Film & TV | Guardian (The) | Hollywood
14 November 2002
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…
Film & TV | People Magazine
10 November 2002
Russell Crowe makes the grade in a run-down of Hollywood’s sexiest men by People Magazine. From unlikely beginnings “sporting high heels and lipstick” in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Crowe has come to epitomize…
Film & TV | BBC News | Hollywood
4 November 2002
An independent British film telling the story of a New Zealand WW2 hero has ignited a “trans-Atlantic row over Hollywood movie muscle.” Two Men Went to War is to be screened in a paltry…
Film & TV | Natural History New Zealand
31 October 2002
NZ production The Most Extreme has proved a hit with international Animal Planet viewers. The series, made by Dunedin-based Natural History New Zealand, involves a countdown of the world’s weirdest animal trivia. Due to…
Film & TV | Empire Magazine
31 October 2002
Sam Neill has hinted he will reprise his role as Dr Grant in Steven Spielberg’s fourth Jurassic Park installment. The Queenstown-based actor is sufficiently impressed by the script that he would consider ” his…
Film & TV | New York Times (The)
31 October 2002
A New Zealand production features in the International Children’s Television Festival in Manhattan this month. The Kiwi entry in the UN sponsored exhibition, The Dress-Up Box Wonder, was written on the morning of the…
Film & TV | ABC News | Sydney Morning Herald (The)
19 October 2002
New York-based Kiwi, Martin Henderson (Shortland Street, Windtalkers), co-stars in October’s US box-office No.1 – The Ring. The thriller is a re-make of the cult Japanese Ringu series, and revolves around a video-tape curse….
Film & TV | Boston Herald
13 October 2002
Captain Cook is the inspiration behind America’s latest hit reality TV show. The Ship follows a group of ordinary folks in their bid to sail a replica of the Endeavour from Australia to Indonesia….
Film & TV | Corona Productions
30 September 2002
A NZ father/son team is behind the submarine action scenes on Harrison Ford’s latest film, K-19: The Widowmaker. Lance Julian and father, Harry, run Marine Team Ltd., an American-based company with strong ties to…
Film & TV | Time Magazine
30 September 2002
Bond director Lee Tamahori qualifies his license to thrill: “A Bond movie has conventions: girls, gadgets, action. It’s not that you must stick with them, but if you don’t, you may be doing the…
Film & TV | Los Angeles Times
15 September 2002
Ex-Wellingtonian Rob Pearson received a Creative Arts Emmy for his contribution to TNT’s James Dean biopic. The award was for outstanding art direction on a movie, mini-series or special.
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
13 September 2002
It is official: NZ is the most popular long-haul destination for Britons. From January to June, a record 228,000 British travelers visited – 8.9% more than in 2001. The Guardian puts the increase down…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
13 September 2002
NZ filmmaker Christine Jeffs (Rain) is to direct a British production about the turbulent marriage of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Starring Gwyneth Paltrow and British actor Daniel Craig, the film was inspired by…
Film & TV | Sydney Morning Herald (The)
12 September 2002
Whale Rider swerves past Bend it Like Beckham to win the prestigious AGF People’s Choice award at the Toronto Film Festival – an award previously won by Amelie and …
Film & TV | Urban Cinefile
11 September 2002
NZ actor Martin Csokas’ sexy (Salon) villian praised in Vin Diesel action blockbuster xXx: Csokas is “the baddest of the baddies,” “a splendid villain whose brooding and commanding persona oozes onto the screen.”…
Film & TV | Locus
31 August 2002
The Fellowship of the Ring won the Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation at the World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, California. In attendance for the ceremony were Sean Astin (A.K.A Sam Gamgee) and NZer…
Film & TV | Conde Nast Traveler
31 August 2002
“, for all its knockout grandeur, is but the trailer, the preview of the country. NZ doesn’t need to be digitally enhanced. It has an orchestra replete with special effects all of its own.” Headlining feature on…
Film & TV | Ananova
13 August 2002
The Edinburgh International Film Festival screens the “quirky New Zealand film” Her Majesty. Mark J Gordon’s feature (from a Sundance award-winning script) tells the story of an impassioned young Royalist during the…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
31 July 2002
Campy, 50s sci-fi inspired Eight Legged Freaks achieves what it set out to do: “scare the pants off the viewer.” Written and directed by NZer Ellory Elkayem, Freaks delivers thrills aplenty, while remaining…
Film & TV | Star Bulletin
6 June 2002
7th Xena Fest held at the University of Hawaii-Manoa June 9. Activities included martial arts demonstrations, auctions, and battle-cry contests. See the NZEDGE hot story on Lucy Lawless for the person behind…
Film & TV | Ananova
5 June 2002
Sam Neill films in NZ for the first time since The Piano on South Island’s rugged West Coast. Perfect Strangers, directed and produced by noted NZ documentary maker Gaylene Preston (Bread and Roses), also…
Film & TV | Xinhua News
4 June 2002
Five recent NZ films – Once Were Warriors, Scarfies, The Price of Milk, Magik & Rose, and Jubilee – hit Chinese screens June 8 – 22 in China’s first NZ film festival.
