Katydid is a very, very good piece of theatre. I laughed and smiled and then got all teary-eyed (didn’t actually cry, but I don’t cry without extreme provocation. Or onions.). From the moment I entered the theatre to the simply fantastic audio work of Tane Upjohn-Beatson, to the unsettling lights (designed by Rachel Marlow) illuminating the gorgeous space (designed by Robin Kerr) I was ready for a night of quality and I wasn’t disappointed.

Lucy O’Brien has crafted a work here that is well on the way to being brilliant. I did leave with a few questions – not counting those I’m assuming I was supposed to have. In all honesty, my biggest gripe was in wanting the play to be longer. O’Brien has created characters of such intrigue, brought to life so well by the stellar cast, that I simply wanted to spend more time with them. There were such wonderful opportunities to really delve into the world in which the four existed that I felt were touched on, but never truly explored as much as I might have liked.

Charlotte Bradley’s direction is assured and her pacing was spot on for my taste (the only time I felt lags were in a couple of the transitions). The performances she has elicited from her cast are a joy to behold. Rachel More, Robert Tripe and Ralph McCubbin Howell all shine in their roles, toying with our emotions and confusing our loyalties throughout. Sophie Hambleton’s Katy is the role on which this play hinges – it is lucky then that Hambleton delivers a performance that made the back of my mind run through a list of superlatives throughout the show. I didn’t settle on one in the end – just make up a list of your own and you should be about right.

With such strong performances throughout the cast, and such great design across the board, Katydid is a show you shouldn’t miss. Seriously. You will leave with questions and things to ponder that will (if you’re anything like me) sit with you for days afterward.

Did Katydid do good?

Katydid did do good.

Very good.

–
Katydid
wri. Lucy O’Brien
dir. Charlotte Bradley
perf. Sophie Hambleton, Ralphen McCubbin-Howell, Robert Tripe and Rachel More

At BATS theatre, 7.30pm, 18 – 28 August 2010
book@bats.co.nz / (04) 802 4175

The December Brother has a lot of expectations to live up to. Not only is it “The Bain Play” that everyone has heard about but it is also the latest work from SEEyD theatre company.

SEEyD began in 2000 with a show, unsuprisingly, called SEEyD. From the very beginning they have been a company of profound and tremendous creativity and theatrical flair. Their stock in trade being the indepth and extremely balanced discussion and exploration of big issues. SEEyD was about genetic engineering, inSalt about the Māori land claims, Turbine was about wind power (and much better than that sounds written down). SEEyD, led by Tim Spite, are a power-house. A force to be reckoned with. If there was ever a theatre company that should make a work about that one horrible morning in Dunedin on the 20th of June 1994 it was them. It should have been great. It should have been amazing. Yet, I found myself underwhelmed.This is the problem with expectations, you see. The December Brother is, without doubt, a good play. A great play even. It’s just not SEEyD good.

Split very clearly into three acts, with each act being a self-contained show in and of itself, The December Brother’s structure is much more of an equation than an actual dramatic shape. The first act – a retelling of Spite’s father Tony Spite’s search for his real parents and the labyrinthian family tree that uncovered – plus the second act – a clinical and hyper-accurate re-enactment of both the prosecution and defense’s stories for the Bain killings – equal the third act – a totally fictional work that takes the previous two acts as a clear starting point. Telling the story of Rebecca (Nikki McDonnell), a vet who discovers that she was adopted. Her search to find her real parents throws her into the middle of the tangled legal case of Cain Fraser (Brad McCormick), a man convicted of murdering his parents. Though evidence that may have proven that his father was in fact the murderer was rejected on shaky grounds. 1 (Spite) + 2 (Bain) = 3 (Cain).

All three of the acts fair very differently and while it is an interesting way of structuring a piece – showing the audience your working, if you will – it doesn’t feel like a total success. The second act, the Bain act, the one everyone will be talking about, is by far and way the highlight of the world. It is a master class in tension and audience manipulation. The way it invokes, expresses and sustains incredibly complex emotions with such simplicity, efficiency and style confirms Spite’s place as a world-class director. The performances by Hadleigh Walker (as David) and Spite (as Robin) are breathtaking. Gil Eva Craig’s soundscape comes into its own in this act, with each tiny click and pop perfectly placed and timed. Jennifer Lal’s lights are an beautiful exercise in subtlety, isolating spaces in the group created set – a floor-plan of the Bain house. This second act is 20 minutes of heart-breaking theatrical perfection.

