My Two Cents
John Daro is a highly experienced Lead Digital Intermediate colorist with Warner Post Production Creative Services, someone I first met late last year while attending a Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) event on the Burbank lot on the latest developments in Filmmaker Mode.
It was clear to me then that John is extremely good at what he does, and it just so happens that he’s a great guy—someone who’s very enthusiastic about his work, and who ensures that the 4K HDR images we see on Ultra HD releases look as good as they possibly can.
As it also turns out, like me, he’s a huge fan of the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer (2008) and the original 1960s Speed Racer anime as well. So I was thrilled to have the chance recently to speak with John about his work on the new 4K remaster of the film. Here’s a transcript of our conversation, edited for clarity…
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Bill Hunt (The Digital Bits): First of all, let me just say: I’ve had the Speed Racer disc for about a week now, and I love it. You guys absolutely nailed it. I first saw this film in the Ross Theatre on the Warner lot back in 2008, and I walked out of it thinking I’d just seen a masterpiece. But it seemed like I was the only person who felt that way.
John Daro (Warner Bros.): Well, you know, I’ll stand behind this. I think it was a little too… probably five years ahead of its time. I don’t think the world was ready for that kind of style.
BH: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And yet more recently, Mad Max: Fury Road, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Everything Everywhere All at Once… even Barbie… they all follow in its footsteps.
But back in 2008, when the film first came out on Blu-ray, it was only on a BD-25 disc. So the image was compressed and the film didn’t have lossless audio. Unless you saw Speed Racer in a theater, you really missed out on the best possible experience.
JD: Well, that’s the through line, right? It’s the technology of the time. In many ways, even just the visual effects of the film, that is what you could do at the time. Now, we get to breathe a little bit more life into it. And with the technology today, it’s gonna be as good as it can get. [Read on here...]
I’ve said many times now here on The Digital Bits how much I appreciate Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert, and Ronald D. Moore’s For All Mankind.
As the series completes its fifth and penultimate season, the Apple TV Original has quietly become one of my all-time TV favorites, equaling Moore’s own rebooted Battlestar Galactica and even Star Trek, a franchise I love dearly but that—over the decades—has proven wildly uneven, and more recently has lost its way.
When I say this out loud, I’m typically greeted with two reactions. The first is surprise, as many viewers still either haven’t heard of the show, or haven’t yet given it serious consideration. But they should.
The second reaction—which I’m pleased to say is much more common today than in 2019, when the show first aired—is a kind of quiet understanding. Because if you know about the series… you know.
For All Mankind is, of course, an alt-history, science fiction ensemble drama that asks a simple question: What if the Soviet Union had beaten America to the Moon in 1969?
More broadly, it’s a series that attempts to realistically depict humanity’s slow, difficult, but hopefully inevitable climb out of Earth’s gravity well to become a spacefaring civilization.
Now… when I grew up in the 1970s and 80s, that outcome seemed like a foregone conclusion.
The first human spaceflight, Yuri Gagarin’s Vostok 1, happened six years before my birth. NASA’s Apollo 11 astronauts walked on the Moon two years after it, which means I’m just old enough to remember watching the Apollo 17 astronauts leaving the Moon for the last time on TV in 1972—one of my earliest memories.
Soon after this, I discovered the original Star Trek, a series that fed my young imagination exactly what it craved at exactly the right time. And I watched each new NASA mission that followed with eager intensity: Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, and the early Space Shuttle flights. [Read on here...]
This is just a quick post here at The Bits this morning to share an amazing piece of news…
Our friends at Lionsgate have finally joined the Movies Anywhere “digital movie locker” service, joining Universal, Disney, Sony, and Warner Bros. who are already there!
In the initial phase of Lionsgate joining, some 225 of their biggest titles will apparently be added, and the studio expects to add as many as 100 additional films per month through the rest of the year and into 2027.
What this means, of course, is that forthcoming Lionsgate 4K releases should finally come with Movies Anywhere Digital codes.
And it’s very likely that if you already own Lionsgate movies on other Movies Anywhere-linked services (like Apple TV and Amazon Prime), they could be upgraded in your Movies Anywhere library as well.
This is great news indeed, and you can read more about it here today at Deadline.
Huzzah!
Back later with more! Stay tuned…
- Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on Twitter/X, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)
Todd Doogan rejoins The Bits’ review team, plus Sony’s Talladega Nights 4K & more announcement news!
Good afternoon, disc fans!
After yesterday’s big release news of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair in 4K from Lionsgate, it’s time to start catching up on news that dropped while we were grappling with our AI bot-scraping issue.
To start with today, we’ve got a number of new disc reviews to share with you, and—on that very note—we also have a nice surprise announcement as well…
Our old friend Todd Doogan is returning to The Digital Bits as a review contributor!
Longtime Bits readers will know that Doogan was a founding member of The Bits team, not only reviewing DVD and Blu-ray discs here for many years, but also writing his own Doogan’s Views and Gripe Soda columns here at the site.
Since we have so many great disc releases that need covering, Doogan has offered to revive Doogan’s Views as a new “quick” review format—these will feature the Doogan’s Views banner at the top of the review. And while the reviews won’t be as detailed as our regular review work, they’ll include enough information to highlight discs worth your attention and help you make buying decisions. These are the kinds of titles that would otherwise fall through the cracks, but that deserve some love from fans—indie and boutique deep cuts, genre oddballs, and more.
Todd’s first new Doogan’s Views reviews this afternoon include Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks (2025) on Blu-ray from Decal Releasing and Johannes Roberts’ Primate (2025) on Blu-ray from Paramount via Alliance.
We’re all thrilled here to have Todd on The Bits team again, and I’m personally very happy to have my friend calling videodisc balls and strikes once more as only he can.
So welcome back, Todd, and watch for more Doogan’s Views reviews in the days and weeks ahead!
Meanwhile today, we have a bunch of new disc reviews from the rest of The Bits review team too, including... [Read on here...]
All right, here’s another quick post to let you all know that—just as predicted—Lionsgate is officially releasing Quentin Tarantino’s long-awaited Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on 7/28!
The SRP for the wide release SKU, which is available for pre-order now via this link on Amazon (click here) is $49.99.
The package will include the extended film on 2 UHD discs and 2 Blu-rays. Note that the film was spread over two discs to ensure the highest possible image quality, but it’s presented exactly as the director intended with a built-in intermission. And when you put the second disc in your player, it resumes playback automatically.
The 4K presentation will include Dolby Vision HDR. Audio will be lossless 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio.
Also note: The Lionsgate Limited website will have a special Collector’s Edition 4K + BD version available for pre-order later today (at this link) that includes exclusive packaging and swag.
This packaging will include a special “veil” cover that you lift to open the box. You can see that at left and also below. [Read on here...]