Star Wars Day 2014: May the 4th be with you

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 29th April 2014.

It’s almost the fifth month of the year, so that means it’s time to brush off your Stormtrooper outfit. International Star Wars Day is almost upon us. May the fourth be with you. Get it?

Here are my suggestions to celebrate arguably the greatest trilogy ever made. And no, the ones with Jar Jar Binks don’t count.

1. Several non-specific cinema chains will be screening the original and prequel trilogies on the big screen over the weekend of May 3-4. What’s better than a Star Wars movie? About six hours of Star Wars movies. If driving to Mos Eisley or another city is not your thing, the next best option is to crack out the films in high definition blu-ray and crank up the sound. Unfortunately, the blu-ray editions still show Greedo shooting first. My suggestion is to watch the scene backwards to show what was depicted in the original release.

2. Dig up one of the skeletons in George Lucas’ closet. Jump on YouTube and enjoy the Star Wars Holiday Special. Screened on US television just once in 1978 and thrown into the sarlacc pit forever, this is simply the most craptacular TV event ever. Witness Han and Chewie visit the Wookie home planet of Kashyyyk to celebrate Life Day. Block your ears as Carrie Fisher attempts to sing the Life Day song to the Star Wars theme tune. Meet Chewbacca’s family including his son, Lumpy. It is truly as bad as it sounds.

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3. As a kid growing up with Star Wars in my blood (I don’t mean midichlorians), I had a copy of the brilliant Luke Skywalker’s Activity Book, published in 1978. Inside the book were instructions and diagrams on how to construct your own x-wing fighter with toilet rolls and drinking straws. This May, google the instructions and celebrate Star Wars without adding to George Lucas’ (and Disney’s) magical castle of gold.

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4. Throw a Star Wars costume party. There are hundreds of licences costumes available ranging from ultra cheap Jedi robes to extremely expensive replica Darth Vader outfits. My favourite is the Jabba the Hutt costume, complete with a built-in fan to keep the outfit inflated. Why eat when you can spend $100 on this?

Wookie Cookies

5. Typing of food, no-one in the Star Wars universe seems to eat much. That doesn’t mean that your favourite characters don’t have a recipe to share. In 1998, the Star Wars Cookbook: Wookie Cookie and Other Galactic Recipes was unleashed. Next Saturday, enjoy C3PO’s pancakes (do droids eat?), Obi-Wan kebabs and Greedo’s burritos.

May-the-Fourth-Logo

6. Finally, spend the weekend devouring a Star Wars book. There are literally a few hundred novels taking place five thousand years before the events of the original trilogy right through to forty years after the second Death Star was destroyed. If non-fiction is your thing, I highly recommend the coffee table book, Making Star Wars. Loaded with a plethora of behind the scenes photos and the real story behind the original epic, it cannot be beaten. The $20 Kindle version is great value.

Celebrate Star Wars next Saturday. May the fourth be with you, and live long and prosper.

 

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Published in: on May 12, 2014 at 00:50  Leave a Comment  
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The Empire Strikes Back: Disney Purchases Star Wars

Disney Star Wars 2

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 13th November 2012.

On October 30, the Walt Disney Company announced that they would be acquiring Lucasfilm, home of the Star Wars franchise. George Lucas, creator of beloved characters such as Yoda, Darth Vader, C3PO and R2D2, as well as Jar Jar Binks, was apparently contemplating retirement and had four billion reasons to sell his company. The first reason was a dollar. The second reason was a dollar. And so on.

Come to think of it, when you want to retire in the Star Wars universe, don’t you just disappear into thin air like Yoda and Obi Wan? I guess it’s a bit hard to spend your retirement nest egg when you’re a smiling glowing ghost.

Almost immediately after the announcement, the internet went into hyperdrive with opinions, jokes and amusing pictures from fans worldwide. As I didn’t have the photoshop skills to add Mickey Mouse ears to a picture of Darth Vader (plus half of the planet had already done it) here’s my hilarious contribution to the twitterverse:

Peter Young @chipsareready

What would Disney possibly want with the Star Wars franchise? They already have the successful Black Hole property… #DisneyStarWars

For those of you who don’t speak Geek, I’m referring to Disney’s woeful 1979 Star Wars ripoff, The Black Hole, starring Anthony Perkins (Psycho) and Ernest Borgnine (McHale’s Navy), and featuring the rather craptastic robot duo of V.I.N.C.E.N.T. and Old B.O.B., as well as the Vader-ish Maximilian.

