Looking Back As If Beggars
Wellington band The Garbage & the Flowers originally released Eyes Rind as if Beggars in 1997, but these songs were recorded earlier in the decade, Wire reviewer Frances Morgan writes….
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Return To Middle Earth
“In New Zealand, there is a peculiar clarity to the sunlight,” Lonely Plant traveller Alex Von Tunzelmann writes for the BBC. “Highlights blaze; shadows are cast very, very dark. The effect makes the grass…
Bevan’s Gold Win
Queenstown-born film producer Tim Bevan (standing left in picture) took the stage with fellow cast and crew at the 70th Golden Globes Awards for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy for Les Misérables. The…
Tackling Teen Angst
New Zealand director Andrew Niccol’s film The Host is one of several films to be released over the next three months targeting “voracious” teen movie goers. In his quest to adapt Stephenie…
On The Run And Insanely Hot
Taking a page from Strike Back, the new series Banshee also stars an insanely hot foreigner who sounds more American than she does, according to New York Post television critic Linda Stasi, who writes…
Fun-Loving MP Lit Our Screens
As New Zealanders gathered around their black and white sets to experience the miracle of television for the first time the face many of them will have seen staring back at them was that…
Fresh HBO Role For Starr
New Zealand actor Antony Starr, 37, who played twins Van and Jethro West in Outrageous Fortune, has a role in the new HBO/Cinemax action-drama series Banshee, produced by Alan Ball of True…
Our Dark Side
Jane Campion’s seven-part miniseries Top of the Lake, which was shot in and around Queenstown, premieres on the Sundance Channel in the United States on 18 March. “It’s the most comprehensive documentation of modern…
New Look Cathedral Unveiled
Christchurch’s new cathedral, which will be made of cardboard and will house 700 people, is due for completion in April next year. The city’s magnificent Gothic revival cathedral hewn from local basalt was irreparably…
Quigley’s Own Heroic Symphony
New Zealand author Sarah Quigley’s novel The Conductor is a “vivid evocation” of winter in Leningrad during the years 1941-42. “As the German army besieged the city, her citizens starved, corpses clogged the snowy…
Through A Child’s Eyes
In Sailing the Unknown: Around the World With Captain Cook, American poet Michael J. Rosen imagines the journal of the real-life 11-year-old Nicholas Young, the youngest sailor aboard Captain Cook’s Endeavour. “We know very…
Role Of The Year
New Zealand actress Melanie Lynskey’s role as depressed twentysomething divorcée in Hello I Must Be Going is one of Paste magazine’s ‘25 Best Movie Performances of 2012’. “Most recognizable for her recurring role on…
Surprise Involvement
When the premiere of West of Memphis was first announced for the Sundance Film Festival this year, the participation of Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson was something of a surprise, not…
Outsider Looking In
“This smart and sophisticated novel by prolific New Zealand writer C.K. Stead surveys the atrocities of our time – the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, the Balkan and Iraq wars, the…
Must See On The West End
Everyone should see New Zealander Sam Wills in The Boy with Tape on His Face, writes Telegraph reviewer Dominic Cavendish. “But not everyone should sit near the front or close to the aisles,” Cavendish…
Review Of Whimsy
Magazine illustrator New Zealander Peter Campbell’s work is collected in Artwork and describes his 30-year career as art director, contributor (writing more than 300 articles) and, from 1993, cover artist of the…
Look At That
Auckland-born Academy Award-nominated director Andrew Adamson – of Shrek and The Chronicles of Narnia fame – returns to the realm of the fantastic with Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, a film that captures eye-popping…
Woman Alone
“A mythic quest involving fellowship and solitude; the startling beauty, by turns lush and austere, of a wild land: if you now have visions of The Hobbit floating in your heads, please banish them,”…
Bond Gets Nastier
Researchers from the University of Otago have analysed 22 James Bond films and discovered that violent acts in the films have more than doubled since Dr No in 1962. In the first 007 film,…
Lord of the Rings was Perfect
“The Lord of the Rings was the work of a filmmaker perfectly in tune with his source material. Its too-muchness — the encyclopedic detail, the pseudoscholarly exposition, the soaring allegory, the punishing length —…
Discerning Types
Melanie Lynskey, 35, is one of ten Indie actors on the verge of mainstream, according to Loren DiBlasi writing for Highbrow Magazine. “In 1994, the New Zealand native won raves for her performance alongside…
Home On The Range
A Queenstown detached home with “views of the mountains, deer roaming nearby, and hills that change colour with the seasons,” is the Wall Street Journal’s ‘House of the Day’. On the market for NZ$4.35…
Improvising Love In NY
New Zealand filmmaker Florian Habicht, 30, lets the people direct his tale of romance in the Big Apple. In New York he fell in love every few minutes, Habicht says. “Like with life, with…
Boyens’ Cinematic Adventure
Asked one day in 1997 if, as a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, she might have any interest in helping out friends and fellow New Zealanders Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh adapt The Lord of…
Jackson Our Resident Wonka
“With his first of three Hobbit films, An Unexpected Journey, Peter Jackson daringly attempts the same manoeuvre , aspiring to capture the essence of his…
Banking on Dancing Colours
Christchurch-born Len Lye’s “deliriously jazzy 1930s animation for the Post Office Savings Bank shows public information films needn’t be dull,” Judith Mackrell writes for the Guardian. “The colours might look late-60s-psychedelic; some of the…
Collected Stories of Our Time
Auckland University has launched the first anthology of New Zealand literature bringing together fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose into one volume. The 1184-page Anthology of New Zealand Literature was edited by Jane Stafford…
Mementoes of Freedom
Auckland-born photographer Paul Nathan’s new book Generation Ink: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was launched at Saatchi & Saatchi in New York on 29 November. Generation Ink features 55 images of a “generation of 20-somethings…
Fans Flock to Spot the Stars
One hundred thousand Hobbit fans descended on Wellington’s Courtenay Place to catch a glimpse of their favourite Tolkien character strutting the 500m-long red carpet ahead of the world premiere first installment of the trilogy,…
New Zealand: ‘It really is Paradise’ Says Bollywood’s Vidya Balan
Vidya Balan, one of Bollywood’s biggest superstars, rates New Zealand as her favourite place. She spoke to Filmfare, India’s leading film magazine, about her trip and shared some of her New Zealand photos with…
We, Family
New Zealand-born director Barnaby Southcombe, 40, has cast his mother, English actress Charlotte Rampling, 66, in the title role of his latest film, I, Anna. The adapted screenplay was written by Southcombe based on…
Directing the Big Guns
Wellington-born director Andrew Dominik, 45, who has lived in Australia most of his life, said it took 45 minutes via text message to hammer out a deal with Brad Pitt to produce their latest…
Filmmakers Galore
When it comes to supporting fledgling filmmakers, part of New Zealand’s challenge is the sheer number of them. Inspired by Peter Jackson’s success, young people are swarming film schools here. Weta Digital itself is…
Candid For Nikon Ad
New Zealand singing star Kimbra sings Nina Simone’s “Plain Gold Ring” in this first in a Nikon-sponsored series of “Women In Music”-themed “Candid Covers.” “I was aware of Nina Simone as a kid growing…
What Stead Reads
Author C.K. Stead, 80, talks to the Financial Times about which books changed his life and what he’s currently reading. “The cat is on the bedside table, the books are on the floor,” Stead…
Rider Requests
Ladyhawke wants sandwich ingredients on her rider, thanks, and some socks. Speaking to the Irish Times’ Tony Clayton-Lea, ahead of a recent Dublin show, Ladyhawke said that on her “fantasy rider”, she’d have a…
Art Grows on Trees
A survey exhibition of New Zealand artist Billy Apple’s work is planned for 2013 at the Auckland Art Gallery to celebrate the brand’s 50th year. The artist formerly known as Barrie Bates talked to…
Doctor Turned Astronaut
New Zealand actor Martin Henderson, 38, has been cast as the lead in a new NBC soap thriller from executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer, The Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives. “Henderson will play Kyle…
Exquisite Cutlery
New Zealand artist Francis Upritchard has collaborated with London art collector Valeria Napoleone on a cookbook of Northern Italian recipes, with Upritchard contributing a piece entitled, ‘Balata dining’, (2010) featuring in the ‘meat’ section….
Universal Appeal
New Zealand children’s film Kiwi Flyer has won the Audience Award at the Schlingel – 18th International Film Festival for Children and Young Audience held in in Chemnitz, Germany. Tony Simpson, director…
Unexpected Welcome
Over the next few months at Wellington Airport, a giant 13m Gollum diving for 4m fish, will welcome visitors to ‘the middle of Middle Earth’. Designed by Weta Workshop, and built by Japanese artist…
Jackson’s Empire Five
“There’s a new Jackson Five in town,” Empire magazine says. “The December issue of Empire five gorgeous 3D lenticular covers to celebrate The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” “Your choices are; Galadriel (Cate Blanchett),…
Best of Both Hemispheres
Wellington-born composer Lyell Cresswell has lived in Edinburgh since the early 1980s writing regularly for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO). “His latest piece for them, a triple concerto premiered here with the Swiss Piano…
McIndoe’s Genius on Stage
The life of New Zealand-born plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe was portrayed in The Guinea Pig Club, a play recently on at York Royal Theatre. The play explored the unorthodox techniques of the man. At…
New Contemporary Novel
Award-winning New Zealand novelist C.K. Stead, 80, was a guest on BBC series The Forum talking about his latest novel, Risk, which tells the story of a lawyer who turns to banking…
What’s Not to Like
Raised in the North Island town of Ruawai, Sydney-based actor Roy Billing, 65, lives with his New Zealand wife Linda Tizard, a former entertainment industry executive, in the suburb of Coogee. Coogee, Billing says,…
Talent Embedded in Genes
Up-and-coming actress Alice Englert, 17, the daughter of New Zealand film director Jane Campion (“similar talents seem to be embedded in her genes”), stars in Ginger & Rosa, “an evocative and beautifully shot portrait…
Back to His Roots Playing Cop
Sam Neill plays Belfast police chief C.I. Campbell in new BBC gangster drama, Peaky Blinders, which is currently shooting in Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool. While Neill is one of the more well-known New Zealand…
Yeah, Shuffle This
New Zealand-born singer/songwriter Willy Moon’s song ‘Yeah Yeah’ has secured prime placement: usage in Apple’s latest iPod Shuffle and Nano ad campaign. The coveted spotlight results in Moon’s first Billboard chart ink, as the…
Master of All Surveyed
“Watching on a monitor, tucked out of sight , is Peter Jackson, the magician of Middle Earth,” Kim Masters writes for The Hollywood Reporter. “He had to overcome many…
Middle Earth Mania
The country’s national tourism slogan “100% Pure New Zealand” has become “100% Middle-earth”, and in the days leading up to the premiere of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Wellington will be…
Loving What He Does
With his signature laid-back New Zealand-accented rambles often breaking into unintelligible hysterics and high-pitched impersonations, 39-year-old BBC 1 radio DJ-come-presenter-come-live-DJ-come-producer-come-general-music-guru Zane Lowe has attracted skepticism from those who find it hard…
Discovering Sounds of Home
New Plymouth-born saxophonist and composer Hayden Chisholm, 37, toured Germany to learn about its rich folk music tradition – and why the Germans have a problem with it. His back-to-the-roots journey was captured in…
Inside His Head
New Zealand-raised filmmaker and host of online show Inside Horror Elric Kane, who currently lives in Los Angeles, talks to Werewolf editor Gordon Campbell about the show and all things horror-fic. “The first…
Local Talent Lights NY
New Zealanders Hayley Heartbreak, Elspeth Hoskin and Johnson Witehira, winners of the Chorus NZ national competition for tertiary student artists, recently displayed their artwork on the neon billboards of Times Square in New York….
Minting Hobbits
New Zealand Post is minting coins and printing stamps featuring characters from Middle-earth to commemorate the upcoming film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The coins feature Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Grey, dwarf king Thorin…
