Russell reasserts his edge roots
“Hollywood is carving a bust for Crowe in the action-hero pantheon, but Crowe is keeping his distance. “I’d move to Los Angeles if Australia and New Zealand were swallowed up by a huge tidal…
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Veni, Vidi, Vici
Russell Crowe’s star-making turn reviewed in People, “Gladiator’s pull is potent, thanks to the razzle-dazzle fight scenes (the opening battle rivals that in Saving Private Ryan) and a magnetic performance by Crowe (The Insider),…
Kiwi Dennis Dutton’s Arts and Letters Daily makes Brill’s Content ‘Best of the Web’
“Arts & Letters Daily” combines a Renaissance thirst for intriguing writing with the online imperative of speed – a sensibility evident in the site’s duelling mottoes: “Bookmark This Page” and “Veritas odit moras,” Seneca’s…
Magnetic Maximus unleashes Hell to please the masses in
Apart from its spectacular visuals the film’s other strength is its acting, “… but everyone else can step aside for Crowe. “Gladiator” should make the Oscar-nominated actor an international star. When he’s in a…
“In New Zealand if you asked for a coffee, it was a teaspoon of Nescafe.”
Kings Cross, 1986, newly arrived struggling actor waiting tables: an American customer orders a decaf coffee. “Suddenly I’m faced with long black, short black, cappuccino, and cafe latte – plus decaffeinated. So I take her…
“I wanna be Marlon Brando”…
sang Russell Crowe years ago when he was an aspiring rock star in New Zealand – the idea no longer seems absurd as Crowe brings an intensity and commitment to his craft that sometimes…
Wind Wand Blows Over Hurricanes as Talk of the Town in New Plymouth
In the rural New Zealand town of New Plymouth rugby-loving citizens are normally attuned to talking about the local rugby team, the Hurricanes, but a 45 metre tall wand erected for the millennium has…
Muse behind Watership Down
Ronald Lockley, internationally renowned naturalist, died in New Zealand on April 12, aged 96. The Economist obituary dryly notes that “New Zealanders liked Ronald Lockley, admired his reputation as a protector of nature, and…
Phantom Menace Humbled by Diminutive Hobbit
The record number of downloads set by the trailer for Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, has been dwarfed by the the Internet preview of of Peter Jackson’s epic movie trilogy The Lord…
New Zealand Scholar Suggests Sceptical Slant on Sikh Story
Kiwi scholar Hew Mcleod puts claims made in Patwant Singh’s The Sikhs to the test of historical veracity – a task that has made him persona non grata with many members of the world’s…
Improvisation Indian style – NZ expert introduces playback theatre basics to India
Bangalore’s Summer Project on Theatre (Spot) has this year enlisted the help of New Zealander Mary Good and Australian Bev Hopkins to throw light on the concept of playback theatre.
Crowe does the hard yards to re-visit grandeur of Rome
“I broke a bone in my foot, I fractured a hip-bone, I had both bicep tendons pop out of their shoulder sockets – fortunately for me at different times so I could still use…
Malaysian crooner returns to charts with New Zealand edge
Malaysian singing star Kathy Ibrahim (who swayed hearts in the late 70’s with such classic as Oh Malaysia) returns to Malaysia to record after an eight year spell in New Zealand studying interior design…
Renegade Artist Richard Killeen Bucks Convention at Sydney Landscape Exhibition.
“They could be a landscape of the mind, a self-portrait of Killeen the scavenger, the visual encyclopaedia, and sophisticated game player. It’s a strident welcome to what is on offer”.
“When all at once I saw a crowd”
Fleur Adcock gives poetic tribute to bard of the Lakes On the 150th Anniversary of William Wordsworth’s death, New Zealand-born poet Fleur Adcock has been chosen to unveil a plaque amongst the Easter daffodils…
Stay on Your Toes: Improv
Bandits plan for laughs, but who knows what will happen. New Zealand comedy troupe Improv Bandits have been selected among 24 ensembles for the 3rd annual Chicago Improv Festival.
