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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!
Kelsey Bascom And Arnon Manor Talk “Seven-Year Journey” On Making ‘Quarter’
Now playing at New York’s Cinema Village, Quarter centers on Kelly (Kelsey Bascom), a young woman living with type 1 diabetes who has come to a crossroads as she is about to turn 25. Bascom co-directed the feature with Arnon Manor, and since this is indie filmmaking, getting the movie to theaters was not an overnight thing. The collaborators talked to Deepest Dream about the challenges of joys of making an indie feature.
Read more: Kelsey Bascom And Arnon Manor Talk “Seven-Year Journey” On Making ‘Quarter’The First Stages of Quarter
“Arnon and I developed the story together,” said Kelsey Bascom. “It’s based on a web series that we did together and it’s also based on my story of living with Type 1 diabetes. Arnon and I have a very close relationship and trust each other. Sometimes there are, of course, difference of opinions, but it’s a lot of listening to the other person and trying things out. It’s been a really amazing collaboration – a lot of trust and listening to each other.”
“Kelsey was in front of the camera – she’s in practically every scene,” said Arnon Manor. “Keeping an eye on behind the camera was my job during filming. But having two brains is better than one for sure.”
Brooke Shields Is Part Of A Talented Ensemble
Quarter features a plethora of talented actors in the ensemble. Breckin Meyer and Alexandra Wentworth play Kelly’s parents, and Brooke Shields, who executive produced Quarter, plays a gynecologist. Rounding out the ensemble are Raven-Symoné, Tati Gabrielle, Eric Roberts, Brec Bassinger, and Arden Myrin.
“We knew from the start that we wanted Kelsey to be the lead because we knew she was gonna knock it out of the ballpark,” said Arnon, who wanted to surround Kelsey with a ‘really amazing’ cast. “But she’s an unknown name in that regard. To give the film the best chance of success, other than making it realy good and funny, was to bring in a cast that everybody can recognize.”
Experiencing Quarter With An Audience
Quarter is playing at New York’s Cinema Village through November 19, and the filmmakers will have Daily Q&As at the venue. “I definitely want to experience it with an audience because it is really moving and touching when you hear people laugh and enjoy it,” said Bascom. “We’ve had some audience preview screenings and some people got emotional. It just kinda makes it real and it’s like ‘Oh, this is why we made the film.'”
Full interview with Bascom and Manor:
Bart Simpson Reflects On Nine-Year Journey To Make ‘The Mad World of Harvey Kurtzman’
If you have ever appreciated MAD Magazine, then The Mad World of Harvey Kurtzman could be your cup of tea. Director Bart Simpson spent nine years bringing his documentary on the legendary comic book creator to life, and the result is a fascinating look at an artist whose influence extends far beyond the pages of MAD. For Simpson, a lifelong comic book enthusiast, getting this documentary made was a labor of love.
Read more: Bart Simpson Reflects On Nine-Year Journey To Make ‘The Mad World of Harvey Kurtzman’The Mad World of Harvey Kurtzman Origin
“I’m a comics guy from straight out of the womb basically,” said Bart Simpson. His fascination with Kurtzman eventually turned into a documentary opportunity thanks to his longtime friend Gareth Gaudin, who had connected with Kurtzman’s widow, Adele.
Gaudin was invited to see some of Kurtzman’s personal artifacts, and that encounter sparked an idea for Simpson. “I emailed (Gaudin) and I said, ‘Hey, has anybody ever done a film on Harvey?’ And here we are nine years later,” Simpson recalled.
One of the compelling aspects of The Mad World of Harvey Kurtzman is discovering just how much Kurtzman’s work influenced popular culture. Even if you’re not a comic book aficionado, chances are you’ve enjoyed something that owes a creative debt to Kurtzman.
“Harvey’s work intersected with so many other people and so much other work that we take for granted these days,” Simpson said. “Like Monty Python, Gloria Steinem’s work, Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, et cetera. We’re kind of living in Harvey’s world, but we don’t know it.”
