicated figure. We learn that Zaid doesn’t mind bending the rules with his restaurant, since more money helps pay for cancer medicine that is needed for his daughter.
An attack on his home claims the life of Zaid’s wife and daughter, leading him to ultimately join the terrorists who dole out the attacks against U.S. soldiers and ultimately imprison Xu, Ma, and Xu’s cook in training Seif (Omar Sherif).
“Now, the really interesting thing about this movie is it shows you why he is the way he is, and you can understand it,” said Purkey. “Even if you’re not justified to it, you can understand it.”
Another Tragic Death In ‘Once Upon A Time in the Middle East‘
While Xu, Ma, and Seif imprisoned, Seif discovers the children are being used as suicide bombers. When a huge attack is planned for numerous children, the kids are stricken with food poisoning so they are unable to perform their duties. When Ma claims responsibility for altering the food, his fate is sealed. It was a surprising moment for Purkey.
“But no, [he] just gets shot in the head and killed,” said Purkey. “And it’s these moments that just really let our characters have to really grapple with the fact they’re not just skating through by just cooking and, you know, making everybody happy and trying to appease all sides.”
‘Once Upon a Time in the Middle East’ Ending Explained: What Happens To Seif?
The final act has Xu risking his life to save most of the children, and for his actions he is shot by Zaid. However, Zaid angled his gun a certain way on the slim chance to save Xu. Soon after, Zaid is ultimately killed by U.S. soldiers and the children on the bus are saved.
Years after the events of the war, an older Xu returns to the Middle East for a return to the restaurant. When he enters the kitchen he sees discovers that Seif, with his back turned to Xu, is cooking and presumably running the restaurant.
“Overall, it’s pretty fair-handed by really painting the good and the bad on pretty much all sides,” said Purkey. “And really, the true villain is just war itself, which I think is fair.”
Check out Bruce Purkey’s full spoiler/ending explained review of Once Upon A Time in the Middle East:
Share your thoughts on Once Upon A Time in the Middle East in the comments!
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***I give away Blu-ray or Digital code each week to members of our CinemAddicts Movie Club. Join our Facebook Group and become part of our community. Any questions please email me at editor@deepestdream.com.
Joe Henley Talks ‘The Voice,’ Bonding With Riley Green, And Developing Confidence In His Music Career
Cut Week hits The Voice this Monday, and one of the artists featured on the program is Team Riley member Joe Henley. He performed Keith Whitley’s “Don’t Close Your Eyes” on the program, and that video is featured in our post. Henley spoke to Deepest Dream a couple of weeks ago right after his Battle with Kenna Elpers. During the 18-minute talk, Henley talked about having Riley Green as his coach, working with Elpers, and how he approaches his music. Full interview is below!
Read more: Joe Henley Talks ‘The Voice,’ Bonding With Riley Green, And Developing Confidence In His Music Career
Joe Henley’s Connection With Coach Riley Green
Joe Henley chose Riley Green as his coach after his Blinds performance of Travis Tritt’s “Anymore.” In one of this season’s many highlights, Green went on stage and performed his song “My Way” with Henley taking the lead.
For The Voice Season 30 artist, working with the country music star has been a memorable experience. Both men hail from Alabama, have a passion for sports, and are blessed with a dry wit. “We’re very similar,” said Henley about Green, who added that it felt like talking to someone from back home. “We’re both from Alabama. Both, you know, bigger guys, sports, and kinda raised in the same way. “I think it made it a little bit easier just going into it talking to him and being on the same page about things,” said Henley. “Even like you were talking about just how we talk and a little bit more laid back.”
That familiarity gave Henley the opportunity to focus on his music rather than worry about every aspect of his performance.
“It made it fun for sure,” said Henley. “Made it a little bit easier. It made me relax a little bit more and be able to breathe a little bit.”
Joe Henley Praises Kenna Elpers After Battles
During Battles, Henley competed against fellow Team Riley member Kenna Elpers as they performed the Riley Green and Ella Langley hit “Don’t Mind If I Do.” A candid Henley had nothing but praise for Elpers.
“It was absolutely wonderful because Kenna is amazing just as a person (and) as a singer and artist,” said Henley. “All of the above. She’s absolutely wonderful.”