Get it right mate – Theroux undone by Stead detective work
“This week the London Review of Books prints a long investigation by the poet CK Stead into a lunch party at Naipaul’s house attended by Theroux and a New Zealand couple Stead happens to…
Kiwi Editor of Chicago-Sun Times Leaves to Pursue ‘Private Goals’
New Zealand born Nigel Wade, 54, former foreign correspondent with the Daily Telegraph in London, said that he was taking a “new direction” in his life after 37 years in journalism. He has been…
Long Hot Summer puts the heat on readers
Kiwi Barbara Anderson’s latest novel gets praise in Times review, “a fine and sharp intelligence infuses Anderson’s characters and dialogue … Long Hot Summer demands attention from the reader, but it is worth it”.
The truth about bed: Fleur Adcock: Poems 1960-2000
“This very welcome collection of her verse confirms her status as arguably the most distinctive writer to have come out of New Zealand since Katherine Mansfield.”
Film Fatale: Chris Kraus
“Yet by affirming the “weakness” of her under- appreciated spiritual heroes, Kraus may have found an idiot-proof formula for this book to work whether it works or not.” Village Voice book review of Kraus’s…
“Hi-ho hi-ho, it’s Off to Work We Go …” Fay Weldon and the New Ergonarchy
New Zealand raised Fay Weldon takes time-out to ponder the future, “We could have the leisure society if we wanted it. But Samuel Smiles won; our lives are ruled by a work ethic and…
Call me Mr Comedy
New Zealand-born Four Weddings and a Funeral/Blackadder creator, Comic Relief co-founder and top scriptwriter Richard Curtis discusses his career on BBC Radio4. Register and search to view Archives
Russell Crowe gets inside his character’s head
Jeffrey Wigland, real-life whistleblower says Crowe, 22 years junior and a native of New Zealand “did a remarkable job .. he did things that made it feel very surreal for me, emotionally retching and…
A sting in the tale
“When the New York Times says of your second novel that it “constructs a sturdy web of silken prose”, you might reasonably conclude that, as a novelist, you have arrived. When into the bargain,…
Forget About the Brass Ring
Some 1.7 million fans hit the movie’s new website in its first 21 hours up, compared with only 1 million downloads the first day the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace site was open for…
Legend Kiri Te Kanawa Opens on Stage in Montreal
Kiri Te Kanawa enjoys almost unique prestige in the public eye. She attracted a VIP crowd (including Prime Minister Jean Cretien) to the Centre Pierre Peladeau.
Kiwi blows her bassoon as single-sex barriers make the news
New Zealand woman Rosamund Allison became the first woman to be recruited to the previously all-male Scots Guards Band.
New Zealand Wilderness a Hit with Big-budget Filmmakers
Ever since Jane Campion brought the surging savage West Coast of Auckland’s Karekare beach and the rain-soaked bush to the world in her award winning film The Piano nearly a decade ago, more and…
Tolkien Teaser Runs
“Attention fantasy fans: New Line Cinema is about to lift the veil of secrecy — just a little bit — that has shrouded Peter Jackson’s massive adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the…
Theo Ray – Kiwi Indie singer hits LA
From Indie chart success in New Zealand and Australia, to a #2 single ‘Smell’ in Europe, to the darker side of Asia and beyond, Theo Ray is now based in Los Angeles, playing with…
Countless billboards proclaim there’s a new hero: Russell Crowe, bigger than Ben Hur.
From Auckland Grammar to singing on 80’s pop show Shazam. From Oscar nominations to the violent centre of a decadent ancient Rome. He’s one-sixteenth Maori and registered on the Maori voting poll, but he lives…
Kiwi editor of Oscar winning documentary paints LA pink
Director of the acclaimed “One Day in September” Kevin McDonald recounts his poolside adventures at the Oscars: “At 2pm, Justine Wright, the brilliant editor who cut our film arrives to get changed with us….
Pompidou lyes down to get kinetic
Renowned New Zealand film-maker, kinetic sculptor and animator Len Lye is honoured with a show at the Pompidou Centre, Paris, France.
