Entertainment
Film review: Contagion
Pandemic thriller will have you reaching for the hand sanitiser.
Film review: The Thing
The Thing R16, 103 mins
Poetic justice
An Auckland theatre group is to mark the 150th birthday of a celebrated artist by performing one of his politically potent and funny plays.
Beneath the covers
A documentary discovers surprising truths about the writers – and readers – of romantic fiction.
Where the heart is
Why we love to look at other people's houses.
End of an error
GRANT SMITHIES - © Fairfax NZ News
There's no easy way to say this, so I might as well just come right out with it: Westlife have split up! Yes, really. After 14 years as willing bedfellows, the veteran Irish boy band have decided upon musical divorce.
Spin your wheels
The moment Ryan Gosling, toothpick dangling from mouth, straps on his leather driving gloves and takes off to some mysterious destination, you sense this film is going to be one hell of a ride.
On borrowed time
Expat Kiwi Andrew Niccol (Gattaca) has seized the high-concept sci-fi movie baton from M Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense), and now takes it to its logical extreme by making a metaphor literal.
Delightful fluff
The beautiful lies of the title are those that Emilie, a hairdresser in a small town on France's southern coast, tells her mother to perk up her love life and lessen the blow of her father getting reattached.
Time after time
This is the eagerly awaited film adaptation of a best-selling, much-loved novel, and the predominantly 30-something female target audience will be rightly apprehensive about whether the silver screen can do it justice.
TV's tales of woe
In the lead-up to the launch of new TV3 show X Factor USA, you could have been forgiven for thinking you were about to witness the entertainment event of the century.
How Tintin got real
The boy reporter's journey from cartoon panel to big screen is complete. Adam Dudding goes behind the scenes at Weta Workshop to find out how they did it.
Shine a light
If you're already into cave paintings and find the prospect of Werner Herzog's awestruck voiceover compelling, you'll love this.
Friends reunited
The trauma of high school still looms large for some thirtysomethings, TV actress Virginia Gay tells Kate Mead.
Last-round winner
As the crowd settled, their popcorn crunching and mobiles flashing, the first few scenes rolled past on the huge Imax screen and my first thought was: "Oh dear." Expectations were never high: it's a family-friendly-ish movie about boxing robots.
Affecting portrait of a gross betrayal
As in Sarah's Key (also released this year), The Round Up uncovers the events surrounding the July 1942 deportation, by the French authorities themselves, of nearly 14,000 Parisian Jews to Nazi concentration camps.
The quick and the dead
This teenage rendition of a wannabe Bourne movie opens with devil-may-care Nathan clinging in fearless excitement to the bonnet of his friend's truck.
Fast and loose with Footloose?
Fans may be aghast but the director of the Footloose remake asks audiences to hold fire until they have seen it, writes Leena Tailor.
Soap star's dream
What does a Shortland Street star do in her spare time? Sarah Murray meets the actor and her husband creating shoestring budget theatre opportunities.
Showtime for arts hopeful
IMOGEN NEALE - © Fairfax NZ News
A New Zealand stint helps inspire a star of US reality TV, writes Imogen Neale.Bang bang ... you're dead
KIM KNIGHT - © Fairfax NZ News
You've probably seen the very famous photo: a small child, hunched in a parched landscape, stalked by a vulture. Kevin Carter took that picture in 1993 in the southern Sudan. It won him a Pulitzer Prize – the same year he took his own life.'King of Cool' still crooning
Tony Bennett's latest album pairs him with singers as varied as Willie Nelson and the late Amy Winehouse, and still delivers an emotional payload, writes Grant Smithies.
Fade to black
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A few months ago, I wrote about the National government's shameful decision to cease funding non-commercial digital channel, TVNZ 7, now due to shut down next June. My Inbox boiled with fury as irate TVNZ 7 loyalists wrote in from every corner of the land.Love a laugh
KATE MEAD AND SARAH WATT - © Fairfax NZ News
Boy meets girl and falls in love. Something goes wrong; something goes right, cue credits. Romantic comedies rarely throw curveballs to their audiences and, although Friends with Benefits is no exception to the rule, it amps up the comedy, separating it from sappy peers.Flickering hope
Film director Patrick Gillies tells the story behind a homespun feelgood movie that came together with a jolt or two.
