Russell Crowe - The Hard-Ass
GQ's feature on the ten greatest actors of our generation leads with Wellington-born Russell Crowe and his passion for connecting emotionally with an audience. Does this peg him as a dinosaur? “In those respects—credibility, integrity for the work—absolutely. I don’t think there needs to be another bloke who wants to be a superhero. I think there needs to be more people who are prepared to do the nuts and bolts of the job emotionally, and to take people on those sort of journeys. I just did a movie about a boxer, and I’ve seen it, and I’ve seen its effect on people already, and this isn’t a movie with tricks. There’s no animated bits, no bits of cartoon, no utility belt, no laser guns. It’s just one bloke, you know? I mean, I’m 40 years old now, so to get in that sort of shape…. Jack Aubrey was 228 pounds, Jimmy the Boxer was 172. So there’s all the training up to the shoot, but then during the shoot you have to keep training. But I watch the film, and I see its effect on people, and I know that every one of those miles has something to do with that depth of connection.”
(28 February 2005)

Plays hard, plays fair
All Black captain Tana Umaga received the Pierre Coubertin Trophy from the International Committee of Fair Play on December 9. Previous awardees include Martina Navratilova and Nelson Mandela. The trophy recognised his good sportsmanship in helping Welsh captain Colin Charvis, who was knocked unconscious during a June 2003 Test match in Hamilton. Umaga removed Charvis's mouthguard to ensure he did not swallow his tongue and placed him in the recovery position while play continued around them. Later in December, the Guardian picked Umaga to lead their 2004 dream team, which included fellow All Blacks Joe Rococoko, Daniel Carter (“the season’s big discovery”), Richie McCaw, and Jerry Collins.
(12 December 2004)
    

Taylor-made in New York
Empire waists, lace trim, pinafores and velvet jackets featured in Rebecca Taylor’s www.rebeccataylor.com collection in her runway show at New York Fashion Week. The New York-based Wellingtonian has also added the Bush twins to her growing list of celebrity clientele. According to a recent WSJ article, Jenna and Barbara "went crazy" shopping at Taylor's SoHo boutique, and have been snapped sporting her feminine but edgy designs on numerous occasions.
(4 February 2005)
   

From the ashes
Air NZ was announced the winner of Air Transport World magazine’s annual Phoenix Award in January. The award is given to an airline which “achieves a commercial rebirth through a life-changing transformation.” After its “near-death experience” in 2001, Air NZ has made combined yearly profits of $331 million in its last two financial years, as well as a 10% rise in profit before unusual items and tax for the year to June 30, 2004.
(27 January 2005)
   

Fallen treasures may stand again
Since September 2004, NZ troops have been stationed in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley to oversee the reconstruction of the area following the US-led war against the Taleban. As well as helping rebuild Bamiyan University, the NZ Army is playing a key role in the attempt to piece back together two enormous and ancient Buddha statues, destroyed as ‘false gods’ by the Taleban in 2001. The reconstruction team’s deputy leader, Lieutenant Colonel Greg Davies, feels a sense of loss whenever he sees the destroyed statues. “You wonder why someone would have wanted to damage them, given they were 1800 years old,” he says in the NZ Herald. “It's never going to be the same, I guess.”
(5 December 2005)
    

Memorable moves
The Royal NZ Ballet’s performance of Javier Frutos’ Milagros made the Observer’s top ten dance moments of 2004. The piece toured the UK in May as part of an RNZB triple bill.
(2 January 2005)
  

An international loss
Janet Frame featured in the New York Times as one of many international art world notables to die in 2004, together with Marlon Brando, Ray Charles, Richard Avedon, Julia Child and more. Frame died of cancer on January 29 last year.
(29 December 2004)
     

Science’s conscience
John Ziman, NZ-born scientist and humanist, has died aged 79. “After a brilliant youthful career in physics research, he turned increasingly to reflection on the values and societal entanglements of the scientific endeavour as a whole … Ziman was one of the very few who insisted on being a real scientist, but yet reflective and socially responsible. He paid the price, but helped make possible much that is now taken for granted.” Click here for the full Guardian obituary.
(2 February 2005)

   

Tales of the heart
Colonel John Blashford Snell tells of “losing his heart in NZ” in a Guardian travel feature: “We are so overcrowded here but they have the most beautiful empty country with scenery that is stunning, like a high-altitude version of Scotland … It is the people that make NZ so special. I do not think I have ever been to a country where the people are quite so friendly, and the pace of life is so much better - people have time to stop and talk.”
(8 January 2005)
    

