Sony NEX-7 Digital Camera – Video Review

The Sony NEX-7 Digital Camera is a great addition the wide array of high quality compacts in the Camera market today. Because of its powerful features all packed in a very svelte design, its suited for enthusiasts looking for a reliable compact that takes photos that will definitely turn heads. Beginners will also find this piece of equipment a very worthy investment and they could start exploring the world of photography with features such as Easy and Intelligent Auto. For the professional shutterbug though, there is enough in here to keep their photography palette satisfied.

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There has been a lot of suspense about this camera and wether it is even possible to live up to the hype that has been spread like wildfire online. Of course on paper it looks amazing. The build, the design, the features, the video capability, the new sensor, the built in OLED EVF (which is super duper uber FANTASTIC), and the tri-navi controls are everything the enthusiast market has ever wanted in a small take anywhere camera. Hell, I suspect the NEX-7 may even create more of us crazy gear heads because even when Uncle Joe sees this camera he is going to want one.

It has a way of making people wonder what the hell you are shooting with, and when they learn about it they seem to want to own one for themselves. This has happened to me three times while out and about shooting with the NEX-7. BUT the real question for me while shooting was to determine if it did indeed live up to the hype and was worth shelling out $1200 for the body alone, which to be fair is $6800 less than a Leica M9-P and you can still mount your favorite Leica, Zeiss ZM and Voigtlander M mount glass on to! Hell, you can mount just about any glass to this NEX-7, which makes it pretty damn special right there.

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Review: ‘Immortals’ has dazzle but no heft

By Tom Charity, Special to CNN

November 11, 2011 — Updated 1520 GMT (2320 HKT)

Actor Henry Cavill joins other stars in the new film “Immortals.”

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The film stars Henry Cavill who will also be the “Man of Steel”
• John Hurt and Luke Evans share the role of Zeus, king of the gods
• The movie offers the usual special effects, but reviewer says it’s “visually blah”

(CNN) — Greece may be in an economic mess these days, but the ancient gods are back in vogue, at least in Hollywood, where the success of “300″ and “Percy Jackson” novelist Rick Riordan has not gone unnoticed.

Combine that with today’s computer-generated visuals, which allow you to conjure up armies of extras at the press of a button, and “Immortals” virtually writes itself. (In fact the dour, humorless screenplay is credited to Charley and Vias Parlapanides.)

Less “300 2″ than “300 3D,” “Immortals” is a sledgehammer action spectacle interspersed with bouts of enervating pseudo-philosophical discourse and moments of fine visual embellishment.

Rising star Henry Cavill (“The Tudors” and Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel”) is Theseus, a Hellenic commoner who never knew his father, but who has found a kindly mentor in a wise old man who schools him in sword fighting, ethics and such.

What Theseus doesn’t know is that the old guy (played by John Hurt on Earth and Luke Evans when mortal eyes aren’t peeking) is actually Zeus, the king of the gods, who has been grooming the lad to lead the Hellenics against the onslaught of the blood-thirsty Hyperion (Mickey Rourke). If Hyperion gets his mitts on the Bow of Epirus (archery’s answer to a ballistic missile), he’ll free the Titans and all hell will break loose.

Why doesn’t Zeus intervene directly? Apparently that’s against the divine rules, though the Olympians aren’t above bending them whenever Hyperion seems on the verge of a decisive blow. Wearing scrummy gold outfits that wouldn’t look out of place in a Vegas toga party, the gods are the Hellenics’ pinch-hitters supreme.

Director Tarsem Singh (“The Fall,” “The Cell”) is a fabulist; more than anything, he wants his images to shine. And they do, in places. A vision of celestials locked in permanent heavenly combat — inspired by the Sistine Chapel — is simply breathtaking. (It’s virtually the last thing we see in the movie, but before you shout “spoiler,” it’s also the poster image.) The costume and design are often out of this world.

And yet the movie’s landscape is a disappointingly barren digital domain, the same gray cliffs, deserts and seas familiar from “300″ and so many game-worlds.

It’s not just that this is visually blah (though it is), it’s also as inherently artificial and airless as any studio movie of the 1930s or 40s. When Singh’s camera catches a sun-flare at morning or dusk, it’s supposed to imbue the shot with a sense of reality. But because that sunbeam is patently just another digital effect, it actually accomplishes the opposite: it falsifies the actors’ environment and reminds us this isn’t really happening. (I counted the trick three times.)

To my eyes, the 3D only makes the movie look phonier; the actors often seem to exist in a different visual plane to their surroundings. They might as well be performing in front of cardboard flats.

Still, in Rourke, Cavill, Evans, Stephen Dorff (as Theseus’ sidekick Stavros), and Frieda Pinto (as the so-called “Virgin Oracle”), Tarsem has cast actors strong or pretty enough to hold us through the movie’s turgid breast-beating, grisly violence and numbskull plotting.

