Evans Above

I was going to write an entry about how awful the FOX reality show The Princes of Malibu is, but the execs at FOX seem to agree that the series about the spoiled stepsons of music producer David Foster was awful — they’ve cancelled it after two airings.

It also appears that the marriage of Foster and his wife, Linda Thompson, has been cancelled too, as the pair are headed to divorce court. Thompson said the reasons were private but released a statement saying that “it is important to remember that real life is not be confused with art or entertainment.”

I’m anxious to check out the new D70s from Nikon. Nikon generously provided us with its predecessor, the D70, for use during last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and this year’s Academy Awards.

We’ve used quite a few cameras over the years and events like festivals really put a camera through its paces. Last year at the Toronto festival, the two of us probably took over 9000 photos in ten days. We loved the D70. It was fast, dependable and produced stunning shots. When you’re crowded into a press pen at the end of the carpet and some celebrity decides they’re only giving you five seconds, you want a camera that you don’t have to think or worry about. The D70 was that camera.

The new D70s improves upon the wonderful D70. It powers up in 0.2 seconds and can shoot 3 frames a second for a burst of 144 shots. In the old days of digital, that five seconds provided by a speeding celeb might produce two shots max. The D70s will be able to give you 15 frames to choose from.

According to Nikon Canada other specs include:

• Shutter speeds from 30 to 1/8,000 second and sensitivity that can range from ISO 200 – 1600.
• Auto pop-up flash that can synchronize at shutter speeds of up to 1/500 second for great fill flash effects.
• 5-area autofocus system continues to feature a cross-type sensor in the centre, broad frame coverage, and class-leading low light detection, but is improved to deliver greater precision with fast, more consistent subject acquisition and improved focus tracking.
• The 6.1 effective megapixel Nikon DX Format CCD image sensor features wide dynamic range and a high signal to noise ratio that produces 3,008 × 2,000-pixel images with high resolution and superbly sharp details suited for making large prints, or for cropping for creative detail.
• Nikon’s 3D Color Matrix Metering with 1,005-pixel sensor that measures brightness, colour, contrast, selected focus area, and subject-to-camera distance values for each shot, and then references the results against an onboard database of 30,000 scenes from actual photography.
• A new high-energy rechargeable lithium-ion battery EN-EL3a delivers the power to shoot up to 2,500 images on a single charge.
• Controls are located for easier access and smoother operation. Newly designed menus are presented clearly and in plain language on the large 2.0-inch LCD monitor, while intuitive help dialogues are available for on-the-spot reference to the respective menu selections.

Excuse me while I drool.

I had to go back and look at Motley Crue‘s performance at Live8 in Barrie.

For anyone else who watched/taped that performance: Was Vince Neil actually singing the verses or did it sound like chipmunk gibberish followed by clear choruses?

It really sounded like: “Shwee wa woo hee hee Dr. Feelgood.”

Watching the “Greatest Hits” summary of the various Live8 concerts around the world on CTV. Watching a recap of live8 toronto (which is really live8 barrie). Neil Young and most of the bands that performed there jammed on Young’s “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” and then segued into a rendition of “O Canada.”

Jamming is the one great thing that musicians have over most other artists. You can get newcomers and legends sharing the stage and trading riffs. A bunch of actors can’t do that in the same way.

One moment that wasn’t shown in the summary: Dan Aykroyd and Tom Green trying to shush the booing that greeted Celine Dion’s “live from Las Vegas” performance.

I’m watching the live8 coverage on CTV. The most important thing that people have to remember is that this is not a one day effort. It’s one thing for the crowd to shout “Yeah!” when Will Smith or Dan Aykroyd asks them to end poverty, but another thing for them to put pressure on their elected officials. Think of today as the first step on a long march.

Don’t forget to go to the Live8 site and sign the online petition.

The entertainment media has been focusing on the perceived box office slump compared to last year. Heck, even I’ve been guilty. The current example of a cinema slump article comes from AP’s David Germain, who notes that as of this weekend, “Revenues for the top 12 movies came in at $116.5 million, down 16 percent from the same weekend last year…”

The Hot Blog’s David Poland has been digging a little deeper and has previously mentioned the anomaly of last year, a year that included The Passion of the Christ, a film that drew folks to the cinema that usually avoid the multiplex. Passion was released by Newmarket, not one of the major studios. Poland likes crunching numbers and according to his financial footwork, “the studio business is, by this calculation, up by $301,427,400 this year.”

Paris Hilton says she’s giving up the public life in two years. If she doesn’t I think we should hold her to it.

The sex tape star told Newsweek that “I don’t enjoy going out anymore. It’s such a pain. It’s everyone saying, ‘Let’s do a deal! Can I have a picture?’ I’m just, like, ‘These people are such losers. I can’t believe I used to love doing this.’”

Gee, Paris, if it’s so bad couldn’t you just get outta our faces now?

In most first-person shooters, the player has to kill everything in sight, but that sort of freewheeling use of ammunition is usually frowned upon in most big city police departments. You know things like killing innocent bystanders and destroying property unnecessarily can sometimes take a toll on one’s police pension. That restraint gives an added tension when you enter a dance club in SWAT 4 that’s been taken over by rival gangs. You have to decide in a split second whether the person crouched in the corner is merely hiding from the violence or planning to shoot you and your fellow officers. That doesn’t mean that you are supposed to be killing all the bad guys either. The career mode of SWAT 4 gives higher points to successful arrests. Apparently, the legal system has this whole “trial by jury” thing that they like to do.

Some of the scenarios are quite disturbing, including a high-risk arrest warrant service on a __Silence of the Lambs__-like serial killer that had me turning on all the lights and reaching for a comedy flick. I guess killing ‘droids on a far-off space station doesn’t have the same personal resonance that quietly searching through a suburban home does.

If I did have one complaint, it would be that suspects die too easily. Several times my SWAT team confronted an hostile suspect that just didn’t want to give up easily. I’d aim for the foot or leg and he’d die just as fast as if I’d popped him in the head. In those situations, I should be calling for the paramedics and not the coroner.

SWAT 4 is rated M for mature.

Why is Entertainment Tonight spending so much time (and cash) covering the Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau wedding?

They’re showing interviews with Jann Carl, Mary Kay shopping for a wedding dress, and finally the ceremony and reception.

I realize that some people have a morbid fascination with stuff like this, but where does it fit into an entertainment news show’s mandate?

Why does every reject from The Apprentice create a website that is Flash only? Have they ever heard of accessibility?