It's all on Te Radar's screen
He has done shows to near empty halls. And you can track his filming schedule by his sideburns, Steve Kilgallon discovers.
Unpacking secret lives
A daring, long, one-shot opening scene in Little White Lies draws us straight into the gritty Parisian lives of a photogenic cast in this chamber piece of secrets, guilt and repressed angst.
Play the game
Rugby drama is flourishing but it's a deceptively easy subject when there is so much unscripted theatre on the paddock, writes Emma Page.
A taste of how the other half live
For people of a certain age, everyone can be divided into the haves and the have-nots. That is, those settled with a partner and kids and those who have their freedom and enviable singledom. Depending on which stretch of grass you're mowing, one may look greener than the other.
Out from under the radar
Tuesday's Silver Scroll Awards honour NZ's finest songwriters. But what about the musicians nipping at their heels? Grant Smithies celebrates six of the best bands you might not have heard of – yet.
Sailor still rocking and rolling
Seventies survivors Hello Sailor talk to Kim Knight ahead of their induction to the music hall of fame.
A touching Jane
Adding to umpteen television and film adaptations of Charlotte Bronte's classic novel, this latest rendition by a largely unknown young director delivers a beautifully photographed, affecting story of pain and mistreatment giving way to true love.
Senna doco a winner
When lauded critics rave about a film you're yet to see, there's sometimes doubt that it can really be that great. Even before its recent New Zealand Film Festival debut, Senna had been receiving the highest praise and had become, in its first month of release, the fifth-highest-grossing documentary at the UK box office – ever. That's certainly saying something.
Out of the box
Switched-on TV viewers want to watch the hottest new shows, and if they can't get them legally, they'll steal them. Adam Dudding reports on how the broadcasters lost control of our screens – and are scrambling to get it back.
He's still Sky high
He is not your usual chief executive, Steve Kilgallon discovers. And, if not for the goldfish, he would not even be in television.
Taking it to a finer stage
The play's the thing – but who inspires the writers? Kim Knight asked six local scribes which playwrights they most admire.
Over-the-top cop
MARK BROATCH - © Fairfax NZ News
If the pass mark of a black comedy is that it gets at least half a dozen big laughs, The Guard earns an A, even if you have the suspicion that someone might have slipped it some of the answers.Killer lessons
The assassin passing his skills to his teen daughter has seemingly become a genre of its own, writes Sarah Watt.
Winwood's still running
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Set to headline A Day on the Green, Steve Winwood is coming to New Zealand for the very first time at 63.Love, life and a food blog
Her mission: 17 dates in 17 days. Wellington blogger and burger-lover Delaney Mes reports from the frontline.
Scandal of an icon
SARAH MURRAY - © Fairfax NZ News
Fiona Samuel talks to Sarah Murray about the romps, rebellion and scandal behind one of New Zealand's most revered writers, Katherine Mansfield.Carell's sweet comedy for middle ages
SARAH WATT - © Fairfax NZ News
Having married his soulmate at age 17 and raised three children, Cal (Steve Carell) is an uncommunicative, New Balance-wearing shadow of the man he once thought he was.The mysteries of life
KATE MEAD AND MARK BROATCH - © Fairfax NZ News
This Cannes winner provoked cheers and jeers when it was screened at that festival – our reviewer is equally conflicted.
Dotcom accused van der Kolk 'flabbergasted'
Prison officers 'turned into mules'
Ethnic rights advice stuns communities
Rugby joy short-lived, nation pessimistic
Prime Minister John Key wins hearts if not minds
Australian criminals sneaking into NZ
Police training freeze puts recruits on hold
DOC staff get death threats over GPS use
Kiwi puts pressure on euro tourists