There aren’t many flicks that Mickey Rourke can’t perk up, and here he’s adorned in the full enchilada, even more scars than nature intended, a shimmering silver face mask, and a bonnet that seems to have been modeled on a Venus flytrap. Another (this is a heck of a mad-hatter’s movie) has horns like a lobster claw — or a jackass.

In short, the plumage is eye-catching but the meat doesn’t have much flavor. The stuff of legend it ain’t.

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Review: ‘Melancholia’ is visually stunning

Kirsten Dunst plays a troubled bride in the film “Meloncholia.”

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Controversial director Lars von Trier is the force behind “Melancholia”
• The film stars Kirsten Dunst, Alexander Skarsgård and Kiefer Sutherland
• Reviewer says the film is a “masterpiece”

(CNN) — mel•an•cho•li•a/?mel?n’kole?/

Noun: 1. Deep sadness or gloom; melancholy.

2. A mental condition marked by persistent depression and ill-founded fears.

As the opening chords of Richard Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” fill the theater, the images from the eight-minute prolog to Lars von Trier’s elegant, elegiac and emotionally stunning “Melancholia” wash over the audience. The intro alone would make for a rather stunning short, but as it is, it’s just a tease, an amuse bouche for the mind.

An “amuse de l’esprit,” I guess.

The first half of the film takes place at the absurdly lavish wedding of Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård), hosted by Justine’s sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Claire’s husband John (Kiefer Sutherland) who live with their young son Leo (Cameron Spurr) in a mansion, complete with an 18-hole golf course.

During the course of the film it is revealed that the star Justine sees on her wedding night (and that is misidentified as Antares by amateur astronomer John) is in fact a rogue planet, later named “Melancholia” that has previously been “hiding” behind the sun. Despite the astronomical absurdity of a hidden planet and the oddity of naming the planet after a mental illness, Melancholia soon becomes a symbol for virtually everyone in the film.

While a serious-minded and deeply emotional film, “Melancholia” is not without its sense of humor and von Trier has a famously wicked one (one badly chosen and vastly misunderstood joke in Cannes notwithstanding). The wedding itself is absurd as are many of its guests and even the wedding planner (a hysterical turn by von Trier mainstay Udo Kier) provides comic relief.

This is one of the elements that makes this such a brilliant film. Trier is no idiot. He knows his film is packing an emotional wallop, the tension building for more than two hours and to do so without lightening the load would not only be artistically single-minded, it also would simply be cruel.

Which leads me to the fact that von Trier has occasionally been accused of sadism, both personally, as in how he treats his mentor filmmaker Jørgen Leth in the exceptional documentary “The Five Obstructions” and in how he treats his fictional creations in films like “Breaking the Waves” and “Dancer in the Dark.”

Whether he is or isn’t, the embodiment of that trait would have to be Stellan Skarsgård’s wonderfully Machiavellian turn as Justine’s boss, Jack, who uses his time as Michael’s best man to give a speech wherein he challenges Justine to come up with a tagline for a new ad campaign and later ties his nephew’s employment to her willingness to complete the task.

Needless to say that Justine, who is in the midst of a full-blown depressive episode, is not up to the task and the scene where Jack says, “It’s too bad about Tim” after firing him (and seeming to take great pleasure in the fact) is matched only by Justine’s suddenly lucid reaction when she tells Jack exactly what he can do with himself.

Across the board, the performances are exceptional. I am on record as being enamored with Dunst’s performance, but the rest of the cast, especially Gainsbourg as Dunst’s at times equally disturbed sister Claire, are magnificent.

Alexander Skarsgård expands on his “nice Eric” persona from “True Blood” and plays Michael as a soft, tender, childlike and even somewhat dimwitted man. He is an innocent and somewhat naive character and on at least one occasion he refers to Justine’s crippling episodes of depression as “when you’re feeling sad.” He is well-meaning but in way out of his depth.

Given the insanity and serious character flaws running rampant in Justine’s family — her father (John Hurt) is a playful but irresponsible philanderer and her mother (Charlotte Rampling) is a bitter, emotionally vacant grouch — poor Michael is doomed from the start.

While Justine’s depressive symptoms begin to lessen during her post-wedding stay with Clare and John, she begins to calmly predict that the planet will hit the Earth. Whether this is a product of her illness (delusions and hallucinations being common symptoms) or the truth doesn’t matter, as Claire begins to obsess over Melancholia, becoming more and more frightened, convinced that the much bigger planet is heading straight for Earth.

“Melancholia” is at its heart a disaster film, but by no means one of those brainless-but-entertaining Roland Emmerich/Michael Bay-style romps. It’s less about the disaster itself than about the people the disaster affects and their reaction to their potential impending doom.

Very much a product of its creator who has had recent public battles with depression and who has struggled with anxiety his entire life, “Melancholia” is in fact an intimate disaster film.

