Who is this bloke who’s sent Leicester City to the top of the table and tied Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s Premier League record for goals in consecutive games? Calum Henderson investigates this and more in the Premier League Week. In the second minute of first half added time at St James’ Park Leicester City’s number 9 … Read more
TV3’s Funny Girls, New Zealand’s funniest sketch show in years, comes to the end of its current run this week. In celebration of its triumphant first season, we asked the team to tell us the stories behind their favourite sketches. Rose Matafeo: ‘Makeup Tutorial’ This was one of the first sketches I wrote for the … Read more
By Simon Plumb Is this the one? Is this the year to send the followers of the Halbergs into a talkback armageddon? Well, says Simon Plumb, if it ain’t this year it ain’t never, because we have got one hell of showdown heading our way. The awards show is very much the giddy, orgasmic climax of … Read more
In the latest in a series of interviews with key media personalities, Duncan Greive sits down with the head of the station known until recently as Radio New Zealand for a full and frank discussion about its place in our media. For most of the 2000s Radio New Zealand felt unmoored from the rest of … Read more
Bringing together the best, worst and weirdest TV moments of the week, including HDPA’s strange mouse story and a visit from Peter Capaldi. Marvel’s Heroically Addictive New Superhero Show The flow of eminently bingeable TV shows is coming thick and fast from the US these days. Last week it was Master of None, this week … Read more
Steve Braunias holds court on the judges of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Let us now judge the judges. The first-ever longlist of the national book awards was announced this week, in anticipation of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The news was greeted with various assorted huzzahs and the gnashing of … Read more
Actress, presenter and cricket tragic Sonia Gray on the stealthy way the Blackcaps have adopted reverse sledging and “respect-shaming” as tactics. Today the cricketing world will look to the Adelaide Oval, waiting to see how the pink kookaburra holds up in the world’s first day/night test match – a task that it appears to have failed … Read more
Rog and Davo join us from Embassy Road Studios to mark the momentous occurrence of both Everton and Chelsea notching up wins in the same week and of course the incomparable Jamie Vardy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJTg_3yUto&feature=youtu.be?utm_source=thespinoff&utm_medium=partnership&utm_campaign=partnership Sign up to Premier League Pass now and get the rest of the EPL season for 1/2 Price.
The medium is now the message, even more than it has ever been. Gay writer and documentary maker David Herkt examines the tragedies and triumphs of homosexual life as reflected in the TV media culture of mid-20th century New Zealand. There was Peter Sinclair, Lew Pryme – and then there was Hudson & Halls… At … Read more
The twelfth episode of our weekly pop music chat for umusic, shot and edited by The Spinoff’s own José Barbosa. It involves two pop rookies – The Spinoff’s Alex Casey and bFM’s Joseph Harper – listening to state-of-the-art pop music and having a chat about it. Simple. This week the couch is overrun by Bieber … Read more
Somebody pops the question next week on The Block NZ – but is it Jeremy proposing to the love of his life Cat, Sarah’s boyfriend to Sarah, or Mitch to this bit of GIB board he’s weirdly infatuated with? No idea, sorry, but here are the Power Rankings all the same. 1. (Last Week: 3) … Read more
Duncan Greive describes the scene as the Golden State Warriors complete the greatest start in NBA history. It started, as most basketball games do, at tip off. Andrew Bogut, the Warriors’ lumbering, physically fragile centre, out-jumped Roy Hibbert, the Lakers’ lumbering, mentally fragile centre. The ball fell to Draymond Green, the physical embodiment of all that is remarkable … Read more
Inside the Lightbox is a sponsored post where we mine the extensive Lightbox catalogue for shows you might like to watch. We don’t celebrate it here New Zealand, but that doesn’t mean you can’t gorge upon a mighty platter of great Thanksgiving episodes from your favourite Lightbox shows. The Mindy Project (S01E06 ‘Thanksgiving’) Two of Mindy’s … Read more
(Music: Please Listen Carefully (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0) We met in a fancy hotel on Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour. I was the short, big boned chap with creased and crinkly clothes; he was the tall Scot wearing an immaculately pressed suit, sans tie, shirt buttoned to the top. “I’ll sit anywhere that works for you,” he … Read more
Beating Playstation’s notoriously difficult Super Meat Boy was one of the biggest achievements of Liam Maguren’s young life. So why didn’t anyone care? In 2010 a nasty lil’ bastard of a platformer called Super Meat Boy was released. Made, impressively, by only two dudes, the addictive indie game quickly gained a reputation for its incredibly … Read more
