Schnack Attack
“They have lured away many of NZ’s best sailing minds and talents in the quest for the Cup, but they are all still chasing one Kiwi who did not budge and whose mind and talents may…
Blog Archives
Farewell to Leading Lady
The death of NZ’s acting doyenne Davina Whitehouse has been mourned at home and abroad, with obituaries appearing in The Boston Globe and The Independent. Her prolific career spanned stage, film, and television, and…
Golden Boy
In a rare coup for a Kiwi, Warrior Stacey Jones has been awarded rugby league’s top honour: the Golden Boot. The trophy represents the sports media’s pick for best player in the world. Andrew Johns, Golden Boot…
Giovanni Intra Remembered
We are diminished to report the death of Giovanni Intra in New York City on December 17th 2002. Giovanni, artist, critic, gallerist went east to stir up the LA art scene and established the gallery, China…
Karen’s Kiwi Christmas
Observer “unwraps Christmas in NZ” from the comfort of Karen Walker’s Waitakere Ranges home. “It’s a guaranteed white Christmas … the manuka trees are frosted with delicate white blooms so that the hillside appears…
“A Little Madness Helps”
In an NYT essay Peter Jackson describes the 14 months it took to film the Rings trilogy as a “protracted bout of willful madness with seven units shooting multiple elements simultaneously for the…
Corporate Edge Makes Global Player
Businessman Graeme Hart – “the New Zealander with aspirations to take on the world” – has joined the bidding war for Australia’s major food group, Goodman Fielder. If successful, he will helm a $4.3 billion combined…
“What a Beauty”
Confessions of a (former) one-eyed Aussie: “Abandon all those negative clichés. NZ has changed To go to a country so deeply etched in the Australian consciousness by cliché and misinformation is to spend most of…
Co-host Clark
Helen Clark appeared on America’s top-rating Today Show to promote an upcoming Discovery Channel program on NZ. New Zealand: The Royal Tour sees the PM take American presenter Peter Greenberg on a guided tour…
Intellectual Grand Slam
John Clarke – the NZ comedian who “rates as a national institution” across the Tasman – delights critics with his latest book, The Tournament. A blistering satire, The Tournament involves a fictitious tennis contest…
Environmental Oxymoron
NZ’s possum epidemic has made unlikely bed-fellows of environmentalists and fur-trappers. New Scientist looks at a globally unique situation, where groups such as WWF actively support the trapping of an animal for its fur and meat as…
Frodo Air
An Air NZ Boeing 747 has become the latest (and largest) Lord of the Rings billboard. The plane sports a 36m image of the hobbit leads down either side of its fuselage. The advertising is part…
Big Tex Inspiration
Leading NZ artist Julian Dashper is currently on show at the Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery. The varied and interactive works (created during his residency at the Chinati Foundation in Texas) include a reproduction…
“The Prospero of NZ letters”
“Take a Las Vegas gambling magnate who believes in the usefulness of books, add a distinguished poet and a betting pool of natural talent. What do you get? A literary renaissance that has floored…
Lord of FX
Wired profiles Stephen Regelous, the Wellingtonian behind The Two Towers‘ jaw-dropping battle scenes. Regelous created a program – Massive – which would supply “smart crowds” to supplement the on-screen action. Each agent has an individual brain, with…
Cleaner Greener NZ
The Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions came one step closer to enforcement after its ratification by the NZ and Canadian governments. Although both countries are relatively minor industrial polluters their signatures are vital in making up the…
Kiwi Geeks Take a Stand
In a bid to be “taken seriously,” members of NZ’s IT community have requested permission to use geek.nz as a second-level domain in the country. The office of the NZ Domain Name Commissioner plans to stage…
The Big Break-up
“Somewhere east of New Zealand, where Gondwana’s break-up may have started some 130 million years ago, with New Zealand splitting from Australia, ‘the last resources of mankind’ could be awaiting discovery. So say a crew of German…
Arnett phones home
“So Broadcast News meets Armageddon. It’s a rilly big show!” Telefilm Live From Baghdad – based on Robert Wiener’s memoir of CNN’s involvement in the Gulf War – aired on US HBO December 7….