It is by their juxtaposition with the middle act that the other two falter a little. The opening act, written by Tony Spite, is clearly part of an ongoing exploration of the form of theatrical auto-biography by Tim (he directed Biography of My Skin and Lullaby Jock at Downstage in the previous year, both of which explore extremely similar ideas in extremely similar ways) and while he clearly has a flair for this particular form that does not stop if from feeling self-indulgent. I, personally, found it hard to care as much as he was asking us to.

The final act felt simply unfinished and rushed. All the right ideas are there, most of them in the right order. It really stumbles with where to pitch its comedy. The use of stereotypes – the gay lawyer for one, the broad South Island skank for another – doesn’t sit well within a work that asks its audience to question its assumptions about everything. There is a very fine full length work in this third act hoping to get out. I really hope that Spite and the rest of company revisit it and expand it into a fuller, more refined work at a later date.

SEEyD’s work always soars to its apex when Spite surrounds himself with people who are just committed, talented and mad as him. He works best when those around him can give his creativity a run for its money. While McCormick, McDonnell and Walker, are all very, very fine actors in their own right, they just aren’t the endlessly re-shape-able Tim Spite. SEEyD has in all their previous work, had a great sense of the ensemble, of the group, of a cluster of people chewing up the world and spitting out theatre, each cast and crew member and individual tooth in that theatre gob. What drags The December Brother down from being SEEyD great to just normal great is that that ensemble nature doesn’t seem to be there. Tim Spite is SEEyD but SEEyD should never just be Tim Spite which is the feeling you get walking away from The December Brother.

–
The December Brother
by SEEyD
wri. Emma Kinane, Brad McCormick, Nikki McDonnell, Tim Spite, Tony Spite and Hadleigh Walker
dir. Tim Spite
perf. Brad McCormick, Nikki McDonnell, Tim Spite and Hadleigh Walker

At Downstage, 12 August – 11 September 2010

Broken Social Scene
San Francisco Bath House 07/08/10

I spent $300 on seeing the Pixies play Christchurch, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

Just kidding-the Pixies were awesome, thanks, and the Doolittle shirt’s pretty good, too. But I couldn’t help but feel just a little cheated when I saw a superior performance at good ol’ San Fran less than a week later-and for a sixth of the total cost of my mission south. In fact, Canadian indie outfit Broken Social Scene’s show on 7 August was one of the best I’ve ever seen, and though the CBS Canterbury Arena compares unfavourably with the intimacy of the Bath House, the thrill of the gig had more to do with the band’s charisma, their energy, and the audience’s evident elation at being present.

Even though I’m not enamoured of Broken Social Scene’s latest album Forgiveness Rock Record, it came to life when played-well, live. Opener ‘World Sick’ took on a new spaciousness when experienced in person; ‘Texico Bitches’ transformed into a vivacious, playful romp. The triumphant ‘Meet Me in the Basement’, the last track of the set, showcased the brass section, at least two members of which were Wellington musicians.

Naturally, though, it was old favourites such as ‘Fire Eyed Boy’ and ‘Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Half)’ that elicited the biggest response from the crowd. It was clear that most present were long-standing fans of the band, and frontman Kevin Drew-a personable chair of the fuid, frenetic assembly on stage-seemed to bask in their near-palpable adulation.

Fellow founding member Brendan Canning treated the audience to ‘Love is New’, from his 2008 solo album Something for All of Us, while current touring frontwoman Lisa Lobsinger ably flled the shoes of Leslie Feist and Emily Haines on tracks such as ‘7/4 (Shoreline)’ and ‘Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl’ (yep: Wellington heard it, Auckland didn’t). Drew’s intimate solo rendition of ‘Lovers Spit’ sent girls reeling into the arms of their boyfriends and even (I have it on reliable authority) moved a couple of young men to tears, much to the derision of other young men present.

The band’s apparent delight in performing, coupled with their audience’s effervescent energy, made for a never-to-be-repeated gig, yet friends who saw them play San Fran in early 2008 maintain that they were just as good then. Broken Social Scene is best experienced live: make sure you catch them on their next trip down under. And buy the t-shirt, too-you’ll still get value for money.

Billed as “Bitte Orca’s hotter, younger sister”, this mini-album does feel like an accompaniment to Dirty Projectors’ brilliant album. Conceived and composed by Dave Longstreth in less than two weeks, it was first performed at an exclusive benefit in New York attended by the arty elite (David Byrne, St Vincent, Vampire Weekend, Battles, M.I.A…).