Citizen Baker
World record holding British swimmer Zoe Baker has switched allegiance to NZ, where she has lived and held citizenship since 1999. “I'm hoping to swim for NZ at the Berlin leg of the World Cup in January,” she says. “I won't be swimming for anyone else.” Baker currently holds the world 50m breaststroke record.
(17 December 2004)
  

Headlining act
Neil Dawson’s Fanfare sculpture provided the focal point for Sydney’s famous New Year celebrations. The 20m steel sphere, studded with more than 300 light reflective pinwheels, was suspended from the Harbour Bridge in the semblance of a giant disco ball. Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore described Fanfare as “stunningly beautiful.” The sculpture remained on display for the entire month of January. Dawson’s sculptures have hung in Paris, Kuala Lumpur, and Canberra as well as in Wellington’s Civic Square and Victoria University.
(14 December 2004)
    

Grammy for Fran Walsh
From playing bass in 80s Wellington band Naked Spots Dance via a film or two, Wellington muse Fran Walsh wins a Grammy for Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media: "Into the West," Annie Lennox, Howard Shore and Fran Walsh, songwriters, track from "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King."
(13 February 2005)

425 Million Steps from Intimacy to Elegance
In an ArtForum essay critiquing the newly re-opened  Museum of  Modern Art in Manhattan, Mark Wigley asserts that “While savoring the return of this wonderful collection and expressing our appreciation to the museum, this is not a moment to celebrate architecture for its capacity to maintain subservient yet elegant good manners. Like the best art, the best buildings make us hesitate, disturbing our routines so that we see, think, and feel in ways we simply could not have imagined before.” Mark Wigley is Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia  University in New York. He taught from 1987 to 1999 at  Princeton  University, where he became director of graduate studies in architecture in 1997. He received both his bachelor of architecture (1979) and his Ph.D. (1987) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.  
(February 2005 issue)

Healer of body, mind and soul
The Guardian pays tribute to Duncan Forrest, NZ born surgeon and renowned anti-torture campaigner. An “outstanding and innovative paediatric surgeon,” Forrest spent his career at the vanguard of surgical developments in spina bifida, hydrocephalus and cleft palate. He was also a long-standing member of the medical arm of Amnesty International, for which he became chairman and newsletter editor upon retiring from medicine in 1987, and a volunteer clinician for the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. Forrest spoke and wrote extensively against the use of torture in Syria, Egypt, the Punjab and, more recently, in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
(15 December 2004)

   

Google gets Goodger
Google has hired one of the top programmers who worked on the Firefox project, fueling new speculation that the search giant may enter the browser business. The Mountain View, Calif.-based search company hired 24 year old Auckland University-educated Ben Goodger, http://www.bengoodger.com/ the lead engineer for the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox stand-alone browser, the number one competitor for Microsoft's Internet Explorer (25 million download milestone already achieved). As of Jan. 10, Goodger wrote in his blog Monday, he's been an employee of Google. Half of his time, said a Google spokesman, will be donated back to Mozilla so he can continue working on Firefox.
(25 January 2005)

Our history and future in global spotlight
Otago University graduate Chris Ford penned an in-depth three part overview on NZ race politics for the Global Politician. The first provides a historical backdrop to the events of 2004 when, in Ford’s words, NZ’s widely held status as home to the world’s best race relations was “devastatingly challenged” in the aftermath of Don Brash’s now infamous Orewa Speech. Read the second and third parts here.
(5 January 2005)
    

The real deal
A year on and Rings-related tourist stories still crop up in US papers. This one, originally published in the Washington Post, attempts to find the “real NZ, the part still untouched by the ubiquitous cinema hype.” A whirlwind tour of north and south leaves the writer concluding that “only isolation protects NZ from its own perfection … If [it] could be towed a thousand miles closer to the Northern Hemisphere, 100 million people would live here.”
(31 December 2004)
    

Long-haul rivalry
Australian-born Guardian columnist, Andrew Mueller, can't understand the ongoing attraction of NZ to British holidaymakers. "Australia is worth spending 30 hours in a plane for," he says. "NZ is Wales with more sheep."
(22 January 2005)
   

Top five twice-over
In a Lonely Planet poll conducted in early December, NZ was voted fourth most popular future destination and fourth favourite place already visited. The exhaustive survey drew nearly 20,000 respondents from 167 different countries.
(31 January 2005)
    

