Duncan Greive shares his three philosophies on buying shares in global giants for people who are curious but terrified about investing. Like any perfectly normal twenty-something, I started investing in sharemarkets after reading a Warren Buffett biography. I came across The Making of an American Capitalist in a second-hand bookstore. It’s a well-regarded account of … Read more
Tara Ward watches Netflix’s new reality shows The Circle and Next in Fashion, and discovers that gentle TV can still be gripping TV. Breaking news, friends: Netflix has the magic sauce on how to do reality right. Its latest reality shows The Circle and Next in Fashion are wildly different to each other – The Circle is a … Read more
Sam Brooks watches Netflix’s Miss Americana, the new Taylor Swift documentary – and finds it light on revelation, heavy on image rehabilitation. “My entire moral code, as a kid and now, is a need to be thought of as good. It I was all I wrote about, it was all I wanted. It was the … Read more
What are you going to be watching in February? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Lightbox, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand. Click here to read our listings from January. The Biggies Outlander (Season 5 on Lightbox weekly from February 17) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t745AinnAno Outlander is back … Read more
Jean Sergent writes about her comedy crush John Mulaney, and what makes his brand of wholesome yet sharp comedy so special. Who is John Mulaney and why do people love him so dang much? John Mulaney is a white, middle class, American stand up comedian. He’s a former Saturday Night Live writer, voice actor (Into … Read more
She’s an Oscar-winning actress, a widely hated celebrity and founder of one of the most successful wellness brands in the world. And all your jade egg jokes make no difference at all, writes Sam Brooks. A few weeks ago, the trailer for new Netflix show The GOOP Lab was released, along with a provocative image: … Read more
Is there a more empathetic show on television than the British teen comedy-drama Sex Education? Unlikely, writes Sam Brooks. If you had a Netflix subscription last January, chances are you’re one of the reportedly 40 million people who watched Sex Education, the gentle British show about a teenager who gives sex advice but – whoa-oh … Read more
Summer reissue: Ten years on from its first episode, Sam Brooks revisits all the wild, dumb, and plain terrible things that happened on Glee. This was originally published on 27 May, 2019. Ten years ago, a little show from the brain of Ryan Murphy premiered. Up until this point, he’d had a minor failure with … Read more
What are you going to be watching in January? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Lightbox, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand. Click here to read our listings for December. The Biggies AJ and the Queen (binge on Netflix from January 10) The RuPaul empire … Read more
Summer reissue: With Falling Inn Love, New Zealand gets its very own Netflix romcom – so how accurate is its depiction of small town NZ? Sam Brooks investigates. This post was originally published on 29 August, 2019. When the trailer for Falling Inn Love dropped earlier this month, I had my knives out, and so … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews the second season of You, the surprise 2018 Netflix hit that made toxic masculinity compulsively watchable. Major spoilers for the first season of You, which is really worth watching. What if you were watching a Lifetime movie, but from the perspective of the villain? That’s the premise of You, which was a … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews Netflix’s The Witcher, a wildly fun adaptation of the Polish fantasy novels of the same name. Mild spoilers follow. It’s become a stock phrase in the age of streaming that you have to wait until it gets good. Think of the beloved BoJack Horseman which takes a full half-season to not just … Read more
Musical-theatre sceptic Anna Knox writes about her conversion to the hilarious Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, as the fourth and final season drops on Netflix Let it be known before I say anything favourable that throughout the first few episodes of My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend I was in a state of deep cringe. I cringed at the exaggerated characters. … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews Marriage Story, the latest Netflix movie that tackles that universally horrible experience: divorce. There’s a moment, about halfway into Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, Netflix’s new film about the dissolution of a marriage, that hit me harder than anything else in the movie up until that point. During their first mediation with lawyers, theatre director … Read more