Film & TV | The Daily Record
4 June 2002
NZ-born Russell Crowe has beaten Hollywood heavyweights including Anthony Hopkins, Paul Newman, Tom Hanks, and Robert DeNiro to be voted favourite Best Actor Oscar winner of all time, according to a poll by US…
Film & TV | IndieWIRE
3 June 2002
Harry Sinclair film Toy Love applauded in Indiewire: “I love how deftly it hides surprisingly dark themes beneath its very sexy and funny depiction of love and lust. It’s a screwball comedy that’s quite…
Film & TV | Los Angeles Times
31 May 2002
The LA Times surveys an “invasion of American films by directors and stars from Down Under. The biggest star now working in American films who began in his native New Zealand is Russell Crowe…
Film & TV | Boston Herald
23 May 2002
Christine Jeff’s “sexually potent yet understated” feature debut Rain continues to make splashes as it opens across North America. The Boston Herald reports that Jeffs “easily captures the rhythm of a summer…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
21 May 2002
Taranaki’s eponymous mountain is a suitable double for Mount Fuji, or so thinks Edward Zwick (Glory, Legends of the Fall) who will direct Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai later this year. New Zealand’s…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
15 May 2002
Following in the Popstars tradition of grand contributions to global pop culture NZ’s gift to the gameshow format has former tennis star John McEnroe signed on with the BBC to front a ten-series run…
Film & TV | Washington Post
9 May 2002
“What do you get when you cross toxic waste with a bunch of exotic spiders? Eaten.” The Washington Post gives the skinny on Eight Legged Freaks – the feature debut for Kiwi director…
Film & TV | Boston Phoenix
1 May 2002
Jane Campion’s The Piano seated in esteemed company in The A List: The National Society of Film Critics’ 100 Essential Films, edited by Jay Carr.
Film & TV | Boston Phoenix
30 April 2002
Jane Campion’s The Piano seated in esteemed company in The A List: The National Society of Film Critics’ 1 Essential Films, edited by Jay Carr.
Film & TV | Village Voice
29 April 2002
“A detached study of sleepy domestic torpor seizing up into tragic desperation, Christine Jeffs’s debut feature, Rain, bears resemblance to The Virgin Suicides and Ratcatcher Jeffs’s compositions are clean and evocative; and aided…
Film & TV | Salon.com
26 April 2002
“This New Zealand coming-of-age movie isn’t really about anything. When it’s this rich and luscious, who cares?” Direction and acting applauded in Christine Jeff’s debut feature adaptation of Kirsty Gunn’s novella Rain. “A richly detailed movie.” Salon’s…
Film & TV | Age (The)
24 April 2002
BBC adaptation of Arthur Conan-Doyle’s dinosaur romp The Lost World: shot “against the glorious backdrop of New Zealand’s South Island … New Zealand offered diverse landscapes in relatively easy conditions. “New Zealand has a…
Film & TV | Sydney Morning Herald (The)
13 April 2002
The SMH finds Tem Morrison carrying the antipodean banner in the new Star Wars blockbuster, Episode II: Attack of the Clones – the latest installment of George Lucas’s epic fantasy: “The best…
Film & TV | Vanity Fair
31 March 2002
Ex-Shorties original Martin Henderson, after a stint across the ditch, goes west to LA and hits the big-time featuring in Vanity Fair’s annual hyping Hollywood photo essay for his part in the upcoming Windtalkers….
Film & TV | The Sun (UK)
31 March 2002
Pictures from Two Towers, the second instalment of Lord of the Rings, can be viewed in this Sun Online special.
Film & TV | Premiere
31 March 2002
Three New Zealanders – Russell Crowe (no. 28), Peter Jackson (no. 41), and Tim Bevan (no. 51=) feature in Premeire Magazine’s 2002 Power List of the most influential people in Hollywood.