Adman personified
“If you ever wanted to make a feature film about the advertising industry, the adland equivalent of Broadcast News, there would be no contest on who should get the starring role.” Worldwide Saatchi & Saatchi CEO and NZ Edge co-founder Kevin Roberts is the subject of a lengthy Independent feature, in which he explains the origin of Lovemarks, the future of supermarket shopping and much, much more.
(13 December 2004)
   

Kiwis breathe easy
NZ has joined Ireland and Norway in banning the smoking of tobacco in bars, casinos and restaurants. “The 75% of NZers who do not smoke have the right to a smokefree environment, and we congratulate the Government for passing this legislation in the face of significant opposition,” says NZ Medical Association Chairperson Dr Trisha Briscoe. “This legislation will help smokers to give up, and will help them to stay smokefree by providing social environments that don't encourage them to smoke.”
(12 December 2004)
    

Reaching new lows
A NZ ship has set a new world record for the southern-most point attained by water. The Spirit of Enderby, a polar research ship exploring NZ and Australia’s sub-Antarctic islands, reached a latitude of 78deg 40min and a longitude of 164deg 24min in Antarctica’s Bay of Whales.
(2 February 2005)
   

Sheep ranch deluxe
Wairarapa’s Wharekauhau Country Estate is given a rapturous write-up in the IHT. “A temple to order and calm, the Estate is located on the southern tip of the North Island of NZ, where the prevailing winds from the north and south often collide to create tempests of mythical proportions.” The author takes stock of the growing number of world class lodges spread about NZ: “All feature the finest NZ produce and wines, and all trade well on the country's seemingly infinite stock of jaw-dropping natural beauty, and some combination of gentlemen's pursuits … or adrenalin-based activities like heli-skiing or quad biking. The result is fresher and more inspired than the traditional Scottish fishing lodge, and more down-to-earth and international than the American equivalent.”
(30 December 2004)
   

Rann – Global warming “frightening”
Mike Rann, the Auckland University-educated and former NZBC journalist and now Labor Premier of South Australia, writes in The Australian that “the world should make no mistake: in 2005, global warming is a real and present weapon of mass destruction. Its current effects – along with frightening predictions of its future impact – demand immediate action, both at home and internationally.”
(9 February 2005)
   

Model students
NZ’s recently remodelled academic examination system (NCEA) is being touted by education reformers in the UK. The NCEA system is almost identical to one proposed by Britain’s former chief schools inspector, Mark Tomlinson, in October last year. By combining academic and vocational examinations under one umbrella, NZ has already seen a decreased number of students leaving school without qualifications – something UK reformers are hoping to emulate.
(3 December 2004)
    

You say Chappell-Hadlee I say Hadlee-Chappell
Sir Richard Hadlee had his audience in stitches at the launch of the inaugural Chappell-Hadlee Trophy series in Melbourne. Among other quips, he noted that the event was called the Hadlee-Chappell Trophy back home. The Black Caps drew the series after a thrilling win in the first match and narrow loss in the second. The decider was rained off.
(6 December 2004)
   

Treading a different path
Not only has Natasha Bedingfield gone double platinum in the UK, been voted Hot New Talent of 2004 by Smash Hits, and secured a million pound recording contract in the US, she also managed to appear in men’s mag FHM wearing substantially more than a bikini. “[In] the video for her first hit, Single, she may have done a lot of hair tossing, but she avoided giving the highly sexualised looks to camera most sexy young singers would be expected to manufacture,” says an admiring Guardian interviewer. “It was the same line she refused to cross for FHM, and it has made her something of a role model for young girls who have no desire to walk around in clothes more suited to a strip lounge than a school playground.” Bedingfield was born in the UK to Kiwi parents and spent her childhood between South London and NZ.
(19 December 2004)
   

Godley’s Own Country
Godley Lake, NZ, features amongst the Observer's crème de la crème of international ski touring routes. “Described as a 'Symphony on Skis', this tour involves a traverse of the Southern Alps from east to west via some the best ski touring terrain in the southern hemisphere including Lake Tekapo, the Godley Valley, the Murchison Glacier and the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers.”
(30 January 2005)
  