It’s that time of year again when, for the third year running, a new A Christmas Prince movie is released. Sam Brooks was in front of a TV screen for the latest instalment’s debut on Netflix last night, and here catalogues the many stupid, wild, and wildly stupid things he witnessed. Another Christmas, another slew … Read more
What are you going to be watching in December? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Lightbox, Disney+, AppleTV, Neon, Amazon Prime, Acorn and TVNZ on Demand. Click here to read our listings for November. The Biggies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fnS96wQp4c The L-Word: Generation Q (NEON, Season 1 weekly from December … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews the latest season of Nailed It!, the cooking show that celebrates enthusiasm over talent or edibility. “Urggggh, I’m so mad! I’m so mad that this is in my mouth! I’ve never been angrier about something in my mouth! I am floored.” There’s only one show that can elicit that torrent of bewildered frustration from … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews the third season of The Crown, a show that can’t decide whether it wants to humanise the monarchy or tear it all down. This review contains very mild spoilers for world history, 1964-1977. Three seasons in, there’s no doubt that The Crown is the, well, crown jewel in Netflix’s royal streaming sceptre. … Read more
Yesterday, Stuff reported that the 2017 Chinese-made propaganda blockbuster Wolf Warrior 2 was partially made in New Zealand. Sam Brooks watched it and – spoiler alert – found it weird as hell. About halfway through Wolf Warrior 2 on Netflix, the unnamed leader of a revolution in an unnamed African country marches up to the American leader … Read more
What are you going to be watching in November? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Lightbox, Neon, Amazon Prime and TVNZ on Demand. Click here to read our listings for October The Biggies His Dark Materials (NEON, Season 1 weekly from November 5) Feel like your life … Read more
With Apple TV and Disney+ launching in November, we have more viewing options than ever before. Tara Ward takes a closer look at the myriad of TV streaming services available. We’re spoiled for TV choice these days, and with Apple TV and Disney+ launching in New Zealand next month, our viewing horizons just got a … Read more
The first half of the final season of depressed equine comedy BoJack Horseman drops today on Netflix, and it’s as bleakly hilarious as ever. Being a fan of BoJack Horseman the television show means having a complicated relationship with BoJack Horseman the character. On the surface, he’s not somebody you want to empathise with – an … Read more
Informed via telegram that Netflix has released a full trailer for the new season of The Crown, Tara Ward puts on her best pillbox hat and white gloves to find out what round three will bring. The good Lorde told us we’ll never be royals, so the first full trailer for the new season of … Read more
Something’s crowning this Christmas, and it isn’t King Richard of Aldovia in his favourite tiara. Tara Ward looks at what Netflix’s new movie A Christmas Prince: A Royal Baby could mean for us all. Yesterday Netflix announced they’re about to give birth to the third instalment in the legendary series A Christmas Prince, and I don’t know … Read more
Madeleine Chapman celebrates the girl truths of Netflix’s hit show about puberty, Big Mouth. Girls are horny too. Girls are angry too. How to have an orgasm. The episode titles of Big Mouth are literal and accurate. Girls are horny too! Girls are angry too! How to have an orgasm! Big Mouth follows a group of … Read more
Ahead of the release of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Uther Dean writes on how there will never really be another phenomenon like the original Breaking Bad. Have you tried rewatching Breaking Bad recently? It’s not the same, is it? Something has changed. When it was wrapping its original run, half a dozen years ago, it … Read more
Following its controversial first season, Insatiable has returned with new episodes on Netflix. Cat Pause writes about why she won’t be watching the fat-shaming show – and what she’s been watching instead. The second season of Insatiable is now available on Netflix, and I, for one, will not be watching. I have better things to … Read more
Emily Writes watches Netflix’s new US-set series Unbelievable and can’t help be reminded of events back home. I was asked to review Netflix’s new mini-series Unbelievable more than a month ago. After watching the screener over the course of a few nights, it sat on my to-do list for weeks. I would sit down to … Read more
Vodafone TV is yet another damn thing to plug into your television – but one you really should take a look at, says Duncan Greive. What is it? A small box – about the size of a sandwich – which you plug into an HDMI port on your television, along with a simple remote to … Read more