In my head, Disney and Star Wars have been closely linked for years. Way back in the early 90’s, I lined up for hours to ride the Star Tours attraction at Disneyland. One of the first motion simulator rides, Star Tours offered space tourists a trip to the forest moon of Endor which inevitably goes awry when Imperial Star Destroyers attack. The ride has since been closed and replaced last year with a new attraction, Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, which incorporates high definition 3D graphics. Like all great intergalactic adventures, both the original and new Star Tours attractions end in the gift shop.

I don’t think Star Wars devotees have anything to worry about from the takeover by the (Disney) Empire. The Muppets have enjoyed a cinematic revival that satisfied long time fans under the House of Mouse. You also may have seen a small, low budget superhero flick called The Avengers earlier this year. And the name of the production company was…Marvel Studios, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company.

A new Star Wars movie, Episode VII, will be released in 2015. Screenwriter Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3) has been attached to the project with the director yet to be named. The rumour mill suggests that the storyline may involve characters from the original trilogy.

As a big Star Wars fan, I have no concerns with Disney producing further Star Wars instalments. It’s not as if Lucas was particularly successful with his woeful prequel trilogy. It would be hard for Disney to do any worse. As the Star Wars franchise passes from the control of one Empire to another, rest assured that one universal constant will remain. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together… It’s the pursuit of profit.

Published in: on December 25, 2012 at 08:54  Leave a Comment  
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Razzie Nominees 2012 & Star Wars 3D

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 28th February 2012.

The Academy Awards may have come and gone but this year’s most important film awards ceremony is still yet to come. The Golden Raspberry Foundation, honouring the worst in cinema, has changed their format for 2012. Instead of being awarded the night before the Oscars, the Razzie nominations have been announced this past weekend, with the winners (or losers, depending on how you look at it) to be unveiled on April Fools’ Day.

This year’s array of schlock has seen renown thespian Adam Sandler break the record for the most nominations ever. Between romantic comedy Just Go with It and alleged comedy Jack & Jill, Sandler has racked up a craptastic 11 nominations. Of course, receiving a nod for Worst Actor as Jack and Worst Actress as Jill, helped a great deal. He’s also a writer and producer of Worst Picture nominee Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star which has bypassed Australian cinemas and will plop onto video store shelves in early March. It follows the adventures of a young man who hopes to follow in the footsteps of his parents and become a porn star. It sounds like it possibly might be the Citizen Kane of our generation, if Orson Welles’ classic was about a young man who hopes to follow in the footsteps of his parents and become a porn star.

As one of two Razzie voters in Orange (that I know of), I’ve already sat through many of the nominated abominations. There are still a few that I will need to witness prior to sending my ballot papers to Artesia, California, so unfortunately, Jack & Jill, Abduction, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 and The Hangover Part 2 are on my “must watch and try to stay awake” list.

 

Speaking of movie duds, I still haven’t witnessed the mess that is Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in 3D. I remember how excited I was in the lead up to its original release in 1999. I had tickets to a screening at one minute past midnight on the day of its Australian release. The cinema was packed with fans. The Lucasfilm logo appeared and the crowd went wild. Then up came the title screen with the familiar John Williams fanfare to more screams and applause. The crawler text began.

Taxation? I’ve been waiting 16 years for the prequel to my all time favourite movie franchise and its origins lie in taxes and trade routes? The bubble burst. The hopes and dreams of millions of Star Wars fans faded away just like Yoda in Return of the Jedi. It was all downhill into the sarlacc pit from there. Besides the podrace and the double lightsaber duel, The Phantom Menace is truly awful.

No amount of expensive 3D conversion will salvage this movie. The only problem is that Lucasfilm producer Rick McCallum has announced that unless this initial 3D revision is a success, there won’t be any further 3D Star Wars releases, and I do want to see Episode IV in eye popping, headache inducing 3D! So, to do my part, this week I shall be purchasing a ticket to The Phantom Menace at the cinema and then going home to enjoy the original trilogy on blu-ray.

