Sam Brooks 
Sure, the new wave of RTDs might have cool labels and no carbs or whatever, but for Sam Brooks, none come close to the perfection held within that little yellow can. RTDs are coming back, if they were ever really gone. I remember the halcyon days of getting drunk off Purple Goannas, off Taboos, even … Read more
Sam Brooks watches I Am Not Okay With This, the new show that feels like a calculated mash-up of a bunch of other Netflix shows you really liked. “Oh, it’s like Sex Education meets Stranger Things.” It’s not a new thing to describe a television show in this X-meets-Y fashion. It’s convenient shorthand, and a … Read more
After days of rumours, Mediaworks have removed Hannah Tamaki as a cast member for the 2020 season of Dancing with the Stars. Sam Brooks reflects on the controversy. On Sunday, the NZ Herald gossip column Spy broke the news that Hannah Tamaki – wife of Destiny Church founder Brian and head of newly-founded political party Vision … Read more
A Twitter spat blew up into a full blown controversy. The trailer for Guns Akimbo makes it look like a fun romp, the sort of film your flatmate who keeps all the bowls in his bedroom watches a million times on your Netflix account. Daniel Radcliffe has guns taped to his hands! Newly minted scream … Read more
He’s been the country’s leading supporter of the strangest films in the world, and now he’s made his first feature film. Sam Brooks talks to Auckland film champ Ant Timpson about his directorial debut, Come to Daddy. My first encounter with industry legend Ant Timpson was from afar, at a 2010 screening of The Room, … Read more
The Star Wars prequels are universally regarded as the nadir of the franchise, but at least they gave us spinoff series The Clone Wars, writes Sam Brooks Nobody likes the Star Wars prequels. Though that statement is slightly hyperbolic, it’s not far from the truth. Even if you can make a limp defence for certain … Read more
‘A life-changing experience’, ‘The greatest of the great! It must be experienced!’, ‘That show with the dancing lady on the billboard.’ Shen Yun ads are impossible to avoid, but what on earth is it? So what is Shen Yun? According to the Shen Yun website: “It is a brilliant artistic revival and celebration of China’s … Read more
In Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, the titular Zoey starts to hear the thoughts of those around her – but expressed in song. Sam Brooks investigates what would happen if Zoey took a trip across the Pacific to sunny ol’ New Zealand. If you could pick any superpower, what would it be? Flight? Maybe, but all those … Read more
Sam Brooks heads along to Meatstock 2020, and finds himself questioning the symbiotic relationship between meat-eating and machismo. As I entered Auckland’s ASB Showgrounds for the first day of Meatstock 2020, a girl was exiting. Trucker cap on, eyes hidden behind aviators, manicured fingers wrapped around a can, itself wrapped in a chilled cozy. One … Read more
To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was the Netflix hit of 2018, but the sequel feels designed to replicate the success of the original without half as much heart, writes Sam Brooks. Despite the bevy of Oscar nominations for Netflix at the recent Academy Awards, there’s still a stigma around a Netflix Original film. That … Read more
A highlight of this year’s New Zealand Festival of the Arts are the collaborations between some of the best artists and creators in the world. Sam Brooks talks to artists about the work they’re making and what collaboration means to them. Whether it’s the relationship between a writer and an editor, between a choreographer and … Read more
Sam Brooks watched today’s NFL Super Bowl and recaps the moments that mattered. 12:30 NZ Time: Demi Lovato sings ‘The Star Spangled Banner’, seemingly live! Did you know that a lot of people lip-sync this specific gig? Including Whitney Houston, singing objectively the most famous rendition of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’! Sorry to ruin your … Read more
Sam Brooks watches Netflix’s Miss Americana, the new Taylor Swift documentary – and finds it light on revelation, heavy on image rehabilitation. “My entire moral code, as a kid and now, is a need to be thought of as good. It I was all I wrote about, it was all I wanted. It was the … Read more
Sam Brooks makes the case for raising your kids on the exquisite Japanese anime films, which have just landed on Netflix. A girl waits at a bus stop in the rain, barely fitting herself and her little sister under an umbrella. Next to her sits a large creature halfway between a bear and beachball. He … Read more
