Film & TV | We Got This Covered
26 March 2015
New Zealand is once again making a name for itself in the horror genre with Deathgasm thanks to Kiwi producer Ant Timpson.
“With a title like Deathgasm, filmmaker Jason Lei Howden could have…
Film & TV | Inside Film
23 March 2015
Actor Simone Kessell is off to Capetown in April to play the first Queen of Egypt in biblical television epic Of Kings and Prophets.
Of Kings and Prophets is the pilot for the US ABC…
Film & TV | New York Post
22 March 2015
The kiwi actress newest project iZombie had a solid debut on The CW Tuesday night, averaging 2.3 million viewers for its 9 p.m. series premiere.
Rose Mc Iver stars in the DC Comics-inspired…
Film & TV | Entertainment Weekly
21 March 2015
Cliff Curtis will star as one of the main characters in The Walking Dead spin-off Cobalt, which will premiere on AMC in late summer.
The New Zealand actor stars as Sean…
Film & TV | Deadline Hollywood
17 March 2015
Kiwi actress Kimberley Crossman has landed a role in U.S. pilot ‘Fantasy Life’ on Fox, which is based on the memoir by one of U.S.’ top fantasy experts, ESPN’s Matthew Berry.
When a hard-working guy,…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
16 March 2015
From Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures to HBO’s new television show Togetherness, actor Melanie Lynskey reflects on what 20 years – and Charlie Sheen – have taught her about showbusiness.
Jackson’s film introduced not only future…
Film & TV | Moviehole
15 March 2015
Rob Thomas new series ‘iZombie’, starring Kiwi actress Rose McIver, will air in New Zealand on TVNZ on Demand from Thursday, March 19.
The New Zealand native stars as Olivia (Liv), an over-achieving medical resident…
Film & TV | The Record
14 March 2015
“What We Do In the Shadows” is so good, it wouldn’t be so creepy to have these lads rise from the crypt for a sequel”, proclaims Peter Howell, from The Record.com.
Even…
Film & TV | Comic Book Resources
11 March 2015
Lucy Lawless will reunite with her “Xena: Warrior Princess” co-star Bruce Campbell on Starz’s “Ash Vs. Evil Dead”, which begins filming in Lawless’ native New Zealand in April.
She will play Ruby, a…
Film & TV | All Africa
10 March 2015
Hayden Chisolm’s documentary, Sound of Heimat, which follows the New Zealand-born musician as he traverses Germany exploring the country’s folk music, screened in Rwanda at a recent film, photography and dance festival organised by…
Film & TV | San Francisco Chronicle | Variety Magazine
9 March 2015
New Zealander Niki Caro is the director of McFarland, USA, a Disney film based on the true story of a 1987 cross country team from a predominantly Mexican-American high school starring Kevin Costner. McFarland,…
Film & TV | Vancouver Sun (The)
8 March 2015
“New Zealand might be best known for its breathtaking scenery, excellent wines and friendly locals; however, the land of the long white cloud has also earned a stellar reputation as a popular film location”…
Film & TV | Daily Beast | Guardian (The)
3 March 2015
Christchurch-raised James Lucas has won an Oscar in the category Best Live Action Short Film, for his “moving” and “well-deserved” The Phone Call, a star-studded film he co-wrote with friend, Briton Mat Kirkby.
“Previous nominee…
Film & TV | Wall Street Journal (The)
25 February 2015
Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s What We Do in the Shadows, in which vampires mix with a mockumentary crew, is rapturously reviewed by the Wall St Journal’s Joe Morgenstern.
The film, writes Morgenstern, is “a…
Film & TV | Toronto Star
19 February 2015
Being a vampire wasn’t entirely new to Jemaine Clement, co-director and star of What We Do In The Shadows. His first credited role was playing one in a 1995 horror short film called Blood…
Film & TV | Forbes
18 February 2015
“The Hobbit trilogy has been incredibly successful on a domestic and worldwide stage,” Forbes contributor Scott Mendelson writes. “The three-film trilogy cost around US$765m to produce and made US$2.916b worldwide thus far. Yet no…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter
16 February 2015
New Line Cinema has picked up the remake rights of New Zealand horror-comedy Housebound, which earned praise from Lord of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson.
