Film & T.V.

Stories

Oh to be a Hobbit

HAIRY feet or particularly pointed ears may stand you in good stead at this Saturday’s casting call for Sir Peter Jackson’s latest project The Hobbit. Selectors are reported to be looking for “men under 163cm and women under 155cm, big men with… Continue
Summer colours

ALTHOUGH the weather seems to be undecided, summer really is here and the city council’s Summer City events are back to celebrate. We’ve picked out the highlights from January’s programme… After almost a month to digest Christmas dinner… Continue
The Muppets meet the next generation

THE MUPPETS inhabit a world where pigs and frogs can talk but chickens can only cluck, one where they acknowledge that they’re on screen but never the fact that there’s a hand inside them, and one where they take being silly very seriously. But Aro… Continue
Bark with a bite

GROWING up in Wellington, Jackie van Beek’s family home was littered with huge, disabled puppets. The actress’s mother was a puppeteer for the Crippled Children’s Society and toured the puppets in schools to educate kids about special needs.… Continue
View of futuristic vision

IT was the most expensive silent movie ever made and one of the most celebrated films in cinema history. Now Wellington audiences have the chance to experience Fritz Lang’s futuristic 1927 film Metropolis complete with Gottfried Huppertz’s original… Continue
Happy birthday to us

Capital Times celebrates 37 years as Wellington’s independent newspaper. In the midst of the RWC buzz we begin another year of giving you the Best of Wellington. Our annual Best of Wellington poll, results published last week, (a 16% increase in responses,… Continue
Wellingtonians are the best - 2011 poll results

WELLINGTONIANS are eclectic, busy and a little bit nuts and live in a city where the breeze keeps the air clean and the Aucklanders away. Just some of your verdicts about the city we all call home revealed by readers in the Capital Times’ Best of Wellington… Continue
Samoa exposed

WELLINGTON based Samoan writer and director Tusi Tamasese has some advice for young aspiring film makers, marry a partner with a good job. THE Berhampore resident has just completed his first full length movie, The Orator, which opens in New Zealand cinemas… Continue
Oh to be a Hobbit

THERE’S a man in the States who’s desperate to join the stars who are returning to Wellington to continue filming The Hobbit. Patrick Spadaccino is a life-long Tolkien fan and he would love to play even the smallest role in telling the story. As flying… Continue
Barking up the right tree

THEY rescue, rehabilitate and re-home 5,000 animals every year, but the SPCA has also been busy organising itself over the winter period. Widely publicised as being in disarray after several board members resigned earlier this year, the SPCA is now focusing on… Continue
Two lives, two worlds

Paul Wolffram is a man leading a double life. Happy at home in Wellington with his wife Victoria Manning and young family, Wolffram’s also been adopted into a family of a people living in the rain forests of southern Papua New Guinea. He’s more… Continue
Famous visitor a rare treat

WELLINGTON is to host the world’s rarest parrot. Wellington’s Zealandia has announced Sirocco the kakapo will be living at the ecosanctuary for about three months from the end of September. It is the first time Wellington has hosted an adult bird.… Continue
Furious film finalists

CITY finalists have been announced for the V48 Hours furious filmmaking competition. The following finalists are listed by team name, film name, and film genre (bracketed). Alpha Bristol Films: Last Chance (road), Cinema in Decline: Tea Jerker (crime), Couch Kumaras:… Continue
A queer time at the movies

GAY zombies, Regency lesbians, queer terrorists, brave soldier girls and gay mayoral candidates are some of the characters featuring in New Zealand’s queerest film festival opening at the Paramount this week. Out Takes 2011 celebrates queer film making bringing… Continue
When at first you don’t succeed

It has all the makings of a Hollywood film – a dashing protagonist on a grand adventure, becomes embroiled in a tragic love story. As his dreams collapse, our hero is forced to face his demons, before beginning the slow, uphill journey of a life rebuilt.… Continue
A new hook for the movies

MADE on the smell of an oily rag, a new Wellington movie about a truck driver is made on what Stalin would have you believe was the old Communist system… all the cast made an equal contribution to its production. Directors Andrea Bosshard and Shane… Continue
Going solo

STEVE Wrigley has performed Kevin: The Musical before, but the Auckland Comedy Festival season was really just a dress rehearsal for Wellington. Wrigley’s always wanted to do a solo show at Bats, ever since he first got into comedy doing gigs at the San… Continue
Up the wrong tree

AMERICAN comedian Arj Barker, known best in New Zealand as dispassionate New Yorker Dave on Flight of the Conchords, has mixed feelings about his last Wellington show. “Some shows you just stay on track and do the jokes, then there are others where… Continue
Strange nesting places

HOW come a 46-year old Newtown librarian, born and raised in New Zealand and with little filmmaking experience, is flying to Iraq to make a documentary on Assyrian people and their culture? It comes down to curiosity, compassion and the desire to tell a good… Continue
Good for something

