My Two Cents
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...]
Hope you’re all enjoying the long Memorial Day weekend, folks—at least those of you who live here in the States!
And for the rest of you around the world, I hope your work week has gotten off to a good start.
I’ve got four pieces of 4K Ultra HD catalog news to share with you today, and I think most of you disc fans out there are going to very happy about each of them.
The first is a tease about an upcoming title, and this is one I’m very pleased to say is not only coming, but it’s yet another film we love here at The Bits and have long been looking forward to for a long time. It’s also a film that spaceflight fans appreciate, so they’ll be happy too…
Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff (1983) is coming to 4K Ultra HD in 2026!
We expect it to be released on disc right around the end of the year, and we’ll share more details when the time is right.
But for now, suffice it to say that this is yet another great Warner Bros. catalog title that’s finally coming to the 4K format. And there are going to be a lot of those to talk about in the next 12-24 months, so start saving your money now, disc fans! [Read on here...]
We’ve got a few great new disc reviews for you to enjoy here at the site today as we continue our efforts to get things back to normal here. And a couple of them are significant titles…
First, Stephen has turned in his thoughts on David Fincher’s newly remastered Fight Club (1999) in 4K Ultra HD from 20th Century Studios via Disney and Sony. Stephen has also taken a look at Luis Llosa’s Anaconda (1997) in 4K Ultra HD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Next, Tim has offered his take on Ralph Bakshi’s animated Fire and Ice (1983) in 4K Ultra HD from Blue Underground.
And Dennis has shared his look at Jack Conway’s Honky Tonk (1941) on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive Collection.
More reviews are forthcoming, and again there should be a lot more over the next week or so as we return to something like normal operations here at The Bits after our efforts to stabilize the first from intensive AI bot scraping and higher-than-ever site traffic.
Also, we’ve got a new update of the Release Dates and Artwork section for you all to enjoy as well.
So we really appreciate your patience as we’ve dealt with that over the last 6-8 weeks or so.
In terms of announcement news this week, our friends at the Criterion Collection have revealed their August slate, which includes Todd Haynes’ Safe (1995) (Spine #739 – 4K UHD + Blu-ray) on 8/4, Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de torchon (1981) (Spine #106 – Blu-ray) on 8/11, and Barbara Koppe’s Harlan County USA (1976) (Spine #334 – 4K UHD + Blu-ray) and American Dream (1990) (Spine #1324 – Blu-ray), and James Gray’s Little Odessa (1994) (Spine #1323 – 4K UHD + Blu-ray) on 8/25. Also coming on 8/25 is Eclipse Series 49: Five Radical Documentaries by Kazuo Hara and Sachiko Kobayashi (1972-2016) on Blu-ray. [Read on here...]
All right, I wanted to check in here today with one more update.
I believe we finally have the site stable, but just quick note: If you see a message that says “Performing Security Verification…” that is 100% normal. We’re using Cloudflare to verify actual human Bits readers from AI bots trying to scrape the site.
The good news is that it’s definitely helping—the site is much more stable now.
And we have a couple things to share with you all here today.
First, we have more new disc reviews, including…
My take on the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer (2008) in 4K Ultra HD from Warner Bros. as well as Ric Roman Waugh’s Greenland (2020) in 4K Ultra HD from Lionsgate.
Tim’s looks at Richard Fleischer’s Red Sonja (1985) in 4K from Arrow Video, as well as John Binder’s UFOria (1983) in 4K Ultra HD from Kino Lorber Studio Classics, and Kuei Chih-Hung’s Killer Constable (1980) on Blu-ray from Arrow’s Shawscope: Volume 3 box set.
Dennis’ take on Ira Sachs’ The Delta (1996) on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection and Vincente Minnelli’s Tea and Sympathy (1956) on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive Collection.
Stuart’s look at The Magnificent Seven Collection on Blu-ray from Imprint Films.
And Stephen’s thoughts on John Woo and Tsui Hark’s A Better Tomorrow Trilogy (1986-1989) in 4K Ultra HD from both Shout! Studios and also Imprint Films!
More reviews are also on the way next week, including our review of David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999) in 4K and more! So be sure to check back then. [Read on here...]