Of Tone Magazine’s 50 “must own” blu-rays 13 are not actually available in New Zealand legally, or won’t play on NZ purchased players due to region coding. Which is a bit of a waste of time, don’t you think? They also manage to spell Criterion incorrectly right the way through article which adds insult to injury.
After the jump, the list (the article itself is not online):
- The Departed
- Avatar
- Fight Club
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Star Trek
- District 9
- Blade Runner 5 disc “Ultimate Collectors Edition” (not on sale at Mighty Ape but you can find some on TradeMe)
- The Thin Red Line (The Criterion Collection blu-ray version isn’t even out until September and will be region coded for North America only)
- Baraka
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (the local release is available everywhere but the Criterion version is region coded for North America only)
- Ocean’s Eleven
- The Godfather 1 & 2
- Children of Men
- Amélie
- A Prophet (not even released in NZ cinemas yet, the blu-ray is a Region 1/A and won’t play on NZ purchased players)
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- The Third Man (only available on Criterion blu-ray therefore US only – Criterion have lost the rights and it is listed as out of print there so good luck finding it until a Canal+ version finds it’s way here next year)
- Casino Royale
- Old Boy (only available overseas on region1/A format)
- 8 1/2 (only available on Criterion blu-ray – same deal as before i.e. region encoded for North America only)
- The Fly (only available in region 1 or region 2 format)
- Caché (available as region free blu-ray but you’ll have to import it yourself from Amazon)
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (North America only via Amazon)
- The Dark Knight
- Inglourious Basterds
- Hero
- No Country for Old Men
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (not released in NZ until next week)
- The Piano
- There Will Be Blood
- Dawn of the Dead (1978) (The US release is region coded for North America. Region coding for the Amazon UK version is not confirmed)
- Yojimbo (Once again, this is a Criterion release that is North America only. We may see a Canal+ version at some point)
- Michael Clayton (There’s no sign of a NZ release blu-ray of Michael Clayton)
- Hellboy II: The Golden Army
- Watchmen: Director’s Cut (There’s no sign of a NZ blu-ray release of this extended version)
- Volver
- The Big Lebowski (There’s no sign of a NZ blu-ray release of The Big Lebowski but you can watch a 720p version of the film from iTunes)
- Old School (There’s no sign of a NZ release blu-ray of Old School)
- Spinal Tap (I can’t find the Spinal Tap blu-ray at Real Groovy, Fatso, Mighty Ape, TradeMe or the JB Hi-FI online store and yet I have seen it on the shelves at JB Hi-Fi in Wellington. Go figure. May be deleted?)
- Shaun of the Dead
- Planet Earth
- The Shining
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Akira
- Ratatouille
- Ghost in the Shell 2.0
- Spirited Away (I’ve just spent half an hour trying to find Spirited Away on blu-ray and the thing does not appear to exist – not even in a Japanese-only release. So, how Tone Magazine can recommend a blu-ray that has never been released I don’t know. Perhaps they found it at this site, which also seems to recommend blu-rays that don’t exist)
- Predator
- The Bourne Ultimatum
- Kung Fu Hustle
So, of the 50 blu-rays that Tone Magazine say you must own, one doesn’t exist yet, two haven’t been released yet, ten you can only watch if you have a very expensive region-free blu-ray player and one more you can’t get through normal retail channels.
I’m saving up for the Oppo universal player as I certainly do want to take advantage of all those Criterion discs at least but the article demonstrates a) the paucity of local releases so far and b) a very poor effort on the part of Tone.
And anyone who rates Ratatouille over WALL•E must be some kind of moron.
Update 24 Aug 2010: Reader BrynG points out in the comments that the European region coded blu-rays are compatible with New Zealand but the discs themselves still require importing. My wider point remains, though. No one should be recommending Criterion blu-rays to unsuspecting New Zealand consumers.
Update 26 Aug 2010: Gary Steel at Witchdoctor.co.nz (“New Zealand’s technology authority”) has kindly linked to this blog with some comments of his own. I wonder if he is the same Gary Steel who used to edit Tone Magazine.
Thankfully, NZ is the same region as Europe for Blu Rays (Region B) so anything imported from Amazon.co.uk will work. Re the above that includes Old Boy, A Prophet, The Fly, and Old School at least. But it’s very true – so many films are slow to release here, if they come out at all.
(And if region is no object, it takes a moron to leave out The Princess Bride, too).
Hi Dan,
Just wanted to respond to your criticism of the ’50 Blu-Rays You Must Own’ article in the latest issue of Tone. I reckon your objection to our including titles not available in New Zealand is an entirely valid one, and we did some of our own bickering about whether or not to leave out movies that weren’t currently on sale locally. Although we made sure that the great majority of the titles were available locally, there were a number of films we felt deserved to be on the list, regardless of whether they were currently on sale. In the end, we decided the list of must-haves would be the lesser for dropping the non-NZ titles than it is by suggesting movies that might have to picked up online or overseas. As you mentioned, a couple of those titles are due for release in the uncertain future, and I’d hope distributors would be encouraged to ship in the weirder flicks.
In any case, I’d be happy to publish your post in Tone if you’d like.
Tim
Editor – Tone Magazine
PS – Compared to Ratatouille, Wall‑E was as flabby and directionless as its chorus of rudderless humans. Misspelling Criterion, however, was moronic.
Hi Tim
Thanks for getting in touch. I don’t mind the choice you made so much – understandable when there’s so little to choose from still. I just wished you’d made it clear what a rort the region situation is on blu-ray – even to the point that you can’t play non-Region 4 DVDs on most players. I have to keep an old DVD player around just in case, which is inconvenient to say the least.
Don’t feel obliged to print the post. It’s not the best written thing ever. But I would like the chance to do some writing for the Mag. I pitched to Gary a year ago but didn’t hear anything. Please feel free to contact me if you think there’s anything I can do for you.
cheers,
DS