COMPOSER John Psathas is onto something good. He has written his first ‘pavlova Western’ film score for Good For Nothing – a Kiwi style American Western film which is receiving rave reviews in the US. FOR JOHN Psathas, who shot to media fame… Continue
Wellington for Christchurch

Here’s a nice bit of history from the NZ Film Archive. Travelling film show From Thorndon to Island Bay, consisting of ten short films with live piano accompaniment from Gilbert Haisman, will remind Wellingtonians how their city has developed. Three short… Continue
Invers logic

Take 70 film crew, mostly under the age of 30, and tell them they’re going to spend nearly a month with no cellphone reception, drinking bad coffee, probably in the rain. What you’d expect is a mutiny; but what filmmaker Rob Sarkies got was an extension… Continue
Film Festival on its way

ALL over the world it is volunteer organisations like the Wellington Film Society that keep the flame of film art alive so that cinephiliacs like me can get a decent palate cleanser every Monday night after a weekend of Hollywood tosh. This year’s programme has… Continue
Decent palate cleanser

ALL over the world volunteer organisations like the Wellington Film Society keep the flame of film art alive so that cinephiliacs like me can get a decent palate cleanser every Monday night after a weekend of Hollywood tosh. I can’t recommend Society membership… Continue
Brooke flows sweetly

DON’T believe everything you read about Brooke Fraser. Despite some news reports, the Sydney-based singer and songwriter did not have a Wikipedia-invented stalker, her husband is not a full-time musician, but she is married, and Fraser admits her husband Scott… Continue
Weta’s WotWots go Korean

WETA Workshop’s WotWots will learn Korean. The preschool animated series, which features blue and pink alien-like TV puppets, SpottyWot and DottyWot, has been picked up by Korea’s C4U Entertainment channel. In addition, Korean Distribution Company Kenny and… Continue
Homeware killed the video store

AMALGAMATED Video on Taranaki Street is no more. The popular inner-city video rental store has been bought by Briscoe Group Limited. The store will not re-locate and five full-time staff members have lost their jobs. “It’s the end of an era,” says full-time staff… Continue
Heartbeat

Psychologists have found that the majority of our clearest and most vivid memories come from the period between adolescence and young adulthood, a time they call our “reminiscence bump”. Retired lawyer Doug Webb’s reminiscence bump features many memories of Miramar,… Continue
Acting up

LOCAL actors are beginning to speak out in dismay at how New Zealand Actors’ Equity negotiations surrounding The Hobbit have been handled. Hamish Brown has worked as an actor and as a crewmember in costuming on Peter Jackson’s productions in the past. “Without… Continue
Best of Wellington 2010 Results

WELLINGTON may be New Zealand’s capital city, but one of our Capital Times’ readers thinks ‘it’s just a big town with a heart’. You, our readers have made some great and interesting choices.. We’ve got winners in there who’ve topped lists again and again – from… Continue
That's poetry, man

Sam Hunt: Poet, drunk, or genius? A documentary featured in the New Zealand International Film Festival sheds a light. WHEN filmmakers Jim Scott and Tim Rose applied to the Film Commission for financing their documentary about poet Sam Hunt, they were… Continue
The grass is always Grenier

THE lead actor in the TV series Entourage, Adrian Grenier, says the best way to avoid the paparazzi is to be “boring”. Grenier is relaxing in a hotel somewhere in Auckland, a far cry from his Hollywood haunt where stars are hounded daily by “paps” intent on filming… Continue
Spilling the beans

THIS one is for real, swears Costa Botes, the director of hoax documentary Forgotten Silver, about his latest, Candyman, The Rise and Fall of Mr Jelly Belly. Candyman received a standing ovation at world-renowned documentary festival Hot Docs in Toronto. … Continue
Mongrel Mob moves into Newtown

MONGREL Mob ex-presidents are not used to taking direction from short, blonde, white girls. When filming started for Day Trip in Newtown, former mob boss Tuhoe Isaac didn’t know what to make of 26 year-old director Zoe McIntosh. “Tuhoe grew up in a culture that… Continue
Gallant banana’s Antarctic odyssey

Have you heard about the banana that split to Antarctica? The short film Fruitless Journey is based on Robert Falcon Scott’s fatal expedition to be the first person to reach the South Pole – with one difference – it’s seen through the eyes of a banana. Directing… Continue
Furious filmmaking

THE stress of the V48HOURS film festival can destroy a marriage. The founder and organiser of the weekend-long event, Ant Timpson, says one year a couple who entered the competition together broke up during the course of the weekend, and went on to enter separate… Continue
All good in Wellywood

IT’S official. We must be the Hollywood of the South Pacific because Wellington International Airport will erect a 28m long Wellywood sign to celebrate the capital city’s film industry. At least seven film-related companies are based on the Miramar peninsula.… Continue
Balibo banned

POLITICAL thriller BALIBO is banned in East Timor but doing well on the black market there, says film director Robert Connolly. “Even though I’m making no profit, I’m pretty happy about it,” he says. The controversial film tells the story of five journalists… Continue
The perfect catch