Putting together the documentary was no easy task. Simpson and his team sifted through Kurtzman’s personal archives.
“We really wanted to make sure we had Harvey tell his own story as much as possible,” Simpson explained. “We got to dig through 36 boxes of Harvey’s personal archive. Everything from doodles to love letters to rejection letters to bills and receipts, photos.”
Since Kurtzman passed away in 1993, Simpson relied on archival audio recordings and video footage to bring the artist’s personality to life. He also made it a priority to interview Kurtzman’s surviving collaborators and loved ones, knowing that time was of the essence.
Meeting With Legendary Cartoonists
The production captured some of the final interviews with MAD cartoonist Al Jaffee and Kurtzman’s widow, along with conversations with other influential artists.
One of Simpson’s favorite experiences involved interviewing legendary cartoonist Robert Crumb.
“He normally doesn’t give interviews anymore, but he did for us because it was on Kurtzman,” Simpson said. “He was so reflective and lovely and open and honest.”
For Simpson, the interview was a reminder of how one artist’s creativity can have a profound impact on another person’s life.
Nine years is a long time to spend on a documentary, but Simpson’s dedication to preserving Kurtzman’s legacy is understandable. Whether you’re a lifelong MAD Magazine reader or simply curious about the creative minds who helped shape modern comedy, The Mad World of Harvey Kurtzman looks to be a worthwhile cinematic experience. CinemAddicts co-host Eric Holmes, who conducted the interview, recommends the documentary.
And maybe after watching the documentary, you’ll have a newfound appreciation for the man behind the madness.
Full interview:
Screening Information: The Mad World of Harvey Kurtzman has its international premiere tonight, Friday, November 13, at DOC NYC in New York. A second screening takes place tomorrow, Saturday, November 14. For additional information and future screenings, visit kurtzmanfilm.com or follow @kurtzmanfilm on Instagram.
Friday Blu-Ray News: ‘The Bounty Hunter,’ ‘Marie Antoinette,’ ‘Experience’ (PM Weekly #19)
On the twenty ninth of December, Warner Archive will put a 1954 Randolph Scott western on Blu-ray in 3D, and it has never played a cinema that way.
The film is The Bounty Hunter, directed by Andre de Toth, seventy nine minutes, with Marie Windsor and Ernest Borgnine. It was shot in the stereoscopic 3-D process. It was never shown that way. In the announcement’s own words, the film “was shot in the stereoscopic 3-D process but only released to theaters in standard 2-D prints,” and this disc “presents a meticulous restoration of the original 3-D presentation as the creatives intended.”
Read more: Friday Blu-Ray News: ‘The Bounty Hunter,’ ‘Marie Antoinette,’ ‘Experience’ (PM Weekly #19)
So a stereoscopic feature photographed in 1954 will reach an audience in stereo for the first time at seventy two years old. On a disc. In a format no streaming service carries and none is going to.
It is not alone. Three 3D Blu-rays arrive from one label inside eight days: The Charge at Feather River on the twenty second, The Bounty Hunter and Phantom of the Rue Morgue on the twenty ninth. The honest version of that sentence, which is better than the triumphant one, is that two of the three are there because they slipped. Screen-Connections says they are “moving to December following production delays.” Yogi Bear’s complete series slipped with them, to the fifteenth.
But a delay is a scheduling fact, not an argument, and the argument is in the specifications.
Phantom of the Rue Morgue is the better evidence of the two. It is a two disc set: stereoscopic 3D on disc one, flat 2D on disc two. Its master line, from the original September announcement rather than the December one, reads “NEW 2026 1080pHD master from 4K scans of the original 3D Left Eye and Right Eye Camera Negatives.” Not a negative. Two negatives, scanned separately, because that is what a 1954 stereoscopic production left behind. The restoration is credited in the copy to Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services, working “from the original 35mm left-and-right eye camera negatives.” The bonus feature is a 3D stereoscopic Popeye cartoon.
Somebody at a studio signed off on a named department doing eye separate scans of a seventy two year old film, for a format nobody is launching into. 3D Blu-ray has no new releases to speak of, no shelf at any chain I can find, and an installed base of players and displays that stopped growing years ago.
