reviewing

How I learned that likening a film to being hit by a hammer isn’t a great sell

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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

Exclusive: book reviews don’t pay much

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Spinoff literary editor Steve Braunias surveys the current state of payments for book reviewing in New Zealand. As literary editor of the Spinoff Review of Books, I think about important new books, and about brilliant, thoughtful reviewers, but mostly I think about money. The budget is tight. I crouch over the pennies like a miser, … Read more