Film & Television
No More Regions
Every so often, on various forums, I end up answering questions about region free Blu-ray players. Having grown a little tired of regurgitating the same links and the same information over and over, I decided to make a dedicated page on this blog about the topic, to which I can send future questioners.
Since pages, as opposed to blog posts, don’t show up in the regular RSS feed or even on the front page, I thought I’d throw this little quickie post out there letting blog readers know of this new page.
Here it is: http://www.astrakan.ca/region-free-blu-ray-solutions/
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. 
Blu-ray Regions and How to Circumvent Them
The original contents of this post have been moved to two separate sections. They can be accessed either via the Pages button in the menu above, or via the links below:
1. MOVIE REGIONS
This page has region maps and country listings showing both Blu-ray regions and DVD regions.
2. REGION FREE BLU-RAY SOLUTIONS
This page has lots of links and information regarding region free Blu-ray playback.
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.