Which is the thing worth saying out loud. A format does not die when the audience leaves. It dies when the rights holder stops paying to make the discs. Warner has not stopped, and what it is paying for is not a dub of an old master. It is scanning work, done twice per frame, on titles whose 3D versions have in one case never been commercially seen.
I want to be careful about that last point, because it is the one that will get repeated wrongly. The claim in the source is specifically about theatrical release prints. It does not say The Bounty Hunter’s 3-D version was never screened anywhere, at any time, in any form, and I have not established that it was not. Nor is this necessarily the only film in the condition. It is simply the one Warner has chosen to spend money on this December.
Note also that two outlets carried this announcement and both are working from one Warner release, so two sources here is one source twice. More on that below, because the two outlets did not print it the same way.
Welcome to PM Weekly. Let’s get into the week.
THIS WEEK ON DISC
Confirmed street dates only, all streeting Tuesday, November 10. On shelves now.
Reconciled from four sources, format and edition as the pages state them. Criterion’s own store could not be read from this desk this week, so the three Criterions rest on blu-ray.com and the aggregator calendars rather than on the label.
• Marie Antoinette (2006), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, Criterion
• Shoot the Piano Player (1960), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, Criterion
• Blue Heron (2025), Blu-ray, Criterion
• Planet of the Vampires (1965), 4K UHD, Radiance
• Cutter’s Way (1981), 4K UHD, Radiance
• Four Rooms (1995), 4K UHD, Kino Lorber
• Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), 4K UHD, Blu-ray and Digital, Sony
• The Lovely Bones (2009), 4K UHD, Blu-ray and Digital, Paramount
• Paddington (2014), 4K UHD SteelBook, Lionsgate
• Never Let Go (2024), 4K UHD, Lionsgate
• Saw V (2008), 4K UHD SteelBook, Lionsgate
• Saw VI (2009), 4K UHD SteelBook, Lionsgate
• Saw VII: The Final Chapter (2010), 4K UHD SteelBook, Lionsgate
• Above the Law (1988), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, Toy Robot Video
• The Corruptor (1999), 4K UHD and Blu-ray, Toy Robot Video
• Demigod: The Legend Begins (2021), Blu-ray, Deaf Crocodile
• Dark Romances Vol 1+2 (1990), Blu-ray, Culture Shock Releasing
• Lock Up: Season 1 Volume 1, Blu-ray, ClassicFlix
• Miranda, Blu-ray, Cult Films
• Mad Bills to Pay (2025), Blu-ray, Oscilloscope
• The Apothecary Diaries: Season 2, Blu-ray, Crunchyroll
• Call of the Night: Season 2, Blu-ray, Sentai
(Three notes. Criterion put three discs out on one Tuesday, two of them 4K catalogue and one a 2025 title, which is three in one week from a label that normally spreads a month across several. Toy Robot Video’s Above the Law and The Corruptor are Arrow’s budget sub-label turning up on a mainstream Tuesday, which is the price ladder from October doing what it said it would. And Static Multimedia calls the Paddington SteelBook the film’s first US 4K release, which is their claim and we have not checked it.)
Not on the 10th, whatever you have read. Fall 2: Deadpoint was never a date fight. There are two products. The Blu-ray with DVD and a digital copy streets on 17 November at $28.82, and the 4K with Blu-ray and a digital copy streets on 1 December at $29.99. Both are open pre-orders today. Each outlet named one and left out the other, which is the kind of dispute that dissolves the moment somebody opens both product pages.
Next Tuesday, the 17th, is the heaviest date of the quarter. Universal’s Odyssey arrives in a premium gift set at $299.99 limited to five thousand copies and a limited SteelBook at $42.98. Arrow has three 4K limited editions, Criterion has two more discs, and Shout has a twelve disc Chow Yun-Fat box, all of that from an aggregator calendar rather than from the labels. The SteelBooks may or may not be gone: one outlet says sold out and blu-ray.com says currently unavailable, and those are not the same claim.)
