BTW, I have found that sometimes you can get past "lockout" by using fast forward instead of chapter advance - sometimes.
But it DOES suck, nonetheless.
Hitting "TITLE" usually will skip all of the junk and take you straight to the title menu.
There are also ways to even bypass region coding on some systems this way. Unfortunately when I tried it on a friend's system one time (to watch a Brazilian release of City Of God) his system would not let him access the subtitles (the movie would play). We had to connect up a region free player instead.
I think that most of the rest of the world uses region free players.
France locks in French subtitles (forced display) on some DVDs (although there "has" to be a way to defeat it, there are some pointers on DVD forums).
As I say, if they'd stop being so controlling (and creating BAD technology like discs you can watch twice or discs that will oxidize after they are opened) I would be more accepting of a digital media.