Sir Gordon Tietjens picks his first New Zealand Sevens squad for the 2015/16 season today with the ultimate prize an Olympic Gold Medal. We look at the coach and his team and ask why didn’t more big name players commit to his cause? The story, apocryphal maybe, goes that when Sir Gordon Tietjens first became … Read more
Alex Casey delivers her latest MKRNZ power rankings, including a beautiful union between rugby and couscous, and the most violent kitchen utensil yet. We lost a lot of good contestants out there this week, as well as a lot of fingertips by deathly mandolin. Seriously, when did MKRNZ become The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, gathering together … Read more
Quietly, almost by stealth, Elsbeth Hardie’s family memoir The Girl Who Stole Stockings made its way to the best-seller charts this year and may well be one of the best books of New Zealand non-fiction published in 2015. It’s a brilliantly researched history of the life – and minor crime, which had far-reaching consequences – of … Read more
Alex Casey binges the entire catalogue of WatchMe, NZME’s brand new on demand local video platform. Following in Family First’s footsteps, today NZME launched their own video on demand service, with a focus on 100% locally-made shows. Starting first with the comedy genre, the platform promises zero cost, zero pesky apps (are apps actually pesky?). … Read more
Tipped by many to become New Zealand’s greatest ever batsman, 25-year old Kane Williamson has already scored 12 test centuries and 16 test half-centuries. Ben Stanley goes in search of his power, and finds the answer in the Four Noble Truths. For Kane Williamson, it was just another shot played on the third morning of the … Read more
Mark Weldon, the embattled CEO of MediaWorks, has just been granted a contract extension by the company’s board, according to an email leaked to The Spinoff. In the email, written by MediaWorks chair Rod McGeoch, he describes recent media coverage of Weldon’s performance as “well beyond what any reasonable person would see as a justifiable reaction … Read more
In Monitor this week, Aaron Yap takes a look at The Evil Dead’s first foray into television. Almost 35 years after the franchise made its cult classic debut, has the magic survived the move to the small-screen? Those who defend Hollywood’s obsession with churning out sequels like to reassure you that sequels don’t – and … Read more
Steve Braunias interviews the amazing AA Gill. AA Gill phoned from Australia to talk about his new memoir, Pour Me, which has many familiar qualities of his writing – it’s a wonder to behold, it’s luminous with bright and glowing prose, it’s got a lot of similes in it. It’s also hectoring, monotonal, rambling, seemingly unedited and often unforgivably … Read more
If you’re struggling to understand what Lydia Ko just won, and how, you’re not alone. Greg Bruce attempts to get to grips with the baffling number of titles handed out at the end of the LPGA Tour. What the hell was happening during the final round of yesterday’s final tournament of the absurdly sexistly-named LPGA? … Read more
Joseph Harper faces the ghosts of a childhood past, and the difficulties of touch-screen gaming, in an iPhone port of Oddworld staple Munch’s Oddysee. Ah, another week of sneaking into the toilet at work so I can play a game on my iPhone. This week I played Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee. To be honest, it’s kind of … Read more
Inspired by The DNA Detectives, Spinoff staffers Alex and Don embark on a spit-fueled scientific journey to uncovering their deepest genetic secrets. The finale of DNA Detectives airs on TV One this week, a series that has traced the ancestry of Kiwi personalities from Ray McVinnie to Sonia Gray. Hosted by Richard O’Brien, celebrities are sent around … Read more
Ali Ikram’s picaresque account of his assignment to interview Keri Hulme. Volume two of Tell You What, the new compendium of New Zealand non-fiction writing selected by Susanna Andrew and Jolisa Gracewood, and published by Auckland University Press, features the usual suspects – Naomi Arnold, Ashleigh Young, Steve Braunias, and other assorted experienced litterateurs. There’s … Read more
The eleventh episode of our weekly pop music chat for umusic, shot and edited by The Spinoff’s own José Barbosa. It involves two pop rookies – The Spinoff’s Alex Casey and bFM’s Joseph Harper – listening to state-of-the-art pop music and having a chat about it. Simple. This week they are joined by Lawrence Arabia’s … Read more
Tara Ward brings you this week’s Shortland Street Power Rankings, including Curtis the quiche thief and a rogue doppelgänger from The Block NZ. 1) Sport was the winner on the day At last, the day we’ve been waiting approximately three episodes for has arrived: The Shortland Street Fun Run/Outdoor Quiz/Sack Race/Three Legged Race Fundraiser for … Read more