Aaron Yap reviews Pamela Adlon’s Better Things, the semi-autobiographical exploration of Hollywood and parenthood co-written by Louis C.K. There’s a terrific bit in the new Louis C.K. special where he admonishes “the way people talk about their mothers”. He recalls an after-match interview with a football player who scored a bunch of goals. “My mum … Read more
Sam Brooks reunited with his eight-, fifteen- and twenty-year-old self at the Cyndi Lauper/Blondie show in Auckland last night. Disclaimer: I will follow a female singer who was huge before I was born into the ocean and keep walking. I was raised on a diet of Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Gloria Estefan and yes, Cyndi … Read more
Alex Casey tackles the fifth week of The Bachelor NZ, including unauthorised Jenga, bad poetry and an incredible bombshell. Ahh, nothing better after a long Easter weekend than to rest your rotten chocolate-coated dentures in a vat of Colgate Optic White and kick back in front of a relaxing episode of The Bachelor NZ. That … Read more
Our regular round-up of new songs and singles, this week featuring Chelsea Jade, Harry Styles, Kamasi Washington, and Mermaidens. SONG OF THE WEEK Chelsea Jade – ‘Life of the Party’ New Zealand’s pop minimalist isn’t better, she’s best In 2015’s ‘Low Brow’, Chelsea Jade was anchorless and anxious, appealing for a lover to deliver the impossible: … Read more
The Spinoff and Spark proudly present Pod On The Couch, a weekly podcast exploring music and the people that make it. This episode: Henry Oliver plays some new releases to a bunch of people hanging around The Spinoff offices to see what they think. Instead of just sitting around the Spinoff offices waiting for the Cyclone Cook … Read more
Tara Ward goes on a wild Easter hunt to find any half-decent free-to-air television over the long weekend. This Easter’s television viewing is as bleak as a hollow egg that some selfish bastard already pinched the chocolate buttons out of. If you’re relying on terrestrial television this holiday weekend — stuck in a remote bach … Read more
Longtime Hugh Laurie fan Pete Douglas counts the reasons why the Chance actor and Spice World star remains one of the greats of our time. How is it the second week of April already? I feel like I have only just digested my Christmas pudding, taken the decorations down from the tree, experienced the empty … Read more
Beer baron Sir Douglas Myers’ many achievements have been revisited after his passing last week. Pete Douglas takes a look at one of the most fascinating and unlikely of his successes – helping bring the great Gnarls Barkley single ‘Crazy’ into the world. Deep into the second season of the greatest teen soap … Read more
Two years ago, Alex Casey climbed into the on-set trailer belonging to Dominic Bowden – then Dancing With the Stars US backstage host, now host of The Bachelor NZ – to talk live TV, Kiwis vs Americans, and making it in Los Angeles. Just as all roads lead to Rome and all Suzukis lead to … Read more
You can’t move for a symposium or petition bemoaning the state of current affairs on television today. Yet John Campbell’s Checkpoint is a throwback to exactly the kind of programming people say they want, writes Duncan Greive. Yesterday on Face TV, a channel I have never knowingly before watched, we got a glimpse into TV’s … Read more
Sacred Heart College opened its music-focused School of Imagination last week. Play It Strange CEO Mike Chunn says it a guiding light for how schools can nurture and embrace creativity. The opening of the School of Imagination at Sacred Heart College last week is the great leap forward for the creative pursuits of the young … Read more
Jane Yee, Duncan Greive and Alex Casey gather around the oval table and talk about the latest happenings in New Zealand television and real life in New Zealand. The Bachelor took a giant emotional dump on us this week, via the tearful elimination of Nina, the show’s everywoman heart. Jane, Alex and Duncan picked themselves up off the … Read more
Alex Casey tackles the fourth week of The Bachelor NZ, including The Others, an elephant and a dramatic injury. Honestly, put me inside an egg and soak me in horse pee for 100 days if this wasn’t the best week of The Bachelor NZ so far. In his own words, Zac’s whole world has been turned upside … Read more
Our regular round-up of new songs and singles, this week featuring Ria Hall, Banks, Desiigner, Bye Bye Fishies and more … SONG OF THE WEEK SONG OF THE WEEK Ria Hall – ‘Tell Me’ (ft. Che Fu) A contemporary reggae protest anthem Five minutes fifty is a bit of an epic runtime for a song that (I … Read more
Memories and accolades from Michele A’Court, Kim Hill, Oscar Kightley, Guy Williams and more One of the sharpest wits this country ever produced has died at the age of 68. John Clarke, originally of Palmerston North, created an inspiring example for New Zealand comedy initially as laconic farmer Fred Dagg and latterly as one half of the … Read more
