Summit would be wise to get their Blu-ray of Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (12 Jan 2010) to Academy voters ASAP. Just to be safe, send the DVD with it since not necessarily all voters have made the upgrade yet. All of them who have an HD setup to break in will eat this thing up. This could give Locker a second wind that Up in the Air doesn't have the opportunity to catch post-Avatar. I'm thinking that Academy voters who wait until later to send in their ballots will jump back on the Locker bandwagon.

The disc's light on extras, including only a commentary and a Behind the Scenes featurette. Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal bounce interesting anecdotes back and forth here and there throughout. The scramble to find a particular pistol for use in a pivotal scene was particularly amusing. Boal again emphasizes that he didn't base Jeremy Renner's Sgt. James on just one guy, but on one of two schools of thought in the early days of the Iraq invasion. The other camp was composed of more cautious, procedural guys like Guy Pearce's Sgt. Thompson. The featurette is a decent, quickly-digestible piece that nicely serves as a 12-minute Oscar pitch. The only feature I could have (and still do) hope for is some sort of alternate, longer cut.