King of the Consoles
Peter Jackson has joined yet another elite Hollywood club: director’s who earn as much if not more from helping create video games as they do from making movies. Riding on the success…
Tag Archives: New York Times (The)
“The New Zealand Native Who Helped Open the Door to the Stars”
17 March 2004 – William Pickering, one of the leading figures in US space exploration, died of pneumonia in California aged 92. A graduate of Canterbury University and the California Institute of Technology, Wellington-born…
History Goes Digital
4 March 2004 – New York Times reviews ‘Paradise Now,’ a diverse exhibition of contemporary NZ and Pacific art currently on show at the Asia Pacific Society Museum on Park Avenue. Lisa Reihana’s multiple-screen…
Edge Eco-system
19 February 2004 – The unique bird-life native to NZ and its surrounding islands is the subject of major articles in The Japan Times and The New York Times. The first, by a Japan-based natural historian,…
Aotearoa in Demand
New York Times article asks ‘what’s next?’ of the post-Rings NZ film industry. Insiders predict a slew of big budget international projects, thanks to the government’s recent promise that it would reimburse 12.5% of…
Quality tucker
January 14, 2004 – Significant New York Times feature ‘The Other Down Under’ chronicles NZ’s culinary revolution – from land of the long boiled mutton to world-class gastronomic player. The new breed of Kiwi…
Eating on the edge
Public – helmed by NZ chefs Peter Gordon, Anna Hansen, and Brad Farmerie – has administered a welcome shock to the tastebuds of New York diners. According to New York Times food critic, William…
The Verdicts
The usually art-house sympathetic New York Film Critics Circle chose Return of the King as their Best Film of 2003, The American Film Institute named the film in its top-10 of the year….
Chameleon Car Coolest of ’03
Alan Gibbs’ Aquada skims into Time magazine’s list of ‘Coolest Inventions of 2003.’ The Aquada also featured in Arthur Lubow’s article ‘Inspiration: Where Does It Come From?’ for the New York Times, alongside the Band-Aid, the…
Edge eatery hits NoLIta
21 November 2003 – Celebrated ex-pat chefs Peter Gordon and Anna Hansen (the team behind London’s The Providores and Tapa) have opened a new restaurant in New York’s trendy NoLIta district – Public. In…
A Tailor of Two Empires
Bafta award winning costume designer Ngila Dickson profiled (+ slide show) in the New York Times. The signature of Dickson’s work on Lord of the Rings and Last Samurai is its fluidity and authentic…
The Price is Right
New York Times feature addresses Peter Jackson’s record-breaking US$20 million salary for Universal’s King Kong remake, deciding he is more than worth the dollars. Jackson, with his collaborative team of Fran Walsh and Phillippa…
Salt of the edge
In wake of the latest Booker Prize controversy – in which winner, DBC Pierre, announced his prize money would be used to pay off $200,000 in drug debts – the New York Times looks…
A New Kind of Filmmaking: Blockbuster with Brains
Anticipating the release of Return of the King, NYT film critic Elvis Mitchell singles out the breezy braininess of Peter Jackson’s craft for exemplary praise: “Mr. Jackson has been carefully applying layers of emotional…
Words into Mouths – Fingering the Leap to Language
An NYT feature explores the impetus that gave man the edge to evolve from animal to language (the only characteristic that differentiates us from animals). A debate taking in Chomsky and Pinker asks which came first…
Welding the past
Auto da Fay, Fay Weldon’s memoirs spanning her NZ upbringing and early adulthood in London, reviewed in the New York Times. “You hesitate to label Auto da Fay – a virtuoso triple pun on…
Whale riding on east (and west) coast
NYTimes’ critic Elvis Mitchell praises Niki Caro’s Whale Rider as having the “inspired resonance of found art wickedly absorbing”, and the quiet charisma of actress Keisha Castle-Hughes.The film along with fellow NZ…
Tataurangi Topples World No.2
Kiwi golfer Phil Tataurangi brought an abrupt end to Ernie Els winning streak, knocking the South African star out of the Accenture Match Play Championship with a 25-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole. The Championship pairs…
Clark Talks Creative Countries
New York Times interviews PM Helen Clark about her role as arts benefactress. As the self-appointed minister of “arts, culture and heritage,” Clark has given the creative industry a much-needed injection of funding and promotional support. Clark:…
Out of the Primordial Mud