“Fresh Talent” Chad Taylor sends sophisticated shivers in Shirker
“With a tight and observant style, Taylor has weaved an engaging tale reminiscent of Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy and with peripheral detail as obsessive as Easton Ellis’s American Psycho. He may touch upon…
Now, if we could just send some of those country singers to New Zealand
Tim Finn, Say It Is So (review). (1–16 March 2)
Spider pic hatched – New Zealander to direct
Hollywood: the duo behind Independence Day and Godzilla are producing “Arch Attack”, an f/x driven comedic thriller about a toxic waste spill that causes giant spiders to go on a rampage. Will shoot in…
Russell Crowe: Heroic gladiator rises from the burger-pits of
“The people who brought you World War II now think that you are ready for really ancient history: the Roman Empire. And, even though they’re leaving out the orgies, they may be onto something”.
One for the connoisseurs: Kiwi crime writer weaves a seductive web of existential anomie
New Zealand crime-fiction writer Chad Taylor makes a big impact on Guardian reviewer Maxim Jakubowski, “Shirker: a fascinating and obsessive novel from New Zealand with shades of Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy…” …
Xena: motherhood becomes her
Lucy Lawless’ pregnancy not only changed scripts on Xena: Warrior Princess, but the costume department had to ‘expand’ with the times too. New to the show: Spandex.
Looks Wonderful
“It’s not always easy to flow the tortuous intrigues, passions and deceits, but it looks wonderful, with photography by the gifted New Zealand cinematographer and director Chris Doyle”. BBC2 film preview of Temptress Moon…
Nabokov’s Pale Fire Still Smoulders
38 years later, the mystery continues to intrigue… Auckland University’s Professor Brian Boyd attempts to solve the enigma.
Bugger
A Cultural phenomenon has reached Asia, and it has bugger-all to do with Bulgarians or heretics, but something to do with a car advertisement, a racehorse and climbing Mt. Everest.
Justine Wright Nominated For Oscar
New Zealander Justine Wright has been nominated for this year’s Oscar Awards for her editing of a dramatic documentary One Day in September, an account of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972…
Piping up a storm down under
Cultural history was made as the massed bands of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo played in front of a sell-out crowd in New Zealand, the first time in its 50-year history that the event has…
Jane Campion is a model profile of a working artist
Anthropologist, artist, and award winner, internationally acclaimed New Zealand director exercises an organic approach to her craft …
Child Superstar Anna Paquin’s Vampish Turn
Anna Paquin has got something tucked away in her closet: an Oscar … becoming the second-youngest Academy Award winner is a tough act to follow.
“I Love Dick”
Interview with Kiwi writer and avant-garde filmmaker Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick (the spare-no-prisoners tell-all that scandalised the Soho Intelligentsia) talks about anorexia, romance, and faking it.
Russell Crowe: Inside Story
Playing a 52-year-old tobacco company executive in The Insider is all in a day’s work for 35-year-old Russell Crowe; giving up the smokes is not.
When Substance Puts Style in its Place
There’s more to the web than pornography, semi-literate navel-gazing and slick shopping sites, but finding quality information can be difficult … a site that makes it easy.
New Zealand writer nominated for Commonwealth Writer’s Prize
Kapka Kassabova, regional winner for best first book in Commonwealth Writer’s Prize to be decided in April.
Russell: The Prequel
Oz comment: “Crowe is a national hero” (despite “inconveniently managing to get himself born in New Zealand”); jokes from the Katzy kitchen; Crowe, Hillary and Rutherford make Australia green; Crowe “a…
The Rumours began about a year ago…
Comix 2000 New Zealanders Dylan Horrocks (whose extraordinarily moving comic novel Hicksville was 1998’s breakout alternative hit) and Chris Knox each contribute wonderful strips.
Artist and Architect with a Childlike Love of Embellishment
The straight lines of modern architecture particularly incensed him.
Youth TV Prepares for the Digital Challenge
Interview: Brent Hansen: MTV Europe’s president has seen the network flourish in his 13 years there.
