Film & Television
Oscar 2010
The Oscars are on tonight. Like many people, I’ll be watching. And like many people, I have my own predictions on who’s going to win. Those are listed below, and I just wanted to say I found this year to be one of the more predictable years in a while. Or, rather, I found myself the most sure of my predictions in a while. Meaning, there were very few categories where I had a hard time choosing.
Out of my predictions below, there’s only three where I’m not completely comfortable with my guesses:
Original Screenplay: I can think up equally valid reasons for each of these nominees to win, and in the end I went with my personal preference.
Costume Design: To my mind this category has three front runners: Bright Star, Coco Before Chanel, and The Young Victoria. I’m going with Victoria because of the Academy’s voting history in this category.
Art Direction: I’m thinking this one is Avatar’s to lose, but if it does lose I think it’s going to go to The Imagniarium of Doctor Parnassus. My gut tells me it’ll be the doctor, but my brain tells me it’ll be the Na’vi. I’m going with my gut on this one.
Anywho, these are my predictions for this year:
| Picture | Avatar |
| Director | Kathryn Bigelow |
| Actor | Jeff Bridges |
| Actress | Sandra Bullock |
| Supporting Actor | Christoph Waltz |
| Supporting Actress | Mo’Nique |
| Original Screenplay | Inglourious Basterds |
| Adapted Screenplay | Up in the Air |
| Editing | Avatar |
| Animated Feature | Up |
| Cinematography | Avatar |
| Art Direction | Imagniarium of Dr. Parnassus |
| Costume Design | The Young Victoria |
| Foreign Film | The White Ribbon |
| Make Up | Star Trek |
| Original Score | Avatar |
| Original Song | Crazy Heart |
| Visual Effects | Avatar |
| Sound Mixing | Avatar |
| Sound Editing | Avatar |
I realize I left out a couple of categories, but I haven’t yet seen any of the movies competing in those so it’d be pure title-based guesswork. Figured I might as well not bother.
added day after the show: Well, so much for “one of the more predictable years in a while”… I ended up with 12 out of the 20, which is pretty weak. Out of the eight I got wrong, there’s only one (Art Direction) that I was more or less expecting to get wrong, and a couple were I wasn’t too surprised at the outcome, but for the rest I was pretty confident in my picks. Oh well, at least I tied with my wife. 
Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray Player Region Free Resources
A big part of why I was hoping for HD DVD to win the HD format war of a while back was that there were no such thing as regions in the HD DVD spec, while the Blu-ray spec had decided to stick with that most annoying concept, albeit a simplified version.
As it turned out, Blu-ray won that battle and we are now stuck with those annoying region restrictions yet again. The good news is that, unlike last time, it hasn’t taken very long for region free players to become available. And the even better news is that the player that is widely considered the best Blu-ray player on the market today, the Oppo BDP-83, can be made region free quite easily with a solder-free hardware mod, or a downloadable firmware mod.
Anyway, enough yammering. Here are the resources I mentioned in the headline to this post:
Official Stuff
- Main BDP-83 listing
- Download the manual
- Download the latest firmware
Region Hacking
As mentioned above, there’s two ways of making the BDP-83 region free: a hardware mod and a firmware mod. Both mods will make the player region free for Blu-ray as well as DVD. The benefit of going the hardware mod route is that you can keep up-to-date with Oppo’s official firmware, while still retaining region free playback for both Blu-ray and DVD, and the downside is obviously that you have to pay for the mod. The upside and downside are the exact opposite with the firmware mod.
FIRMWARE MOD
- Download the firmware hack
- AVForums’ discussion thread for this firmware mod and the BDP-83 in general
HARDWARE MODS
CRT Hardware Mod
Note: This is the mod I bought and tested, works beautifully.
- A solder-free hardware mod to make it region free for Blu-ray and DVD
- Instructions on how to install above mod (the kit comes with these printed out)
- AVForums discussion thread for this hardware mod and the BDP-83 in general
Bluraychip.dk Hardware Mod
Note: This mod is not tested by me
- Another solder-free hardware mod to make it region free for Blu-ray and DVD
- Instructions for how to install the bluraychip.dk mod
JVB Hardware Mod
Note: This mod is not tested by me
- Another solder-free hardware mod to make it region free for Blu-ray and DVD
- If anyone has instructions for this mod, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll add them
AVS Forum Stuff
- BDP-83 FAQ (very good)
- The BDP-83 dedicated thread
- The BDP-83 vs. other players thread
For Canadians
As far as I know, there’s only two authorized re-sellers in Canada:
- http://www.onlybestrated.com/
- http://www.solutionsav.ca/
I bought my old Oppo 983-H DVD player from Only Best Rated and had no problems with them. I did local pickup, but did not have any kind of post-sales interaction, so I can’t speak for their customer service should something go wrong.
I bought my BDP-83 from Solutions AV. They’re selling the player a few dollars cheaper, they have free shipping, and their return/exchange policy is better. I also did local pickup with Solutions AV. Like with Only Best Rated I haven’t had any kind of post-sales interaction, and can’t speak for their customer service should something go wrong.
Only Best Rated is the only Canadian re-seller listed on Oppo’s website, but an e-mail from Oppo’s customer service department has confirmed that Solutions AV are authorized as well.
If you have any questions regarding the Oppo BDP-83 and/or the mods, feel free to leave a comment.
DVD & Blu-ray Region Maps and Country Lists
While not BDP-83 related, I figure I should point out the region maps and country lists that I host here on the blog. It’s basically a resource you can use to figure out if a foreign disc you’re interested in importing is from your region or not. Naturally this isn’t necessary if you’ve got a modded player, but for those of you that don’t, here’s the link:
chcanada.com
My earlier post about the Future Shop True Romance deal made me think about CHCanada.com and how it seems to me that it’s not something a lot of people know about. So:
For anyone not aware, CHCanada.com is an offshoot of the Canada-based Columbia House Movie Club. The difference is its basically an online store instead of a club. There are a few insignificant “obligations” (read the fine print), but the savings that can be had are worthwhile if you are patient. Shipping is $1.99 per item, up to a max of $5.99 for 3 or more items.
A nice selection of Blus can be had for $13.99, whose availability rotates weekly. Updates to the site, including new releases and the latest selection of $13.99 titles, usually occurs every Monday — sometimes Tuesday morning. Biggest drawback right now is selection, especially lacking in FOX and Disney Blu-ray, but new titles are added weekly.
Link to the Blu-ray section is here: http://www.chcanada.com/category/4
PLEASE NOTE: This is NOT another web site for the Columbia House Canada members who receive the “Selection of the Month” — your regular Columbia House Club login WON’T WORK THERE! This is a “pick-it-off-the-electronic-shelf-and-buy-it” site with its OWN userID and login.
The above quote is from a thread at Blu-ray.com. Figured I might as well quote it since it pretty much tells you what you need to know, with one small addition:
They can sometime be a tad slow on the shipping speed, and their communication leaves a little to be desired. When I ordered from them I didn’t received an order confirmation or a shipping notice. The order was listed in my account on their site, but no e-mails were sent from them. Other report getting these e-mails, so maybe it’s just something in their system they need to iron out.
True Romance on Blue-ray: $9.99 or less
So, Future Shop’s got quite the deal going on right now, they’re selling True Romance on Blu-ray for $9.99. It’s in the flyer as well as on the website, so price matching is also on the table.
I got mine at Best Buy for $8.29.