In the spirit of international cooperation and mutual chair dancing, Sam Brooks and New York City-based culture critic Mark Blankenship are revisiting the top 10 singles from key weeks in their respective countries. This week, Sam and Mark discuss the top 10 singles from the chart dated May 28, 2000 in New Zealand and May … Read more
Emily Writes celebrates wholesome shows and the rise of cosy television. The world is frightening right now. From Covid-19 to climate change, just watching the news can be overwhelming let alone going outside. This horror is the perfect environment for what I call Soft TV to flourish. Wholesome reality TV isn’t new, but it used … Read more
Two years ago, her genre-busting show Nanette broke the internet. Now Hannah Gadsby has released a new stand-up special, and expectations are sky high. So how does Douglas hold up? “If you’re here because of Nanette, why?” The elephant in the room is quickly addressed in Hannah Gadsby’s new Netflix special named after her dog, … Read more
Under Cover is a new series that brings New Zealand musicians together via video link to bond, chat, and play each other’s songs. The second episode features Nadia Reid and Reb Fountain. In this episode of Under Cover, produced in collaboration with RNZ Music, Nadia Reid and Reb Fountain discuss changing career trajectories in a … Read more
With the start of alert level three, Shortland Street announced it would be the first drama in the country to start shooting again in a Covid-19 world. Chris Schulz talks to the soap’s cast and crew to find out how they did it. When actor Michael Galvin arrives at Shortland Street’s Auckland studio to begin … Read more
Definitive list maven Sam Brooks tackles 90s classic Sex and the City. It does not go well. Are you a Carrie? Or a Charlotte? Maybe a Miranda? Surely not Samantha? If you watched TV in the 90s, chances are you have a vague answer to this question. Before the most boring people in your life … Read more
Taika Waititi and his celebrity mates are teaming up to fight Covid-19 by bringing Roald Dahl’s beloved story to life, one Zoom call at a time. If you’ve ever dreamed about Zooming an all-star Hollywood cast who stare deep into your eyes as they read you a bedtime story, then your dreams just came true. … Read more
Need something to watch, but not sure where to start? We gauge what Neon shows you’ll be into from what other Neon shows you’re into. If you like Sex and the City, you’ll love Younger Younger was my lockdown saviour, a delicious discovery of a show that made me laugh and cry about something other … Read more
Allegations have been made about Jason Derulo’s use of a New Zealand teen’s music for his new song. Here’s everything you need to know about the controversy, the teen, and how TikTok is driving it all. Who is the teenager? Jawsh 685 is a 17-year-old from Manurewa. He has some serious music production chops and … Read more
With the possible exception of Sam Neill, no New Zealander personality has been pumping out the Covideo content quite like heavyweight boxer Joseph Parker. Patrick McKendry joins him to talk viral content and boxing. Joseph Parker is celebrating the easing of New Zealand’s strict coronavirus lockdown regulations by walking up the long driveway of his … Read more
Four years after an acclaimed and awarded debut, Auckland pop singer-songwriter MAALA is finally preparing to release his sophomore album. He spoke to Matthew McAuley about how he’s been passing the time. When Evan Sinton began releasing music as MAALA, things progressed quickly. Arriving in 2015 with an era-typical air of mystery, his self-titled EP … Read more
The Man Booker prize-winning novel makes its way to our screens courtesy of BBC and TVNZ, but does it make the transition unscathed? Linda Burgess reviews. Oh god, wild seas. A sailing ship – ah, so it’s the olden days – all creaking wood tossed on those heaving seas, the moon a ghostly galleon, with … Read more
What is it like to grow an album over two years and then labour it during a lockdown? Giantess frontwoman Kiki Van Newtown tells Emily Writes about making music in a pandemic. If you’re a mega-fan of Wellington’s witch-stoner-rock icons Hex, like I am, you’ll have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the debut Giantess … Read more
The stars of one of the year’s most anticipated TV series, The Luminaries, tell Jordan Hamel about what drew them to their roles and their experience of filming in Aotearoa. How do you an adapt an ocean? How do you harness something with such inevitable, knowing rhythms and put it on the screen? How do … Read more
New Zealand’s live music venue owners have come together to crowdfund to save not just their venues, but their industry. Our entertainment venues were some of the earliest hit by Covid-19. Before we all shut our doors to each other, venues were shutting their doors to their lifelines: their artists and their customers. Gigs were … Read more
