José Barbosa wraps on a tinfoil hat and dissects the hidden meaning in the trailer for the new X Files reboot. Earlier this year the television world was rocked by the announcement that 2016 would bring a brand new X-Files series. Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, we were told, would reprise their roles as FBI … Read more
I love Joe Bennett’s columns. King Rich is his first novel and much of it absolutely sings. It’s also the first novel that I’m aware of to emerge from the Christchurch earthquakes. The time that’s elapsed since the first quake in February 2011 has eclipsed that of World War 1 and will soon overtake that of the second World War. … Read more
Last night, Sky customers suffered a lengthy television blackout across free-to-air channels TV1, TV2 and TV3. This occurred during the premiere episode of The Block NZ, the biggest MediaWorks television event since the Story premiere. Not only that, but the blackout hit right when the teams were weirdly double bluffing their way to choosing their decrepit … Read more
Unpicking the meaning in a picture of the prime minister standing in reasonably close proximity with Potus. The New Zealand prime minister, John Key, is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, or the “UNGA games” as the event is probably not known. He had hoped to catch a moment with the US … Read more
How many bottles of red wine does it take to get over an armed robbery? I’ll let you know when I’ve finished drinking them. On a September morning six years ago, I was at work in my antique shop on Dominion Road when a well-spoken young man entered the store, lifted the corner of his … Read more
Aaron Yap examines how cyber thriller Mr. Robot manages to balance captivating storytelling with authentic tech-geekery, and give us a new breed of shuffling television superhero. Blackhat almost got it right. Released earlier this year, Michael Mann’s moody techno-thriller sought to provide as realistic a portrayal of cyber-terrorism and hacking as possible and proved to be … Read more
The fifth 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 discuss water safety, Ellie Goulding … Read more
Following in the footsteps of Liz Lemon, Jerry Seinfeld and Louie CK, Catherine McGregor eats at the iconic food vendors of New York television comedy. “I’m going to go talk to some food about this” – Liz Lemon. The Seinfeld Diner Finding out that Seinfeld was shot in Los Angeles sits high in my personal pantheon … Read more
Scotty Stevenson on Danny Lee’s rise from naive battler to the cusp of greatness on the PGA Tour. Danny Lee finished tied for second yesterday at the PGA Tour Championship at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia, but maybe it is more correct to say that Danny Lee was the biggest winner of … Read more
London writer Max Porter – best known in New Zealand as the editor of Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries – has published his first novel. He writes exclusively for The Spinoff Review of Books. Grief is the Thing with Feathers is the story of a man whose wife dies. He is left to care for their … Read more
It seems familiar: Four men in suits, discussing viewers’ tweets, talking about what’s happened during the week and what might happen next, then throwing to a man on the street who waves some cash around. These are the basic ingredients of most of the shows which have been commissioned in New Zealand this year. Champagne Rugby, a new rugby … Read more
Inside the Lightbox is a sponsored post where we mine the extensive Lightbox catalogue for shows you might like to watch. This week, we pick our favourite cult television classics. Don Rowe on The Mighty Boosh Lightbox describes The Mighty Boosh as “a surreal comedy set in a zoo”, which is correct in the same … Read more
Tara Ward ranks her favourite moments from the past week of Ferndale hijinks. This week: the soap industry sucks, storms roll in and Murray messes up again. 1) Characters we hardly know walk in the shadow of the valley of death They were dropping like flies at Shortland Street this week. First to be wheeled … Read more
An excerpt from the new book of selected writing by Wellington journalist David Cohen. To the best of my knowledge I am the only journalist in New Zealand to have had his own printed words performed by Bono. It happened in front of 40,000 fans at the U2 concert at Wellington’s Athletic Park, on November … Read more
From the legalistic urges of Colin Craig to Dirty Politics to the Kim Dotcom Town Hall spectacular, the unstoppable weirdness of the 2014 New Zealand general election was best encapsulated by the hashtag #PeakCray. In this chapter from the new collection Moments of Truth: The New Zealand General Election of 2014, Nicola Kean recounts the … Read more
