Oscar Winners and Blu-ray Prospects

Just three of this year’s Oscar-winners can be bought here on Blu-ray and two more are out on DVD only.

Best picture The Hurt Locker, and the winner of five other trophies, doesn’t even open theatrically until April 1, but is out on Blu-ray in the US, while Precious, which picked up best supporting actress and adapted screenplay, and Crazy Heart, which won for best actor and original song, are still in cinemas.

Expect Precious to bow on Blu-ray in July (art work may change) whereas there isn’t an ETA for The Blind Side. At one stage the movie looked like being a mid-year direct-to-DVD release but given it won Sandra Bullock her first Academy Award, a short theatrical run may now be in the works.

Triple-Oscar winner Avatar is scheduled for an Earth Day Blu-ray release, on April 22, but the official NZ release won’t be announced until March 22 (the 3D version isn’t due until next year).

Already out on Blu-ray are Up (best animated feature, original score), Inglourious Basterds (best supporting actor) and Star Trek (best make-up) while on DVD only are best documentary, The Cove, and best costume design-winner, The Young Victoria, although the latter is on Blu-ray in the US and UK.

Among the Oscar-nominees coming soon to Blu-ray are: An Education (best picture, actress, adapted screenplay), on April 1; The Lovely Bones (best supporting actor), on April 30; Invictus (best actor, supporting actor), on June 2; and Bright Star (best costume design), on June 23.

Meanwhile, Sky TV’s first HD broadcast of the Academy Awards benefitted immensely from the higher resolution, with the show only being let down – typically – by the satcaster not allowing for the notoriously overlong ceremony to run late.

So if you had set MySky HDi to capture all of it, you’d have found the last 20 minutes missing, which is inexcusable given Sky employs someone to be vigilant about such scheduling issues.

While’s Sky’s off-peak telecast couldn’t draw even 1% of viewers in key demographics, in the US it was the most watched Oscar broadcast in five years.