It is one of the most beautiful, visually stunning, emotionally affecting films I have ever seen and is truly a masterpiece. It’s obviously not for everyone, and you’re certainly not going to leave the theater kicking up your heels, but you might just look on the bight side and realize that this planet we live on is an amazing place and it worth tending to.

“Melancholia” is rated R. There’s some nudity and the odd swear word but the real impact (pun intended) of this film is its emotional content.

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‘All My Children’ return delayed

By Lynette Rice, EW.com

November 11, 2011 — Updated 1547 GMT (2347 HKT)

The hope was to bow new installments of “All My Children” online starting in January.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The company that bought “All My Children” from ABC may hold off premiering it
• It will focus on getting “One Life to Live” back to fans
• The Online Network is supposed to feature entertainment and lifestyle shows

(EW.com) — Disappointing news for fans of “All My Children,” which was supposed to earn a second lease on life next year when it was supposed to resurface via The Online Network in January.

The company that bought it from ABC may hold off premiering it for at least a few months and focus on getting “One Life to Live” back to fans, instead, according to Variety.

Prospect Park, a media and production company founded in 2009 by Jeffrey Kwatinetz and former Disney Studios head Rich Frank, bought “AMC” and “OLTL” last July after ABC canceled them. (“AMC” ended in September; “OLTL” goes away in January).

The hope was to bow new installments of “AMC” online starting in January, but that was before Prospect started having a tough time securing stars from the longtime serial (here’s looking at you, Susan Lucci!).

So far, only Cameron Mathison (Ryan Lavery) and Lindsay Hartley (Dr. Cara Castillo Martin) have agreed to continue with “AMC” once it goes online.

In contrast, “OLTL”‘s Erika Slezak (Victoria Lord), along with Ted King (Tomas Delgado), Michael Easton (John McBain) and Kassie DePaiva (Blair Cramer), among others, will stay in the fictitious town of Llanview for Prospect’s new venture.

Along with the soaps, The Online Network is supposed to feature entertainment and lifestyle shows.

See the full article at EW.com.

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© 2011 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved.

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‘Glee’ sends wrong message on teen sex

By Melissa Henson, Special to CNN

November 12, 2011 — Updated 1915 GMT (0315 HKT)

Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine (Darren Criss) on “Glee.”

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• This week’s “Glee” showed two teen couples — one straight, one gay — having sex for first time
• Melissa Henson says young viewers could feel that they, too, should be sexually active
• Henson: Never before have depictions of premarital teen sex been so common in the media
• Worst thing parents can do is step aside and let Hollywood do the teaching, Henson says

Editor’s note: Melissa Henson is the director of communications and public education for the Parents Television Council, a nonpartisan education organization advocating responsible entertainment.

(CNN) — Kids having sex on prime time broadcast TV? Must be sweeps month.

It’s so predictable, it’s almost laughable. Almost. That is, it would be if it weren’t for the fact that there are real-world consequences for these brazen, ratings-boosting publicity ploys.

Fox’s soapy, teen-targeted “Glee” tried to boost sagging ratings this week by showing not one, but two teen couples having sex for the first time — one gay, the other straight. Show co-creator Ryan Murphy and the folks over at “Glee” are spinning this as a “teachable moment” for teens and their parents, an opportunity for dialogue about safe sex and responsible choices. The problem is Ryan Murphy wants to have his cake and eat it, too.

Hollywood loves to defend teen sex story lines by insisting, “Kids are having sex! We’re reflecting the real world!” But the truth is much more sobering and complicated.

Yes, there are and always have been sexually active teens, but never before have depictions of premarital teen sex been so widespread in the media. Today, you are more likely to see sexualized teens than adults in sexual situations. By presenting teen sex as common, the media marginalizes teens who choose to remain abstinent while increasing the pressure teens are already feeling to become sexually active.

Television is a “sexual super peer,” according to Jane Brown, a professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of North Carolina. The phrase “peer pressure” is used to describe the influence a peer group can exert on a teen’s decisions. Television amplifies that peer pressure by making the entire realm of television, and all the characters in it, part of the teen’s peer group.

When television portrays attractive, popular teenage characters as sexually active, it sends a powerful message to young viewers that there is an expectation that they, too, should be sexually active and, in fact, there might be something wrong with them, if they aren’t.

Teens are also aware that television influences their behavior. According to one survey, a third of youths age 12 and older say the media encourages them to have sex by making it seem like “everybody does it.” And why shouldn’t they get that impression?

Beyond making teen sex the norm, researchers have found heavy television viewing to be predictive of positive attitudes toward “recreational” or casual sex and negative attitudes toward remaining a virgin. Studies have also found the more a teenager identifies with the characters they see on prime time TV shows, the more likely they are to be sexually experienced and to expect higher levels of sexual activity among their peers.