Elpers also helped Henley with the harmonies. “And she’s like, ‘This would sound great if you do this,'” said Henley. “And I was like, ‘She’s helping me.’ I couldn’t ask for a better partner. I told her after the fact, ‘Kenna, I still feel you deserve that win.’ We came out, and I had sang first, and then she started singing. And I remember when she started singing, I was like ‘This is the best she’s ever sang.'”
I ask Henley that they probably learned a ton from each other with this collaboration. “She probably learned some patience with me,” he added. “But really for me to work with her was such a blessing and so much learned.”
‘The Voice’ Has Given Joe Henley Confidence In His Musical Future
Although Henley has always loved music, appearing on The Voice has helped him realize that pursuing a professional career may be possible.
“This thing that I want to do and that I love is possible,” said Henley. “Because for me it was nerves and the fear to put myself out there and what people might think of that. Is it good enough for people to watch and want to watch? And so this whole process and going through this and getting to sing, and not just one round, but the battles too and going into cut week,” said Henley. “It’s just the ability to do that and to be welcomed into that and be wanted. I think this thing that I’ve wanted for so long is like, you know, maybe (I) got a chance at this.”
Check out our full Deepest Dream interview with Joe Kenley:
Friday Blu-Ray News: ‘Frankenstein,’ ‘The Frighteners,’ ‘Hellboy'(PM Weekly Issue #17)
Criterion’s Frankenstein arrived on Tuesday in a four-disc set, and the most interesting thing in the box is a version of the film that nobody will discuss.
Read more: Friday Blu-Ray News: ‘Frankenstein,’ ‘The Frighteners,’ ‘Hellboy'(PM Weekly Issue #17)
It is called Frankenstein: The Reborn Cut. Criterion’s own copy describes it as “a new, extended director’s cut of the film, with Dolby Atmos soundtrack,” and lists a new audio commentary by del Toro recorded for that version alone. The theatrical cut is also here, with its own 4K digital master and its own Atmos track. The features list specifies the commentary as being on the Reborn Cut, and says nothing about one on the theatrical.
Start with what Criterion will tell you. The set carries two 4K UHD discs in Dolby Vision and two Blu-rays. There is a new making-of called The Anatomy Lesson: Director’s Cut, and a set of craft conversations called The Parlour with del Toro, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Oscar Isaac, the cinematographer Dan Laustsen, the production designer Tamara Deverell, the costume designer Kate Hawley and the creature designer Mike Hill. There are Q&As moderated by Martin Scorsese and by Patti Smith. Also included is an interview with Alexandre Desplat conducted by Jon Burlingame, an essay by Christopher Frayling, and a new cover by Denver Balbaboco.
Now start with what Criterion will not tell you.
Its page for the film gives a runtime of 150 minutes, which is the theatrical version. It does not publish a runtime for The Reborn Cut.
Other people have. Gizmodo and World of Reel both printed 158 minutes on July 15th, the day Criterion’s October slate went up. Forbes gave it the next day as two hours and thirty-eight minutes, eight minutes longer than the theatrical. And Geek Vibes Nation, reviewing the actual discs on October 21st, timed both versions off the player: two hours thirty minutes and ten seconds for the theatrical, two hours thirty-eight minutes and forty-three seconds for the Reborn Cut. Three sources, one of them with the box in hand and a stopwatch, and the publisher’s own page still declines to print a figure.
And the packaging is not shy about it. Of the four discs, two carry the theatrical version and two carry the Reborn Cut, a 4K and a Blu-ray of each, with THE REBORN CUT printed on the label. This is not a bonus feature tucked onto a supplements disc. Criterion has given the longer version half the set, and then declined to say how long it is.
The page runs a full cast and crew block, eight actors and the producers and the designers, and Netflix appears nowhere in it. No copyright holder is named for the film. Netflix financed this and streams it, and I could find no statement from either company about whether the longer version will ever appear there, or about how Criterion came to be releasing it. The closest anyone has come is an unattributed line in Forbes that Criterion “has secured the rights to produce the film on physical media.”
And del Toro, who sat down and recorded a feature-length commentary for this cut, has not itemized it anywhere I can find. In late January, at a Sundance screening of his restored Cronos, he confirmed an extended version was coming and called it the “all the stitches” cut. That was reported the next morning by a single outlet, without a direct quote, and I have found no first-hand account of the remark since. Criterion says the commentary covers why he wanted to make this version.