Are you in a mood? Like, literally any mood? Don’t worry, Sam Brooks has you covered with something to cater to (or escape from) some very specific moods. There are so many great shows out there you could spend your time watching… but are you in the right mood for any of them? Your mood … Read more
These are unprecedented times, and just when you think you’ve seen it all, Breakfast’s Matty McLean does the weather dressed as a dinosaur. TVNZ 1’s Breakfast kicked off level two with a bang yesterday morning. As we viewers at home began to gleefully escape our own personal lockdowns, Matty McLean locked himself into a plastic … Read more
Season five of Outlander closes harshly and brutally. Tara Ward recaps the finale. If you came to this Outlander recap looking for lighthearted hijinks about fluffy kittens and mouldy bread, then go back through the stones, do not pass go, and do not collect $200. There was little joy in this series finale, with our … Read more
Four seasons and… an interactive special? Sam Brooks reviews Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs The Reverend, an interactive special and epilogue to the one-time critical darling. If you talk about Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt now, chances are that the response will be, “Oh I used to love that show!” What was once part of Netflix’s then-exclusive … Read more
Over lockdown, a small team of music industry professionals have become emergency response workers. Josie Adams visited Spark Arena to meet them. Behind Spark Arena is a line of shipping containers filled with food and hygiene products. “Only a few months ago this was filled with Tool’s stuff,” said Tom Anderson, a coordinator of Auckland … Read more
Made by a single family sewing together bits of old shows, Leigh Hart’s Big Isolation Lockdown was the funniest and most oddly comforting television created in level four, writes Duncan Greive. It takes a special kind of ego to make what is functionally a career retrospective about yourself, with your family as extras and directors, … Read more
American R&B artist Kehlani released her long-awaited sophomore album just before the weekend – here’s why you need to start paying attention. If you’re even the slightest bit invested in modern R&B, there’s a good chance you’ve already had Kehlani on rotate for a while. One of the genre’s most respected contemporary proponents, with a heaven-sent … Read more
The new Netflix comedy features one of television’s most relatable depictions of teenage girlhood, writes Catherine McGregor. It sounds like the premise of a teen movie. A woman decades past her high school years is destined to revisit them, over and over again. Plot twist: The woman is me, and the high school experiences I … Read more
The appeal of Star Wars is universal, but the central themes have special resonance for indigenous people – which is why having a uniquely Māori spirit at the helm is so exciting. May the 4th was with us this week as Disney announced that New Zealand film-maker and Waihau Bay rebel leader Taika Waititi would … Read more
Morbid Netflix comedy Dead to Me takes the talents of its two lead actors and runs with them, says Sam Brooks in his review of the second season. Very minor spoilers for the first season of Dead to Me follow. More so than any other art form, television has moved leaps and bounds from the … Read more
With the third and final instalment of Petals for Armor, Hayley Williams has completed the extended birth of a very large child. She talks to Josie Adams about graduating from emo to goth. Our introduction to Hayley Williams, solo artist, was ‘Simmer’. Working from the vocals up, the song pulses, breathes and viscerally dissects the … Read more
Tired of watching human faces on your screen but still love a bit of action? Tara Ward has you sorted with nature docos to fill the heart and lift the soul. People are annoying, and that’s the truth. Look it up in the dictionary, write it in the sky, tattoo it across your heart. Have … Read more
A queer retelling of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, Netflix’s The Half of It highlights the messy reality of love at a time when we might need it most. An ex-boyfriend used to tell me that the Ancient Greeks had eight different ways of saying “love”. Eight different expressions to pinpoint one’s affections, longing, and … Read more
The winner of the Taite Music Prize for 2020 is Troy Kingi, for his reggae album Holy Colony Burning Acres. Troy Kingi and the Upperclass have won the Taite Music Prize, an award for artistic and creative excellence in New Zealand music. Holy Colony Burning Acres is the third instalment of Kingi’s 10-year plan: 10 … Read more