Published in: on February 29, 2012 at 07:24  Leave a Comment  
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Cut from the Final Cut

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This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 13th September 2011.

Imagine being a struggling actor and after years of unsuccessful auditions, you finally get your big break. You rehearse your lines, shoot your scenes and then gather all your friends and family together to watch your work on the big or small screen. Imagine your horror when you find that your scenes have been reduced to a few seconds of screen time or even worse, cut completely from the final project.

Star Wars debuts on high definition blu-ray tomorrow. For Episode IV: A New Hope, English actor Garrick Hagon was cast in the role of Biggs Darklighter, Luke Skywalker’s long time friend. He shot several scenes including one on Tatooine where he confides to Luke that he wishes to abandon the Imperial Academy to join the Rebel Alliance, as well as a reunion at the Yavin 4 hanger prior to the Death Star battle. Both of these ended up on the editing room floor, with only a minor appearance, and subsequent death by explosion thanks to Darth Vader, making it into the original 1977 cut.

I suppose he can’t complain. Hagon does appear in one of the most popular motion pictures ever, and was even immortalised as an action figure. And that is much more than my next subject can say.

The Big Chill was a hit film released in 1983. It was directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starred Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt and Kevin Kline. Its storyline follows a group of college friends who come back together as thirtysomethings after the suicide of one their mates.

The original script called for flashbacks of the dead friend’s life that were to be interspersed throughout the film. These scenes were shot using an unknown actor at the time named Kevin Costner.

In the final cut, all that remains of Costner’s work are a few shots of his wrists and hair as the corpse is being prepared for the funeral. After sitting through Costner’s self-indulgent disaster, The Postman, I think The Big Chill may be his best work. The deleted scenes have never been released.

Speaking of which, The Big Chill soundtrack is rather excellent. Costner isn’t on that either.

Being cut from a film is not just a phenomenon for unknown actors. Famed film director Terrance Malick finally returned to the big screen with 1998’s The Thin Red Line after an absence of twenty years. This World War 2 drama features seemingly every big name male actor of the time, including Sean Penn, Nick Nolte and George Clooney.

Malick’s first cut ran for a bum-numbing five hours. By the time it hit cinemas, The Thin Red Line was down to 170 minutes. Unfortunately, to achieve this feat, all of the scenes featuring Gary Oldman, Billy Bob Thornton, Viggo Mortensen, Jason Patric, Mickey Rourke, Bill Pullman and Martin Sheen were left on the cutting room floor. I hope they all got paid anyway.

The deadly final cut has even happened to me, although in my case I barely made it in front of the camera.

In my years as a child actor, I was cast in the ABC miniseries Children of the Dragon, starring Gary Sweet. I played a hotel bellhop and had two scenes opposite English actor, Bob Peck.

Peck had starred in the sci-fi flick Slipstream opposite Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, so I was pretty excited. He later went on to star in Jurassic Park as doomed game warden Robert Muldoon.

My first scene was shot in the morning. All I had to do was grab Bob’s suitcase from a limo and lead him up some stairs. My other scene had dialogue so a few days later I dutifully practiced my lines and waited in the dressing room for my call to work with Mr Peck. Eight hours later, an assistant knocks on the door and informs me that they are running late and my scene had been cut.

What a bummer. Oh well, if it was good enough for Robin Hood, The Wrestler and that guy from Star Wars, it’s good enough for me too.

Published in: on October 17, 2011 at 05:12  Leave a Comment  
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Star Wars on Blu-ray: how many times do I have to buy the same movie?

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 6 September 2011.

If you’re a Star Wars fan, this month has been a long time coming. Wednesday 14 September will see both the original and prequel trilogies released on blu-ray. Finally we’ll be able to see that extra tall (or clumsy) Stormtrooper bang his head on the rising door in A New Hope in stunning high definition.

For around $120, you’ll get nine discs and over thirty hours of bonus features. Thirty hours! That is a lot of commitment, even for a Jedi. Don’t expect to see any nerds around town until the Saturday after its release at the earliest.

I’ve been doing my sums to work out how much money I have spent on purchasing and repurchasing Star Wars movies in my lifetime so far. There was the original VHS copy that I bought way back when owning a VHS (or Beta) player was a luxury and you needed to insert the tapes in the top. Renting a video then set you back $10 a shot, so buying Episode IV outright was easily $100.