So the explanation does exist. It exists on the disc.
Which leaves a strange situation. The only people who have described this version with any precision are a reviewer with a stopwatch and the director on a commentary track nobody has transcribed.
The obvious column to write here is that physical media is where the longer cuts live now. I cannot write it, because it is not true.
The pattern over the last two years runs the other way. Robert Eggers’ extended Nosferatu went to digital on January 21, 2025 and to disc four weeks later. The extended Scary Movie went to digital in July this year and to disc in September. The longer version of The Hateful Eight was the Netflix one. Zack Snyder’s longer, R-rated Rebel Moon cuts went to Netflix as well. Genuine disc-only cuts are mostly a DVD-era phenomenon: the extended Narnia that existed on one 2006 release and never again, the Lethal Weapon director’s cuts, the theatrical version of The Warriors.
Criterion has taken Netflix films before, too. The Irishman, Marriage Story, Roma. None of them came with an alternate cut. KPop Demon Hunters was announced alongside this one in February and is dated for November, so nobody knows yet what it will carry.
What I can say is narrower and stranger. I could not find an earlier case of a streaming service’s own original film whose longer director’s cut exists only on a licensed disc. That is not the same as saying there has never been one. It is a statement about where I looked.
The eight minutes themselves are undocumented. No source itemizes what is in them. Nothing I can find says whether the seven-minute sequence del Toro cut on James Cameron’s advice is in this version, and Criterion’s feature list does not mention deleted scenes at all. The only disc-in-hand reviewer who compares the two, writing in T3 on Tuesday, says the extra eight minutes buy “a little more time to live with Elordi’s monster.” That is as specific as the record gets.
Which leaves the thing itself sitting on a shelf, doing what discs have always quietly done, which is to be the version of record while nobody is prepared to say so out loud.
Welcome to PM Weekly. Let’s get into the week.
THIS WEEK ON DISC
- Frankenstein (2025), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, four discs, Criterion
- The Frighteners (1996), Limited Edition 4K UHD and Limited Edition Blu-ray, three discs each, Arrow
- Hellraiser Tetralogy, 4K UHD, four discs, Arrow
- Enter the Video Store: Video Vengeance, Limited Edition Blu-ray, five discs, Arrow
- Sheila and the Brainstem (1989), Blu-ray, two discs, Severin
- The Perros Callejeros Trilogy, Blu-ray, three discs, Severin
- Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), 40th Anniversary 4K UHD, limited steelcase, Dark Sky
- Surf Nazis Must Die! (1987), 4K UHD and Special Edition Blu-ray, two discs, Troma
- The Sky Has Fallen, Blu-ray, Unearthed Films
- Duplicity (2009), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
- A Bucket of Blood (1959), Special Edition Blu-ray with Dementia 13
- Blackboard Jungle (1955), Blu-ray, Warner Archive
- Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954), 3D Blu-ray, Warner Archive
- Maverick: The Complete Series, Warner Archive
- Seven (1995), 4K UHD, Warner Bros
- One Battle After Another (2025), Limited Edition 4K SteelBook, Warner Bros
- Rad (1986), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, limited to 5,000, Vinegar Syndrome Ultra
- Sweet Sixteen (1983), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, limited to 6,000, Vinegar Syndrome
- The Murder Secret (1988), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, limited to 5,000, Vinegar Syndrome
- Maple Syrup Pix Vol. 1, Blu-ray, limited to 2,000, Canadian International Pictures
Three notes. Arrow’s Frighteners carries four presentations rather than two: the theatrical and director’s cuts in 4K from a new negative scan, and open-matte versions of both on the Blu-ray, which is not how the announcements read. Severin shipped two genuine firsts on the same day, a worldwide home video premiere for Sheila and the Brainstem, scanned in 2K from the original negative in both its original version and a producer’s cut, and a North American premiere for the Perros Callejeros trilogy, in 4K from the original camera negatives and subtitled in English in this territory for the first time. And Arrow publishes no numeric cap on any of its Limited Editions, this week or any week, so if you read a number for one of them it did not come from Arrow.