MARKET SIGNAL
Warner Archive announced ten Blu-rays for December on Wednesday, and the interesting thing about them is the grammar.
Screen-Connections, which carries the full product blocks, prints Warner’s spec lines like this: “NEW 2026 1080pHD MASTER FROM 4K SCAN OF NITRATE PROTECTION ELEMENTS!” for Decoy, and “NEW 1080pHD 3D/2D MASTERS FROM 4K SCANS OF THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVES!” for The Bounty Hunter. A 1080p master, struck from a 4K scan. You know exactly what you are buying.
blu-ray.com, carrying the same announcement the same day, prints “NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM NITRATE PROTECTION ELEMENTS” and “NEW 3D/2D 4K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE.” The 1080p has gone and the scan has become a restoration.
Those are different claims about different objects, and only one of them tells a buyer that this is a Blu-ray.
Before this turns into an accusation, two things. Neither outlet is Warner, so neither version can be called the label’s own wording, and it is entirely possible Warner issued both forms. And blu-ray.com is not consistent with itself inside the same page: for The Mask of Dimitrios it prints “beautifully restored in High Definition from a 4K scan of its original nitrate negative,” and for the Abbott and Costello box “Painstakingly remastered in high definition.” Those two are the honest formulation. They are on the same page as the other two.
The detail that proves the longer wording is doing real work, rather than being boilerplate somebody trimmed for space, is Test Pilot. It is the one title in the ten with no 4K scan claimed at all. Its block reads “NEW 1080p HD MASTER FROM BEST SAFETY PRESERVATION ELEMENTS.” When the negative is not there, the copy says so, and it says so in a sentence precise enough to be worth preserving.
A 4K scan feeding a 1080p master is good practice and worth paying for, because the scan is the part that outlives the disc. Calling the resulting Blu-ray a 4K restoration is not a lie. It is just the one piece of information that would tell you it is not a 4K disc, going missing somewhere between the label and the reader.
STORE OF THE WEEK
Hi-Voltage Video, 2104 NE 123rd Street, Suite 217A, North Miami.
WSVN’s Deco Drive ran a piece on it on the second of November, by Lynn Martinez and Matthew Auerbach. One person speaks throughout, a man named Marc Ferman, and the story never says what he is. Not the owner, not the manager, not a member of staff. He is simply the man in the shop with the microphone in front of him, and I am going to leave that where the piece left it rather than promote him to something nobody printed.
What he says about the stock is the ordinary part. “We offer a wide selection of vintage VHS, laserdiscs, DVDs, out-of-print titles, imports, 4K restoration discs from boutique labels, Blu-ray.” Every shop in this column could say a version of that sentence, and most of them have.
Then he says this.
“We have a whole Made in Miami section, like a section of films on VHS, on LaserDisc, on DVD, of movies that were shot and produced, not just in Miami, but in surrounding areas.”
Nineteen weeks of this column, and I have not come across that shelf anywhere else.
Think about what a Made in Miami section actually requires. Somebody has to know which films were shot there, which is not a field you can sort by. It is not a genre, not a studio, not a director, not a decade. No distributor has ever organised a catalogue that way because no distributor has any reason to. It is a fact about a film that lives outside every category the industry uses to file one, and the only way to build the shelf is for a person who lives in the place to recognise the place on screen.
Then they have to find the discs, across four formats, including LaserDisc, which means out of print material acquired secondhand. Then they have to put it somewhere a customer will walk past.
A streaming service cannot do this. Not will not, cannot. The catalogue has no geography in it. There is no Miami row because there is no field for Miami, and if you went looking you would be reduced to searching titles you already knew, which is the opposite of what a shelf is for. The entire value of the thing is that it shows you a film you did not know was shot four blocks away.
This column has spent four months circling the question of what a physical shop is actually for, now that the convenience argument is lost and the catalogue argument is lost. Philadelphia answered it with a membership. Toronto answered it with a lending library of the films streaming does not carry. Cologne answered it by giving up renting an entire category so children could come in.
