We find the MagSafe 2 power port, a USB 3.0 port, headphone jack and integrated microphone on the left side of the Air, while the right side is home to an SD card reader, another USB 3.0 port and a Thunderbolt port. Just above the screen is the 720p FaceTime HD camera. Opening the lid reveals the glossy 13.3-inch diagonal LED backlit display, operating at 1440 x 900 with a 16:10 aspect ratio. Of course we use the term thick loosely, as the system is still extremely thin and lightweight at only 0.68-inches at the thickest part and 2.96 pounds.Īt the front of the Air is a small section cut into the base that is just large enough to get a finger or two under to lift the display. The notebook is tapered into a wedge shape that is narrower near the front and thicker at the rear. The new MacBook Air doesn't deviate from the design of previous models, which certainly isn't a bad thing. The system on our test bench is the base 13-inch MacBook Air which ships with a 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5 processor that Turbo Boosts up to 2.8GHz, 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM, 128GB of flash storage and integrated Intel graphics. The smaller 11-inch system retains the same $999 entry price, however. The 13-inch system also received a $100 price cut, now starting at $1,199. New for the 2012 MacBook Air is the Intel Ivy Bridge processor sporting HD 4000 graphics, higher capacity storage and memory options, as well as an improved 720p Facetime HD camera, and support for USB 3.0. PC makers have struggled to match the Air's extremely thin and simplistic design, prompting Intel to announce the ultrabook initiative at Computex in 2011. Steve Jobs unveiled the first MacBook Air in early 2008 to mixed reviews, but a series of redesigns and hardware refreshes through the years have resulted in a product line that has had a huge impact on the industry. As most expected, the standard MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air were refreshed for 2012, the latter of which we will be looking at today. This is one of Assayas’ better works and he has been duly rewarded with the Golden Osella for Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival.Analysts and users alike are still talking about the new MacBook Pro with Retina display that was introduced last month during Apple's keynote at the annual WWDC, but that wasn't the only new system that Cupertino ousted at the event. Something in the Air opens with young activists being physically assaulted by the brutal authorities in public (presumably recreating the May 1968 strikes), a powerful prologue that gives way to a romanticized perspective of a volatile period, which itself gives way to a muted feeling of loss and its memory. Where has that wind gone to? Is it still in the air? Does it need to be in the air? Here they recreate the look and feel of a time long gone, even as it remains in the memories of those who lived in that era, including Assayas himself, whose film is a loving homage to a period when there was ‘something in the air”, not a slight breeze, but a wind of change. The pair has collaborated on numerous occasions in films such as Irma Vep (1996), Clean (2004) and Summer Hours (2008). What is most striking is Gautier’s roving camerawork and Assayas’ direction that can be best described as strong yet remarkably low-key. The performances by the ensemble cast are uniformly good, though not particularly memorable. Gilles is an aspiring painter, but he occasionally partakes in revolutionary action like spraying graffiti onto the walls of his school in the dead of the night. Something in the Air uses the character Gilles (Clement Metayer) as the focal point in which this prism-memory of politics and art unfolds itself. Instead it centers on the theme of memory, not simply the recollection of the past, but the reminiscing of times of great ambition and energy to sustain the revolutionary spirit, though this is often at the expense of romantic endeavours. Writer-director Olivier Assayas returns to post-May 1968 Paris in Something in the Air, a free-spirited look at European, in particular French youths, who harboured the dreams and hopes of being part of revolutionary change to alter the status quo, some through the engagement with art, others through journalistic manifestos.Īssayas’ film is by no means empathically political. There is something in Eric Gautier’s cinematography that evokes a sense of nostalgia, as if opening a time portal back to the late 1960s where political strife and artistic expression often conflate with real-world socio-economic issues rising from the misappropriation of the capitalist ideology. (Reviewed at the European Union Film Festival ’13 – first published )
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