Yes, Another Blog

The world can always use another blog.

For the life of me I do not understand movie studios and their crazy method of releasing Blu-ray movies in some countries and not in others. I bet a lot of you do not know that there are a lot of movies, and real popular movies, that are not released in the U.S. but are released in other countries.

The first title that comes to mind is Fight Club (IMDb). This is a somewhat cult favorite flick and was exceptionally popular when released in the US in DVD. What would you say if I told you that you can get an exceptional copy of Fight Club in Blu-ray right now. OK, there is one catch. You have to be in Germany. Yes, the Germans can get their hands on a Blu-ray copy of Fight Club that looks incredible.

Another title that comes to mind is Sin City (IMDb). Canada, Japan, and Denmark have had their hands on the Blu-ray for months and here in the US we have to wait till the tentative date of April 21st to get our hands on it.

There is also the mysterious Spain releases such as Hostage (IMDb), Half Light (IMDb), and Passengers (IMDb). These Blu-ray titles have been released only in Spain (and a few other European countries).

Then you have The Chronicles of Riddick (IMDb) that has been released on Blu-ray in Germany, France, Denmark, the UK, Sweden, and Italy. Not even announced in the US.

Then you have this year’s surprise action hit Taken (IMDb). It was released on Blu-ray in France back in December of last year and in the UK last month. Did I mention that Taken was not even released into US theaters until 1/30/2009.

So what can you do to get your hands on these Blu-ray titles in the US? Well, that’s a tough one due to several reasons. The first one, and the hardest one to overcome, is the silly (ok, STUPID) Region Codes that some of these titles have. Some of these Blu-rays will not play in US Blu-ray players but some are Region Free. You could try to get your hands on a region-free player but that is not so easy. You can also send out your player to get the Region Code restriction removed but this only works on certain players and its an additional expense. You can also buy the disk and then remove the Region Code yourself but you will have to rip the disk to your computer and play it back with that. Yes, there is an additional cost for AnyDVD HD and some of you may feel morally opposed to doing that.

Then there is the second hurdle. How do you buy these Blu-rays? Actually that may depend on which country you are trying to buy it from. Japan stores are very lax on exporting disks to the US. Germany and Denmark are not so friendly. The UK titles are as easy to get as going to the UK version of Amazon and buying it and paying the extra shipping and sometimes Customs.

Or you can do what I do. I buy from the places that will ship to the US and/or I make friends abroad (the Web, Facebook, and Twitter has made the world a very small place) and I arrange them to buy me some titles and have them ship them to the US. Of course I pay them for the shipping and an additional few dollars for their help.

But what I want to know is why I have to go through all these hassles to get movies from other countries? And don’t even get me started on why some foreign Blu-rays have better features (lossless audio, better bitrates, better features) than the same US titles. That will be a bitch/rant for another day.