Maximus vs. Hannibal
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…
Blog Archives
Scarfies in Shanghai
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.
Ludic love
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…
Black and White or Rainbow Nation?
Kathy Marks visits Waitangi and gives an outside perspective on the state of the nation 162 years after the treaty: “New Zealand is truly a bicultural nation, and the sense of two races living…
Counted the Neighbours Yet?
Statistics New Zealand is making census data available online free of charge. Formerly $3,300 to $25,000 for special software, now users can simply transfer data and use their own software. The US, UK and…
No Dodo
New Scientist features the Kakapo’s claw-back from the brink of extinction: “What’s green, nocturnal, looks like an owl, smells sweet and fruity, and makes strange noises from growls and “skrarks” to metallic “chings” and deep resonant…
Windies Wiped Out
Confirming their 3rd place ranking in the ICC World Test Cricket Championship the Black Caps achieved a remarkable milestone with their first ever test series victory against the West Indies on…
Chop Till You Drop
NZ axemen Jason Wynyard and David Bolstad came out ahead in the points race at the 8th Annual Ducks Unlimited Great Outdoors Festival in Memphis, Tennessee. Over 72,000 people attended the Festival, with the Stihl Timbersports stage…
Cheers, Digger
A Kiwi beer has won at the Australian beer awards. Founders Brewery from Nelson won the accolade of Champion Small Brewery for its organic range including Tall Blonde, Red Head and Long Black.
Compelling Texture. Big Finish.
If you can’t afford The Ivy’s 60 quid for Sam Neill’s pinot noir, alternatives are Malcolm Gluck’s affordable favourites: Church Road and Villa Maria, while across the Atlantic, Leslie Sirocco’s vote goes to the Lawson’s Dry Hills “palate-perking” pinot…
Advance New Zealand Unfair
Lead paragraph to Australian Yachting editorial: “What is it with New Zealanders? Not only do they bash us at rugby (both literally and metaphorically) and regularly make off with the Melbourne Cup, they also have the hide,…
Aotearoa Adornment
Auckland artist George Nuku’s mother-of-pearl pendants draw inspiration from his Maori cultural heritage and feature on the cover of June’s American Vogue. “Pile on multiple pendants for a modern, urban edge”, Elle’s ‘make it your…
Pacific mix
Jazz has been described as the “original dance music” and one of the genre’s legendary labels, Verve, has dipped into its vaults and commissioned new mixes for contemporary dancefloors. Kiwi Mark de Clive Lowe…
Where is New Zealand again?
Doing the Billie’s Kiss PR, Elizabeth Knox pauses and reflects on the exotic settings for her books with a wry comment on her cultural identity: “I know I’m a New Zealand writer, but I’m…
Scene stealing
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…
Peter Jackson
How on (middle?) earth did one of the Twentieth Century’s most mythic and popular works of literature, JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, end up being translated into cinema in the largest movie…
OE to Go UN
Kiwis will have plenty of fellow travellers when they travel to the UK for the two year woring holiday scheme. In the past, 96% of applicants came from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa,…
We’re All Royalists Here?
Miss representation? Put that portrait of the Queen back on the lounge wall: “All New Zealanders are royalists, not like the Aussies,” proclaims the Dame (Kiri te Kanawa). Perhaps this is not surprising coming from someone…
#53 Praise for Rain
Edge Message #53 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM TO NEW ZEALAND EDGE GLOBAL COMMUNITY: 1350 words so please stick with it. Today: 1. Newzedge: 120 global online media ref to nz achievement /category/newzedge/ 2. Re-Entry: brand new Coming/Leaving…
The Native Post
Connected to Congo at 56000 bps, former NZ TV reporter Moana Sinclair has been hired by the UN to coordinate the newly-formed Indigenous Media Network, largely linked via the web. Her experience overcoming obstacles and achieving mainstream success reinforces her…
Some Like It Hot
Volcano enthusiasts were recently treated to a bonanza 500 kilometres north east of New Zealand. They discovered three new hydrothermal fields along the Ring of Fire which marks the boundary between the earth’s Australian and Pacific…
Domination
“It is apparently not enough that New Zealand have just waltzed away with their third successive World Sevens Series title. So complete was their domination of the Emirates-sponsored London leg of the International Rugby Board’s season-long tournament…
Postcard-spotting?
Lynn Barber leaves the trains at home and follows the postcard route through godzone, finds it to be “truly paradise” but also close to 100% boring. “To appreciate NZ you need to be all the things…
Best Haul
Ironically for Lynn, NZ was once again voted “Best Long Haul Country” over Australia, Cuba, Japan, Thailand et al by Guardian and Observer readers – they must have got off the bus and visited at…
The novel is dead, long live the novel
Keri Hulme joins a list of postcolonial booker people ratttling the bones of the form: “The years the Booker Prize doesn’t go to an English novel the winning book tends to be an interesting…
Young Man and the River
Fly-fishing enthusiast Andy Pietrasik raved about his recent trip to the rivers of the South Island. Following his guide up the river in search of fish made him feel like “Ernest Hemingway’s shadow,” so perhaps…
Rain
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…
Give Me Your Skilled, Your Entrepreneurial
Immigration issues are foremost in a feature interview with Helen Clark in The Bulletin. Clark contributes to the discussion about immigrants’ contribution to growth, or lack thereof, and muses on NZ’s wider place in the world….