Then there was the original trilogy that I purchased with my saved up pocket money from the now defunct HMV store in Parramatta Mall in the late eighties. Box sets didn’t exist then so that’s three movies at $30 each.

In the early nineties, I was working for my local Video Ezy store when Lucasfilm announced that they would be releasing the original films for the very last time so I purchased them again on VHS, this time in widescreen. Of course, television screens were still square shaped then so I got to watch my favourite movies in a small rectangle with dirty black bars above and below. That’s another three movies at $30 each.

What the clever folks at Lucasfilm didn’t mention during that promotion was the reason the original films were available for the “last time” was due to the imminent release of the Special Edition which included revised special effects and a little too much tampering on George Lucas’ behalf, such as changing the cantina scene to have Greedo shoot first in order to make Han Solo seem less ruthless. After duly seeing them on the big screen in 1997, I also bought the Special Edition VHS box set at say, $100. Are you noticing a pattern here?

In 2004, Star Wars Episodes IV – VI finally came out on DVD, this time in a box set complete with an awesome feature length documentary. The Force was strong in that one so I bought it too. Add another $100 at least to the tab.

The original, unaltered films were released again, this time on DVD, in 2006. I felt a little sore about this. Didn’t Lucasfilm say that the original trilogy would no longer be available? I guess they meant no longer available on video. Not a bad Jedi mind trick, but no bingo.

The prequel movies were released on the big screen from 1999 – 2005 and subsequently made their way to DVD. I only bought Episode III, largely due to the fact that the first two are mind numbingly awful. One DVD, $30 spent, fast forward through the Jar Jar scene.

Let’s face it. History shows that I’m going to buy the new Star Wars blu-ray box set. I love high definition films. Blu-ray movies look sharper and clearer to me than looking out the window. How is that possible?

So later this month, my total Star Wars expenditure will be $630. That’s not including buying cinema tickets, action figures, video games, books, magazines, the Princess Leia shampoo that you need to take her head off to get the shampoo out or tickets to see Carrie Fisher live. That’s $630 buying the same product over and over again. Despite his inability to direct actors or write decent dialogue, George Lucas is a marketing genius. Make that a ridiculously rich billionaire marketing genius.

I suppose I can’t complain. Star Wars has been an important part of my life in the past, and if I try to watch all of the new extra features it will probably be my actual life for a couple of days in the near future.

So thank you George Lucas. I hope you remember that 17% of one of the bricks in your solid gold mansion was paid for by me. But remember, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice twice plus one, this better be the last time. And I don’t mean a John Farnham “The Last Time” last time.

May the force be with you and your wallet.

Published in: on September 9, 2011 at 08:30  Leave a Comment  
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Classic Films in High Def

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This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 28th June 2011.

The future of home entertainment is looking blu. With the steady uptake of HD screens, blu-ray is fast becoming the new standard. And just as DVDs took a few years to become popular way back in the late nineties, blu-ray disc sales have now reached a point where prices have started to come down. Titles that were initially priced at $35 – $50 a year or two ago are now on sale at the $15 mark. That’s great value for those wanting to replace their DVD collection, but not so good for early adopters.

Of course, just because a film is available in high definition does not mean that it is any good. Those extra pixels will not make Lindsay Lohan’s “acting” in I Know Who Killed Me any more convincing. And from a technical perspective, not all films will receive the same quality of remastering for a high definition release. With smaller distributors also starting to release budget titles in blu-ray, you probably get what you pay for.

Keeping in mind that this week’s latest release at full price will be in next month’s bargain bin, I suggest that your hard earned dollars go towards some of the landmark blu-ray box sets that are on the horizon. With hours of extras, nice packaging and, obviously, a classic film or seven remastered in beautiful high definition, they represent good value and will be a welcome addition to any discerning film buff’s collection.

Tomorrow will see the release of The Lord of the Rings extended edition box set. Featuring 6 blu-ray discs and 9 DVDs, you get the extended versions of all three films plus a whopping 26 hours of extras. Although it could be argued that you’d probably be able to walk to Mount Doom and back yourself in the 683 minute running time of the extended trilogy, this may well be the most comprehensive box set ever released. In fact, if a short hike to the Cracks of Doom floats your boat, the box set even comes complete with a replica ring. Priced at around $120 (that’s $8 a disc), this is great value and I recommend that you get your hairy feet down to the shops this week and buy yourself this “precious” box set.