Not on the 27th, whatever you have read. Grindhouse’s Cannibal Holocaust UHD is 24 November and is still an open pre-order at the label today. Warner Archive’s Horror of Dracula 4K is also 24 November, with a pre-order countdown still running at blu-ray.com, despite two aggregators putting it on Tuesday. Cinema Guild’s Moving was listed on Tuesday by three separate aggregators and the label’s own store says it ships 17 November, which is the case where the label wins. Kino’s Bruiser has no confirmed date at all. Severin’s What Have You Done to Solange? was the 20th. Kino Cult’s Clown Murders is listed for this week by blu-ray.com and for 29 September by Kino’s own announcement, and we could not settle which. Deaf Crocodile’s Frankenstein, Legend of Terror and Soda Pop Joe both appear on this week’s lists and both are still open pre-orders with a wide retail date of 12 January. And the Vinegar Syndrome titles above are not new: that batch shipped direct from the label on 1 September and Tuesday was its retail date, except Faces of Death IV, which came from the October batch, so the interval is not a fixed rule.
Next Tuesday, the 3rd, is thin as of Thursday. Vinegar Syndrome’s November batch had still not been announced, and on past form it lands on the 30th or the 31st, which is to say possibly after you read this. Arrow’s Fargo in a Limited Edition 4K follows on the 9th.)
MARKET SIGNAL
On Saturday, two video stores opened on opposite sides of the United States. Very Good Video Store, in the Oak Park neighborhood of Sacramento, run by Jefferson Miller and Chris Emery. The Little Movie Store, at Tenth and McKean in South Philadelphia, run by Dylan and Keri Wise.
Both of them rent out movies. Both of them also rent out the machines.
Very Good Video Store rents DVDs, sells DVD, Blu-ray and VHS, and rents out VCRs, DVD players and Blu-ray players. The Little Movie Store rents VCRs and DVD players alongside its tapes. In the same city as the Sacramento shop, My Cat’s VHS opened earlier this year on P Street, which one local broadcaster called Sacramento’s first new video store in years.
Now put that against the other thing that surfaced in the last few days.
Sony Japan’s product page for the UBP-X700, its standalone 4K Blu-ray player, reads production complete. There is no announcement, no explanation and no date on it. The page simply says the thing has stopped.
The story did not come from Sony. It came from a Japanese retail blog reporting that shipments had ended, with Sony’s own product page as the only corroboration, and the coverage that followed tended to firm that up into a confirmation Sony has never given. It is worth separating from a thing Sony did announce: a notice dated February 9th covering Blu-ray disc recorders, which names four BDZ models, states flatly that there are no successor models, and does not mention players at all.
And “Sony’s last 4K player” is a claim about Japan. Sony’s own US site still lists the UBP-X700 and the UBP-X800M2, and Sony has said nothing about any other territory.
The honest version is narrower and still worth your attention. In one market, the company that invented the format has stopped making a dedicated machine for it. Panasonic and Magnetar are both still building players, and Panasonic raised its prices in September, the UB820 from $549 to $649.99 in the United States and from £349 to £429 in Britain, without giving a reason. The coverage supplied one, blaming component shortages, inflation and tariffs. Pioneer stopped in 2024. Reavon stopped, reportedly over parts it could not get. LG has stopped making them too; its last models date from 2018. The field is two manufacturers wide.
So in a few days the hardware base narrowed again at one end, and at the other end two shops opened on the same Saturday in the business of lending people something to play a disc on. The market is improvising its own supply.
There is a second thing in Philadelphia worth having. The Wises became approved resellers and buy new releases direct from Criterion, Arrow, MVD and A24. A shop with roughly two hundred members has a direct account with the label that made the Kubrick box. That is a distribution channel being rebuilt from the bottom after the chains walked away, and for the labels it is a route to a customer that does not run through Amazon.
The membership numbers are the part I would watch. Philadelphia charges $160 a year, and members rent while non-members may only buy. In September the shop reported about 465 people on a waitlist. By late October it reported roughly 200 had joined. Those count different things, interest against money, and the distance between them is the honest number in this story. Sacramento has gone the other way and made membership optional. You can rent or buy without one. What the membership buys is the after-hours programming, the screenings and the Q&As with local filmmakers.
Two models, one week, and both of them are selling the same thing underneath: somewhere to put a disc.
STORE OF THE WEEK
Bay Street Video, 1172 Bay Street, Toronto.
