The Outsider: Huck Finn on Heroin
Alison Maclean brings verge vision to the story of an American outsider. Jesus’ Son, an adaptation of a story by cult American author Dennis Johnson, is about a 7’s junkie who finds redemption. The…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Bilbo buzz spawns rumour about a hoard of treasure
The Lord of the Rings folklore continues to spread. Fox chronicles the Ring rage: the record breaking previews, websites, esoteric and precious fans, mammoth investment and eager anticipation that the project has spawned. “To…
Te Whaea opens Options
Options, a tertiary dance festival for Australian and New Zealand students held in Sydney, was joined on its gala day by the New Zealand School of Dance. The Kiwi dancers shone in a generally…
Cate’s Elvish Ways: standing up for the sisters in
Cate Blanchett, playing the role of the enigmatic and beautiful elf queen Gandriel in Lord of the Rings, found a unique way of keeping up with the lads on set – she wore platform…
Stead and Knox star at Melbourne Writer’s Festival
New Zealand writers CK Stead “whose new novel has earned rave reviews in Britain and the US” and Elizabeth Knox feature among global talent including Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson, Zadie Smith (White Teeth), Alain…
Peter Jackson: “One of the Most Creative Directors Around”
Chicago Tribune, backs the talent of Jackson and a “top notch cast” as Hollywood indemnity for the Lord of the Rings. Jackson was recently voted 7th most promising director for the 21st century in…
Jesus and the Second Coming
Kiwi director Alison Maclean wowed Cannes with the moody Crush, then took a seven year maturing process, through Sex and the City, Homicide and a Natalie Imbruglia music video, to release the indie-hit Jesus’…
Lisa Harrow brings Wit to the stage in New York
Kiwi Lisa Harrow plays the lead in what the Times calls “a theatrical experience of which legends are made”. She plays Dr. Vivian Bearing, an uncompromising professor of literature who learns that intellectual brilliance…
Cyborg creatives
New Zealand artists working with cutting edge computer-based new media technology feature in Art Asia Pacific’s feature “Interface: visions of the body and machine”. Mauren Lander and John Fairclough are integrating traditional Maori weaving…
Phil Keoghan Spot on as Adventure Crazy Host
Remembered in New Zealand as host of Spot On, 3.45pm Live, Phil Keoghan has made a name for himself in the US as host and executive producer of Phil Keoghan’s Adventure Crazy, a popular…
Building Rome and other literary Pastimes
“I like computer games – of the world domination kind.” She-Devil/New Zealand reared novelist Fay Weldon, in the Independent’s 50-best list, admits she has a soft-spot for empire building, channelling her desires through computer…
Rogue Anna Paquin is Premiere Cover mutant
Playing the character of ‘Rogue’ in Bryan Singer’s (Usual Suspects) blockbuster adaptation of comic legend X-Men, Anna Paquin makes the special edition cover of July’s Premiere. Like Paquin’s Oscar winning acting talent, Rogue is…
Whatever you do don’t go in the water
More bloody innovation saw Colenso pick up a Golden Lion at the Cannes Advertising Festival. The campaign to promote the opening of the movie Scream, unlike another Kiwi winner at Cannes, involved a little…
Romance and roadkill in
Director Alison Maclean’s edge aesthetic gets sharper: described by the New Yorker as having a “big messy emotional talent”, she is thrilled that audiences are connecting with the romance rather than the wierdness. But…
Breath of fresh air from ideas company wins Cannes award
Saatchi & Saatchi Auckland won a Golden Lion at the renowned Cannes Advertising Festival for its innovative solution for the Auckland Regional Council Anti-Pollution campaign. The campaign involved local artists decorating stormwater grates to…
Stories from the Diaspora
“I write to give voice to those who are otherwise lost or forgotten completely in Pacific literature: young girls and women.” Pasifika Press in New Zealand snapped up Sia Figiel’s where we once…
From One Edge to Another to Take up the Haka Challenge
From Vancouver on the edge of the Atlantic, director Jonathan Tammuz will continue a global roll to the edge of the Pacific to direct “Haka” an 1850s-set $30million British production. The production will be…
The Ubiquitous Crowe Tabloid Dispatch
“Hollywood’s golden girl Meg in marriage split … Crowe has become Hollywood’s latest heart-throb since starring as Maximus, in the summer’s most successful blockbuster. Ryan is reported to have spent considerable time with Crowe…
Sam Neill: walking with the dinosaurs … again
Kiwi Neill has become the first major actor to sign on for more encounters with a blue screed/rampaging dinosaurs in Jurassic Park 3. He will reprise his role as Dr. Alan Grant from the…
Simply the best: Dame Kiri: the Tina Turner of the opera world?
