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…

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…

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…

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.

 

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…

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.

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…

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…

The Datsuns: the future of rock’n’roll?

dotmusic revs up Kiwi rockers The Datsuns. “four stick-thin, long-haired, fresh-faced, sinful-souled boys from Cambridge, New Zealand, and the latest genius rock’n’roll band to swarm on London”. Accompanied by…

Kiri to sing at Palace & Castle

Opera diva Kiri Te Kanawa will sing at Buckingham Palace June 1 as Queen Elizabeth celebrates her Golden Jubilee party. Taking the stage alongside Kiri will be Russian cellist…

Ta Moko on Show

Time reviews Skin Deep, a history of Western tattooing currently on show at London’s National Maritime Museum. The exhibit traces the practice back to its Polynesian roots, beginning its official documentation…

Acid Rain

“This New Zealand coming-of-age movie isn’t really about anything. When it’s this rich and luscious, who cares?” Direction and acting applauded in Christine Jeff’s debut feature adaptation of Kirsty…

Karl Popper’s NZEdged Legacy

Roger James in the The Guardian ponders the centenary of the birth of one of the C20th most original (and controversial) thinkers, philosopher Karl Popper. In an affirmation of…

Soft edge scenery?

BBC adaptation of Arthur Conan-Doyle’s dinosaur romp The Lost World: shot “against the glorious backdrop of New Zealand’s South Island … New Zealand offered diverse landscapes in relatively easy…

Finn Family Fun

A laid back Tim Finn ponders his career, fatherhood, his NZ-homecoming, getting picked up by Iggy Pop, and more on the eve of an Aussie tour and muses…

Legacy of Letters

LA Times special focuses on Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington. “Considered one of the 20th century’s finest short story writers” – and the only one to make Virginia Woolf…

Writer’s block

“The literary traffic across the Tasman isn’t as brisk as it should be. Much good writing has to come from Auckland or Wellington to Australia by way of publication…

The Empire Strikes Back

The SMH finds Tem Morrison carrying the antipodean banner in the new Star Wars blockbuster, Episode II: Attack of the Clones – the latest installment of George…

Bryan Drake Remembered

New Zealand-born baritone Bryan Drake has died in London aged 76. A “fine musician with an equable temperament and warm personality”, Drake will be particularly remembered for his long association…

Westenra captivates Wembley

NZ singing prodigy Hayley Westenra accompanies Russell “The Voice” Watson to a sold-out Wembley Stadium and provides some sonar respite in a Telegraph review of Russell’s talents. “At…

Improv Bandits steal America’s Cup

NZ’s Improv Bandits are NZ’s latest world champions having won the Super Cage Match Championship at the Chicago Improv Festival in the USA. Beating off “Whose Line Is…

Edge Triple play

Three New Zealanders – Russell Crowe (no. 28), Peter Jackson (no. 41), and Tim Bevan (no. 51=) feature in Premeire Magazine’s 2002 Power List of the most influential people…

Laid back Luna lover’s rock

Indie rock icon Dean Wareham (son of NYNZer businessman and author John Wareham) and lead singer of Luna (“they of the lovely and atmospheric guitar ballads and frontman Dean…

Vanity Fair enough

Ex-Shorties original Martin Henderson, after a stint across the ditch, goes west to LA and hits the big-time featuring in Vanity Fair’s annual hyping Hollywood photo essay for his…

Tower de force

Pictures from Two Towers, the second instalment of Lord of the Rings, can be viewed in this Sun Online special.

“A work of almost perfect pitch”

CK Stead’s new novel The Secret History of Modernism reviewed inThe Age: “Stead is very clever and he’s comfortable on this ground, patrolling that sometimes misty territory between truth…

Nabokov’s Butterflies

The Brian Boyd (University of Auckland Professor and the world’s leading Nabokov scholar) edited Nabokov’s Butterflies – a collection of Vladimir Nabokov’s writings about butterflies, reviewed by Mark Ridley…

Thinking iInside the Box

NZer Chris Moller is one wall of expat architecture firm, Amsterdam’s S333 Studio for Architecture and Urbanism. The firm has won several international competitions. A winning entry currently…

Best Supporting Landmass

Tourists lured by LotR: “Too bad they don’t give Oscars for ‘best supporting landmass’. If they did New Zealand’s role in Lord of the Rings would have swept that…

Wellywood Story

LA film producers look to the edge for inspiration in an attempt to reverse the trend of productions increasingly being shot in foreign locations to cut costs: “Los Angeles…

Flight of the Crowe

“To some, Russell Crowe is still a bit of a Hando – there’s that smouldering, explosive edginess”. For Beautiful Mind director Ron Howard it was Crowe’s “physicality…

Skin Deep

Ta moko retrospectively finds its way into an icon of colonialism: the museum. The Skin Deep exhibition at Britain’s National Maritime Museum, traces the development and diversity of…

