More than half a century after its release in 1950, Sunset Boulevard is still the most pungently unflattering portrait of Hollywood ever committed to celluloid. Billy Wilder, unequalled at combining a literate, sulphurous script with taut direction, hits his target relentlessly. The humour–and the film is rich in this, Wilder’s most abundant commodity–is black indeed. Sunset Boulevard is viciously and endlessly clever. William Holden’s opportunistic scriptwriter Joe Gillis, whose sellout proves fatal, is from the top drawer of film noir. Gloria Swanson’s monstrously deluded Norma Desmond, the benchmark for washed-up divas, transcends parody. And her literal descent down the staircase to madness is one of the all-time great silver-screen moments.

Sunset Boulevard isn’t without pathos, most notably in Erich von Stroheim’s protective butler who wants only to shield his mistress from the stark truths that are massing against her. But its view of human beings at work in a ruthlessly cannibalistic industry is bleak indeed. Nobody, not even Nancy Olson’s sparkily ambitious writer Betty Schaefer, is untainted. And neither are we, “those wonderful people out there in the dark”. Norma might be ready for her close-up, but it’s really Hollywood that’s in the frame. No wonder Wilder incurred the charge of treachery from his peers. It’s cinematic perfection.

On the DVD: Sunset Boulevard lends itself effortlessly to a collector’s edition of this quality. The film itself is presented in full-frame aspect ratio from an excellent print and the quality of the mono soundtrack is faultless: the silver screen comes to life in your living room. The extras are superb, including a commentary from film historian Ed Sikov and a making-of documentary which includes the memories of Nancy Olson. Interactive features such as the Hollywood location map add to the fun. –Piers Ford

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Product Description
Compact Digital Camera FS11 – 28mm Wide-angle 5x Optical Zoom LUMIX DC Lens and iA (Intelligent Auto) Mode with Advanced Scene DetectionIn iA (Intelligent Auto) Mode, 4 detection functions work automatically and simultaneously to optimize your settings, making it easier than ever to take beautiful photos every time. The iA Mode includes MEGA O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) to detect hand-shake, Intelligent ISO Control to detect subject movement, Face Detection AF/AE to detect faces in the frame and Intelligent Scene Selector to detect scene conditions. Sunset Mode has been added to the Intelligent Scene Selector. The DMC-FS11 features a 28mm wide-angle 5x optical zoom LUMIX DC VARIO lens (35mm camera equivalent: 28-140mm). The 28mm wide-angle lens lets you easily capture large groups of people indoors or expansive architectural structures and scenes with dynamic width and rich perspective. The 5x optical zoom lens captures beautiful shots of people or landscapes with 14.1-megapixel resolution. The Extra Optical Zoom function uses the center part of the CCD to extend this 5x zoom ratio to powerful 10.5x zoom at a resolution of 3-megapixel or less. To realize the Sonic Speed AF, a number of re-engineering and improvements are made including the adaptation of higher-speed actuator, the optimization of algorithms and the parallelization of software processing element. The result is ultra high speed yet accurate AF performance for you to enjoy the airy shooting that has experienced never before. Panasonic also replaced its linear program processing with parallel processing to achieve an ultra high-speed start-up time. The DMC-FS11 can record motion pictures in high-definition (1,280 x 720 pixels at 30 fps in Motion JPEG format). The pixel mixed readout method enables bright motion-picture recording even in low-light settings. The DMC-FS11 can also record stunning full-size motion pictures in WVGA (848 x 480 pixels at 30 fps) or standard motion pictures in VGA

Panasonic Lumix FS11 Digital Camera – Black 2.7 inch LCD

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