North Miami’s answer is the most local of the four, and the hardest to copy. The shop is useful because it is in Miami and knows it.
A caution, since this journal runs on them. Ferman also says, and this is a direct quotation, that “Hi-Voltage Video is the only stand-alone, dedicated video store boutique in South Florida.” That is his claim and I could not establish it either way. This column has twice printed a last one standing framing that did not survive contact with a map, most recently in Toronto, where the shop’s own manager refused the description and three other physical media businesses turned out to be trading in the same city. Treat it as what a shopkeeper believes about his own market, which is interesting for different reasons than a fact would be.
One more quote, because it cuts against the easy reading of who buys this stuff. “I’m seeing kids in their 20s and 30s starting to collect VHS tapes themselves. I think that’s great, and they’re picking up films they’ve never seen before.”
Films they have never seen before. Not the ones they remember.
(Next week: Very Good Video in Sacramento.)
THE STACK
What I pulled off the shelf this week.
Experience (1968)
Format: VHS, Warner Reprise Video. The sleeve carries a 1992 copyright and no street date; a retail product record puts it at March 1992. Catalogue number 38297-3, barcode 7599-38297-3. VHS Hi-Fi, Dolby B NR on linear tracks. Approximate running time 33 minutes per the sleeve. Directed by Peter Neal, produced by John Marshall, narrated by Alexis Korner. Art direction Deborah Norcross, design John Heiden, cover photo Joe Sia. A Douglas Music Films production. The copyright line reads, in full, © 1992 Are You Experienced? Ltd.
Contents: Purple Haze, Foxy Lady, Hear My Train A Comin’, Wild Thing, plus excerpts from Rainy Day Dream Away, I Don’t Live Today, House Burning Down, Voodoo Chile, Up From The Skies, Castles Made Of Sand, Wait Until Tomorrow, Little Miss Lover, May This Be Love, Bold As Love and If 6 Was 9.
This is the first VHS tape to appear in this column in nineteen issues, which I did not plan and which turns out to be the point.
Start with the sleeve, because the sleeve is wrong in an instructive way. “Filmed in London in 1967, this video features live performances and rare interview footage.” Wikipedia’s Hendrix videography describes the film’s locations as various, and the two it names are the Opera House in Blackpool on the twenty fifth of November 1967 and the Bruce Fleming Photo Studio in London on the nineteenth of December 1967. One of those is London. The other is in Lancashire.
The film is also known as See My Music Talking, which the box does not mention.
Now the thing the box is right about. It calls the acoustic Hear My Train A Comin’ the highlight, and it is more than that. It was filmed on the nineteenth of December 1967, at Fleming’s studio, during a publicity photo session, on a twelve string Zemaitis acoustic restrung for a left handed player that happened to be on hand. Wikipedia’s entry on the song puts it plainly: the documentary Experience “features the only version released during Hendrix’s lifetime.” He died in September 1970. Every other recording of that song anyone can buy was released after he was gone.
A publicity shoot, a borrowed guitar, a camera that happened to be running, and the only version of a song he ever lived to see released.
So why is this in the Stack rather than in a museum.
Because of two lines of small print on the back of the box, and what happened three years after they were printed.
Are You Experienced? Ltd and Douglas Music Films are the Alan Douglas era. Douglas supervised the Hendrix catalogue as what Wikipedia calls an interim producer, and The Ultimate Experience, released in November 1992, was “among the last to be supervised by interim producer Alan Douglas, before the Hendrix family regained control of his recording legacy.” My tape shipped in March of that year. In 1995, after what the Experience Hendrix page describes as two years of legal issues, Al Hendrix gained control of his son’s music, name and likeness, and founded Experience Hendrix to run it. The Ultimate Experience went out of print and was replaced in 1997 by a different compilation with a different tracklist.