At least half a dozen studies in the past few years have documented a strong correlation between exposure to adult media content as children and the early onset of sexual activity among teens. One study even found that viewing of sexual media content was predictive of teen pregnancy.

If that isn’t enough, why exactly do parents and teens need to sit down and watch a TV show that glamorizes teen sex in order to have a conversation about it? Let’s hope most parents pass on Hollywood’s attempt to help them out with the visuals and simply have an honest conversation with their teenagers.

If history is a predictor of future behavior, we can expect this trend to continue. A season or two into Murphy’s show “Nip/Tuck” on the FX network, he was interviewed for a Bravo network documentary about breaking sexual taboos on television. Murphy stated, “It’s tough to get that sexual point of view across on television. Hopefully I have made it possible for somebody on broadcast television to do a rear-entry scene in three years. Maybe that will be my legacy.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the self-styled sex-ed teacher to America’s teens. The worst thing parents can do is step aside and let Hollywood do the teaching.

The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Melissa Henson.

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Angelina Jolie brings son back to Vietnam

By Rennie Dyball, PEOPLE.com

November 11, 2011 — Updated 2151 GMT (0551 HKT)

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie keep their three adopted children familiar with their roots.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Jolie was photographed with her son Pax, 7, in Vietnam
• “We owe Vietnam a visit, because Pax is due,” Jolie said
• All the kids, Jolie said, are learning about each other’s cultures

(PEOPLE.com) — Angelina Jolie keeps quite the busy travel schedule. And though it’s often for work, her current trip is in line with her desire to keep her three adopted children familiar with their roots.

Her latest destination: Vietnam, where she was photographed with her son Pax, 7.

“We owe Vietnam a visit, because Pax is due,” Jolie, 36, told the Financial Times in July, adding of her six children with Brad Pitt: “They are all learning about each other’s cultures as well as being proud of their own. They all have their flags over their beds and their individual pride.”

PHOTOS: Hollywood’s On-the-Go Families

According to the photographer, the actress and Pax went out for lunch together in Ho Chi Minh City, and the rest of the Jolie-Pitt brood is along for the trip as well.

Pitt, 47, and Jolie adopted eldest son Maddox, 10, from Cambodia, Zahara, 6, from Ethiopia. Their daughter Shiloh, 5, was born in Namibia, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 3, in France.

See full article at PEOPLE.com.

© 2011 People and Time Inc. All rights reserved.

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Review: ‘Jack and Jill’ is stupefyingly unfunny

By Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

November 11, 2011 — Updated 1544 GMT (2344 HKT)

“Jack and Jill” wants to have its hypocrisy and eat it too.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• On a scale of 1 to 10 on the laugh meter, “Jack and Jill” is a negative 10
• Jack is gritting his teeth over a holiday visit from his loudmouthed twin Jill
• The plot is a stew of half-baked ideas that quickly turns rancid

(Rolling Stone) — Maybe you thought since Adam Sandler is playing boy-and-girl twins in “Jack and Jill” that the movie would be double the fun.

Ha! On a scale of 1 to 10 on the laugh meter, “Jack and Jill” is a negative 10. A total bust, a stupefyingly unfunny and shamelessly lazy farce packed with cringe-worthy jokes and overt product placement.

L.A. ad exec Jack Sadelstein (Sandler the guy) is gritting his teeth over a holiday visit from his loudmouthed, overweight twin Jill (Sandler in drag, showing an unfailing grasp of the obvious). The siblings pick at each other relentlessly between Jill’s bouts with farting and dropping chimichanga bombs.

No peace, even with the help of Jack’s peacemaker wife (Katie Holmes looks so trapped in this thankless role you ache to save her). It’s odious to watch the movie make fun of Jill’s looks, weight, and flatulence problems only to switch gears into gooey sentiment at the end and tell us we should love her. “Jack and Jill” wants to have its hypocrisy and eat it too.

Look, I’m not a Sandler hater. He was terrific in Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Punch-Drunk Love.” And I still treasure fun memories of “Billy Madison” and “Happy Gilmore,” made before Sandler turned cynical and contemptuous of his audience. “Jack and Jill” plays like the kind of crap Sandler’s comedian character skewered in “Funny People.”

The plot is a stew of half-baked ideas that quickly turns rancid. Jack has problems at work; his company will go under if he can’t persuade Al Pacino to play himself in a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial. Watching the Oscar winner bust a move and freestyle rap while he extols the virtues of sipping a Dunkachinno is to witness desperation incarnate.

Sandler and director Dennis Dugan must have something on “The Godfather” to make him lower himself to these depths. “Burn it,” says Pacino after watching the commercial Sandler creates. “No one must ever see this.” The same goes for the movie.

Rolling Stone rating: Zero stars

See the full article at RollingStone.com.

Copyright © 2011 Rolling Stone.

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