All geeks should have September 14 marked in their smart phone calendars. This is the day where we all get to reach into our pockets and buy Star Wars for the umpteenth time. That’s right, George Lucas has finally relented to fan requests and made Episodes I – VI available on blu-ray for the first time. I’m sure it won’t do his bank balance any harm either. For about $140, you’ll get all six films and over 30 hours of documentaries and extras on 9 discs. If, like me, you’re Jar Jar intolerant and prefer to pretend the prequel trilogy doesn’t exist, both trilogies will be available separately too.

For the more astute film buff, I’d certainly recommend the Stanley Kubrick: Visionary Filmmaker Collection which features seven iconic films plus extensive documentaries over 8 discs. This set, currently discounted to around $70 at one of the larger DVD retailers, includes Lolita and Barry Lyndon for the first time ever in high definition. Worth the price of the set alone is the bonus feature length documentary, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures.

The Al Pacino classic Scarface will also get a high definition makeover in September. For around $60, you’ll get a Tony Montana signature money clip, a dollar bill featuring Tony’s face, a replica of his green card and three art cards, all housed in a wooden cigar box. Did I mention you also get the movie on blu-ray? A modern classic, I’ll be saying hello to my new little friend in September.

Lastly, if you love the small of napalm in the morning, you’ll also love the new remastered triple disc Apocalypse Now box set. Complete with transfers supervised by Francis Ford Coppola himself, this new edition will be laden with extras including the brilliant documentary about the making of this classic, Hearts of Darkness, also in high definition for the first time.

So why waste your money on Yogi Bear and The Last Airbender on blu-ray when you can sink your teeth into some classics finally available in high definition? And although I’d always argue that content is more important than packaging, the fancy boxes and goodies inside are pretty cool too.

Published in: on July 5, 2011 at 08:41  Comments (1)  
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Delayed Movie Sequels

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 5th October 2010.

The recent cinematic release of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps comes twenty three years after the release of the original iconic eighties movie, which spawned the much misquoted line, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” Directed again by Oliver Stone, with a returning Michael Douglas as greedy corporate raider Gordon Gekko, the film is set on the brink of the global financial crisis.

Whilst a plotline placing a recently released from jail Gekko in today’s financial climate is appealing, one has to wonder whether there is actually a demand for a follow-up movie so long after the original. Of course, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is only one of many much delayed sequels, all with mixed fortunes financially and critically.

The Blues Brothers 2000 dropped on audiences in 2000, eighteen years after the original. With director John Landis back at the helm, and Dan Aykroyd reprising Elwood Blues, the movie was hamstrung by the fact that the other Blues brother was dead. John Belushi passed away in 1982 from acute cocaine and heroin intoxication. John Goodman stepped in as new lead singer Mighty Mac McTeer, however, despite being on a new “mission from God”, lightning didn’t strike twice and the film grossed US$26 million from a budget of US$28 million.

Sylvester Stallone recently revived two of his franchises after lengthy hiatuses. Following a series of flops in the nineties, including Judge Dredd and the painful Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (it should’ve been titled Stop the Film or I Will Shoot Myself), Sly brought back Rocky Balboa for the imaginatively titled Rocky Balboa in 2006, sixteen years after Rocky V, and John Rambo for the even more imaginatively titled Rambo in 2008, twenty years after Rambo III. That was the one where Rambo single-handedly freed Afghanistan from the Russians.

The thoughtful and bittersweet Rocky Balboa was a critical and box office success grossing US$155 million, however, the return of Rambo was less successful, drawing much criticism for its grisly depiction of the titular character’s record breaking 236 kills.

Personally, I quite enjoyed Rambo. If you are going to depict violence on-screen, you should also show the consequences of that violence, although perhaps not over two hundred times. On a per exploding head basis, Rambo is great value.

2008 saw the return of whip cracking adventurer Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, nineteen years after the last instalment, the somewhat falsely titled Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Starring a geriatric Harrison Ford, the film was a huge success, becoming the 29th highest grossing movie worldwide. Unfortunately, most Indy fans were left cold by the George Lucus penned story and the film is regarded as a disappointing sequel.