Gerard Johnstone, who wrote and directed the movie, will produce the remake but…
Film & TV | Deadline Hollywood
13 February 2015
After The Theory Of Everything garnered five Oscar nominations including Best Picture, writer-producer Anthony McCarten has signed a deal to work alongside producer Lisa Bruce and Working Title partners Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan…
Film & TV | EchoNetDaily
12 February 2015
The feature-length Sunday, which has its Australian premiere at the 9th Byron Bay Film Festival, is set in Christchurch a year after the 2011 earthquake, where scenes of damage, poignancy and hope provide a…
Film & TV | Australian (The)
11 February 2015
Auckland-born actor Logie-nominated Danielle Cormack, 44, came to the attention of Australian audiences playing a feisty and imperious solicitor in the ABC drama Rake. The character that followed in Underbelly: Razor was no shrinking…
Film & TV | Canberra Times (The)
10 February 2015
You might not recognise New Zealand actor Stephen Hunter, 46, from one of his biggest film roles without a bushy red beard, a huge, ring-shaped plait of red hair and a lot of bulky…
Film & TV | Salt Lake Tribune (The) | Sundance Film Festival | Variety Magazine
9 February 2015
The Utah filmmakers who begat Napoleon Dynamite made a triumphant return to the Sundance Film Festival with New Zealand actor Jemaine Clement playing opposite American funnyman Sam Rockwell in Don Verdean, a movie about…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter
6 February 2015
Jemaine Clement plays the lead role in indie romantic comedy People, Places, Things as penny-pinched New York graphic novelist Will Henry who is struggling upstream with life and the numerous females in his orbit,…
Film & TV | Film Comment
2 February 2015
Film Comment, the magazine of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, has its January/February cover boy a blood-drenched Jemaine Clement from What We Do in the Shadows. Co-written, co-directed and co-starring Clement…
Film & TV | CNTV.com
30 January 2015
Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson was joined by Weta Workshop’s Richard Taylor (pictured far left) in Beijing for the Chinese premiere of the final Hobbit installment on 19 January.
This was Jackson’s final stop on his…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
24 January 2015
Writer-director Jane Campion’s “mysterious visual style was showcased” in her 1989 film debut Sweetie, a “left field story about the love-hate relationship between two sisters,” the Guardian’s Luke Buckmaster writes.
“Campion has made a career…
Film & TV | Huffington Post (The)
23 January 2015
Among the five Oscar nominations announced for the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory Of Everything came a nod for New Plymouth-born producer and screenwriter Anthony McCarten. McCarten has been nominated twice as co-producer and…
Film & TV | Screen Daily
19 January 2015
New Zealand-born Marten Rabarts, currently head of development and training at the National Film Development Corporation in India, has been appointed head of EYE International (formerly Holland Film) and will take up…
Film & TV | Salon.com | Slate | Variety Magazine
17 January 2015
It’s hard to pinpoint what is brilliant about new comedy series Togetherness, but a good place to start is its casting of Melanie Lynskey, according to Salon television critic Sonia Saraiya.
“Lynskey is a New…
Film & TV | Esquire Magazine
7 January 2015
The new Hobbit film made US$90 million in its opening weekend, but in an interview with Esquire magazine director Peter Jackson confesses he doesn’t really like the “Hollywood blockbuster bandwagon.”
The third and final installment…
Film & TV | Vulture Hound
5 January 2015
History has always proved a success topic for film, acting as a means of celebration of those lost and those who have made a difference. The new documentary-film Erebus: Into the Unknown does both…
Film & TV | Republic (The)
2 January 2015
New Zealand actor Marton Csokas plays General Thomas Gage in the History Channel miniseries Sons of Liberty, which premieres on 25 January.
Sons of Liberty, a three-part, six-hour series, which was filmed in Romania, tells…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
1 January 2015
New Zealand Film and Television School graduate, Brazilian film director David Schurmann, is shooting Little Secret, inspired by the life of his adopted sister Kat Schurmann, and written by Marcos Bernstein, scribe of Walter…
Film & TV | Wall Street Journal (The)
22 December 2014
“The pleasure is intense, and mixed with awe,” writes Wall Street Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. “There is majesty here, and not just because we’re…
Film & TV | Los Angeles Times
21 December 2014
New Zealand-born actress Melanie Lynskey, who starred alongside Charlie Sheen in television comedy Two and a Half Men, is the voice of bluebird Beatrice in the “beautiful” Cartoon Network 10-part miniseries Over the Garden…
Film & TV | Empire Magazine
20 December 2014
For the January issue of Empire, devoted entirely to bidding “Farewell to Middle-earth,” Peter Jackson and the crew of the 1987 splatter classic, Bad Taste are reunited “to reminiscence about the crazy shoot.”
