Dreamliner Flying in the Face of Convention
16 April 2014 – The newly painted, and “stunning”, black Air New Zealand 787-9 is literally flying in the face of convention, according to Los Angeles Times travel editor Catharine Hamm. “The Dreamliner,…
Tag Archives: Los Angeles Times
Fabric Store from NZ a Natural Fit in LA
The Los Angeles location for The Fabric Store, a New Zealand-based business that also has four retail stores in its native country and three in Australia, offers “a more edgy, fashiony focus…
Echo Park Band Gets It Right in Los Angeles
New Zealand singer-songwriter, Bradley Hanan Carter (pictured second from left), 33, is founder of Los Angeles sextet, NO which is celebrating the launch of its debut album El Prado with a tour at legendary…
Springsteen Covers Royals at Mt Smart Stadium
According to Rolling Stone, Bruce Springsteen made the most surprising cover choice of his career when he played an acoustic rendition of teenage Grammy award-winner Lorde’s song Royals during his Auckland show at Mt…
Royal New Zealand Ballet Return to US after Two Decades with Giselle
For the first time in 21 years the Royal New Zealand Ballet is touring the United States, performing “a fresh production of the classic” Giselle, premiering in Los Angeles at The Music…
You Don’t Say No to a Director like Campion
The fact that Jane Campion’s drama Top of the Lake has been so well received only makes sense to American actress Holly Hunter, who played feminist seer GJ in the award-winning series. “It’s been energising…
Kiwi Exchange Student Makes His Mark on L.A’s Football Fields
One of the stars of Venice High School’s football team this season is seventeen-year-old New Zealand foreign-exchange student James Cherrington. The 6-foot-1, 97-kg Cherrington has six sacks—or Quarterback tackles—playing defensive end for the Los Angeles…
Hobbit Global Fan Celebration Event Planned
Director Peter Jackson has announced plans to preview footage from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug at a “global fan celebration” on 4 November that will be simulcast in theatres and feature…
Dixon Does It Again Claiming Third IndyCar Title
New Zealander Scott Dixon has claimed his third IndyCar championship, regardless of a fifth place finish at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. Dixon won the title by 27 points over Power teammate Helio…
Sweeping down the Staircase for Tea at Otahuna
A stay at the five-star Otahuna Lodge located in Tai Tapu, Canterbury “will give you a tantalising taste of landed gentry living”, according to travel writer, New Zealander Amanda Jones for the Los…
Sweeping Seismic Building Review Surpasses US Attempts
After the deadly Christchurch 6.3 magnitude earthquake, city officials responded with the most sweeping seismic review of concrete buildings ever attempted, far surpassing anything achieved in California. Post-earthquake, residents were stunned to learn that two-thirds…
Urban Branches out with Billboard-Topping Fuse
New Zealand-born country singer Keith Urban, 45, has been branching out musically – playing with the Rolling Stones and others, and fresh collaborations on his latest album, Fuse, which debuted on Billboard’s 200 Albums…
Recreating Iconic Doors Mural in Venice Beach
New Zealand-born painter and sculptor Clinton Bopp, who lives in Santa Monica Canyon, has been working on reproducing the Venice Beach mural incorporating Jim Morrison and band members who made up The Doors. Folk musician…
Adding Traction to the America’s Cup
“After a storied career at sea, where Russell Coutts ranked among the most successful skippers in Cup history, the New Zealander now serves as chief executive for the Oracle racing team,” Los Angeles Times’…
Lighting Up the Longlist with Her Second Novel
New Zealand author Eleanor Catton, 27, has made the Man Booker Prize longlist for her novel, The Luminaries, which will be released in New Zealand on 1 August and in the US in October….
