After ten years of public fallout, New Zealand’s favourite nu-metal band are back. Don Rowe talks to Blindspott. The year was 2003: t.A.Tu were making Russian pop cool, ‘Where is the Love?’ was second in the NZ Top 40 only to Scribe’s ‘Not Many’, and in West Auckland a bunch of bogans were charting at … Read more
It was a world first that fostered some of our finest young talent, so what the hell happened to TVNZ U? Five years since its closure, Alex Casey takes a look back at the little youth channel that could. Simon Dallow appeared to be holding a dildo, Tim Batt was eating cat food straight out … Read more
All eight glorious horsey seasons of McLeod’s Daughters comes to TVNZ on Demand today. Sam Rutledge ranks the daughters – by order of McLeodiest (just go with it). “Farm soap” isn’t as a ubiquitous term as I’d like it to be. All the drama of a regular soap, but plunked into the rural wild where there … Read more
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in New Zealand pop culture and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. The reality TV gods are smiling down on us this week, as The Block NZ delivers the exceptional talent competition and The Bachelor Australia gets extremely raunchy. Duncan doesn’t know how to pronounce Agni, Jane … Read more
Plus6Four Productions’ non-linear who-dun-it web-series Alibi is something entirely new for New Zealand television – and it largely nails the landing. Sam Brooks reviews. The location: a small rural town. The scenario: a girl’s body found in a bathtub. The suspects? Six suspicious people in the town: the local pastor, the slightly foreign teacher, one of … Read more
Hans. made his name in the Soundcloud rap scene, but last year made the leap with his one-and-only track on Spotify which racked up 1.5 million streams. More recently, he’s been working with another standout from the local scene – beat producer, SWRLY. Gareth Shute catches up with Hans. to discuss this collab and his … Read more
Nine seasons, two hundred and eight episodes, and a list of cameos longer than the list of women Barney’s slept with. Madeleine Chapman selects the five best, weirdest and most notable. You can watch all nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother on Lightbox right here: Don’t forget! All existing customers can choose to … Read more
Welcome to Week 8 of The Block NZ, in which Jason Gunn and Tom Sainsbury blesses us with their presence, Mark literally blows his own trumpet, and Chlo and Em choose their paint based on the colour of their mother’s nipples. Life on The Block took its toll on our beloved teams this week. They … Read more
With the first week of The Bachelor: Australia coming at us full noise, there was every worry that the show could only go downhill. Fear not, for the Honey Badger and his competing ladies are back with more drama than ever. Miriam Moore recaps. Week two starts with a bang: The Honey Badger delivers the … Read more
Crazy Rich Asians has been lauded for its groundbreaking representation of Asian-Americans – but how is Asian representation looking in our own country? “Why would you actively try and get into a space where no spaces exist for you?” says Alice Canton, an Auckland-based actress and theatre artist. “If I wasn’t creating my own opportunities, … Read more
Bob Dylan played Spark Arena in Auckland last night. Ol’ buds Henry Oliver and Harry Cundy were there and emailed back-and-forth about it afterwards. Henry Oliver: We’ve been to many of the same Dylan shows over the years, sometimes together. This one was like many of them but also like no Dylan show I’ve seen … Read more
The five finalists of APRA’s Maioha Award for contemporary Māori songwriting were announced today. Miriama Aoake looks at the final five and their place in the future of te reo Māori. This August has been a particularly busy month for Māori music; a celebration of the capabilities and dexterity of a thriving community. Alien Weaponry, a teenage thrash … Read more
Flying Nun’s rightful place in New Zealand history has been secured with the acquisition of the legendary label’s master tapes by the Alexander Turnbull Library. If Alexander Turnbull was around these days, he’d be your classic bearded, single-origin-coffee-and-fancy-toast-loving Wellington chap. Had he been at his peak in the early 1980s, on the other hand, he … Read more
Television icon Nigel Latta returns to TV, and this time he’s focused on the one thing that governs us all: the brain. Haimona Grey talks to the man himself. “Our belief has always been that people are interested in interesting things. Sometimes TV patronises the audience, it has a belief that people won’t stay if … Read more