The film came back in 2001, from MCA, as Experience Jimi Hendrix, on DVD, certified platinum. The videography calls it a re-release of Experience “with additional material.” It does not itemise what was added, but its listing for the 2001 version carries Stockholm, the ninth of January 1969, and five songs the 1968 entry does not: The Wind Cries Mary, Red House, Sunshine of Your Love, Hey Joe and Dolly Dagger.
Which is where the reader of this column already knows what I am about to ask, because we have been here twice this autumn with Hellboy and with Wonka.
Is the longer edition a superset.
I cannot tell you. No list I can read sets the 2001 contents against the 1992 contents item by item. What I can tell you is that the 1992 tape is thirty three minutes of a 1968 short, assembled under one management, and the 2001 disc is a longer thing assembled under a different one after a change of ownership, a two year legal fight and a catalogue reshuffle in between. Every time this journal has looked at a pair like that, something has been on the older one and not the newer.
I would like to be wrong about that. The record so far says I probably am not.
What I am certain of is narrower and stranger. There is a thirty three minute film, shot in 1967, narrated by one of the founding figures of British blues, that Warner Reprise put into American shops in 1992 under a copyright held by a company whose stewardship of Hendrix ended three years later. It contains the only performance of Hear My Train A Comin’ that Jimi Hendrix lived to see released. And the reason I can tell you what is on it is that the list is printed on the back of the box, in green, under a photograph by Joe Sia.
THE CORRECTIONS DESK
Two, and both are ours.
Last week we wrote that Cinema Guild’s Moving, one of the four titles we pulled off the 27 October list, “now shows on the 17th,” and that we were right to pull it. We were right to pull it. We were wrong to replace it with another date. Cinema Guild’s own store carries no consumer street date for Moving at all, and the 17 November listing came off the same kind of aggregator calendar we spent the rest of that paragraph warning readers about. The method note in that issue told you to ask who published the date. We did not take our own advice two sentences earlier.
And Issue #17 listed Phantom of the Rue Morgue 3D in This Week on Disc as a 27 October release. It did not ship that day. Warner moved it to the twenty ninth of December, with The Charge at Feather River and Yogi Bear, and the reason given is production delays. We had the right date from the right source in September and never checked whether it still held by the time we printed it, which is the one job a street date list has. The test would have taken ninety seconds: the page for that disc carries a notify me box, not a stock state. Announced is not the same as shipping, and from now on this column checks the date in the week it runs the list.
THE SIGN-OFF
That is Issue #19. A studio spending money to scan a 1954 western twice, once per eye, so that a version of it nobody bought a ticket to can exist on a disc; ten Blu-rays whose spec lines say 1080p master from a 4K scan at one outlet and 4K restoration at another, with one title saying neither because the negative is gone; a shop in North Miami that built a shelf out of films shot in and around Miami, which is a category no catalogue anywhere has a field for; and a VHS tape from 1992, narrated by Alexis Korner, carrying the only Hear My Train A Comin’ its author lived to see released, issued under a copyright that changed hands three years later. 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
seanreid@worldonetv.com
Digital Codes Giveaway: ‘The Intern’ (Starring Choi Min Shik And Han So Hee)
Three Digital Codes of The Intern, starring Han So Hee and Choi Min Shik, are up for grabs in our latest giveaway courtesy of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. A Korean reimagining of director Nancy Meyers’ 2015 feature, The Intern makes its U.S. Digital debut on November 10. The original film starred Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro, and the remake opened at #1 at the South Korean Box Office. Giveaway details are below!
Read more: Digital Codes Giveaway: ‘The Intern’ (Starring Choi Min Shik And Han So Hee)
Directed by Kim Do Young (Once We Were Us), The Intern centers on Sun-woo (Han So Hee), the CEO of a fashion start-up who hires Ki-ho (Choi Min Shik) as her senior intern. With 37 years of experience, Ki-ho could be huge asset for Sun-woo despite their generation gap.
Rounding out the cast are Ryu Hye Young, Kim Jun, Kim Kum Soon, Park Ye Ni, Kim Yo Han, Lim Sung Gyun, and Yun Sang Jeong. The movie’s running time is 132 minutes.