Make no bones about it
NZ has again opened a new path in medicine, this time in the field of bone reconstruction. Dr George Dias of Otago University’s anatomy and structural biology department struck on the idea of using a material based on keratin (the chief component of wool, hair and fingernails) to mend bone fractures and damage caused by tumours. The new substance is gradually absorbed by the body and promotes bone repair, as opposed to the old method of bone clips (taken from other parts of the body and thereby causing new complications) or synthetics such as titanium. Wool Equities (NZ) subsidiary Keratec has won the rights to the product from Otago University and is working towards commercializing it into sell to an international market estimated to be US$400m by 2007. Says Keratec Research Manager Dr Rob Kelly, “We've been able to do something no one has been able to do before.”
(23 January 2005)
   

Christopher Shaw leads motor neuron research
Professor Christopher Shaw, Professor of Neurology at Kings College London and Otago  University  graduate in Medicine (1984), is to co-lead a team to clone embryos to study motor neuron disease, in particular those patients whose condition cannot be linked to genes already identified as causing the disease. He will be working with Professor Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, the creator of Dolly the sheep. Motor neuron disease is an umbrella term for a collection of illnesses of varying severity that all lead to loss of muscle function because of nerve failure. The most common is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. About 10 percent of those stricken live for a decade or more, like celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking. However, most die within five years of the onset of symptoms. Drugs prolong life by three to six months. Of about four neurology professors in Britain, four are New Zealanders. 
(8 February 2005)

A task of Biblical proportions
David Norton, associate professor at Wellington’s Victoria University, recently completed the decade-long task of re-editing the English speaking world’s most important religious text: the King James Bible. The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible is accompanied by a volume written by Norton, which details the historical background to his project, explains its editorial principles and provides extensive lists of alternative readings. Guardian: “[The] new text is guaranteed to become one of the century's enduring works of NZ-based scholarship … For Norton, it will be reward enough to learn that the classic's old readers are finding their interest rekindled by his new work and newcomers to the Bible are finding it accessible and pleasurable for the first time.”
(14 December 2004)
   

Poles apart, like minded
The NZ and Austrian governments have formally agreed to cooperate on the implementation of emission reduction projects, in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol. “NZ’s pro-active, pro-business approach to climate change is good news for the economy and the environment,” said ministerial representative Pete Hodgson. “Participation in the Projects to Reduce Emissions program and this arrangement [with Austria] are innovative examples of how businesses can gain a real competitive advantage from tackling climate change.” The agreement was signed at the 10th meeting of the Conference to the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Buenos Aires.
(20 December 2004)
   

Deluxe innovation
Douglas Creek Ltd (Bay of Plenty) has spent the last five years developing Cervelt, a groundbreaking luxury fibre made from the down of NZ deer. Cervelt is a strong light-weight textile with a fibre diameter of just 13 micron (merino wool is 18 and the finest cashmere 15.5). “There are many qualities of Cervelt yet to be quantified,” says Douglas Creek Director Bert McGhee. “[We] believe it is possibly the greatest natural fibre in the world and there is nothing on the market that comes close, with trials in Europe and NZ exceeding all expectations.” Fibre2Fashion clearly agrees, describing Cervelt as “the most revolutionary textile development seen worldwide in over 150 years.”
(20 December 2004)
 

Angler’s paradise
NYT writer travels to NZ to experience the “trout-fishing paradise” of Rotorua first hand. “Visitors fish in streams so clear that the fish can see you. Crouching behind a bush, out of a target's line of vision, it is thrilling to see a trout break the surface to snap at a tempting lure … Some guides will smoke your fish, so you can take it with you after your journey ends. But for the local people, it seems the only acceptable way to eat fish is to do so on the day it is caught - frying the fresh trout in a little butter and finishing it off with a squeeze of lemon. Think of it as fast food, NZ style.”
(30 January 2005)
   

National symbol under question
NZ’s growing movement in support of a new national flag featured in the Daily Telegraph. Wellington businessman Lloyd Morrison officially launched the campaign in January, with the support of numerous high profile sporting, political, and entertainment industry figures. The most popular alternative to the current flag is a white silver fern on a black background, which many Kiwis already regard as their national symbol.
(27 January 2005)
   

Kiwi quiz goes global
The Kids’ Lit Quiz, founded in NZ by educationalist Wayne Mills, is growing increasingly popular in the UK, where it is now in its third year. The 2004 event was won by an all female team from Cherwell School in Oxford, who will travel to NZ for the world finals in 2005. The Kids’ Lit Quiz concept is now being developed in Canada, Australia, Ireland and China.
(7 December 2004)
   