“That year,…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter
18 December 2014
Cliff Curtis has won best actor at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards for his portrayal of Genesis Potini in The Dark Horse, ahead of veteran Australian actor David Gulpilil, who won the prize…
Film & TV | Guardian (The) | Independent (The) | Telegraph (The)
16 December 2014
Upon its release in Britain, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was met with great enthusiasm, with UK newspapers agreeing the New Zealand director has completed his trilogy with verve.
“Jackson’s…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
15 December 2014
“Just as there are nine members of the Fellowship, here are nine things we have learned from Peter Jackson’s six-picture behemoth …” Guardian journalist Ryan Gilbey gives us the rundown.
“It’s big. But how big?…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
14 December 2014
Before he became one of Hollywood’s most dependable big-movie helmers with hits for stars such as Eastwood, Pacino, Cruise, Costner, Hopkins, Statham, Brosnan, Roger Donaldson, 69, literally helped invent the film industry in New…
Film & TV | Central Queensland News
12 December 2014
Playing the bad guy has never worried New Zealand-born actor Manu Bennett who enjoys the roles of two deliciously deviant characters at the moment: Arrow’s anti-hero Slade Wilson (aka Deathstroke) and the terrifying Orc…
Film & TV | Los Angeles Times
5 December 2014
How does New Zealander Phil Keoghan, globe-trotting Amazing Race host, stay fit? the Los Angeles Times asks. By finding a “gym” anywhere he goes.
Keoghan gets around. The host of the Emmy-winning CBS show since…
Film & TV | Independent (The)
5 December 2014
Seventeen years after Sir Peter Jackson won the rights to film The Lord Of The Rings, he is finally taking leave of JRR Tolkien and Middle-earth with the conclusion of The Hobbit. The new film marks a magnificent,…
Film & TV | Los Angeles Times | Star Tribune
4 December 2014
“Anthony Powell’s Antarctica: A Year on Ice is a gorgeously photographed travelogue about the harshest terrain on Earth,” writes Star Tribune reviewer Colin Covert. “Powell’s feature-length documentary is a trove of time-lapse shots and…
Film & TV | BBC
3 December 2014
Oscar Winning New Zealand director Sir Peter Jackson and his stars arrived on a green carpet for the world premiere of his latest film The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.
The premiere was…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
1 December 2014
The New Zealand and China governments have signed what’s said to be a world first television industry co-production agreement, which is in addition to a feature film treaty signed in 2010 and is the…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter
30 November 2014
Walt Disney has confirmed that production of Pete’s Dragon, a remake of the 1977 film and starring Robert Redford, will be based at Peter Jackson’s Stone Street Studios.
The live-action and CGI film…
Film & TV | Sydney Morning Herald (The)
29 November 2014
Matthew Metcalfe’s feature film The Dead Lands, shot entirely in Te Reo Maori and the first to showcase the ancient Maori martial art mau rakau, is due for official worldwide release early next year.
The…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter
28 November 2014
New Zealand filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson is set to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame ahead of the release of his new film The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.
Jackson…
Film & TV | Wall Street Journal (The)
20 November 2014
The Wall Street Journal’s John Jurgensen reviews the soundtrack Lorde curated for the latest blockbuster Hunger Games movie, in an article titled “How Lorde Played God on the ‘Hunger Games’ Soundtrack’.”
““The Hunger Games” has another…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
14 November 2014
“What We Do In the Shadows,” Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s New Zealand-made documentary-style comedy about three flatmates who happen to be vampires won the audience award for best narrative feature at the Hawaii International…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
12 November 2014
The idea to adapt half-century-old television series Thunderbirds began 12 years ago when New Zealander Richard Taylor an Oscar-winning visual effects, makeup and costumes wizard, went to the UK to ask for creator Gerry…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
11 November 2014
The New Zealand actor James Rolleston who impressed in Taika Waititi’s smash hit Boy is back with two new homegrown films that wowed at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.
In The Dead Lands Rolleston,…
Film & TV | Sundance Film Festival
9 November 2014
Disney’s 56th animated film Moana has magic written all over it, according to the Latin Post and New Zealand writer and director Taika Waititi has a hand in it. The film is the studio’s…
Film & TV | Billboard
7 November 2014
With the Lorde-curated Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 soundtrack coming out on 17 November, the soon-to-be-18-year-old pop singer is proving her taste in collaborators – Kanye West, Chemical Brothers, Miguel and more – are…
Film & TV | Stuff.co.nz
6 November 2014
On the telephone from her West Hollywood apartment New Zealand actress Rena Owen says the biggest misconception about her life in Los Angeles is that she leads one of movie-star luxury.
“The amount of people…