Clean sweep
The release of The Clean’s 46-song Anthology has set Canadian “rock uber-geeks running to record stores.” Chart Attack reviewer sums up the Flying Nun stalwarts’ attraction: “They have created a near-flawless body of work over a long period…
Tall Poppy Keeps His Head
“A genius masquerading as an ordinary person, a creative whirlwind, financial powerhouse and folk hero rolled into one.” LA Times applauds Peter Jackson’s phenomenal success, not only in film circles, but in the eyes…
Sunny praise for Chidgey
The Strength of the Sun by Lower Hutt writer Catherine Chidgey makes LA Times Best Books list for 2002. “An exquisitely written, curiously tantalizing book that looks something like a mystery story but is…
Middle Earth to the Masses
Te Papa’s Lord of the Rings exhibition (opening 19 December) is set to go global. The interactive collection of costumes, props, sets, and gadgetry mounts a two year international tour from February 2002, which includes stop-offs…
Readable eatables
Business Day gives Ray McVinnie’s latest cook book a review good enough to eat. The Modern Cook is more than “a series of mouth-watering recipes,” it also builds one recipe upon the next in…
#58: Looking Over The Edge
Edge Message #58 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM NEW ZEALAND EDGE VISUAL STORIES: Today we are proud to bring you a major update to the New Zealand Edge website experience. ‘Imagery’ is a series of…
“Billionaires Behaving Badly”
Uncooperative wind and weather has made for a rather patchy America’s Cup series so far. Luckily, viewer-distraction has been provided in the form of feuding billionaires. Sports Illustrated: “Yachting has never been a sport for the masses, but…
Bottoms Up
Deutz Marlborough Cuvee beat Bollinger, Moet & Chandon, and Veuve Cliquot in a blind-tasting by seven British bubbly experts. Which? magazine organised the test, asking local supermarkets and high-end liquor stores to submit the best of their respective…
What is this?
“They can be seen as postmodern hymns to invention and appropriation, or they can be read as theoretical texts that map the visual culture of at least two phases of the 20th century.” Dick Frizzell’s latest…
Fur-envy
Inspired by the success of NZ possum-fur products, Australian designers have incorporated the “soft, mink-like” pelts into their own winter collections. Most notably, Lisa Ho imported NZ skins for her range of winter stoles…
Paquin: Make mine a double
Anna Paquin joins an ensemble cast including Edward Norton and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Spike Lee’s latest film, The 25th Hour. Advance screenings of the (typically) dark drama have sparked talk of likely Oscar nominations.
A Strange Breed
“Because of the congenial climate and lack of pollution, Godzone politicians are generally taller and stronger than those cloned overseas. Nestled at the bottom of the world, gravity is stronger and extra strength is required to stand…
Rebirth of Loop
2002 saw the highly successful reinvention of Wellington’s Loop magazine as an independent recording label. With acts like The Black Seeds, Rhian Sheehan and 50HZ on the books, and albums which look as good…
Sundance Spot For Whale Rider
Fresh from an award-winning stint in Toronto, Niki Caro’s Whale Rider is to feature at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Other entrants in the World Cinema category include Bend It Like Beckham and the latest Dogme instalment,…
Kiwi Gets Top Job
NZ-born businessman John Buchanan has been appointed senior independent director of BHP Billiton, effective 1 February 2003. Buchanan was formerly chief financial officer at Britain’s BP.
“Not Just the Land of Lamb and Honey”
“It’s more than just a big farm in the South Pacific, it’s a modern, sophisticated economy with some real niche products.” Gulf Business cover feature highlights the increasingly diverse interaction between NZ and the UAE. In the…
Almost Sevens Heaven
A “ferocious all-around display” saw NZ win the first leg of the International Rugby Board World Sevens Series in Dubai. NZ defeated Samoa 36-0 to take their fourth straight victory in the event. The same form didn’t…
“Great Things Come Out of Splendid Isolation.”