Sir Ian swoons for our free land

Sir Ian McKellen: “I fell for New Zealand rather heavily. It’s not just the environment, though that does do something to your head…it’s discovering the culture, one which is…

Oscar post-script

Solace for those lamenting that the southern cross didn’t shine brighter on Hollywood’s star spangled banner: “A Beautiful Mind was a Good Film. Not a brilliant film. If Peter Jackson had…

Oscar Post

They’ll need a nui kete: The technical and creative talent of the NZ film industry acknowledged with Oscars. The Andrew Adamson directed Shrek takes best animated feature. Peter Jackson’s…

Don’t Dream it’s Over

7 Worlds Collide, Neil Finn’s acclaimed live album and testament to his “prodigious talent.” is also Finn’s statement of “relevance and intent. It’s one to believe in” with “7…

This is Our Youth

“Highly talented” 19-year-old Anna Paquin combines “prim formality of speech with an argumentative sexual ardour” as she stars alongside Hayden Christensen and Jake Gyllenhaal in the London staging…

“Swift and edgy”…

Denver Post review of Margaret Mahy’s new book 24 Hours. “Her writing is clean and spare, as lucid in describing the ponderous weight of a backpack as…

Jihad … whoops, I mean Shihad

NZ rockers Shihad undergo cosmetic change post-Sept 11 after concerns were raised about the band name’s similarity to the word jihad, (meaning holy war). The name Shihad…

A Russian soul

Joanna Wood’s “beautifully written” biography of “short story master” Katherine Mansfield, Katerina: The Russian World of Katherine Mansfield, details the New Zealand-born writer’s lifelong passion for everything Russian: “She…

Black Crowe

“I was a kid faced with adult fury. This is tattooed on my brain”, recalls Russell Crowe in this Irish Independent interview about growing up in New Zealand as…

Shadow play

The allure of the artistic life, “the journey towards the light” is the central concern of Maurice Gee’s “thoughtful” new novel Ellie and the Shadow Man, reviewed by Nicola…

Bugger. New Zealand creatives doing it better

Australian advertising, left in the mud by a Cannes Gold Lion winning Toyata Hilux ute, barks enviously about creative NZ: “many an advertising executive here would give a black…

Stephenson wins UK Book of the Year Award

Not the Nine O Clock News comedian turned psychotherapist turned biographer, NZ-Edged Pamela Stephenson wins the book of the year prize at the British Book Awards for her “frank…

The most feared woman on the internet?

NZer Rebecca Wilson (“director of leaves and petals” at the experimental Dutch Arts’ Foundation Studio for Electro-instrumental Music) postulated as as a real identity behind Net legend…

Don’t bank on it

“Maverick film producer” Kiwi John Maynard, (All Men Are Liars, An Angel At My Table co-produced with Jane Campion) is nominated for Best Film by the Film Critics Circle…

NYNZ – fringe thrills

Chris Niles‘s new novel Hell’s Kitchen well-received in the Big Bad Apple: “Here’s a novel that’s crowded, rushed, excited, mixed-up, fun, dangerous and a little dirty….

Pleasantly Rough: 7 Worlds Collide

Neil Finn’s latest album, 7 Worlds Collide brings together Pearl Jams’ Eddie Vedder, Tim Finn, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and ex-Smith’s legend Johnny Marr. BBC: “Finn is a consumate…

First

Wellington’s City Gallery hosts a major retrospective of the work of internationally renowned Australian artist Tracey Moffat. Curated by Lara Strongman and Paula Savage, the important 15 year survey…

King of the Rings

“New Zealand has always reserved its greatest adulation for sporting giants like Richard Hadlee and Jonah Lomu, but a place must now be found on the victory dais for…

Bafta – Remembered Gold

Lord of the Rings is ready to cast its spell on the Oscars after bewitching the Baftas with five awards, including best film and best director, for Peter Jackson:…

Raining at Sundance

Christina Jeff’s evocative feature Rain screens at the Sundance Film Festival with Merata Mita’s portrait of painter Ralph Hotere, Hotere, and short bursts of edge cinema in…

Skating Away

In the popular cartoon series about Californian skateboarders, the Rocket Power kids skate across New Zealand as the gang enters the NZ Junior Waikikamukau Games, an extreme sports…

Kevin Smith Farewelled

One of New Zealand’s best loved screen stars, Kevin Smith, dies aged 38, in a Beijing Hospital. Best known for playing Ares in the hit series Xena:Warrior Princess, Smith…

Dawson’s Return

Australian media personality and regular on The Bert Newton Show, NZer Charlotte Dawson packs up her Louis Vuitton trunks to return home to her native country. “There are just…

Edge power play

“Are Tim Bevan (43) and Eric Fellner (41) the most powerful London-based film producers in history? As Working Title (of which they are co-chairmen) is responsible…