News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Kiwi batter?

Kiwi batter?

Will Russell Crowe step up to the crease for Somerset this season, or is it just that funny time of year?

Russell’s leg up

Russell’s leg up

Russell’s main rival for the little naked gold man was “Tom Hanks, who wears very little for much of Castaway. To the Academy this shameless overexposure smacked of desperation, an all-shorts-off attempt to counter…

Finn and Games

Finn and Games

Playing with Neil Finn: “It may well be hair-raising, disastrous, funny or sublime, but it will certainly be an adventure…” Finn on the Auckland all-star band: “The idea is that over the course of…

More Knox

More Knox

“Very different and very daring” – Auckland University Professor Albert Wendt. “For a New Zealander to win an Australian prize seems absolutely incredible,” says Knox.  “The only time we can ever get…

Edge in the heart of Tinseltown

Edge in the heart of Tinseltown

Russell Crowe and Crouching Tiger herald a takeover of Hollywood by the rest of the world.

The Future of History

The Future of History

Thematic arrangement, fresh technology and festival atmosphere put Te Papa at the cutting edge of history.

Everyone’s Crowing

Everyone’s Crowing

An examination post-golden Gladiator coverage on both sides of the Tasman.

Destiny

Destiny

“From the beginning he was destined to be a star,” says Martin Bedford, Russell Crowe’s agent of 17 years.

One Nil to Neil

One Nil to Neil

Neil Finn speaks about his new-found love of the internet and his brilliant new album, One Nil.

Graniator

Graniator

“No, no leave him alone, don’t hurt him,” yelled Joy Wemyss, Crowe family matriarch at a private screening in Auckland. Also, Audrey Crowe touched by mention of her husband.

Masterful pianist

Masterful pianist

Henry Wong-Doe demonstrates his “stylistic flexibility” at the 10th Arthur Rubenstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv. Search and pay to view

Zed in Oz

Zed in Oz

Kiwi boys Zed gig with Bon Jovi in Melbourne.  

Russell: Our Man

Russell: Our Man

Winning the world from the edge, Russell Crowe walks away with Hollywood’s biggest award. It was the day the boy from the west Auckland suburbs achieved the dream that once seemed “kind of ludicrous…

Novel tourism

Novel tourism

Ngaio Marsh is among the few mystery writers whose houses merit preservation as “literary shrines”.

More Finn Enough

More Finn Enough

“Life without a band suits Neil Finn – his second solo album is phenomenal”  

Fresh milk

Fresh milk

“The gorgeous landscapes of New Zealand provide the backdrop for this peculiarity, which is like nothing else that’s played in months”

Savage thoughts

Savage thoughts

King Kapisi spins the crowd: “Taking the crowd through a full turntable tutorial, including “the crab” and other techniques, Kapisi has them in the palm of his hand”.

Milk free

Milk free

The Price of Milk is nothing at promotional showings of the New Zealand movie with a “cult-like” following.

Musical score

Musical score

“Pragmatic and visionary” New Zealander Grant Cooper scores a sugar plumb of a job, conducting New York’s Syracuse Symphony Orchestra.

Crowe 007

Crowe 007

Will it be “Crowe, Russell Crowe” next time 007 hits the big screen? “To play Bond, you need a man who has great screen presence and is believable in the part. Looking at him,…

Return to the scene

Return to the scene

Despite facing the sixth anniversary of the day Neil Finn saved his life by pulling him from a Piha rip, Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder is preparing to return to New Zealand for the…

Milk in Hawaii

Milk in Hawaii

Price of Milk plays at the Hawaii International Film Festival.

Fairy tale ending

Fairy tale ending

Xena meets her doom in the finale of the wrapped series that turned Lucy Lawless stellar.

Best Oscar Hunter

Best Oscar Hunter

The greatest winners of all time. For best actress: Vivien Leigh, Joan Crawford, Audrey Hepburn, Simone Signoret and Holly Hunter in The Piano.

Kidnappers couldn’t take me

Kidnappers couldn’t take me

Russell Crowe laughs off kidnap threat: “Quite frankly, if they had to spend that much time in a small room with me… one of them might end up saying, ‘Look, pass the hat around,…

Dishy

Dishy

Sam Neill transmits tension in The Dish, the story of how Neill Armstrong came to be broadcast from a giant dish in the middle of the Australian desert.

ATC in Manila

ATC in Manila

German-based lolli-pop group ATC, including Kiwi member Joe, hit Manila with their Europop/R&B blend.

Everywhere you go…

Everywhere you go…

Neil Finn, international star and “nice guy” of New Zealand pop, has invited a few friends to perform his “unmistakable” sound in Auckland.

Musical extravaganza

Musical extravaganza

“The concept for these shows is to invite friends whose music I admire to collaborate with me in presenting a week-long musical extravaganza which I optimistically expect to be a blast.”  

