Sometimes being very, very clever simply isn’t quite enough. Tom Stoppard was undeniably terribly, dreadfully clever when he wrote Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and it is most certainly a frightfully witty and clever play. But it’s also quite stultifyingly…
Fleetwood Mac: A kind of homecoming
Kiwis do love a local boy who’s made good. And Neil Finn looked like he couldn’t quite believe his luck as he helped front Fleetwood Mac at Spark Arena in Auckland last night. And so it was only right that…
Crave! episode 87: Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood; Six Degrees Of Separation; Tom Walker; We Will Rock You; Late Night; and an interview with Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze
Crave! is back after a short winter break, and the big film that’s welcomed Steve and Simon back is Quentin Tarantino’s ninth, and possibly last, possibly penultimate, film, the awkwardly-named Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood. Steve’s been to the theatre,…
Six Degrees Of Separation: everything old is new again
The best stories are the ones that age well. John Guare wrote Six Degrees Of Separation thirty years ago, and while the story wouldn’t work in today’s world—the lies, the deceptions, the willingness to be deceived wouldn’t hold up well…
Skyscraper Stan And The Commission Flats: hitting new heights
A Skyscraper Stan show covers a lot of ground. Last night’s performance, to launch Stan’s new album, Golden Boy Vol. I and Vol. II, kicked off with Tango, from 2015’s Last Year’s Tune, a chipper little number that set the…
Crave! episode 86: The Lion King, Crawl, Toy Story 4, Yesterday, and Steve’s interview with Aubrey Logan of Postmodern Jukebox
The Lion King is the latest effort in Disney’s trawl through its back-catalogue of classic animations, and while it’s undeniably a technical masterpiece, it’s left Simon and Steve both quite cold. Unlike Yesterday, the Curtis/Boyle collaboration about the only man…
CRAWL – speaking of movies about animals…
I was going to start this review by mentioning Jaws from 1975 to evoke our collective love of being terrified by wild beasts, be they land or sea based. But then of course you can go back decades earlier, to…
The Lion King: Wondrous to behold, slow to watch
Let’s start with the good: this digital remake of The Lion King looks amazing. Truly. The landscapes, the attention to detail, and of course the rendition of the animals themselves, is quite astounding. And that’s the case watching it even…
Yesterday — it’s fab.
What you make of Yesterday will largely depend on how willing you are to buy into the film’s central premise. It’s a clever, if odd, little idea — following a global power cut, and being hit by a bus as he…
Crave! episode 85: Men In Black, Sometimes Always Never, Years And Years, the new Bruce Springsteen album Western Stars, and a chat with Skyscraper Stan
Men In Black: International should have been so good. And yet it wasn’t. Neither Steve nor Simon can find many positive things to say about this disappointing film. Sometimes Always Never, on the other hand, the new Bill Nighy outing,…