With the third season of Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul arriving on Lightbox tomorrow, José Barbosa makes his case for why the prequel may well be even better than the original. Remember around 2010, 2011 when everyone was talking about the continuing misadventures of Walter and Jesse? The show was so good people lost their shit, so much so … Read more
The Spinoff and Spark proudly present Pod On The Couch, a weekly podcast exploring music and the people that make it. This episode: Henry Oliver talks to Jane Yee and Duncan Greive about their teenage Britpop obsession. Last week, music explainer site Pitchfork published a list of the ‘The 50 Best Britpop Albums‘. Having largely missed Britpop in … Read more
The Spinoff Music team review albums from The Chainsmokers, Arca, Bonny Doon and Father John Misty. ALBUM OF THE WEEK Father John Misty – Pure Comedy Like early-Elton John but darker… way darker When ex-Fleet Foxes drummer Josh Tillman delivered his sweet sophomore album, I Love You, Honeybear, via his solo moniker Father John Misty, amongst … Read more
A new report from Recorded Music NZ shows two years of growing revenues after 15 years of decline. But not everyone is convinced the news is as good as it seems. New figures released by Recorded Music NZ show that in 2016, the New Zealand music industry increased by 16% to $86 million, up from … Read more
Everything Tara Ward knows, she has learned from Shane Cortese and the Nothing Trivial gang. Here she outlines the 10 stages of pub quiz grief. Watching three seasons of Nothing Trivial broadened my general knowledge more than the time I fell into a Buzzfeed Quiz vortex of time and space and spent seven hours discovering … Read more
Alex Casey talks to Sandra Clark and Francesca Emms about Together We Make a Nation, their multimedia storytelling project that shines a light on refugee women in New Zealand. Seeking to tell the stories of former refugee women who now call New Zealand home, Together We Make a Nation weaves together video, yum recipes, data … Read more
Calum Henderson watches TVNZ’s Darryl: An Outward Bound Story, a warm Kiwi comedy about how one moustachioed man goes bush to find himself. Few New Zealanders who watched it unfold on television will ever forget the men’s 50km walk at the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Overcome by heat exhaustion, race leader Craig Barrett’s legs turned to … Read more
Alea Balzer talks to journalist, critic and experimental music obsessive David Keenan about his debut novel This Is Memorial Device. When is life the equivalent of music, except in memory, except in dreams? Can you be alive for the moment in the moment or is it always retrospectively that you understand the magic of it? In … Read more
With the two-part miniseries now available exclusively on Lightbox, Alex Casey tells you why you need to take a trip to the scary island of And Then There Were None. What’s the story? Imagine… if you were invited out to a mysterious island with a bunch of people you didn’t really know, who slowly started … Read more
The Project showed its teeth this week, via Jesse Mulligan’s plea for someone, anyone to fix the Department of Conservation. It launched with a bang and a Bax and a song and a dance in February, but in recent weeks it’s been a little too easy to forget The Project NZ was on. Not because … Read more
Pete Douglas looks at how a litany of amazingly bad fashion choices correlate with the band’s best music. Nothing makes you feel quite as old as a band you’ve grown up with being inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. This struck me hard two years ago when I was faced with the sobering … Read more
Alex Casey tackles the third week of The Bachelor NZ, including blind tasting, onion layers and a scary bedroom clown. This week on The Bachelor NZ we got the first big ol’ proper pash, a huge avalanche of Tim Tam tat-peddling and a very, very, very overdue Shrek reference. Aka, the show is finally starting … Read more
Jane Yee, Duncan Greive and Alex Casey gather around the oval table and talk about the latest happenings in New Zealand television and real life in New Zealand. This week’s episode is notable for Alex emerging from a flu coma to valiantly attempt to record a podcast. Jane and Duncan are operating on about five hours’ sleep … Read more
Our regular round-up of new songs and singles, this week featuring SWIDT, Thomas Rhett and Maren Morris, Serge Beynaud and more… SONG OF THE WEEK SWIDT – ‘Alfred & Church’ New raps from Onehunga If SWIDT keep going, future historians will be able to recreate Onehunga from their discography – ‘No More Parties In Stoneyhunga’, the bus-route-repping ‘312’ and … Read more