Dame Kiri talks about her Maori heritage, playing to an audience of 600 million people, her forthcoming concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and how long she can keep performing. Interviewing the world-renowned soprano,…
Hollywood Hobbit Brings Trouble to Middle Earth
Literary fans who are devoted to the purity of Tolkien’s Middle Earth ouevre are angry at rumours that Frodo Baggins is ready to flirt. The introduction of glamorous Hollywood stars such as Liv Tyler…
Neighbours no more: Kiwi pop culture export success reverses the flow
Aussie girl-group Bardot, the most manufactured band in the history of pop, have become a sensation. “Popstars”, the hit TV show that followed their evolution from nobodies to Spice Girls, was born from a…
Maclean movie puts the art before the horse
Feed gets a shot in the arm from director Alison Maclean. “We all know what to expect from ’70s smack movies. So why is Jesus’ Son so unexpectedly good? Maclean’s movie, like the much…
Kiwi Comics Turn Fringe Festival Into Laugh-fest
The All New Kiwi Stand-up Experience has gained a reputation as one of the funniest acts in town at Ottawa’s Fringe Festival. But be warned that “the routines of these two comics from New…
Tolkien epic is lord of the net
The $200m epic, in production in New Zealand and not due for release for a year and a half, is already burgling box-office treasure and causing a storm on the internet, with a promotional trailer breaking…
Elemental Design Lets House Take Care of Itself
Professor Brenda Vale and Dr Robert Vale of the Sustainable Design Centre Research Centre at the University of Auckland, use The Times to forward their manifesto for environmentally friendly housing design. Their ‘Autonomous House’…
Teddy Tahu Rhodes: Kiwi man singing Houston
Teddy Tahu Rhodes, “a New Zealand baritone well known in Sydney for his Opera Australia appearances”, is playing the lead role of Joe in the Houston Grand Opera’s rendering of Dead Man Walking. It…
Oceania Merge the Edges With Log Drums and Electro Beats
Former leader of Killing Joke Jaz Coleman joins Maori singer Hinewehi Mohi in a high-tech fusion on their eponymous debut. “This isn’t a fashion record for me, or a passing flirtation with another culture,” says Coleman, recently…
Kiwi Professor of Pop Crafts Summer Sounds from Nashville
“If there were advanced academic degrees for pop music, songwriter Tim Finn would have achieved professor emeritus status long ago. This Split Enz and Crowded House alum is a craftsman of the first order….
Bonding Bungee Brings Together Father and Son Film-makers
Award-winning doco “Pop & Me” charts father/son relationships around the world as the father/son makers work out their own. The film’s defining moment comes when Chris persuades his Dad join him in a tandem…
Sir David Low: “the greatest political cartoonist of the century”
London’s Evening Standard previews an exhibition by the Kiwi cartoonist Churchill called “a green-eyed young Antipodean radical.” His work was banned in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy due to “the savagerealism” of his pen….
“All You Sweet Girls With Your Sweet Talk”
Known for her willingness to thematically peer over the edge ‘to the centre in her head’, Maclean is attracting attention for Jesus’ Son (starring Billy Cudrup and Samantha Morton). The film, about alienation, ennui…
Masters class
Jazz legend Ian Chaplin was joined in concert by the Gerard Masters Trio. Young NZ pianist Masters was hailed as an “imaginative deconstructionist” and his trio “a highly individualistic unit.” The Trio released their…
Tim Finn Inspires Repeat of History in Boston
Finn’s Boston show prompts memories at Boston gig-guide Go!. Years ago, ” was introduced to an outstanding New Zealand pop outfit called the Split Enz. A friend’s older sister was showing off a sweat…
Kiwi Art Criticism: vol. #1
“The buttock of a dead cow washed up on the beach” was how Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture Torso II was described when it arrived in New Zealand in 1963.