“It’s not just about the Datsun’s, you know …” Style bible i-D devotes a section of its Cruise Issue to Kiwi creativity. As well as the obvious candidates – Karen Walker, The D4, Natalija…
Frontier Neuseeland
44-page cover spread on NZ in December’s GEO Saison – Germany’s premiere travel magazine. The article, “New Zealand – Setting out into the Big Freedom,” focuses on ex-pat Germans in Aotearoa, from Northland to Stewart Island. The…
Behind the scenes
Wellington-born Kristian Fredrikson, Australia’s leading set and costume designer, interviewed in Weekend Australian. A designer “whose name is synonymous with opulence,” Fredrikson is currently taking his third crack at creating “the perfect Swan Lake.”…
Dead-eyed beauties
Photographer Yvonne Todd reviewed in Art Forum’s Best of 2002 issue. “Todd applies Revlon-style control to construct the opposite of the bouffant and bouncy … she assembles a group of unreachable females, encased in…
Virtually he tanagata
Wellington interactive media company, Clicksuite, has been nominated for the creative technology industry’s Oscar equivalent: an International EMMA (Electronic Multimedia Technology) award. Clicksuite has been entered in the Public Institutions / Services Information…
Fox Gives the Hard Word
SMH enlists an outside view on recent Wallabies’ performances from All Black legend Grant Fox. The verdict? Not good: “There doesn’t appear to be a lot of blooding of new talent going on at the moment,…
Ringing its Praises
“A rare perfect mating of filmmaker and material” (NY Times). The Two Towers has been released with a series of glitzy premieres and press reviews which more than match the hype. Variety: “It’s hard to imagine…
Tyler no diva
Liv Tyler talks to The Scotsman about making movies Middle Earth-style. “It was a labour of love for everyone. There weren’t a lot of perks. We didn’t have these huge trailers and all these excessive…
Liquor, Lear and Liz
NZ’s 2002 Actor of the Year, Ray Henwood, has taken his award-winning portrayal of Richard Burton Sydney-side. In Playing Burton the Welsh-born actor brings to life his hell-raising compatriot with uncanny ability. Opening night…
Tribute to Edge-geneticist
NZ’s “third man of the double helix” Maurice Wilkins has been honoured in the lead-up to next year’s 50th anniversary of DNA. In 1962, Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with fellow discoverers…
Frosty the Crowe-man
Indie film website Film Threat has voted Russell Crowe 2002’s Coldest Person in Hollywood. Crowe topped the annual poll, his “bad-boy big mouth” beating out Winona Ryder and Robert De Niro for the dubious honour.
Not All Doom and Gloom
Wellington author Damien Wilkins counters small-town unease and drug-addled characters with a good dose of black comedy in Chemistry. New Statesman: ” a world of jealousies, scandals, and suffocating boredom … Although unrepentantly…
The (Edge) Spirit of a Sailor
USA Today ponders Kiwi dominance of the America’s Cup. “No matter that the boats will fly the flags of Switzerland and the United States. The men at the helm are Kiwis, New Zealanders, “mates.” Kiwis are…
“Amo, ergo compro”
NZ’s leading ad-man, Kevin Roberts, interviewed in Italy’s L’espresso. “He dresses completely in black and looks like a bar room bouncer just back from Armani. But Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, is…
Team NZ’s High-tech Edge
NZ bioengineering group, Christian Cook, have developed a radical method of keeping Team NZ one step ahead of their rivals. Health levels of the 36 sailors are monitored via a daily “blood reading.” The low-frequency ultrasound delivers…
Music of the land
“The Kiwi singer-songwriter lyrics and cheekbones as fine as Delft china.” Bic Runga talks to Time Pacific about books, politics and her new album, Beautiful Collision. “Eclectic but emotionally resonant,” Beautiful Collision has…
IE (International Exploration) Browser
“David Lewis was the most wonderfully fantastic scallywag I have ever met. His love for the ocean can only be balanced by the love of beautiful women for him” (Dick Smith). David Lewis -…
Wilkins’ Latest Bonds with Reviewer
Guardian reviewer Phil Whitaker assesses Damien Wilkins’ novel, Chemistry, a chronicle of drug addiction and family trauma set in small-town NZ. “Wilkins is brilliant at character, and his resistance to movement for the family…
Best Actor
New Zealand born actor Gary Day, renown for roles in soap operas Gloss and Shark in the Park, wins Best Guest Actor for his cameo performance in Aussie drama Blue Heelers at the AFI…
Gender Studies 101
Guardian writer Julie Burchill questions Russell Crowe’s status as “sole standard bearer” for old-school Hollywood hell-raising in the wake of his latest public brawl. Back in the bad old days, she notes, stars did without the “semi-official…