“HE’LL make you wet your pants,” said someone at the Film Archive when Capital Times organised an interview with Kiwi filmmaker Florian Habicht. He didn’t succeed, however snippets from his documentary Land of the Long White Cloud elicited laughter as well as… Continue
Fans run off with pieces of Bones

A band set list is to a music-lover what a street sign is to a movie buff. An Irish architect was spotted walking down Kent Terrace with a large street sign from The Lovely Bones New Zealand premiere this week. Michael Landy, 22, and many other red carpet revellers… Continue
Lovely computers

As Wellington prepares for the New Zealand premier of Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, Capital Times talks to Weta Digital’s James Ogle about geekiness and ghosts. THERE are benefits to being a geek. Just ask James Ogle, who works in the digital models… Continue
Twilight fever

A blood-related disease is spreading through Johnsonville Medical Centre. At least five nurses and two receptionists there have Twilight fever. They’ve read Stephanie Meyer’s vampire series multiple times, watched the first film in the saga, Twilight, and all… Continue

Columns

Reviews

Cover Story

Best of Wellington 2011

Fringe Festival

Briefs

Plane direction
A new training academy will open in June to help fill a shortage of qualified air traffic controllers in the Middle East and Asia. Global-ATS, a privately owned UK-based academy, will operate from the Wellington School of Business and Government campus. The academy will open with three staff, up to 10 air traffic control students and 70 associated safety management course participants.
Here comes the sun
WELLINGTON city council is one of several New Zealand councils signing up for Solar Promise, a campaign launched last July by the Nelson Environment Centre. The scheme aims to take away barriers to using solar energy and make the technology more affordable. City Council is working with the Regional Council to develop a targeted rate for solar hot water systems, as well as setting up an online map to indicate levels of solar radiation across the city.
Parsons stays put
JULIAN Parsons says his bookstore Parsons Books and Music isn’t going anywhere, despite news that brother Roger’s Auckland Parsons store is closing its doors. Parsons opened in 1958 on Lambton Quay and is still on the same site today.
Bikes allowed
Bikes will soon be allowed on trains on the Johnsonville line at all times following a review by the Greater Wellington Regional Council. Councillor Daran Ponter says that the introduction of the new Matangi units on the line, scheduled for mid-March 2012, means that there will be greater capacity than currently provided by the English Electric units.
Carter clean and green
TEAM members at Carter Observatory have been recognised as keen greenies. Carter has won a Qualmark Enviro-Bronze Award for high standards in environmental practices including energy efficiency, waste management and water conservation. More than 700 businesses carry the Enviro Award mark.
Bowling for a market
MORE than 25 stalls will be waiting behind the fence at the 100 year old Hataitai Bowling Club at the suburb’s Community Market on Saturday. The stalls include sweet treats, produce, books and vintage clothing. The market runs the first Saturday of each month.
Hataitai Community Market, Bowling Club, 9am-1pm, February 4.
Iconic tour
THE second largest wooden building in the world graces Lambton Quay near the Cenotaph and it’s now open on Saturdays for free tours. The colonial-style Government Building features a Kauri-clad interior and cast iron fireplaces.
Government Building Open Day tours, 11am and 2pm, Saturdays, until March 31.
Get arty
FOR those who would like to progress from finger-painting, artist Stephanie Woodman is running classes to teach drawing and painting in a range of styles and mediums. Sessions include acrylic painting techniques, glazing, watercolour and abstract, and there are special classes for teenagers and kids.
Stephanie Woodman art classes, Toi Poneke, Feb 7 – April 5.
Wheels are turning
WELLINGTON Regional Council’s Daran Ponter and Paul Bruce are to present the Bus Review, a proposal for a major shakeup of bus services in the city. It’s also a chance for the public to discuss their ideas and issues.
Bus Review, Crossways Community Centre, 7.30pm, February 7.
Violinist awarded
CONGRATULATIONS to violinist Minsi Yang, recently awarded The Elman Poole Music scholarship.
The scholarship is an annual award for up and coming New Zealand instrumentalists to train with the London orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia.
Yang gained her music degree from Victoria University, before heading to Auckland to study for her Masters degree.
Leap into song
LOCAL songwriters will this month participate in February Album Writing Month, an international songwriting event that usually challenges participants to write a song every two days for the whole month. But it’s a leap year this year, so songwriters have to write 14 and a half songs in 29 days, the ‘half song’ being a collaboration with another writer. At least 12 Wellington songwriters have signed up to take part. ‘Fawmers’ will post audio recordings of their songs on http://fawm.org
Coastal tunes
THE Tora Coast in the Wairarapa will this Waitangi weekend host a music festival celebrating good food and good sounds. TORA!TORA!TORA! features Imon Starr aka Olmecha the Relic, Jon McLeary and The Spines, Louis Baker, Vanessa Stacey and Conor McCabe. This is the third time the festival will take place.

Reader's Poll

DO you support Wellington City Council’s move to clear Occupy Wellington protestors from Civic Square?