NZ’s ‘Papple’ Pear Makes Dream California Debut
‘Like an Asian pear with flavour’, the Papple is a NZ bred and grown cross of various Asian pears. The Papple has just made its Californian debut at Gelson’s markets, one of America’s premiere supermarket…
Shot at Movieland
The New Zealand company behind Queenstown’s Shotover and Hukafalls jet boat tours is collaborating with Italy’s theme park Movieland in Verona to create a one-of-a-kind ride with a theme based on the…
Strength to Strength
“Early signs suggest will bend toward something even more mysterious, beautiful, unsettling and satisfying than the mysterious, beautiful, unsettling, satisfying thing it is from the start,”…
On the Path to Self-sufficiency
Lead singer of Echo Park-based band NO Bradley Hanan Carter was just one of 2500 bands performing in Austin at this year’s SXSW festival hoping to snare the attention of approximately…
Novel Makes Longlist
Emily Perkins’ novel The Forrests has made the UK Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013 longlist. The prize, known formerly as the Orange Prize, honours a work of fiction written in English…
Downton Appearance
World-renowned New Zealand soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is scheduled to appear on the popular British period soap opera, Downton Abbey. Producers of the show announced that Te Kanawa will appear as a guest…
Keoghan Wastes No Time
“ Phil Keoghan of The Amazing Race has scuba dived with a dog, swilled the blood of a cobra and attended a nudist wedding,” Los Angeles Times blogger Mary Forgione writes. “And he…
Exotic Hops Lure Americans
New Zealand’s “bold, fruity” flavoured hops have been increasingly used by American craft brewers who prize their unique flavours, according to Los Angeles Times correspondent John Verive. “Some of the most popular new hop…
Tackling Teen Angst
New Zealand director Andrew Niccol’s film The Host is one of several films to be released over the next three months targeting “voracious” teen movie goers. In his quest to adapt Stephenie…
Surprise Involvement
When the premiere of West of Memphis was first announced for the Sundance Film Festival this year, the participation of Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson was something of a surprise, not…
Look At That
Auckland-born Academy Award-nominated director Andrew Adamson – of Shrek and The Chronicles of Narnia fame – returns to the realm of the fantastic with Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, a film that captures eye-popping…
Boyens’ Cinematic Adventure
Asked one day in 1997 if, as a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, she might have any interest in helping out friends and fellow New Zealanders Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh adapt The Lord of…
Minting Hobbits
New Zealand Post is minting coins and printing stamps featuring characters from Middle-earth to commemorate the upcoming film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The coins feature Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Grey, dwarf king Thorin…
Work in Progress
West of Memphis was produced by the Oscar-winning team of Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, who enlisted filmmaker Amy Berg, herself an Oscar nominee for the documentary Deliver Us From Evil, to make their own film…
Mister Pip Premieres
New Zealand-born writer-director Adam Adamson’s film adaption of Lloyd Jones’ prize-winning novel Mister Pip, starring Hugh Laurie, has premiered at the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto as part of the city’s annual film festival. Laurie…
How Good an Actress She Is
New Zealand actress Melanie Lynskey is the “highlight” of Hello I Must Be Going writes Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan, who says she “shines as the film’s focus.” “If you…
Farewell to the Brave
“Portraits of the three soldiers killed 19 August in a massive blast from a roadside bomb in northeastern Bamiyan gazed out from the front pages of virtually every New Zealand newspaper, including the…
Potheads Lose Brainpower
A study of marijuana’s mounting neuropsychological effects over time tracked a group of 1037 children born in New Zealand for 38 years from the times of their births in 1972 and 1973. Adults who…
Pint-sized Nude on Plaid
“A weirder, more diffuse sense of humour animates an assemblage by New Zealand-born, London-based Francis Upritchard,” the Los Angeles Times ‘Culture Monster’ describes in a review of the three-artist show ‘Bush of…
Now to the Cutting Room
Two of Hollywood’s most anticipated — and most expensive — forthcoming movies have wrapped production in New Zealand. Shot together, a pair of films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy book The Hobbit have…
Illuminating North America
The first of the two-day New Zealand in L.A. festival at the city’s REDCAT theatre featured eight chamber and solo works by New Zealand composers and renowned performer on Maori instruments, Richard Nunns. Los…
Distinctively World Famous
“Today, of 164 buildings constructed between 1920 and 1940, 140 remain, forming a time capsule of design elements — zigzags, sunbursts, Egyptian motifs and geometric patterns — that characterize the style and garner…
Unprecedented After-Shock
Deon Swiggs, 25-year-old director of the fledgling nonprofit Rebuild Christchurch, talks to the Los Angeles Times about how New Zealanders are coping one year after a massive magnitude 6.3 earthquake killed 185 people and…
Oddball Wins Over Director
The Peter Jackson-produced and Steven Spielberg-directed 3-D performance-capture film The Adventures of Tintin opens in the United States this week just ahead of the film’s New Zealand release. The Adventures of Tintin arrives in the US as…
Store Openings In California
New Zealand-born fashion designer Rebecca Taylor is “on a roll” according to the Los Angeles Times’ Melissa Magsaysay who was at the opening of Taylor’s West Coast flagship store on Robertson Boulevard. “The designer just celebrated…
New Zealand Facebook First
“New Zealand already has lush rainforests and sandy beaches, bungee jumping and scuba diving, gourmet restaurants and lively night life, even a thriving tech community that has drawn investment from the likes of Peter…
Man Of Masterpieces
Kerikeri resident Russell Garcia, an California-born arranger, composer and conductor who was an influential figure in the West Coast music scene during the 1950s and ‘60s and whose work in Hollywood included writing the…
Pass Mark Against Blossoms
All Blacks coach Graham Henry has given his team a pass mark following their 83-7 thrashing of Japan in the Rugby World Cup Pool A match on 16 September. Henry said the…
Worldwide Audience Wowed
“New Zealand were impressive in spots as they got their Rugby World Cup off to a winning start,” according to the Guardian’s Barry Glendenning who gives an in-depth minute-by-minute analysis of the All Blacks…
Creating Social Science Fiction
New Zealand-born director Andrew Niccol’s new film In Time, out in the United States on 28 October, is set in a world where everyone’s biological clock stops at age 25. Here, time is the…
Jackson Bags the Best Bilbo
Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson says there is “simply nobody else” who could star as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit epic but British actor Martin Freeman. “He is fantastic and there is simply nobody else…
Luke Skywalker Island Minted
The tiny South Pacific nation of Niue, population 1311, will soon be accepting Star Wars coins as legal tender. Each coin will be minted with a fully colored image of Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker,…
Silent Hitchcock Discovered
A thirty-minute portion of The White Shadow, a 1923 silent film that is considered to be Alfred Hitchcock’s first credit, has been found amongst a collection of unidentified American nitrate prints in the New…
Californian Upset
New Zealand No 1 Marina Erakovic stunned top-seeded and defending champion Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 at the Stanford Classic in California to reach her second quarterfinal of the year. The 23-year-old…
Back to the Place He Loves
Los Angeles is losing one of the greatest living jazz pianists, and a composer-orchestrator who has few peers, if any, New Zealand native Alan Broadbent. Before Broadbent moves his family to New York this…
Jones’ Cerebral Legacy
Upper Hutt-born neuroscientist Dr Edward “Ted” Jones, who was an expert on brain anatomy and the causes of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, has died in Los Angeles, aged 72. Jones retired in 29…
Taste the Santa Rosa plums
The 27 Mountford ‘Liaison’ Pinot Noir is the Los Angeles Times’ ‘Wine of the Week’. “Elegant and smooth, this New World Pinot carries the taste of Santa Rosa plums and sweet Asian…
Inviting Gods Into the Theatre
“With a stunning combination of ceremony, ritual, dance and theatre, ,” will have its US premiere this week at the downtown Los Angeles’ Million Dollar Theater. Samoan…
Tempest on Broadway
Auckland-based choreographer Lemi Ponifasio will perform Tempest: Without A Body on Broadway at the historical Million Dollar Theater on April 2-3. Performed by Ponifasio’s company MAU, the production is making its US premiere in…
Diva Loves Danny Boy
Soprano Kiri Te Kanawa is a “sucker” for sentimental Irish ballad Danny Boy. Te Kanawa is one of eight musicians asked by the Los Angeles Times to share their favourite love song in the…
Self-Controlled Success
A study by an international team of researchers who looked at 137 children in Dunedin born in the early 197s, observing their levels of self-control at ages 3 and 5, has found that those…
