Aotearoa lost a giant of our national culture last week when Bill Gosden, the decades-long director of the New Zealand Film Festival, died at 66. The illustrious NZ film-maker Dame Gaylene Preston pays tribute He walked around like he was some ordinary person. Understated. But if you were paying attention, you could notice that his … Read more
Out of an office on Queen Street, the film buffs’ social network Letterboxd has thrown the rules out the window, attracting a young, progressive global base of users redefining what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ film is. New Zealand’s back in level one, and cinemas are back in action. Ish. Productions around the globe have locked down … Read more
After more than a year of social distancing, Alex, Jane and Duncan are back in the same room for an emotional reunion and to talk about a cinematic masterpiece. Approximately a thousand years ago, the idea of The Real Pod maybe, possibly, perhaps one day recapping the Twilight movie was floated. The people heard the … Read more
This Town is being billed as 2020’s feel good Kiwi comedy movie, but Amanda Thompson finds it a gentle romcom with a heart of surprisingly confronting darkness. Movies about rural New Zealand are going to be funny, either intentionally or unintentionally. It’s a funny place and we’re funny people, and New Zealanders are so good … Read more
Are you sick of that moment towards the end of a film when you realise that not a single woman has spoken to another woman the whole time? Turns out you can test for that. In your real life, we bet you probably speak to a whole bunch of different people. Some of them might … Read more
Due to the ongoing pandemic, this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) is going predominantly digital for the very first time, replacing nights out at the Civic with nights in-front of the living room TV. Aaron Yap explores both the upsides and downsides to this unprecedented shakeup, and wonders if film festivals in the … Read more
If you’re a movie-lover but don’t feel like funnelling more money to a giant global corporation right now, good news: there are plenty of free – and legal – streaming options out there. You just have to know where to look. The number of people with access to linear television is growing smaller and smaller … Read more
Netflix’s new release Horse Girl promised a quirky indie dramedy from its trailer. In reality, it’s a nightmarish time-warped look into the mind of a mental illness sufferer, writes Alice Webb-Liddall. There was a horse girl in every primary school classroom. The one with ballet flats and low ponytails and books covered in pony-themed duraseal. … Read more
The 2010s started with Taika Waititi’s breakout movie; it ended with him being tipped for a Best Picture Oscar. But this wasn’t just the Taika Decade. Here are 10 movies that epitomised New Zealand cinema in the 2010s, as judged by Josie Adams, Sam Brooks and Alice Webb-Liddall. Boy It’s not the first film Taika … Read more
The latest film by New Zealand’s celebrity director Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit, is out in cinemas now. Spinoff writers offer their thoughts on the ‘anti-hate satire’, and whether it lives up to Waititi’s catalogue of hits. Sam Brooks, culture editor I had a lovely time watching Jojo Rabbit – it’s an enjoyable, tense coming-of-age film that … Read more
New Netflix movie The Tall Girl was roundly mocked before it even came out. Josie Adams, a tall girl herself, reviews it. “You know that really, really, really tall girl you go to school with? The one that people call LeBron, Skyscraper, Patty long legs?” That’s Jodi, the 6-foot-1 protagonist of The Tall Girl. I’m … Read more
Russell Brown spoke to Dylan Haley about how he’s rejuvenating Gisborne’s film culture. Dylan Haley used to muse that he could do his work – creating poster and packaging art for film distributors – anywhere in the world. After all, he rarely saw his Hollywood clients in person anyway – the Los Angeles traffic made … Read more
Sometimes, less is more. Even when it comes to Quentin Tarantino (Warning: Contains mild spoilers). Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is an impressive film. It’s got great acting, stunning visuals, and a twist ending, all laced with the sort of attention to detail you’d expect from the nuttiest of film nuts out there. It’s … Read more
Last week an Auckland cinema hosted a six-hour Shrek marathon. In a show of classic Kiwi stoicism, Josie Adams found that what didn’t kill her made her stronger. At the end of the first Shrek film, our hero turns to his loyal friend and noble steed, Donkey. “Donkey, can you ever forgive me?” From the … Read more