Serendipity the Secret to Cyber-Success
“Human beings, by and large don’t know what they’re interested in,’ says Denis Dutton, a professor in New Zealand who started and edits the highly accliamed Arts and Letters Daily, perhaps the most eclectic,…
Alison Maclean gives
The story of a grunged out herion addict ‘FH’ (Billy Cudrup), based on the stories of Dennis Johnson and inspired by the Lou Reed lyric, also stars Oscar nominated Samantha Morton, Holly Hunter and…
Gandalf: Lord of the Seas
Sir Ian McKellen takes a break on Auckland Harbour from playing the wise wizard Gandalf in the 16 month long shoot of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. He is immersing himself in the…
Art Bin editor itches to be scratched
Auckland based Elam School of Fine Arts lecturer Phil Dadson’s innovative percussion group ‘From Scratch’ makes Art Bin editor’s “favourite things” list.
Heavenly Creatures: In New York not all angels are innocent
From New York Daily News TV preview: “Lynskey and future “Titanic” star Winslet are phenomenal as two alienated teens in 1950s New Zealand who construct their own, ultimately lethal fantasy world in Peter Jackson’s…
New Zealand: Hottest destination of movie makers
It’s official: Bollywood star Hritihik Roshan has been made a singing-dancing- fighting icon in the Bollywood smash hit Kaho Naa … Pyar Hai (Say you Love me), a romantic musical thriller shot in the…
Buller’s birds’ blues at Sydney biennale 2000
Artist Bill Hammond (alongside fellow Kiwi Lisa Reihana) has been selected to show alongside some of the hottest names in contemporary art, including Chris Ofili, Tracey Moffat and Vanessa Beecroft. The selection panel included…
Courtney Love: Nelson Girls old-girl takes on Napster
As a user Courtney loves Napster, but it carries some risks and the Hole lead singer is wary of corporate relationships in general, “If you want some little obedient slave content provider, then fine….
This is our music
“It pays my way and it corrodes my soul … oh give us the money” sings Kiwi indie star Dean Wareham, ex-lead singer of Galaxie 500 has joined the list of college radio icons…
Kiwi designed green house for the good life 2000
Brenda and Robert Vale, from Auckland University, have designed what has become known as the Autonomous House. Producing its own electricity and suppling its own water, it is the realisation of their design manifesto…
Basic Instinct gives Alpha Male brilliant bittersweet edge
The Times gives William Brandt’s collection of short stories, Alpha Male, lavish praise: “Surreal and sometimes downright weird, every tale is strong in its own right – a rare thing in any book of…
Glamorous ballet dancer wooed to the edges of the world by inspirational Kiwi
Ballet dancer Polly Benge went from a life of hip restaurants and competitive yoga to a hazardous cycling trip around India with Kiwi chef Tim Molena, 5 years her junior. She has no regrets…
“Where do anarchists go to die?”
New Zealand, apparently. In Richard Vetere’s new play The Atheist in all of Us, about legendary atheist and founder of American Atheists Inc. Madylyn O’Hair, the dying protagonist escapes persecution from religious zealots by…
Niccol turns into Hollywood gold
Kiwi Andrew Niccol is to write and direct ‘the Hollywood project’, rumoured to star Al Pacino as a down and out movie producer. Niccol was Oscar nominated for the screenplay to The Truman Show and…
Wall Street Gets Emotional Rescue from the Edge
Kevin Roberts says there is a challenge for the ‘anti-social medium’ of the web, traditional advertising and product design in general. That is, to get emotional and to create mystery and sensuality in order to re-connect…
Russell Crowe maximises his earnings
“What we do in life echoes in eternity,” Russell Crowe as General Maximus says while admonishing his battle-ready troops in Gladiator. And what we do at the box office echoes in our paychecks”.
Roman in gloamin’ ?
Russell Crowe is being hailed here as the best-looking guy in a skirt since Mel Gibson. The showbiz press have gone crazy over the New Zealander’s performance in Gladiator, just like Mel’s in Braveheart. …
G’Day Caesar
Crowe’s accent crosses the expanses of the globe and the distance of time in the Gladiator – Owen Duggan corrects the notion that it’s Bondi-based, and Christine Kenneally muses on the sound of things ancient…
Looking Down: Fleur Adcock reaps poetic insight from the fringe
“Strangers are good for us, they help us see ourselves in unfamiliar ways. They take slightly different routes across our wearisomely footslogged home turf.” poetry is acute, intelligent, fastidious, sceptical, often disturbingly funny….
Happy Days Inspires Maori Playwright Briar Grace-Smith to Tell New Zealand Stories
“New Zealanders are becoming bolder and prouder about who we are. We’re no longer looking overseas for our theatre. We’re telling our own stories and feeling good about it. And not just Maori”