It is not a storefront. It sits in a small plaza at the base of a 1980s condominium tower, half a block south of Bloor, behind a Tim Hortons. Randall King, writing in the National Post in September, called it a hidden mall. You have to know it is there.
The business has been in that plaza since 1982 and has carried this name since 1993. It is open seven days, ten to eight most days and ten to ten on Friday and Saturday. It was recording its own podcast in the shop on Wednesday.
Here is what is on the shelves, by the manager’s own count: about forty thousand DVDs, just under ten thousand Blu-rays, a thousand 4K discs for rent, and twelve to fifteen thousand titles for sale. It rents and it sells, and the manager puts the survival down to exactly that: “Rentals kept us going when sales were sparse and sales kept us going when rentals were sparse.” It does not buy used stock. The FAQ is blunt about it, and the phrasing matters: “We do not. We’re always happy to accept donations of current formats” BMV, or Vinegar Syndrome’s Toronto shop. A rental library that takes donations but refuses to buy only ever grows by gift or by buying new.
In 2021 the product manager, Mark Hanson, put the whole collection at somewhere in the realm of thirty-six or thirty-seven thousand titles. That is the whole argument, really, and he made it himself in the same conversation: “We have a curated collection that continues to grow but never gets smaller.” And: “It’s library-esque, almost like an archive or a museum.”
A rental shop that never stops being a shop at some point and becomes a holding. Most retail works the other way. You cull what does not move, you make room for what does, and the catalogue is whatever the last two years justified keeping. Bay Street Video has simply declined to do that, and the result is that its competitive position is now defined by subtraction happening somewhere else.
Which brings me to the best thing in this shop, and the reason it is here rather than any of the other three physical media businesses now trading in Toronto.
It runs a program called Films For Free. Every couple of months the staff pick a theme, and those films go out at no charge to anyone with a membership, which is itself free. Two at a time per household, back within five days, late fees strictly enforced. Nothing unusual so far.
The unusual part is the selection criterion. The shop highlights, in its own words, “excellent films which are not readily available via (legal) online streaming services and/or On Demand.”
Read that as a business decision. A commercial rental library has identified the portion of its stock that the streaming services cannot supply, and has decided to give that portion away. Good films, filtered for the one thing streaming cannot do. The shop is spending its scarcest inventory to demonstrate the only thing it has that Netflix does not, which is the films Netflix does not have.
I have been writing this column for sixteen weeks and that is the clearest statement of position I have come across. Every shop in this series has an answer to what it is for. This one has turned its answer into a lending program and put it on the website.
A caution, since this journal runs on them. The Films For Free page was still advertising a summer theme when I read it this week, a list of films from the Ira Sachs guide to movies with kids, and the page’s copyright metadata still reads 2009. The program is real and its rules are published; the selection on the page is not current. The shop’s own YouTube channel still lists opening hours it abandoned years ago, which is a reminder that a business’s own stale page is more dangerous than a stranger’s, not less. And the shop cannot get its own founding told the same way twice: one account has it renamed in 1993, another has it changing hands that year, a third says a property manager took it over and renamed it. A business whose entire value proposition is an intact record. Meanwhile the podcast went up on Wednesday, current to the day.
One last thing, because the easy version of this column would be wrong. Bay Street Video is not the last video store in Toronto. Eyesore Cinema is still on Bloor near Dufferin. Criterion has just opened its first permanent Canadian shop inside Cinema Cellar, between the TIFF Lightbox and the Scotiabank. Vinegar Syndrome has one on Roncesvalles. Videoflicks, out on Avenue Road, closed in November 2019, and its owner said at the time that having no storefront meant no plans to return. The manager, Brendan Whelton, was asked about the new arrivals in September and declined the elegy. “I think a rising tide raises all ships,” he told the National Post, talking about Cinema Cellar and the other new shops. “The more ways that people can see movies, the better.”
The survivor is no longer alone, and says good.
(Next week: The Little Movie Store in South Philadelphia.)
THE STACK
What I pulled off the shelf this week.
Hellboy (2004).
Format: DVD, two discs, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 27 July 2004. UPC 043396013179, list price $28.96. Theatrical cut, 122 minutes, PG-13. 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1, no DTS track, Region 1. Single-width keep case with slipcover and a booklet.