Kiwis on both sides of the camera
Fresh on the heels of her international success with Whale Rider, Niki Caro is to direct an as yet untitled feature for Warner Bros. Starring Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Sissy Spacek and Sean Bean, the film is based on the true story of a sexual discrimination case at a US mining company. Other Kiwis making waves in the international film industry include Melanie Lynskey - pictured above (in Heart of Gold), Truman Show screenwriter Andrew Niccol (wrote and directed Lord of War starring Nicholas Cage), Marton Csokas (appearing in The Great Raid, Aeon Flux and Ridely Scott's Kingdom of Heaven), Geoff Murphy (directing big budget fantasy The Last Unicorn), Ellory Elkayem (directing Return of the Dead 4 & 5 and The Ninth Passenger), Anna Paquin (in Darkness and the upcoming The Squid and the Whale), Daniel Gillies (stars in Western miniseries Into the West), Kerry Fox (in British tabloid expose Rag Tale), Lee Tamahori (directing The Guide with Halle Berry and Next with Julianne Moore), Lloyd Phillips (produced Racing Stripes and The Legend of Zorro), Tim Bevan (producing Everest) and Gavin Scott (has written the screenplay for Hollywood film about the Krakatoa eruption).
(1 February 2005)
  

Connolly lost for words?
Billy Connolly’s World Tour of New Zealand screened in Scotland over December, to widespread appreciation. “Driving his three-wheeled motorbike through some of the world’s most dramatic scenery with the sun blazing overhead, Connolly looks like he’s having the time of his life … [If] Connolly the performer is as rude and lewd as ever, the offstage persona is a world apart. Climbing through the Waitomo caves with their stalagmites and visiting a volcano, Mount Tarawera, he seemed humbled by nature and genuinely interested in everything going on around him.”
(28 December 2004)
   

Old school meets new
Laird Blackwell, Chair of Humanities at Sierra Nevada College (US), his wife Melinda, and a small group from the institution are the first ever non-Waitaha students to be invited to study at the sacred Whare Wananga O Waitaha school in NZ. The Waitaha claim to predate Maori as NZ’s indigenous people. “They want to expand the sacred Whare Wananga to the people of the world,” says Blackwell, who met Waitaha chief elder Makere Ruka Kete Hurako and her husband Peter while on leave in NZ last year. “[Now] they're trusting us to be part of this process.”
(30 December 2004)
    

The Taste of Success
42 Below Manuka Honey Vodka is the main ingredient in star bartender Loren “Lola” Dunsworth’s current favourite cocktail – The Taste of Honey – which gets an impressive plug, complete with recipe, in the LA Times.
(26 January 2005)
   

Seaside hideaway
A Guardian travel special on remote retreats features Bethell’s Beach Cottages, run by Trude and John Bethell-Plaice. “The cottages have decking for alfresco dining, private gardens and sea views. A short walk away is Bethell's beach: huge, wild and remote, the sand is black and sparkling from iron deposits, and so quiet that if you're lucky you'll spot seals basking in the sun.”
(8 January 2005)
  

Wine double feature
A Malaysian Star story on the NZ wine industry takes as its focus the award winning Villa Maria winery. According to the writer, NZ “has developed a unique niche on the world wine stage, with wines characterised by an intensity in flavour that’s directly related to climatic conditions.” The Richmond Times-Dispatch featured a broader overview of the “wacky and fascinating” world of NZ wine. Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc are recognised as the strongest varietals, with Allan Scott, Cloudy Bay, Giesen, Goldwater, Grove Mill, Isabel, Matua Valley, Nobilo, Omaka Springs, Te Mata and Villa Maria named the vineyards to watch.
(17 December 2004)
   

My Favourite Ape
Compared with his work as an Oscar-winning director and the filmmaker behind the most popular trilogy in movie history, Peter Jackson's first attempt to remake King Kong was by any measure amateurish. Jackson painted the Manhattan skyline on an old bedsheet, constructed the Empire State Building out of cardboard and pinched his mother's shawl to craft the giant gorilla's fur. It didn't look like much, Jackson admits, but then again he was 13 years old. If filming The Lord of the Rings was Jackson's cinematic passion, remaking King Kong has been a lifelong obsession. For as much resolve as the 43-year-old Jackson exhibited in adapting JRR Tolkien's books about hobbits and elves, the director has shown even more perseverance in retelling the legendary beauty-and-the-beast story. Jackson essentially owes his career to the original 1933 King Kong: Had he not seen it, he says, he might not have become a filmmaker.
(5 February 2005)