On its 20th anniversary, Sam Brooks looks back on The Sims, the safest space for an entire generation of gamers. Over the past two decades, The Sims has turned from a quirky life simulation experiment into one of those games that even non-gamers know about, and might even play from time to time. It’s a … Read more
Now that the new year is well and truly underway, how can you make the most of your time and feel good about it? Sam Brooks has you covered. Write a to-do list with at least one easy thing on it Nothing feels better than ticking off a list, and nothing motivates you to … Read more
Twenty-two years ago, Lucy Lawless wasn’t just playing Xena, she was part of one of SNL’s greatest ever sketches. Sam Brooks pays tribute to Stevie Nicks Fajita Round-Up. The year is 1998. Jenny Shipley is prime minister, we win zero medals at the Olympics, and an actress named Lucy Lawless is the first New Zealander to … Read more
She’s an Oscar-winning actress, a widely hated celebrity and founder of one of the most successful wellness brands in the world. And all your jade egg jokes make no difference at all, writes Sam Brooks. A few weeks ago, the trailer for new Netflix show The GOOP Lab was released, along with a provocative image: … Read more
Avenue 5, the new show from The Thick of It and Veep genius Armando Iannucci, veers off-course after an ambitious launch, writes Sam Brooks Armando Iannucci has proven himself as one of the great satirists of our age. First making his name with Alan Partridge and then The Thick Of It (a takedown of British … Read more
Want to watch Friends but not sure how much time you’ll have to commit? Never fear, Sam Brooks has you covered with how long it’ll take to watch some of the most bingeable shows (and what you’ll need to do to prepare for your binge). Want to know a fun fact? If your full-time job … Read more
Is there a more empathetic show on television than the British teen comedy-drama Sex Education? Unlikely, writes Sam Brooks. If you had a Netflix subscription last January, chances are you’re one of the reportedly 40 million people who watched Sex Education, the gentle British show about a teenager who gives sex advice but – whoa-oh … Read more
Sam Brooks went to the FOMO 2020 festival in Auckland, and was relieved to find it was more than just the final time that Lizzo will ever perform at 7:20pm. “Are you going to see Lizzo tonight?” That’s the question a lot of people asked me rather than the more standard, correct question: “Are you … Read more
In the year 2000 there was no Netflix or Amazon Prime or On Demand; the ‘too much TV’ era was still years in the future. So what did we watch instead? Beverly Hills 90210 came to an end The end of the 90s also signalled the end of Beverly Hills 90210, one of the defining … Read more
Another year, another avalanche of television to keep track of. Sam Brooks rounds up all the shows you’ll want to watch this year – new, returning, and local. New Shows Normal People What is it? A BBC/Hulu adaptation of that Sally Rooney book you read for book club because everybody loved it and you could … Read more
Summer reissue: Ten years on from its first episode, Sam Brooks revisits all the wild, dumb, and plain terrible things that happened on Glee. This was originally published on 27 May, 2019. Ten years ago, a little show from the brain of Ryan Murphy premiered. Up until this point, he’d had a minor failure with … Read more
Sam Brooks steps back in time to 2009, the year of Now! That’s What I Call Music 31. What did his younger self think of those songs – and do they still hold up today? This post was originally published on March 4 2019. The year was 2009 and it was full of, as your worst … Read more
Summer reissue: Sam Brooks digs into his childhood to present his magnum opus: a ranking of all 151 OG Pokémon. This post was originally published on 20 April, 2019. You can see the scrollbar at the right side of your screen. Let’s just get into this, shall we? Opinions are, as always, my own and … Read more
Summer reissue: With Falling Inn Love, New Zealand gets its very own Netflix romcom – so how accurate is its depiction of small town NZ? Sam Brooks investigates. This post was originally published on 29 August, 2019. When the trailer for Falling Inn Love dropped earlier this month, I had my knives out, and so … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews the second season of You, the surprise 2018 Netflix hit that made toxic masculinity compulsively watchable. Major spoilers for the first season of You, which is really worth watching. What if you were watching a Lifetime movie, but from the perspective of the villain? That’s the premise of You, which was a … Read more