Bonus Features: Two audio commentaries, the first with Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola, the second with Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor and Rupert Evans. Eight branching comics drawn by Mignola and written by del Toro, made for this disc. The Right Hand of Doom, eight branching set visits, nineteen minutes. A branching storyboard extra drawn by Simeon Wilkins. Four UPA cartoons. A del Toro video introduction. On disc two: a Selma Blair introduction; The Seeds of Creation, a documentary running nearly two and a half hours, measured at 143 minutes where it was reissued in 2019; three deleted scenes with optional del Toro commentary; animatics, board-a-matics and storyboard comparisons; fifteen character biographies; a maquette gallery; poster designs; trailers. DVD-ROM content including a printable screenplay and the director’s notes.
I pulled this out because of the lede, and it turned out to be a better match than I expected.
Twelve weeks after this disc shipped, Columbia TriStar released Hellboy: The Director’s Cut, three discs, 132 minutes, unrated. It carried a new solo del Toro commentary addressing what had been cut and why, an isolated score with the composer’s commentary, a new storyboard track, the same nineteen minutes of set visits, and a whole third disc of new material: the cast commentary filmed as video, production workshops, a Comic-Con panel from 2002, a Scott McCloud interview, forty minutes of Mignola’s pre-production art, and a printed excerpt from Rasputin’s diary.
It was the better edition. And It was also not a superset.
The three-disc set does not contain the theatrical cut, and there is no branching to get back to it. DVD Talk’s reviewer said so in October 2004 and wrote that he wished the theatrical version were reachable by seamless branching. The cartoons appear to have gone too, though that one is thinner. And the set does not contain the del Toro and Mignola commentary. DVD Talk’s word for it at the time was excised. It exists on the disc I own and on no other release for the next fifteen years.
Mignola was the film’s co-executive producer. The man who created the character was on the payroll, and his commentary still came off the better edition.
Del Toro told USA Today the day before my copy shipped exactly what was happening. The two-disc set, he said, “is for the fan of the movie; the second will be for the collector.” He was not hiding it. Del Toro described the collector’s edition as “really loaded,” which it was. He simply did not mention that the collector’s edition would be missing the conversation between the director and the man who created the character.
On 12 December that year the Washington Post reached for this film as its opening example when Jen Chaney wrote about the practice. Studios tend to cite bonus features that were not finished in time, she reported, “but the biggest motivator is, of course, money.” Her piece says the director’s cut followed “three months later.” It was two months and twenty-three days. Even the article complaining about double-dipping got the gap wrong.
Then it got worse. The 2007 Blu-ray carried the director’s cut only, and dropped the two things that mattered most: the isolated score with the composer’s commentary, and the cast commentary filmed as video. For twelve years the only commentary with Mignola on it did not exist in high definition at all.
The 2019 4K release fixed most of this, and deserves credit for it. It is the first and only disc ever made that holds both cuts of this film, and it carries all three commentaries at once, the Mignola one back where you can hear it. The cartoons came back, and there are now five of them where my disc has four. The set visits came back at eighteen minutes and twenty-one seconds, against nineteen on mine.
Two things did not.
The isolated score with the composer’s commentary has never appeared on any Blu-ray or 4K release. It is not on the 2019 discs’ extras list at all. It exists on the three-disc DVD from October 2004 and nowhere else.
And the eight comics. Mignola drew them, del Toro wrote them, and they were made for this release and no other. They are not on the Blu-ray; the 2007 review named their absence. They are not on any extras list for the 4K that I can find either, and the one 2019 feature that sounds like them is the forty-minute Mignola slideshow, which DVD Talk described back in 2004 as the pre-production art from the third disc. I want to be straight that this is an argument from every list I could check failing to mention them, plus a positive identification of the thing they could be confused with, not a reviewer saying they are gone. But original Mignola and del Toro work, commissioned for an optical disc, last catalogued on a pair of DVDs from 2004.
The measured difference between the two cuts, incidentally, is ten and a half minutes. The published figures run from “about ten minutes” through “roughly fifteen” to “about twenty,” and the twenty is the one on Wikipedia today, sourced to that same USA Today piece from the day before my disc shipped. The studio’s pre-release number became the encyclopedia’s number and has outlived every disc that could have measured it.
I have not found del Toro saying which cut he considers definitive.
Hellboy spent roughly the first half of this year on Netflix and has since left. None of the listings I checked said which cut it was.
