Alex Casey watches Sunday night drama Liar, a British thriller that calls one woman’s account of sexual assault into serious question. Without sounding too morbid, TVNZ couldn’t have planned the timing of sexual assault drama Liar any better. In a post-Weinstein world where stories of sexual assault and harassment have been dragged under the bright … Read more
Thousands came to celebrate Auckland’s anniversary at Laneway Festival in a sun soaked Albert Park. Simon Day shares his favourite memories of a very good (and very hot) day. There are times when Auckland feels quaint, backwards even, far from its “world class” aspirations. It’s usually when you’re sitting in traffic, in the rain. Then … Read more
Is Melodrama the best album of the year? We’ll know definitively later today (*irony warning*), but in the meantime, Elle Hunt predicts the winners of the 60th Annual Grammy Awards. These Grammys, the sixtieth ever, are the third for which two friends and I have got our picks in. The Grammys’ administration starts four to … Read more
Calum Henderson is on a valiant quest to find New Zealand’s greatest TV theme. His search for answers begins with a look at the origins of the rollicking Country Calendar theme. Country Calendar is the greatest New Zealand television show. Even if you’ve never watched it, you know it’s true. It is the people’s show, … Read more
Our regular round-up of new songs and singles, featuring Lawrence Arabia, UMO, Yo La Tengo, Dry Dive, Justin Timberlake, Bromelain/Manzanza and more… Lawrence Arabia – ‘Solitary Guys’ Welcome to the singles club Imagine if somebody ten years ago had said that in 2018 it’d be normal for whole seasons of TV shows to come out all … Read more
Mark E Smith, the singer and poet who led The Fall for over 40 years, has died. Emily Edrosa, solo musician and member of Street Chant, remembers playing and drinking with The Fall in 2010. The first time I ever saw Mark E Smith he was sitting in front of me on a plane snorting … Read more
Mark E Smith, the singer and poet who led The Fall for over 40 years, has died. In this excerpt from his 2016 book In Love With These Times, Flying Nun founder Roger Shepherd recalls the band’s tour of New Zealand and the controversy surrounding the live album Fall In A Hole that was recorded … Read more
The Spinoff has learned who is set to replace Hosking on the TVNZ Show, and it turns out he’s a bit like Mike. Seven Sharp launches into 2018 at the start of February with an all-new line-up, after the tearful farewell of Toni Street and Mike Hosking last year. Hilary Barry was swiftly announced as … Read more
It’s the biggest movie of all time – why on earth wouldn’t you go see it with a live orchestra playing the music? Titanic superfan Sam Brooks went last night and ascended to a higher plane of existence. Titanic is one of the last true phenomenons of pop culture. Nothing has saturated the populace of … Read more
To celebrate The Office US arriving to Lightbox, Alex Casey lists some of her favourite moments from the show. Contains many, many spoilers. I have spent a deeply worrying part of my life watching The Office in some iteration or another. As a teen, I became obsessed with the British original, eventually penning an incredibly … Read more
The Real Pod assembles for the first time in 2018 to dissect the week in New Zealand pop culture and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. Jane Yee, Alex Casey and Duncan Greive are back for another year with a new and improved Real Pod, featuring more new segments than you can shake a … Read more
Welcome to Take Me Out, a semi-regular series wherein Kate Robertson, music critic and dating blogger, finally combines her expertise by going on a date with a musician and then sharing it with you. In this instalment, Kate goes trampolining with BAYNK, an unsigned New Zealand electronic artist who gets a million plays a month … Read more
Alex Casey watches the debut of a new look Breakfast on TVNZ1, and assesses the buffet of early morning news options. Breakfast was off to a pretty weird start before it even began. In a promo video posted to their Facebook page last week, Jack Tame, Daniel Faitaua and Matty McLean can be seen goofing around … Read more
Berlin-based Tongan-New Zealand musician Noah Slee talks to Martyn Pepperell ahead of his appearance at Laneway Festival next week. “It’s great when people pick up on certain lines in my songs,” says Noah Slee. The singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and electronic music producer is telling me how the relationship between his audience and his music has intensified … Read more