Film & TV | Bay Area Daily | Guardian (The) | iTV
29 March 2002
Tourists lured by LotR: “Too bad they don’t give Oscars for ‘best supporting landmass’. If they did New Zealand’s role in Lord of the Rings would have swept that award”, reports travel editor Anne…
Film & TV | Entertainment News Daily
27 March 2002
LA film producers look to the edge for inspiration in an attempt to reverse the trend of productions increasingly being shot in foreign locations to cut costs: “Los Angeles is not like Wellington”, says…
Film & TV | Bulletin (The)
26 March 2002
“To some, Russell Crowe is still a bit of a Hando – there’s that smouldering, explosive edginess”. For Beautiful Mind director Ron Howard it was Crowe’s “physicality and charisma…his intellect, his mental…
Film & TV | CNN News
24 March 2002
Sir Ian McKellen: “I fell for New Zealand rather heavily. It’s not just the environment, though that does do something to your head…it’s discovering the culture, one which is extremely relaxed and liberal”. And…
Film & TV | Salon.com
24 March 2002
Solace for those lamenting that the southern cross didn’t shine brighter on Hollywood’s star spangled banner: “A Beautiful Mind was a Good Film. Not a brilliant film. If Peter Jackson had directed it, it might have…
Film & TV | BBC News
24 March 2002
They’ll need a nui kete: The technical and creative talent of the NZ film industry acknowledged with Oscars. The Andrew Adamson directed Shrek takes best animated feature. Peter Jackson’s first installment in the Lord…
Film & TV | Irish Independent
8 March 2002
“I was a kid faced with adult fury. This is tattooed on my brain”, recalls Russell Crowe in this Irish Independent interview about growing up in New Zealand as a 14 year-old part-time schoolboy,…
Film & TV | Urban Cinefile
28 February 2002
“Maverick film producer” Kiwi John Maynard, (All Men Are Liars, An Angel At My Table co-produced with Jane Campion) is nominated for Best Film by the Film Critics Circle of Australia for The Bank…
Film & TV | Guardian (The) | New York Post | Oscars
23 February 2002
Lord of the Rings is ready to cast its spell on the Oscars after bewitching the Baftas with five awards, including best film and best director, for Peter Jackson: “I wanted to make films…
Film & TV | BBC News
23 February 2002
“New Zealand has always reserved its greatest adulation for sporting giants like Richard Hadlee and Jonah Lomu, but a place must now be found on the victory dais for director Peter Jackson What…
Film & TV | Sundance Film Festival
19 February 2002
Christina Jeff’s evocative feature Rain screens at the Sundance Film Festival with Merata Mita’s portrait of painter Ralph Hotere, Hotere, and short bursts of edge cinema in Adam Steven’s Beautiful, Tainui Stephen’s…
Film & TV | Nickelodeon
18 February 2002
In the popular cartoon series about Californian skateboarders, the Rocket Power kids skate across New Zealand as the gang enters the NZ Junior Waikikamukau Games, an extreme sports competition that includes wind-surfing, skating,…
Obituaries | Sydney Morning Herald (The)
18 February 2002
One of New Zealand’s best loved screen stars, Kevin Smith, dies aged 38, in a Beijing Hospital. Best known for playing Ares in the hit series Xena:Warrior Princess, Smith suffered head injuries in a…
Film & TV | Telegraph (The)
16 February 2002
Australian media personality and regular on The Bert Newton Show, NZer Charlotte Dawson packs up her Louis Vuitton trunks to return home to her native country. “There are just so many more opportunities for…
Film & TV | Observer (The)
16 February 2002
“Are Tim Bevan (43) and Eric Fellner (41) the most powerful London-based film producers in history? As Working Title (of which they are co-chairmen) is responsible for Bridget Jones’s Diary, Billy…
Film & TV | Age (The)
13 February 2002
…didn’t stop Russell Crowe…talking at the Berlin Film Festival about his edge: “Growing up in New Zealand or Australia you look outwards, fully aware you’re living in the last two major land masses to…
Film & TV | BBC News
12 February 2002
PJ helmed, NZ-made Lord of the Rings…Russell Crowe in Beautiful Mind…Andrew Adamson co-directed Shrek. The Oscars go antipodean as the edge gives Hollywood a prod in tandem with a strong Australian presence. LotR is…
Film & TV | BBC News
12 February 2002
Russell Crowe earns his third consecutive Best Actor Oscar nomination for his depiction of Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash Jr in A Beautiful Mind. If he were to win, Crowe would join the elite…