Mount Taranakiyama
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…
Photographer and philanthropist
Internationally renowned baby photographer, nz-edged Anne Geddes, was honoured at the 38th Annual Childhelp USA Humanitarian Awards in May. As well as marketing a highly successful line of calendars, gift-cards, books and baby-wear,…
On the Edge of Your … Chair
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…
Bus-class High Flyer
Kiwi Ray Webster is Chief Executive of pioneering no-frills airline Easy Jet. Touching down in the market in a big way Webster works by the mantra that, “Airlines are about people, not about airplanes and airports.”…
Canterbury Crusaders Find Rugby Holy-land
“New Zealand’s Crusaders put up a persuasive case as world rugby’s champion provincial team with their unbeaten sweep through the Super 12 series” … sealing the tournament with a dominant 31-13 win over the ACT Brumbies. Earlier the…
IT – NZ Untapped
Columnist for leading US IT Industry zine InfoWorld raves after visiting NZ, “New Zealand is a marvelous country populated with some of the most talented people in computing. Part of the irrational exuberance [of the dot…
Bug Movie 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…
Life and Loves …
NZEdged author Fay Weldon traverses a contradictory, but never dull life, in her autobiography Auto de Fay and finds her muse in the edge: “Always! Yes, always! I wanted to see more, it was…
Zespri Patriotism
In a fascinating 2-part feature the LATimes slices open the Kiwifruit and looks at the history of NZ’s No.1 horticultural product, from poor crop protection: “Even without a patent, the trademark “kiwifruit,” if copyrighted, could have become the…
Model Animal Behaviour
An economic model developed by Massey University-based resource economist Dr Robert Alexander and postgraduate researcher Chris Fleming, could improve our understanding of how to help endangered species. By determining how much money particular how much money particular…
Possum Fur-y Unfashionable
”I should break your other bloody arm.” At a Prada party Daily Telegraph fashion editor, Hilary Alexander, famously incurs the wrath of a PETA activist Dan Matthews for wearing a possum-fur sling. ”I was…
David Low – Century’s Best Cartoonist – On Show
David Low, the New Zealand master satirist “with an outsider’s perspective” and acclaimed as the Twentieth Century’s greatest cartoonist has his work revisited (including his most famous caricature Colonel Blimp) in a major exhibition…
Maori.nz?
A decision is close to being made by InternetNZ on the outcome of an application from the New Zealand Maori Internet Society to consider a new Net neighborhood for Maori-related Web sites.
Windbreakers
NZ’s belching animals: Kiwi scientists have worked out how to reduce greenhouse emissions from cow emissions. “Lowering New Zealand’s methane emissions is necessary if the antipodean country is to meet its targets under the Kyoto Protocol,…
Real-life Charlotte Gray
“The exploits of Nancy Wake, who fought with the French Resistance, make the plot of the film Charlotte Gray look tame.” A new biography of NZ-born Wake by Peter Fitzsimons celebrates the life of the…
New Zealand: Closer to the Edge
Independent editor at large Janet Street Porter finds she can’t get close enough: “No wonder I’ve been back to New Zealand three times in three years. Sod the 20-something hours in the plane; the end result…
For the People
Don’t cry for me Argentina. The BBC looks at the progress of KiwiBank: ” New Zealand, more often famed for its sheep population than its financial sector, is attempting to shake-up its banking system with a…
Off the Sheep’s Back?
The BBC looks at the changing iconic status and importance of the sheep to the New Zealand economy. Sheep numbers have fallen from 70 million to 40 million in the last two decades and farmers are…
The Piano Makes All Time A-List
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.
Ed from the Edge: “World’s Greatest Living Explorer”
“Humble beekeeper turned world’s greatest living explorer” – Legend Sir Edmund Hillary leads the pack of the ‘ten greatest living explorers’ in an extensive Vanity Fair photo essay. “‘Those magnificent men’ …the men and…
Sir Peter Blake Honoured at World Sport Awards
Sir Peter has been posthumously given both the Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award and the Laureus Sport for Good Award at the 2002 World Sports Awards in Monte-Carlo. Sir Peter, was a founding member of the Academy…
Utopia: Wild at Heart
“The grandeur of this place is so extreme it makes you want to dive right into the heart of it”, Aotearoa-NZ is May cover country of one of the world’s most prestigious travel magazines, National Geographic…
Kiwi Sites in Webby Race
Two Christchurch based websites are in the running for Webbies – the internet version of the Oscars. They are University of Canterbury Philosophy of Art Professor Denis Dutton’s brain-tickling Arts and Letters Daily…
The Piano
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.
WorldEdge: Sydney Fashion Week
The Australian Review headline: “Kiwis upstage hosts at fashion week”. WORLD’s youthful postmodern colour blast made the cover of the all the major papers. And Zambesi’s bomber jackets coupled with their trademark structuralist dresses…
One Giant Leap
“New Zealand newcomer Whiri Mako Black’s haunting and silken soulfulness” joins Robbie Williams, Horace Andy, Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, Nenah Cherry and Grant Lee Buffalo in a celebration of world music on the collection…
Rugby Sevens World Champions
New Zealand won the World Rugby Sevens series title for the third consecutive year, wrapping up the series with a convincing 29-5 victory over South Africa in the Malaysia Sevens final. Said coach Gordon Tietjens: “I am…
Rain: “under the surreal glare of a sunburnt hangover”
“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…
