The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. It’s Jane’s second to last podcast in New Zealand and we have pulled out all the stops: a fire hazard, a cheesy bread cake from Nando’s and some incredibly interesting analysis of everyone’s favourite dancing show. There’s … Read more
All four seasons of Laura Linney’s cancer comedy The Big C drops on Lightbox today. Sam Brooks writes about the series’ surprisingly uplifting journey through a woman’s nightmare. There’s a moment late in the first season of The Big C that hits you right in the gut. After finding out his mother Cathy (Laura Linney) has terminal cancer, her … Read more
LEGO Masters Australia is a new show that will grab you by the heart with its extendable Technic arm and never let go. Before LEGO Masters, Lego was nothing to me. It was an evil beast that gave me the shits when I stood on it in bare feet at 3am, and I took great … Read more
A lion escapes from the zoo and kills a Rotorua poodle. Weird story, but how did it actually happen? Jean Sergent watches Who Killed Lucy The Poodle?, a TVNZ documentary that attempts to get to the bottom of the legendary affair. For some reason, this story makes perfect sense to me. The premise of Who … Read more
It’s week six of Dancing with the Stars, and the cream has risen from beneath the crop! Sam Brooks power-ranks the contestants. Week six! We’re at the stage of the competition where I can listen to a judge’s feedback and guess, with 100% accuracy, what their score is based on their comments. What a specific talent! … Read more
Katie Meadows reviews Catch-22, George Clooney’s bleak and boring TV adaptation of the classic novel. Even if you are not familiar with Joseph Heller’s 1961 satirical novel, you will be familiar with its title — a catch-22 at its most technical is a paradoxical problem with no solution because its rules inherently void the possibility of … Read more
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. This week on the pod we’re absolutely snowed under with exciting news from the reality TV world, the real world, and the Nando’s world. There’s a 24 year-old sheep knocking around, the old Milo formula is the … Read more
Forget his problematic Instagram and his pet monkey, Justin Bieber made his most evocative piece of art during a whirlwind trip to New Zealand in 2010. Cast your mind back to 2010. Donald Trump was just a guy asking budding entrepreneurs to manage a doggy day care on his reality TV show. The Social Network … Read more
A little bit of Taika, a little bit Jackson, a little bit Footrot Flats. Calum Henderson celebrates the best New Zealand-made films available to watch on Lightbox right now. Growing up, the options sometimes felt a bit limited when it came to New Zealand movies. Want a whimsical romcom? Your best bet was probably the first half of Heavenly Creatures. … Read more
Parks and Rec, The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place – creator Mike Schur has become a titan of the television sitcom. Jordan Hamel explains exactly how he did it. Mike Schur is a name you may not know, but you almost certainly know his work. His shows are the family-sized pepperoni pizza of network television, … Read more
We’re halfway through the celebrity stepping competition that is Dancing with the Stars. Sam Brooks power-ranks week five! It was cool to see the judges acknowledge the harshness of their criticisms against the women in this competition, and, quite correctly, give the public a call to action to vote for the women! Does it matter? This is … Read more
Comedian and sometime chat show host Tim Batt runs down his list of the top chat show hosting duos of all time, from Oprah & Gayle to Havoc & Newsboy. Chat shows are a strange mainstay of entertainment. Debuting in caves then later shifting to radio and eventually television, the basics of the format are … Read more
After repeated obscenities were scrawled on the face of the beloved New Zealander near Brick Lane, the artist added a note saying, ‘This is a portrait of a kiwi film director Taika Waititi NOT Jose Mourinho YOU MUPPET!!!’ And now he’s thinking he’ll paint over it altogether Taika Waititi might be world-famous in New Zealand, … Read more
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. You asked for it: we’re all back in the same room, at the same time. Kind of. Alex is 20 minutes late and Jane got the time wrong, so Duncan starts an eight minute monopod. There’s much … Read more