The Intern Giveaway Requirements
- For every requirement you complete, you will receive one (1) entry. Maximum is three (3) entries.
- Follow Deepest Dream on Facebook.
- Subscribe to Deepest Dream on YouTube.
- Follow Deepest Dream on Instagram.
- Email me at editor@deepestdream.com to confirm your entries.
- There are Three (3) Digital Codes of The Intern available, and I will email the three winners with a Code once the Giveaway ends at Friday, November 13 (5 pm pt).
Have you seen The Intern? Also if you have any favorite Films/TV shows starring Choi Min Shik and Han So Hee, please share! Would love to hear your thoughts on The Intern in the comments!
Listen to our latest episode of our weekly movie review podcast CinemAddicts:
***We receive a slight commission when you use our Amazon SiteStripe and affiliate links for your purchases. Thanks for your support!
Anna McElroy Talks ‘The Voice,’ Working Three Jobs, And Pursuing Her Dreams
Anna McElroy is one of the Top 13 artists remaining on The Voice. It’s a great accomplishment for the country singer, who moved to Nashville back in 2020 to pursue her music dreams. McElroy talked to Deepest Dream about her journey on The Voice and how resilience and a strong faith has paved the way to her success. Check out our full interview with McElroy, who is a member of Team Kelly, below!
Read more: Anna McElroy Talks ‘The Voice,’ Working Three Jobs, And Pursuing Her DreamsFor her Blind Audition, Anna McElroy performed the Maren Morris hit “80’s Mercedes,” and she nailed that performance out of the park. Although she and Riley Green hail from Alabama, McElroy chose Kelly Clarkson over Green and Queen Latifah as her coach.
So it was really, really fun to experience people fighting over me, and Kelly Clarkson being one of the best vocalists of all time pretty much being like, ‘I want you,'” said McElroy. “‘I wanna work with you. I see something in you.’ That was like, all right, I’m not chasing a dream for nothing. I’m here for a reason, and I was given this God-given talent and gift for a reason, and somebody’s noticing it now.”
Kelly Clarkson’s belief in McElroy continued through Battles, as she picked her over fellow Team Kelly member Johnnie Kapua after their stirring performance of the Teddy Swims/Maren Morris track “Some Things I’ll Never Know.” After advancing to Cut Week, McElroy did get emotional after her win.
“Johnnie did become like an older brother to me, and when I watched it back, I was still crying and I was still like, ‘No, this is so not fair,'” said McElroy. “Johnnie is so good, so talented (and) he deserves to be here just as much as I do. And think that was the hardest thing.”
All the knowledge and insight McElroy has gained from The Voice should continue to help in her music journey. That said, McElroy wanted to be clear that being a professional singer/songwriter is not all glitter and gold.
“What you post on social media is not always accurate,” added McElroy. It’s like you’re posting all these fun highlights and everything that you’re doing. At this point I work, you know, three jobs. I have two serving jobs and I’m squeezing in some gigs on the side. But outside of that, I’m still writing music (and) I’m still trying to record my music. I’m still trying to connect and network in Nashville. There’s so much hard work that you put in to make money (and) to afford doing music whenever you’re not in a position to just pay to record songs. It’s really expensive to do all that stuff. And so it really is all in the grind, and I think that people forget how hard you actually work to give yourself time to work on your dream.”
McElroy is also a huge fan of The Voice, and she posted on her socials a clip from ten years ago celebrating the show with her friends. She sees her time on the show as a “full circle” moment. “I have a lot of gratitude,” said McElroy. “I think the Lord put me here for a reason and that he’s . . . every time I wanted to quite, he’s that voice in my head that’s like ‘You don’t wanna do that – just keep going.’ I genuninely don’t know any other better way to describe how I’m feeling othern than reasurrance for all the doubt that I had for myself over the years and everything, and knowing that God’s got me.”
Full interview with Anna McElroy:
Two teams perform on tonight’s Live Show on The Voice (it’s titled “Y2K Night: Part 1 and airs 9/8c, streaming next day on Peacock).
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: