Theatre owners are up in arms that potential blockbuster Mulan – filmed in New Zealand and directed by hometown hero Niki Caro – is to be premiered not in cinemas, but on Disney’s streaming platform, Disney+. On an office wall somewhere hangs a picture of Disney CEO Bob Chapek – target on his head, and … Read more
Due to the ongoing pandemic, this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) is going predominantly digital for the very first time, replacing nights out at the Civic with nights in-front of the living room TV. Aaron Yap explores both the upsides and downsides to this unprecedented shakeup, and wonders if film festivals in the … Read more
At the end of every year, our columnist Aaron Yap wraps up his likes, dislikes and learnings from TV’s shifting media hellscape. Jeez, what a stinking hot mess. As 2017 thankfully draws to a close, reflecting on the year that’s been for TV has become quite the exercise in existential soul-searching – to couch it in the … Read more
Craving some spooky TV that isn’t soaked in 80s kitsch? Try the bone-chilling Channel Zero: Candle Cove, writes Aaron Yap. Syfy, look at you! First The Expanse, now Channel Zero? It’s like I might have to start paying attention to your shows or something. Where the former – a superb piece of serious, high-end science fiction … Read more
After viewing the latest season of Top of the Lake in a cinema, Aaron Yap looks at the increasingly blurred lines between films, TV shows, and everything in between. “It’s so magical – I don’t know why – to go into a theatre and have the lights go down. It’s very quiet, and then the curtain starts … Read more
Aaron Yap plumbs the depths of The Expanse, a sci-fi space opera that’s drawn comparisons to some of television’s greatest. It’s weird to think that the Syfy channel once spawned Battlestar Galactica, one of, if not the finest science fiction series of the modern television era. Today, the very mention of Syfy is cause for … Read more
Decimated first by piracy and then by streaming, video stores are meant to have vanished. But some have survived, and their success signposts how they might thrive into the future, writes Aaron Yap. Nestled in the heart of Mt. Albert in Auckland is one of the last remaining Video Ezy stores in New Zealand. A … Read more
Aaron Yap watches the new Scandi-crime drama Midnight Sun and finds it gross yet engrossing. Midnight Sun is as slick, engrossing and assured a cop procedural as I’ve seen since the dawn of the Nordic Noir boom. Its top-flight craft shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the creative force behind the show is the writing/directing duo of … Read more
Like books and vinyl records, DVD box sets are holding firm against the streaming tide, writes Aaron Yap. It used to be bloody hard to watch TV, didn’t it? These days it’s as easy as turning on the tap. Just sacrifice a smashed avo toast a month, and you can afford to zone out to … Read more
In the lead-up to Mother’s Day, Aaron Yap collates the best moments of his favourite TV Mum, Norma Bates of Bates Motel. Unless you’re totally fine with showing your mum a modern Gothic soap with Oedipus complex themes, Bates Motel wouldn’t be my first recommendation to binge over tea and cake on Mother’s Day. But … Read more
Aaron Yap binges local series This Is Not My Life, a sci-fi mystery that could sit comfortably alongside Black Mirror and Orphan Black, and asks why New Zealand has stopped making genre TV. In this recent Spinoff piece, I wrote about my experience, or more so lack of, with New Zealand television. I pondered … Read more
Aaron Yap reviews Pamela Adlon’s Better Things, the semi-autobiographical exploration of Hollywood and parenthood co-written by Louis C.K. There’s a terrific bit in the new Louis C.K. special where he admonishes “the way people talk about their mothers”. He recalls an after-match interview with a football player who scored a bunch of goals. “My mum … Read more
There’s a bevy of great new television shows that we can’t stream in New Zealand without breaking the law, and Aaron Yap has had it up to HERE. If there is one downside to this golden age of television on demand – where we’re all losing our minds over no fewer than ten amazing shows … Read more
Aaron Yap has become obsessed with the latest season of Married at First Sight Australia. He explains why the ingenious reality show puts traditional scripted television to shame. I wouldn’t consider myself an avid reality TV viewer, but I am admittedly susceptible to the cheap, junky pleasures of the genre. The more fucked-up the hook, … Read more
Aaron Yap, The Spinoff’s most die-hard 24 fan, tells you all you need to know about the return of 24, with a new star and a new name – 24: Legacy. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” It’s hard not to summon the words of French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr when … Read more
Every person and their dog has made a film reboot for television overseas, so why hasn’t New Zealand? Aaron Yap picks some classic films that are due a television revival. Confession: I don’t watch New Zealand television. It’s not that NZ TV sucks, although there is definitely an element of that. A huge one. I can’t … Read more
Hungry for a gripping new spy series? Try The Honourable Woman, says Aaron Yap – a spy drama worthy of John le Carré with a breathtaking central performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal. For spy junkies who’re feeling empty after motoring through all available episodes of Homeland and The Americans, Hugo Blick’s eight-part miniseries The Honourable Woman … Read more
In his final Monitor column for the year, critic Aaron Yap lists his 10 favourite shows from 2016. 10) Stranger Things In hindsight, there’s so much that irks me about this ‘80s sci-fi-horror pastiche. The all-surface, no-subtext aping of the movies it’s influenced by. The instant-cult memefication spawned in the wake of its popularity. Winona … Read more
Television reboots of classic movie franchises are becoming a phenomenon, one of the latest being a reimagining of The Exorcist. Aaron Yap explains why the show is neither a hit nor a flop. If there’s one thing the modern prolificacy of remakes has taught us, it’s to be cynical. Instead of maintaining an open mind, we’re … Read more
With dozens of new television shows being aired every month, it’s hard to keep up. Aaron Yap finally got around to seeing The Flash and found it to be everything he’d ever dreamed of. It’s increasingly rare to stumble onto a TV show by accident. You’re either scrambling to keep up with the latest social media-trending phenomenon, … Read more
For Monitor this week, Aaron Yap watches BBC series Criminal Justice, the lesser-known original version of HBO sensation The Night Of, and compares the two gripping murder mysteries. David Fincher, the notoriously exacting American director behind such lurid, ultra-stylish thrillers like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl, is a master of making cinematic … Read more
For Monitor this week, Aaron Yap basks in the grinning goofiness of DUKE’s Angie Tribeca, the best cop show spoof you probably aren’t watching. My tastes in comedy tend to drift towards fare like Louie and Curb Your Enthusiasm, where laughter stems from dark, cringe-making, cankerous worldviews of the human condition. But revisiting The Naked Gun … Read more
Recent TV-to-film flubs such as Ab Fab: The Movie and David Brent: Life on the Road have proved that the transition is not always easy. Aaron Yap rounds up the television shows that have managed to make it to the big screen without stuffing it up. Ricky Gervais should have put David Brent to rest … Read more
Aaron Yap reviews The Kettering Incident, the Tasmanian Gothic drama that has just as much mystery as it does moths. I blame Under the Dome. Ever since committing to three seasons of masochistically hate-watching that hokey, needlessly protracted mess of a Stephen King adaptation, I’ve never been able to look at butterflies – and by extension, … Read more
For his Monitor column this week, Aaron Yap looks at the spectrum of Psycho reboots from the terrible ’80s sequels to the unhinged prequel series Bates Motel. There’s a good chance Hitchcock might have balked if he heard what A&E had done to Norman Bates, the oedipally unhinged monster of his groundbreaking 1960 horror masterpiece Psycho. … Read more
In this week’s TV column, Aaron Yap looks at how social media platform Snapchat threatens to usurp traditional viewing habits. As much as it pains me to admit it, I’m a more devoted viewer of Snapchat than of any TV channel out there. Worse, Snapchat often acts as a secondary screen even when I am watching … Read more
Aaron Yap speaks to trans-Tasman duo Jonathan Brough and Benjamin Law of The Family Law, Australia’s first comedy based around the Chinese-Australian experience. Last month, spurred on by the recent groundswell of support for the fair, accurate representation of Asians on TV, and my personal interest in the subject as an Asian film/TV critic, I … Read more
With the second season of Mr Robot premiering on Lightbox this week, Aaron Yap is drawn back into the show’s elusive, murky world. Mr. Robot was one of the buzziest, most intoxicating television events of 2015. Thematically and formally, it was an inspired blend. The show wedded a heady study of mental illness to a … Read more
Today The Spinoff assesses the state of the professional critic in New Zealand with four pieces – two new, two older – which reflect on the challenges the form faces. Aaron Yap is one of the most insightful film critics in New Zealand. Unfortunately his reviews have lost him friends and infuriated people. He recounts his … Read more