Reel Pianos

Reel Pianos

The Piano, Jane Campion’s “hard to ignore” and “genuinely strange” masterpiece is the star in Jerusalem’s Festival of piano-films – celebrating the filmic attraction of tormented pianists.

Singing High

Singing High

New Zealand soprano soloist Rebecca Ryan sings world premier of  re-discovered Handel work.

Topp Twins

Topp Twins

The yodeling Topp Twins rock 25th Port Fairy Folk Festival in Melbourne.

Garageland USA

Garageland USA

Jeremy Eade, lead singer of New Zealand peppy-punkers Garageland, tours the US doing acoustic from latest release Do What You Want.  

Writer’s birthday

Writer’s birthday

The 13 of March is the birthday of novelist, Sir Hugh Walpole, born in Auckland in 1884.

…you take Finn with you

…you take Finn with you

One Nil  is the result of a musician “looking for collaborative work, where someone else is bringing something to the table”, but it’s still vintage Finn: still “rooted in the form and structure of…

Double life

Double life

UK Poet Charles Boyle’s The Age of Cardboard and String features “a poet who leads a double life in England and New Zealand”.

“I Will Herd Sheep”

“I Will Herd Sheep”

“Never doubt you can accomplish the task given to you,” says Canadian film-maker Sean Buckley. “I had barely been on a horse before, but there I was in New Zealand, needing a job. I…

Russ of the jungle

Russ of the jungle

Russell: Charismatic, attractive and talented, but also fearless, said Sharon Stone years back. He proves her right on the screen and in the jungles of Ecuador.  

Cyberreads

Cyberreads

Denis Dutton’s “admirable venture,” Cybereditions, allows publications to be constantly updated,  exploiting the interactivity and flexibility of the net to deliver superior content.

History revised?

History revised?

Controversy and acclaim for edge-director Roger Donaldson’s nuke-spook Kennedy paean 13 Days.“Yet, despite these difficulties, the film works and ought to be essential viewing for those too young to have been around in October 1962,…

Lord of nations…

Lord of nations…

“Barton’s encore – her own variations on the New Zealand national anthem, inspired by a tour of that country made at the invitation of James Judd – was full of devilish pyrotechnics, skittery bowings…

Victory: The Aftermath

Victory: The Aftermath

More stories from across the globe: “this moment is directly connected to those childhood imaginings” quotes The Advertiser; Crowe “shocked and emotional” in the LA Times; “I was thinking this is one of those bad…

Here with Lee Majors

Here with Lee Majors

NYNZer Brendan Donovan scores Best Cinematography award for his short film Here at the Angelciti Film Festival LA and his star Lee Majors wins Best Actor at the Santa Monica International Film Festival. Majors…

Ciao, Gladiatore!

Ciao, Gladiatore!

Crowe-band Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts gig Milan for Children in Crisis fund-raiser.

Crowe’s Upward Flight

Crowe’s Upward Flight

Future films Flora Plum and John Nash biopic will “stretch Crowe to show the extent of his capability and range”.

One Neil

One Neil

Neil Finn tours the UK and Ireland later this year in support of his album One Nil. His current mini-tour is rarking it up in London: “This one-off gig felt like a party where…

Garageland sale

Garageland sale

Auckland indie-poppers Garageland team with UK distributors foodchainrecords to release Do What You Want Stateside. PDF Copy

Intimacy and success

Intimacy and success

New Zealander Kerry Fox wins Silver Bear (best actress) at the Berlin Film Festival for her “searing and explicit” performance in Intimacy, winner of the Golden Bear for best film. Fox was unable to…

Tolkien Talk

Tolkien Talk

‘I’ve never met or worked with a director with a more comprehensive artillery of qualities for a big project like this than Peter Jackson. Someone should give him a medal pretty damn quickly” -…

Altogether a delight

Altogether a delight

The new Museum of Scotland launches itself with Altogether a Delightful Country, a display focusing on immigrant Scots in Otago.  

Hollywood outgrows itself

Hollywood outgrows itself

Gladiator, filmed in Morocco, Malta and the UK, directed by a Brit, scored by a German and “sexed up by the hottest New Zealander on the planet” is a new breed of block-buster, a…

Cyber-verse

Cyber-verse

Cultural export poet Andrew Johnston pushes poetry on the web.

No talk, just sex

No talk, just sex

Intimacy is a smouldering film about a man who is living in a basement in south London who has a sex affair with a woman at his place every Wednesday afternoon. They don’t talk,…

Milk magic

Milk magic

Director Harry Sinclair explains the magic behind The Price of Milk: “We put a window frame on a dolly and sat Danielle Coramck and the camera on the dolly. And they were moving along Karl…

Star of the year

Star of the year

Russell Crowe named “Male Star of the Year” at ShoWest 2001, the largest motion picture industry convention.

Go Russell, go!

Go Russell, go!

“What we do in life/echoes in eternity.” Russell “Maximus” Crowe gets a second Best Actor nomination (last year was for The Insider), continuing a fine run of Wellington actors and filmmakers who have been…