Documentary The Heart Dances is about the process of a European choreographer recreating The Piano as a ballet, but its real story lies in the exploration of what can happen when Māori culture meets European art. The exploration of Māori culture within European art can be contentious. New Zealand artist Gordon Walters was criticised for … Read more
How did Conscious Light, a ‘documentary’ on cult leader Adi Da, end up getting shown at a public library? Anke Richter goes down the rabbit hole. Give me a cult doco like Holy Hell, The Family or Wild Wild Country any day. I’d happily pay a lot more than the small koha they ask you … Read more
The announcement that Peter Jackson’s latest project is a Beatles documentary is proof the decorated director has finally gone too far, writes Duncan Greive. It seems scarcely credible to suggest at this point, but Peter Jackson used to be cool. He made silly, weird movies about New Zealand – its monsters and its murderers – … Read more
It’s remembered as one of New Zealand’s best comic thrillers, but how did it happen? Joel McManus talks to director Robert Sarkies about his 1999 film Scarfies. This piece was originally published on April 15, 2018 An empty flat. A quarter of a million dollars worth of weed. A drug dealer that wants to kill you. … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed excerpt. This week he talks to entertainment powerhouse John Barnett. Outrageous Fortune, Sione’s … Read more
New Zealand’s film industry has always been about location, location, location, but what about everything else? What about all the stuff that comes after filming? Jihee Junn talks to Department of Post’s Katie Hinsen at the company’s new state-of-the-art headquarters about her mission to make Auckland into a post-production powerhouse. For much of late 2016, … Read more
The good, the bad, and the unexpected in our latest film festival reviews. [CENSORED] Not quite what I was expecting – although, in some ways, more than I expected – [CENSORED] is the fruit of filmmaker-cum-archivist Sari Braithwaite’s time spent holed up alone in an archive screening room with a fascinating and difficult collection of … Read more
Film critic David Larsen admits his strategy to urge audiences to see Hunger failed, and pleads you to see another movie called Hunger, without recourse to hammer analogies I once opened a film review by suggesting that instead of investing fifteen dollars in the price of a ticket, readers could spend the same amount on … Read more
The NZ Film Festival opens in Auckland on July 19, a week later in Wellington, and then through the country. David Larsen and a team of obsessive cinephiles will be filing capsule reviews for the Spinoff once we’re under way. But first, David offers his advice on navigating the programme A few years ago my … Read more
An interview with Dave Gibson, the outgoing head of the Film Commission, looking back on four years of rapid change. Public sector arts jobs look horrible from the outside. You have an inevitably too-small pot of money, distributed to a group of people who are either deliriously happy or incandescent with rage according to whether … Read more
Henry Oliver talks to Ross Sutherland, a British poet whose VHS performance piece Standby for Tape Back-Up, a multimedia meditation on memory, meaning and grief, is on in Auckland and Wellington this week. A little over ten years ago, with a healthy dose of mid-00s meta-irony, a group of friends and I get stoned and … Read more
Dan Taipua explores indigenous ideologies in Thor: Ragnarok, the blockbuster movie from the king of the space Māori, Taika Waititi. Warning: contains spoilers for Thor: Ragnarok Without a doubt, Taika Waititi is the finest New Zealand filmmaker of his generation. At the time of writing, Thor: Ragnarok is the most critically well-received Marvel movie of all … Read more
Filmmaker Kath Akuhata-Brown looks at the unique challenges of making Waru, a film directed by eight Māori women. Beneath the yelling and screaming of our recent general election, as child poverty was being turned into a political platform, a group of Māori filmmakers quietly went about the task of drawing attention to the issue in … Read more
After viewing the latest season of Top of the Lake in a cinema, Aaron Yap looks at the increasingly blurred lines between films, TV shows, and everything in between. “It’s so magical – I don’t know why – to go into a theatre and have the lights go down. It’s very quiet, and then the curtain starts … Read more
Ready for the last weekend of the Film Festival in Auckland? Chris Davis introduces his movie about Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill) and chooses another film he also wants to see. Part seven of our filmmaker’s choice series. A friend recently told me about a conversation she overheard. Three women were debating the significance of Mike … Read more