Twenty-two years, one director, two films with two cuts apiece, and in both cases the thing nobody will tell you is which one you are looking at. In 2004 at least he told us there would be two. The shelf still answers the question. Streaming still does not.
THE SIGN-OFF
That is Issue #17. A Netflix film whose longer version arrived on four discs with no runtime printed and no statement from anybody, a Tuesday that put two world premieres and a negative-scanned Frighteners on the shelf before Halloween, two shops opening on the same Saturday that rent out the players as well as the films while Sony’s page for its own machine went quiet, a Toronto rental library that gives away the titles streaming cannot supply because those are the ones that prove the point, and a DVD from 2004 carrying a conversation between a director and an artist that the better edition dropped and nobody heard again for fifteen years. If you know one person who still alphabetizes their shelf, forward this to them. That is the whole engine we have, and it is a good one.
See you Friday.
PM Weekly
Sean Reid
Film & TV Production
seanreid@worldonetv.com
Destinee Monroe Talks “Wild Journey” of ‘The Voice’ And “Bring Me To Life” Performance
Destinee Monroe brings a great combo of stage presence and powerhouse vocals on Season 30 of The Voice. Monroe received a three chair turn for her rendition of Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home” during the Blinds, and she went with Adam Levine as her coach. Loudwire described her Battles with Team Adam member Dakota Cohen as “one of the top Battle Round performances” of the season. Monroe’s performance of Evanescence’s “Bring Me To Life” led to a steal from fellow Jersey Girl Queen Latifah. Monroe talked to Deepest Dream about a very interesting fact that most people don’t know about her “awesome sauce” Battles performance. For the full interview with Monroe, check out our video below!
Read more: Destinee Monroe Talks “Wild Journey” of ‘The Voice’ And “Bring Me To Life” Performance
During her Blinds segment, Destinee Monroe candidly reflected on the ups and downs of her music career. Initially a member of Clique Girlz (they were signed to Interscope Records) during her youth, Monroe was part of a touring rock group for several years and, as she mentioned in the interview, an 80s cover band. Though we have witnessed Monroe’s rock edge on The Voice, her songbook is diverse.
“I love all genres of music,” said Monroe, who hails from Atlantic City, New Jersey. “I’m not opposed to blending certain genres, whether that be pop, rock, country – I’m all for it. I feel like the music speaks for itself, and it will tell me what it wants to be, as opposed to me trying to fit into something.”
As for the Battles performance with Dakota Cohen in “Bring Me To Life,” Monroe brought the vocal chops and energy. She was also nursing an injury during the performance! ”Honestly, there were so many things surrounding that was happening that nobody knows about,” said Monroe.
“First of all, the shirt that I wore that looks like a dress all of the tentacles hanging down, I was just praying on my hands and knees just like, ‘Please don’t let me trip – don’t let me fall doing this.’ So there was that. And then right before I came back to do Battles, I actually skinned my knees pretty hard, so I was literally performing through that, and I was just eating the pain. I’m like, ‘You know what? If we’re gonna do it, we’re doing it, and I’m just gonna have to suck it up, and here we go.”
While being coached by Adam Levine and Alex Warren during Battles, Monroe off-handedly said “awesome sauce.” Since I loved that comment, I had to ask a silly question!
“Oh my God, that is so funny because literally my family and my boyfriend were all just cracking up and that has been the ultimate tagline now,” said Monroe. “So I made my bio on Instagram and on TikTok, so #awesomesauce. We’re gonna get T-shirts made. So this has become a whole thing and i’m like – I’m such a nerd!”
Even with her years of experience, Monroe still had an enriching time on The Voice. “There was so much to learn and so much growth that I experienced just from being out there and getting out of my comfort zone. I just I’m so grateful for the opportunity. It’s been a wild journey.”
@destineemonroe94 LET’S GO #TEAMQUEEN @NBC's The Voice @NBC ♬ original sound – Destinee Monroe
Next week is Cut Week on The Voice. “The title in and of itself should tell you – cut week – it’s cutthroat,” added Monroe. “I just feel. like it’s going to be a point where it separates the men from the boys. Where we have this one shot to get it right, and if we do, we get to go to live. So I’m just really hoping for that opportunity to go back and showcase more of my talent.”
Full interview with Destinee Monroe: