Dutton’s Digital Legacy
Arbiter of culture Denis Dutton was one of the most prominent patrons of the arts of the 21st century, writes Sam Sacks for the Wall Street Journal, reflecting on Dutton’s legacy. While being a…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Loving Lucretia
Auckland-born actress Lucy Lawless returns to ancient Rome as Lucretia in the prequel to Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, which premieres on American television channel Starz on January 21. Lawless…
She can’t be serious
Auckland-born comedian and actress Stephanie Paul recently performed at Edinburgh’s The Stand Midweek Comedy Cabaret. Edinburgh Evening News reviewer Neil McEwan wrote that, Paul had “far slicker comedy stylings” than her predecessor of the…
Sense of spaciousness
The Phoenix Foundation’s fourth album Buffalo is reviewed by the Guardian’s Dave Simpson who writes that “songwriting this good doesn’t come along often.” Like the xx — whose sense of spaciousness they share —…
North Carolina to Maine
Auckland-based guitarist Mark Mazengarb will tour with American musician Loren Barrigar “from North Carolina to Maine” later this year, after a successful 2010 collaboration in Nashville at the annual Chet Atkins Appreciation Society convention,…
Drawn into the fold
Christchurch City Art Gallery is a “place that works” according to design and architecture publication Metropolis Magazine, connecting to the natural environment “through modern architectural form that resonates with the self-image of people…
Time is precious
Colyton man Bill Williams has set a new world record for the Largest Collection of Clocks; Williams owns 321 timepieces. The previous Guinness world record for the Largest Collection of Clocks was 19. They…
Theatrical Isolation
Paul Stephanus, director of the play Quarantine, plans to ferry his audience at dusk to a disused convalescence chamber on Matiu/Somes Island in Wellington harbour during next month’s Fringe Festival. Once the audience disembarks…
London’s NZ treasure
Friends Peter Gordon, New Zealand chef, 47, and Briton Tim Lott, acclaimed writer, 54, are interviewed in The Independent on Sunday about how they met, their differences and Gordon’s tartan. “It was around the…
Humbug Like the Lolly
New Zealand abstract painter Peter Adsett and architect Sam Kebbell’s collaboration on Adsett’s Mornington Peninsula, Melbourne property, ‘Humbug’ features in the summer 21/11 issue of Architectural Review Australia. The building had to serve two…
A Renaissance Man
“Denis Dutton, a distinguished philosopher, writer and digital-media guru who founded Arts & Letters Daily, one of the first Web sites to exploit the Internet as a vehicle for meaningful intellectual exchange, has died…
Tintin draws closer
Three new images from the Peter Jackson-produced and Steven Spielberg-directed 3-D motion capture film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, have just been released online. Secret of the Unicorn is the…
Displaced in New York
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa was amongst those present at the annual Christmas night dinner in the baronial Lincoln Center duplex of Sissy and Max Strauss in New York. Each holiday, more than a hundred…
Customise Your Cool
Auckland-based One Cool Habitat designs small portable container habitats for use as home offices, studys or sleep outs and ships them around the world. The company’s site says: “Our design is your…
Part of Camden history
New Zealander Francis Upritchard, 33, is one of 3 artists and designers included in a Camden Arts Centre (CAC) exhibition curated by British artist and Turner prize-winner Simon Starling. In ‘Never the Same River…
Taking on the World
New Zealand quintet The Naked and Famous have already topped local singles and album charts and now they want to repeat their success globally. They’re off to a blistering start after being named in…
Generations Loved Her
New Zealand-born author Ruth Park, who moved to Sydney in 1942 and who was the author of classic Australian books such as The Harp in the South and The Muddleheaded Wombat, has died in…
Royal Advertising
Shortly after the royal wedding date was announced, Education New Zealand published a quarter-page advertisement in Britain’s The Times newspaper offering Prince William and Kate Middleton’ s first-born child a scholarship to a New…
Films advancing art
“The most exhilarating show of 2th-century art to be seen in this country right now is by the New Zealand artist Len Lye,” Laura Cummings writes in a Guardian review of the retrospective exhibition…
Island artscape
Bailey, a full-time artist whose Maori, Irish and Dutch heritage is central to his work is one of more than 1 who make Waiheke Island their home, many of whom open their studios to…
Alcatraz role for Neill
Actor Sam Neill has a role in the upcoming Fox pilot series Alcatraz which chronicles the efforts of a team of FBI agents tracking down a group of missing prisoners and guards who reappear…
Onward to Invercargill
Wellington actor Bret McKenzie will co-star with Australian television and radio personality Hamish Blake in a New Zealand feature film, Two Little Boys, which is due to start filming in January in Southland. Based…
Classic reimagining
“Reports that Cate Blanchett and Orlando Bloom will reprise their Lord of the Rings roles in The Hobbit suggest Jackson’s two-part production may be more epic than its source material,” the Guardian’s Ben…
Gimblett’s workspace
Auckland photographer John Savage and Auckland-born New York painter Max Gimblett have collaborated on a book from Italian art publisher Charta about Gimblett’s studio and home on The Bowery. The book was launched at…
Back on the Wards
Auckland-born actor Martin Henderson is profiled by Canadian television station site Global Lethbridge. Henderson, who currently lives in Los Angeles, will soon appear on the American small screen as “legendary Dr Ben Keeton” in…
Two shorts for Sundance
Two New Zealand short films have been selected for the 27th Sundance Film Festival which runs from January 2 to 3. Both short films are part of a group of seven to be selected…
Star rising in London
New Zealander Madeleine Pierard, 29, won the 25 Lexus Song Quest and as a result spent four years at London’s Royal College of Music and the National Opera Studio, taking up a two-year contract…
Tamahori’s double
Director Lee Tamahori’s latest film The Devil’s Double, a story about the body double for Saddam Hussein’s eldest son, will premiere at next year’s Sundance Film Festival. Tamahori, 6, best known for the 1994…
Breaking the NY ice
Actor and comedian Jemaine Clement recently made an appearance at the opening of sporting apparel line Icebreaker’s new Manhattan store. Examiner.com wrote: “While the staff was getting ready for the big grand opening, a…
Awesome US deal
Auckland hip-hop talent David Dallas, formerly known as Con Psy, has partnered with American label Duck Down Records in a publishing, distributing, and marketing deal. The half-Samoan artist reached No. 1 on the New…
Ink star in town
New Zealand tattooist and star of Hollywood reality show LA Ink Dan Smith, 3, got his first tattoo in the kitchen of a house of a few friends who lived by acclaimed tattoo…
Adventure Shared
Bachelorette’s second full-length release My Electric Family is reviewed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by David Bowling, who writes that Alpers has “a mind that doesn’t work like the normal musician, which is part of…
String release
The New Zealand String Quartet has recorded an album of Asian composers in St Anne’s Church, Toronto. The ensemble’s fifth disc for the label Naxos includes Tan Dun’s Eight Colours, T?ru Takemitsu’s A way…
Distinctive Edginess
Unnerved: The New Zealand Project, an exhibition of 26 contemporary local artists in various media, including photography, sculpture, video, painting and installation has opened at the National Gallery of Victoria in Brisbane. The pieces…
What a scream
Promotional photographs of actress Anna Paquin in the fourth instalment of the Scream series have just been released in the United States, with the film due to hit American cinemas in April next year….
U2 pay tribute
The 29 men who perished in the Pike River coal mine tragedy were honoured during the song One Tree Hill at the November 27 U2 concert, with their names listed on a massive stage…
Animating beauty
University of Canterbury philosophy lecturer Denis Dutton has collaborated with TEDTalks and animator Andrew Park creating a video illustrating the provocative argument about beauty — that art, music and other beautiful…
Drawn to the horizon
It is the lot of New Zealanders to be peripatetic, says author Lloyd Jones, 55, in an interview with the Independent on Sunday’s James Kidd in Streatham, south London. But at least they have…
Acclaim for debut
Hastings-born author Alison Wong’s debut novel As the Earth Turns Silver, which won the 29 Janet Frame Award for Fiction and the Fiction Award winner at the 21 New Zealand Post Book Awards, has…
New face of Milky Bar
Hinetaapora Short, 8, from Rotorua is the world’s first female Milky Bar Kid, beating more than 15 entries in a nation-wide search scoring the highest percentage of more than 11, total votes received. Three…
In-tents Experience
The Auckland Theatre Company performance of Cabaret is praised by Los Angeles Times blogger Christopher Smith, who writes that company director and actor Michael Hurst is “fortunate to have a compelling Sally Bowles in…
Record Goldie Sale
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has sold one of the finest paintings by renowned New Zealand artist Charles Goldie for the record price of $573, at Auckland’s International Art Centre. The oil on canvas, Forty…
FBI role for Curtis
Actor Cliff Curtis, 42, takes on the role of a top forensic consultant for the FBI in the ABC Dana Delany-led midseason drama Body of Proof. Rotorua-born Curtis — who also appeared as flight…
Bric-a-brac lucky
A painting bought for $5 at a Northland flea market is expected to sell for more than $2, at an auction to be held at Aesthete Gallery in Hamilton on 22 November. The unsigned…
Structural winnings
The Supreme Court of New Zealand in Wellington, designed by New Zealand-based Warren & Mahoney and completed in 29, has won the Institution of Structural Engineers Structural Award in the heritage category, for its…
In the whanau
Producers of smash hit film Boy Ainsley Gardiner and Cliff Curtis took the independent producers of the year kudo at the New Zealand’s Screen Production and Development Agency conference in November. The cousins…
Conchord revival
The Flight of the Conchords are in discussion to bring a live version of the cult television series to Australia and New Zealand next year. US comedian Arj Barker, who plays the philosophising stoner…
There is such a thing
New Zealand dairy company Fonterra has created a new yoghurt tailored for men, filled with fruit, seeds, grains and barley, under the brand name Mammoth Supply Co. Its marketing plays on social stereotypes of…
And How Beautiful
“One stunning image outdoes another in the hurtling, circling, swooping cinematography of Ben Seresin, a New Zealander whose palette is restrained but never suppressed,” the Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern writes in a review…
Simple literary lines
The New Zealand Book Council is running an advertisement in cinemas throughout the country with a simple message: “Go home, and read a book.” The ad, which rolls after the film credits, was created…
In love with Brooke
“In early 28, I fell in love with New Zealand indie-pop-rock sensation Brooke Fraser’s second album, Albertine,” Speakers in Code blogger Jason Gonulsen writes. “I played it everywhere — in my house, in my…
Mozart deters crims
Since 29, in a downtown Christchurch mall, music by Mozart and other classical composers has been played over speakers to deter would-be criminals. The music has led to a steep fall in petty crime,…
Covering the dream
Britain’s got Talent star Susan Boyle performed Crowded House classic Don’t Dream It’s Over on The Oprah Winfrey Show in October with the cover also included on Boyle’s new Christmas album The Gift. “Don’t…
Psychological Primer
Wellington author and English teacher Denis Wright’s debut young adult novel Violence 11 is reviewed in the Los Angeles Times by Susan Carpenter who says the book “is a solid psychological primer that should…
Tears over Billy
“I read a picture book called Billy by Kate De Goldi to my daughter a few nights ago, and one of my tear glands experienced a distinct tweak,” British award-winning novelist David Mitchell admits…
Leading the race
Actor Grant Bowler, 42, has been named host of the globetrotting reality television show, The Amazing Race Australia. Auckland-born Bowler has had a big year in film and television, working on projects such as…