In a new occasional feature, The Spinoff Politics invites voices from the blogosphere to address the issues of the day. This week, we asked FaceTheTruth and Liber Archie to consider the panda situation. FaceTheTruth: The panda and the flightless birds Here we go again, the MSM and the BDSM (blinkered, decadent social media) getting all … Read more
What is it about the words ‘Ranfurly Shield Challenge’ that continues to inspire such fervour? Scotty Stevenson was at McLean Park in Napier to see Hawkes Bay get up to defend the log of wood against Auckland. It has haunted men, the quest for the Ranfurly Shield. Maybe because of that, because of the ghosts, … Read more
We enjoyed Dom Harvey’s live prostate exam on Story so much we’ve brainstormed ten more ideas for future TV3 live broadcast stunts. 1) Rachel Glucina’s Key Keyhole Surgery Inserting a keyhole camera through the Keys’ keyhole live on Scout TV, Glucina gains exclusive footage of Max Key letting people into Harvard on Skype and John … Read more
Don Rowe interviews one of New Zealand’s most familiar voices in his central Auckland Bed and Breakfast about breathing life into The Abdomenizer and the intricacies of John Key’s accent. There is only one house left on Parliament Street. It’s been there since 1901. Behind a low cast iron fence the grey walls rise two stories above the … Read more
Proud All Blacks fan and expert Vine maker Josh Davis recaps the morning’s Rugby World Cup action. As I am sure you are aware, this morning there was a World Cup rugby match featuring our beloved All Blacks (c’mon boys) and Off Brand South Africa (Namibia). If you were one of the wise people who … Read more
An occasional series in which we feature an insight or proverb from In the Arena(Penguin Random House, $40), the new book by entrepreneur Diane Foreman and her ghost writer Jenni McManus. On body positivity: In the Arena, by Diane Foreman with Jenni McManus is published by Penguin Random House, RRP $40
Jose Barbosa interviews Samantha Newark, voice of Jem in the mid-80s cartoon Jem and the Holograms, and reflects on how the show represented bold and independent role models for young women. Every generation has their cultural touchstones. For my parents it’s the music of the Beatles and Norman Kirk. For their parents it was Johnny Cooper and … Read more
Premier League Pass kindly loans us NBC’s excellent football pundits Men in Blazers, to bring us up to speed with all the Premier League talking points ahead of this weekend’s games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxNJJWw0rlw
After the second death in three years at Australia’s Defqon.1 music festival, Charlie Scott started thinking about the first time she encountered the hardstyle electronica subculture. It was mid-afternoon and the festival was well underway. I was packed tightly between sweating, pulsating Dutch, and thought I was fitting in rather well. I gathered that you just bent … Read more
Feedback From the way his voice went, it was clear that he loved motorbikes. He sounded happy and excited. He was smiling and the volume was good. It made you feel glad that he’s got a job where he can do what he loves which is riding and also fixing motorbikes. At the … Read more
José Barbosa listens to the debut of First Person, John Campbell’s new podcast series for Radio New Zealand. Whatever Radio NZ ends up doing with John Campbell you’d hope, possibly pray, his old mate Carol Hirshfeld would get him out into the world. Campbell standing in a field somewhere navigating the tributaries of the Solid Energy collapse … Read more
A very quiet week on Premier League Twitter, with most players selling their accounts to EA Sports in exchange for an advance copy of the hottest ticket in town, FIFA 16. The game’s release was celebrated in the UK with a tournament which saw eight Premiership legends battle it out on the Xbox for the … Read more
Bringing together the best, worst and weirdest TV moments of the week, including Hosking’s personal pineapple express to hell and Wendy Petrie’s triumph over Simon Dallow. Mike Hosking’s Brush with Death New Zealand’s leading radio broadcaster, television host, newspaper columnist, husband and Ferrari driver bravely stared death in the face on Wednesday morning when a … Read more
Simon Wilson writes about the October issue of Metro magazine – his last as editor. What’s a magazine for? All the things that any other media are for, of course, but also, to give readers something they can hold in their hands and love. It’s an artefact: a thing you craft with all the skill and … Read more