Sam Brooks argues why Catholic Rebellion thriller Gunpowder is far more interesting than other dour dramas from the same period. I love a good political thriller. Stressed out people waiting for printers to print valuable documents, or wandering around with briefcases that cost more than your rent for the month – they’re my catnip. But it’s … Read more
Tara Ward witnesses Suzanne Paul do something extraordinary — not for the first time and not for the last time. Someone alert the authorities because there’s a genius in my living room and her name is Suzanne Paul. I thought I’d seen it all when Suzanne Paul sold a clip that could jazz up your outfit … Read more
Before they called it quits in 2006, The D4 were held up as one of the Kiwi saviours of rock n’ roll. Hussein Moses gets frontman Dion Lunadon on the phone for a candid interview about what went wrong and why now is the right time to get back together. The D4 are back, but … Read more
2018 is going to be a big year for local reality franchises from Dancing With the Stars to Project Runway, but what’s still missing? Calum Henderson fills in the gaps. It’s never too late to pick up a successful international reality television franchise and give it a good honest Kiwi twist. Last year we saw … Read more
Sam Brooks defies the ancient wisdom ‘never read the comments’ and goes deep into nine weeks of the TV Guide’s Mr Telly letters. Since the beginning of time, there have always been internet comments, whether they were some dude ring-a-dinging a bell in a town square, Martin Luther hammering a bunch of complaints to the … Read more
Our regular round-up of new songs and singles, featuring Kody Nielson, The Venus Project, Kylie Minogue, Fall Out Boy and more… SONG OF THE WEEK Kody Nielson – ‘Bic’s Birthday’ Kody is Kody again, the same but different After spending the last few years making music as Silicon, and co-writing award-winning songs with Bic Runga and … Read more
Sylvia Giles watches the mid-2000s soap The L Word and discovers a plethora of feminist conversations that are only starting to happen now in the mainstream. All my lesbian friends told me I should watch The L Word many, many times, and over a decade ago. First aired in 2004, the show chronicled the sapphic … Read more
Allanah Faherty remembers Kiwi Kidsongs, a series of government-funded kids’ albums that were sung in primary schools all over the country for 20 years. As a kid, there was little honour greater than being in charge of the song lyrics at a school assembly. Whether it was holding up the giant sheet of paper in … Read more
Now that you’ve settled back into work and failed to keep up any of your resolutions, it’s time to turn back to trusty old television. Alex Casey and Sam Brooks introduce some new shows on Lightbox that might take your fancy. Available now: Brooklyn Nine-Nine S4 There’s a conversation to be had about whether a … Read more
Madeleine Holden talks to Kelela ahead of her Auckland show this week. Kelela’s musical chops are not up for question. She has been quietly producing some of the most interesting R&B on the world stage since her Cut 4 Me mixtape dropped in 2013, and 2017 was a banner year for the Washington DC native, … Read more
Last night marked the return of several key shows to the coveted 7 pm time slot, so we deployed our television moles to watch and report back. Toby Manhire watched Extreme Cake Makers on TVNZ1 With Seven Sharp on an epic, host-switching hiatus, filling the 7pm slot on TVNZ1 is the similarly hard-hitting Extreme Cake … Read more
Play It Strange CEO Mike Chunn reflects on the first year of songwriting as an NCEA subject and shares two of his favourite songs to come out of the initiative with stories by their writers. Last year, at last, songwriting became a Level 3 NCEA subject. And here at Play It Strange, our secondary school … Read more
The shock resignation of Mike Hosking has led to Three playing some very aggressive media chess. “You’re looking very bronzed,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Duncan Garner on Monday morning. “A bronzed whaler,” he replied, assumedly not a confession of his summer recreational activities. Thereafter, they got into the serious business of Trump and shitholes … Read more
Alex Casey checks in with the gang from The AM Show for their first show of the year. Awful. Hopeless. Horrible. These are just some of the words Duncan Garner used to describe his sleep last night, the eve before the return of The AM Show online, on radio, and on telly for 2018. Falling … Read more
Murdoch Stephens saw Mount Eerie play in Krakow, visited Auschwitz, and wrote about how to listen to songs of unimaginable tragedy. What are the limits of processing grief through a song? Love is easy. The performer is either in love or out of it, so, for most of us, there’s no problem with identifying with … Read more