Whilst I think any Indy is good Indy, I must admit that the alien storyline, the ending ripped off from the original X-Files movie and the surviving a nuclear blast by hiding in a fridge scene are cringe worthy.

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was released with much fanfare to huge anticipation in 1999, sixteen years following Return of the Jedi. Although technically a prequel, the origin story of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader went on to become the thirteenth highest grossing film ever, despite much fan derision for the annoying Jar Jar Binks and a silly storyline involving intergalactic trade disputes. That’s right, trade disputes. One of my most cherished films has its origins in a trade dispute. That’s like making a prequel to Romeo and Juliet that sees the Capulets and Montagues first go into conflict over bin night.

The record holder for the longest ever delayed sequel is the direct to DVD Bambi 2 which was released 64 years after the original. Strangely, this film is actually a “midquel” with its plotline taking place within the story of the original. Whilst I am not particularly excited to see the return of Gordon Gekko, the nerd in me is getting excited about the December 2010 release of Tron: Legacy which follows 28 years after the original Tron.

Published in: on October 19, 2010 at 11:11  Leave a Comment  
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Import Your DVDs and Save

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 29th September 2009.

Way back in 1983, my father came home from work and proudly presented me with an unlabelled VHS tape. To my delight, as I placed it into our original top loading video cassette player, the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” appeared. Yes, dad had obtained a pirate copy of Return Of The Jedi. I was amazed. As a huge Star Wars fan as a child, I wasn’t expecting to see this movie for another six months or so. OK, so it wasn’t a great copy (probably a copy of a copy), and was obviously recorded inside a cinema (someone in the row in front gets up and comes back with popcorn) but to an eight year old kid, seeing (what should have been) the exciting final film in the Star Wars trilogy before all of my school friends was pretty cool.

That was way back when all movies enjoyed a delayed worldwide release schedule. Starting in the film’s country of origin (most often the USA or UK), movies would slowly be released to cinemas country by country. This was generally to allow the film’s stars to travel with it for publicity but also to minimise the cost of producing the thousands of celluloid copies of the movie. As a cinema finished with a particular film’s reels, it could be sent along to the next country.

Nowadays, technology and the ease of spreading a pirated film via the internet has forced the major movie distributors to release blockbusters simultaneously worldwide on the same date. However, smaller and less mainstream films are still following the traditional release pattern for cinema and now DVDs.

Without resorting to illegal downloads, how can you enjoy a movie at home that may be still running in your local cinema and save a few bucks in the process? Here are some ideas.

With a strong Aussie exchange rate against the US dollar, purchasing your dvds and blu-ray discs from Amazon.com, America’s biggest online retailer of books, music and movies, is very appealing. Amazon stock thousands of DVD titles, many of which are yet to be released in Australian cinemas or video stores. For instance, the stop-motion movie Coraline has just finished in Australian cinemas. At US$16.50 (A$19.00) plus postage from Amazon, you can avoid those morons that text in the cinema and watch Coraline (in 2D or 3D) in the comfort of your own home for much less than the cost of a family of four plus popcorn, drinks and sweets at the movies.

Note that US DVDs are not compatible with Australian Region 4 coded DVD players so make sure that your player is multi-region capable.

If you are a blu-ray enthusiast like me, blu-raymoviescheap.com is an Australian website that lists the latest US and UK blu-ray titles which are not region encoded and will work here. Clicking through the website to purchase via Amazon or Ebay gives Alex, the site’s webmaster and blu-ray fanatic, a few cents in commission to continue his good work.

Also worth checking out is cd-wow.com.au, an online retailer based in Hong Kong which sells hundreds of CD, DVD, blu-ray and video game titles. All products from cd-wow include free worldwide shipping and their CD prices are especially competitive compared to local department and music stores.

Whilst the cinema is still the best place to see the biggest blockbusters, buying DVDs and blu-ray discs from overseas retailers ahead of their Australian rental, retail or even cinema release is worth considering, especially for those with a decent home theatre set-up and a few bob to save.

www.amazon.com

www.blu-raymoviescheap.com

www.cd-wow.com.au

Published in: on December 20, 2009 at 10:51  Comments (1)  
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