Because what your Friday night really needs is the return of Anne The Champagne Lady and two ladies in suits. Tonight on The Spinoff TV, your friendly hosts Leonie and Alex eschew their usual look for a quicker option: suits and man-size speed makeup. The result? A weirder show than usual with hidden avocados, moon … Read more
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in New Zealand pop culture and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. This week on The Real Pod, we’ve got an amazing new reality series to recap in The Bachelor Australia, Alex has torn her calf muscle and Jane has brought her weird cow lunchbox out of … Read more
Impossibly, Lady GaGa’s debut album The Fame came out ten years ago this week. Sam Brooks looks back at the album that launched an icon. I remember where I was when I heard ‘Just Dance’ – and you might remember that ‘Just Dance’ was a hit in New Zealand about a year before it broke through across … Read more
Alicia Silverstone was the It Girl of the mid-nineties, and she’s back heading up a new show, American Woman, which drops on Lightbox today. Tara Ward rounds up where she’s been since her yellow plaid days. It feels like a lifetime since Alicia Silverstone burst into our collective consciousness with a string of ‘90s classics like Clueless, Batman … Read more
Hobsonville Point had it all this week: scandal, drama, and a thousand painted teardrops on the window of Agni’s soul. The Block NZ was shaken to its very foundations as we witnessed the Wolf go on a rampage, relived the annual ‘Build a Plank’ challenge, and a thousand My Little Ponies were sacrificed in a ruthless … Read more
They’re the lost seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race, but now they’re back for New Zealand’s viewing pleasure. Sam Brooks rounds up the early-episode moments that continue to live on in infamy. Season One, Episode One: Porkchop Porkchop! There are many reasons that Drag Race is remarkable, and one of them is that the first queen who … Read more
Strewth! Buckle up Bache-fans, it’s Week One of The Bachelor Australia season six, and we’re already being taken places. Welcome to season six of The Bachelor Australia! For new fans, this show is just like Tinder, except the leading man doesn’t know who he has swiped right on, and 25 potential girlfriends all turn up … Read more
The ‘psychics make up stuff’ TV show is back on New Zealand screens, and it’s just as terrible as ever. In the latest in his series on New Zealand’s most questionable pop culture, James Mustapic looks back on Sensing Murder‘s early years, and what has and hasn’t changed since. The Spinoff TV, 10.45pm Fridays on … Read more
Inspired by the screening of Leto at this year’s International Film Festival, Auckland-based Moscovite Anastasia Doniants presents a guide to the first wave of rock from the USSR. It’s been almost a year since Russia’s acclaimed theatre and film director Kirill Serebrennikov was confined to a house arrest – banned from talking to media, accessing … Read more
Family Guy has been on our airwaves for a slightly interrupted nineteen years, and it’s been critically reviled for almost as long. Sam Brooks has seen all of it and thinks it’s time he stood up for the perennial punching bag. There have been three hundred and nine episodes of Family Guy and I have seen every … Read more
Skeletons in the Cupboard, a documentary that includes the claim seven foot tall, red-headed Celts built complex astrological stone monuments before Māori arrived in Aotearoa, has been removed from TVNZ OnDemand, but not before it received thousands of views. Jeremy Rose from RNZ’s Mediawatch reports TVNZ has removed a documentary that claims Celts settled New Zealand thousands … Read more
Ahead of a visit to New Zealand from some of Twin Peaks’ most iconic characters, die-hard ‘Peakie’ Angela Cuming meets three of her heroes and asks what it’s like to be part of a cultural phenomenon for almost 30 years. Sheryl Lee’s laugh travels down the phone line to my suburban home in Hamilton and wrap … Read more
A lot has changed for Tom Scott in the past four years and, with his new project Avantdale Bowling Club, he’s ready to reveal all. He talks to Hussein Moses about fame, infamy and coming home to Avondale. In a home studio, out the front of his house, is where you’ll find Tom Scott most … Read more
Aretha Franklin has died. Sam Brooks remembers the Queen. She wasn’t just the Queen of Soul. Hell, if you applied the label, Queen of R&B to her, you wouldn’t be wrong there either. Queen of Gospel? Sure. Queen of Pop? Of a certain era, absolutely. But what Artha was outside of these things is a … Read more
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in New Zealand pop culture and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. This week on The Real Pod, the team assemble over Chanui biscuits and spicy corn treats to look back at a wild week in New Zealand pop culture news. A man in Rotorua executed the … Read more