NY Times travel writer witnesses first hand the impact of Cup-fever on the cosmopolitan City of Sails and the hotel, restaurant, and entertainment legacy it leaves behind. “Auckland feels like a younger, fresher, smaller version of…
Science Cynics and Bad News
Denis Dutton plays scientific advisor to the president in Edge.org‘s hypothetical survey on issues facing governments in 2003. His counsel? Do away with the scare-mongering and cynicism typifying science (and its media coverage) today in favour of “…
Keeping Up Appearances
New York Times heads to NZ to find out if the hype is for real and are pleasantly surprised. “Always seen as ‘clean and green,’ NZ is enjoying a special premium at the moment as Americans…
Couch Potato Paradise
Fellowship of the Ring wins “hands down” the best DVD of 2002 according to a New York Times review. “A movie of 208 minutes takes some tall explaining, but here we develop sympathy for the notion…
Epilogue Written to a Life of Words
NZ lost one of its edgiest inhabitants with the death of Janet Frame from acute myeloid leukemia on January 29. Frame, the author of 11 novels, 5 collections of short stories, a poetry collection,…
Marketing Middle Earth
“Historically isolated by geography, NZers are working to reap a publicity bonanza from , marketing their nation around the world as a destination for family tourism and ‘a second Canada’ for…
Giovanni Intra Remembered
We are diminished to report the death of Giovanni Intra in New York City on December 17th 2002. Giovanni, artist, critic, gallerist went east to stir up the LA art scene and established the gallery, China…
“A Little Madness Helps”
In an NYT essay Peter Jackson describes the 14 months it took to film the Rings trilogy as a “protracted bout of willful madness with seven units shooting multiple elements simultaneously for the…
Ringing its Praises
“A rare perfect mating of filmmaker and material” (NY Times). The Two Towers has been released with a series of glitzy premieres and press reviews which more than match the hype. Variety: “It’s hard to imagine…
UN Children’s Television Workshop
A New Zealand production features in the International Children’s Television Festival in Manhattan this month. The Kiwi entry in the UN sponsored exhibition, The Dress-Up Box Wonder, was written on the morning of the…
NZ: High-end Bottom of the World Destination
Turning conventional wisdom upside down New York Times finds that:”isolation, long an obstacle to international tourism, has become a plus in the post-Sept. 11 world. New Zealand, long promoted as clean and green, is now adding “safe.”…
ABC: Auckland Billionaire’s Club
Warren St. John backgrounds the moguls and money questing for the America’s Cup, pondering at the ‘pet projects’ of sporting tycoons like Larry Ellison: “they have hired the best sailors money can buy, sometimes moving them…
Auckland Holding its Breath
The 2002 America’s Cup challengers series has begun (click here for BBC, CNN coverage), launched with fanfare on the streets of Auckland. The competing teams paraded through the central city, the Swedes blasting ABBA,…
“Pastoral Eden”
Writer Luba Vangelova takes a road trip up the “stunningly beautiful” east coast of the North Island – a journey described as “temporal as well as geographical.” Vangelova muses over the locals who ” the lost days…
Air New Zealand Mile High Grub
Air New Zealand rates highly in a survey of post-Sept 11 airline food. As opposed to the “inedible” or nonexistent meals on many US carriers, Air NZ offers “selections like grilled herb marinated venison…
Compelling Texture. Big Finish.
If you can’t afford The Ivy’s 60 quid for Sam Neill’s pinot noir, alternatives are Malcolm Gluck’s affordable favourites: Church Road and Villa Maria, while across the Atlantic, Leslie Sirocco’s vote goes to the Lawson’s Dry Hills “palate-perking” pinot…
Paquin comes of age
Anna Paquin has blossomed from child prodigy to multi-talented star. She is receiving rave reviews for her role in the Broadway play ‘The Glory of the Living’, directed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. “This is…
X – Woman
Anna Paquin is playing another complex and haunted character – but this time on the New York stage. “I don’t think it’s anything in my own life,” she says. “Maybe it’s a fascination of…
The loved one
Yale University based NZ playwright Julie Mckee’s one-act play about death and two maidens, Invitation to a Funeral, well reviewed in NYT: “a wonderfully wry trip to the funeral parlor” about two women…
Nick Heir to Jack, Peter, John
Hutt Valley high school miler Nick Willis has become the fastest miler in New Zealand history, beating the times of Jack Lovelock, Peter Snell and John Walker at the famous Wanganui Cook Gardens.
Get out of the Water…
8 people, 21 of them in serious trouble, were rescued or ordered out of the water on a single day after unusual currents hit the Bay of Plenty.
Role-model Winslet
As well as being every New Zealand director’s actress of choice, Kate Winslet can handle a baby.
Conner Cautious
Dennis Conner will be in Auckland contesting the Cup in 2003, but he sure isn’t feeling complacent: “There’s so much depth of talent in New Zealand…They’ll still be difficult to beat, ” he told the NY…
Tiger’s Big Brother
“He walks with him, laughs with him, listens to him, and knows what to say to him and how to say it.” The New York Time describes Kiwi caddy Steve Williams as a big brother to…
Kiwi Museum Authority Leads Berlin’s Jewish Museum
Ken Gorbey of Te Papa, “New Zealand’s enormously successful national museum,” has been appointed artistic leader of of one of the new Berlin’s emblematic projects: the Daniel Liebeskind designed Jewish Museum. Gorbey’s challenge it…
Dionysian Olympic Success
“Eventually, excellence of all sorts is rewarded, and one day New Zealand will be able to show off its medals.” The New York Times explores the success of New Zealand’s contender in the wine making Olympics:…
Newzedge Footnote: “I Link Therefore I Am”
Paying tribute to the emblematic (and Kiwi conceived) Arts and Letters Daily, Jenny Lynn Bader writes, “There are entire publications on the Web that are just indexes of other publications … an imaginatively hyperlinked…
Satellite Spies: Big Brother is Watching.
‘Echelon’, a mysterious spy network between the United States, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, has come under fire from the European Union, as well as defenders of civil liberty. The station at Wahopai, in the South…
Golden Kiwi
Zespri gives the Kiwifruit the golden touch, hoping to strike it lucky in the lucrative American market. The new yellow cultivar is, “much like the green variety on the outside, but its mustard-hued flesh has a custardy…
Fast Cat Dalton Borne on the Scud of the Sea
The New York Times scuds along at 31 knots on board the world’s quickest ocean-going sailboat. For Club Med, skippered by Kiwi Grant Dalton pushing the boundaries of speed is plain-sailing: “You never get sick…
War and Peace: Kiwi UN Official Warns of Half-job Solutions
As the United Nations administration in Kosovo prepares to shut down, its job of emergency relief deemed to be over, Kiwi UN special envoy Dennis McNamara has some advice for the next great international mission to rebuild…
Kiwi Whispering on Stewart Island
The New York Times experiences the thrill of the chase in Kiwi country. “I realised I had been holding my breath, so I exhaled. The whole experience had lasted less than five minutes, but it had…
Catch Up Columbus: World Speed Record a Holiday in the Sun for Grant ‘Pure Speed’ Dalton
Dalton, captaining the maxi-catamaran Club Med has smashed the trans-atlantic 24-hour sailing record. Retracing Columbus’s historic East-West Atlantic Crossing, they broke the elusive 600 mile barrier for the first time, travelling at an incredible average speed of…
“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…
Edge Record: “And a Good South Wind Sprung Up Behind; the Albatross Did Follow”
For a very long time without a wallow … “The longevity record is of a giant royal albatross banded in New Zealand and recovered as a breeding adult 58 years later.”
Nuclear Free New Zealand Adds Weight to New Agenda Coalition
United Nations, New York: After pressure from the New Agenda Coalition, weeks of intense negotiation and decades of international pressure, the five original nuclear powers have agreed for the first time to the “unequivocal” elimination of nuclear…
New Zealand Nature on the Edge of London
An oasis of calm – in the form of a 105-acre wildlife reserve – has been developed just seven miles from the bustle of the centre of London. The Wetlands Center includes a New Zealand white…