Three eliminations down, three women gone. But why is Dancing with the Stars so harsh to its female contestants? Miriam Moore writes. The fourth week and third elimination of Dancing with the Stars has come and gone. Once again, the talent was off the charts, and we got to see what Aotearoa’s group of B-to-H-list celebrities … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews Educators, a beautifully morbid and mean-spirited New Zealand comedy about high school teachers. The daily life of a teacher is a well-trodden one on television. It’s not hard to see why: education and school provides a well-known structure, it’s a pretty universal experience, and the hardships of being a teacher are well-documented … Read more
It’s week four of celebrity deadlifting competition, Dancing with the Stars. Sam Brooks power-ranks the contestants. Both episodes opened with two different choreograph dancers to Timmy Trumpets’ ‘Freaks’ featuring Savage. Did they get it for cheap if they played it twice? That’s a very specific choice! I’ll tell you one thing for free! No paywall here, premium content right … Read more
Cheers for a millennial audience? A three-camera sitcom that you can laugh at without feeling guilty? Sounds great! Sam Brooks reviews Abby’s, which you can watch on Lightbox right here. “Abby’s is filmed in front of a live outdoor audience.” Perhaps unintentionally, the disclaimer that begins every episode of Abby reflects the two-pronged strength of the show. On one … Read more
Adnan Syed’s story didn’t end after the blockbuster Serial podcast. Jean Sergent reviews Amy Berg’s The Case Against Adnan Syed, now streaming on TVNZ OnDemand. If you’re not one of the millions of listeners who made Serial a podcasting sensation, let me introduce you to the facts. Sometime on the afternoon of January 13th 1999, teenager Hae … Read more
She’s more than a New Zealand icon – she’s a New Zealand star. Sam Brooks talks to Danielle Cormack about her role as Lulu in Fresh Eggs Danielle Cormack is, straight up, one of our most successful actresses, by whatever yardstick you choose to use to measure it. Gloss, Shortland Street, Topless Women Talk About Their … Read more
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. With Duncan in Thailand, Alex and Jane (and occasionally Tina) shoulder the burden of recapping the past week in reality TV and extremely real news. There’s a bloody big cat on the loose in the South Island, … Read more
Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, Pierce Brosnan – they’re all coming to Lightbox in May, y’all! The Son (S2, Weekly from May 1) I mean, it’s JAMES BOND AS A COWBOY. What more do you people WANT from your POPULAR CULTURE? A handsome (and I’m not just talking about Pierce) epic set in Texas at … Read more
A close reading of the brand new, oddly hopeful trailer for season three of The Handmaid’s Tale. The latest trailer for the new season of The Handmaid’s Tale got me so excited that I inhaled half a pack of Chocolate Finger biscuits in approximately ten seconds. Then I felt bad because Serena Joy had a finger … Read more
Only three weeks in and it feels like a thousand! Sam Brooks power-ranks the third week of celebrity sweep-the-floor-with-a-lady competition, Dancing with the Stars NZ. The theme of this week is guilty pleasure! Why is any music considered a guilty pleasure? Give me genuine, disturbing guilty pleasures please. I want to see someone do an interpretative … Read more
Alex Casey woke up at 5.59am this morning to watch John Campbell’s Breakfast debut. Here are some of the highlights. Less than two weeks since the announcement that John Campbell was moving to TVNZ’s Breakfast to take Jack Tame’s place, there he was on the telly. It was 6am in the shiny pink studio and … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews Anthems, a six-part documentary on New Zealand’s iconic hits, which starts tonight on Prime. New Zealanders are possessive as hell over our culture. Pavlova, Russell Crowe, Lord of the Rings, colonial racism – if it’s ours, we really own it. Where it really sinks into the marrow though, is our music. For better or … Read more
The sixth and final season of The Americans drops on Lightbox today. Alex Braae reflects on the unique, tense brilliance of the series. The worst part about being deeply invested in the characters at the centre of The Americans is your fear for them. Not a fear that they’ll be killed off – that would almost be … Read more
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. This week Duncan is cavorting around Melbourne so Jane and Alex meet at the dining room table to talk about another hot week on this dance floor we call life. Need all the celebrity goss from the … Read more
Marketing might have you believe Masterchef is a show about cooking. Vanessa Crofskey is here to inform you what it’s really about: dads. There’s something addictive about Masterchef. At one point in high school I watched it everyday. Two minute noodles and cold cups of tea would be slurped down in indigestible succession as my family gathered … Read more