A year on it reaches a wider audience with this recording. Although on the surface the collaboration may seem unlikely, these two acts do share some common ground: an obsession with the natural world which is reflected in their wild voices and idiosyncratic way with melodies. And wow, do they sing. The project is a happy medium between Bitte Orca and Björk’s own all-vocal album Medúlla—acoustic instruments are kept to a bare minimum to make way for the vocal acrobatics which ensue, particularly of the three “Projectors” girls (Coffman, Deradoorian and Dekle).

It plays as a concept album about a day when singer Amber Coffman went walking on Mount Wittenberg in California and saw a pod of whales. It recreates “the moment Amber saw this whale, and the whale saw her”. The girls are employed mostly as accompaniment to the two main characters of the show: Björk as the ‘mother whale’ (of course) and Longstreth as ‘Amber’. Where the harmonies of the Projectors girls are astounding in sheer technical prowess, they can sound clinical. Björk’s primal voice is the perfect antidote/counterbalance to that: it’s a force of nature. Although this is essentially the Projectors’ album, the best moments are those where Björk features.

The stripped-down nature of the album gives it a directness in the vein of The Microphones. And it contains the same awe and humbleness in the face of nature. Perhaps it was the speedy process in which the songs were made, but they sound like the most instinctual and urgent set yet from Longstreth; Less knotty than Bitte Orca, but they retain that same skewed groove.

The denouement in closing song ‘All We Are’ is where the project reaches its pinnacle. Longstreth and Björk finally sing in unison, “We looked out across the long horizon/ We looked in each other’s eyes/ Through a moment we could glimpse an infinity/ And through an infinity we could see all in all is all we are” (Lyrics borrowed from Nirvana’s ‘All Apologies’). It’s a powerful moment from a powerful album.

4/5

The Real Hot Bitches are nothing short of a phenomenon. Started only a few short years ago by a group of friends, the Bitches are a collective of “semi-professional” dancers. Their work always sweats pure energy and lycra. They don’t let a lack of technical dance skill or an active rejection of modern social public dress codes get in the way of having a good time.

After many small seasons at venues throughout Wellington, The Fierceness is the RHB hitting the proper big time. Downstage’s normally epic space is made to seem petite by the 30-strong cast being packed onto it. It is gratifying to see that something as rough, ready and Fringey as this making its way to one of the mainstream stages of Wellington. Especially when they sell out weeks in advance as they did with The Fierceness.

The Fierceness had everything you want from an RHB show, which boils basically down to semi-competent-yet-unrestrained-and-infectiously-unselfconscious dancing and many gratuitous costume changes. It was all there. The house was packed. The audience loved it.

And yet… Well, I just didn’t have nearly as good a time as I wanted or expected. The Fierceness works really hard under the guidance of Gabe McDonnell and Rosie Roberts to have a plot. We are paying witness to famed former world class semi-professional dancer Cynthia Sachet’s (Candy le Coque) auditions for her latest work. That work being The Fierceness. Time between extravagant dance numbers is spent meeting the auditionees and learning a little about their love lives. This attempt at story is far from wholly successful. It never really feels like anything other than filler as the offstage costume changes take place. It all ends up feeling just a bit too self-indulgent.

The Fierceness is, at points, the infamous party you aren’t invited to. Everyone having too much fun on stage to let you have a good time yourself. But not for long. While the story may leave something wanting, The Real Hot Bitches still rock.

The Real Hot Bitches in: The Fierceness
wri. Gabe McDonnell
dir. Gabe McDonnell and Rosie Roberts
dance dir. Emma Chinnock
perf. Bambi du Bois, Bonnie Lee, Candy le Coque, Cherry Ripe, CJ Lurtodanz, Coco la Chanelle, Cyndi Lamas-Arquette, Debrelle van Haler, Desaree Knightshade, Diamantina, Gem Wilder, Hellsta Murgatroyd, Je’mappelle Jeff, Lee-Roy Swayze, MaXine Hendrix, Megatron, Mercedes D’Silhouette, Mystique, Pearl Lusta, Pop Tart, Randi Knights, Rockit, Sasha Hot Sauce, Rex Carlisle, Tiffney Jan-Harket-Wahlberg-Wahlberg-Norris, Trixie Boom and Zontelle PomPom
At Downstage, 5 – 7 August 2010

The Burgundy Room is an underutilised space. Its small dimensions, low ceiling, underground location and twilight-style (think circadian, not vampiric, guys) lighting ensure even an audience of thirty will make the venue feel both intimate and well attended. Here there were probably around 80 people in attendance, making for a pretty optimal size of crowd, and rightly so, given that the night’s lineup made for a fine showcase of all-Wellington talent. One man + Gameboy act Old Grey Wolf kicked off proceedings with a hard-todislike set of dance beats and videogame glitch. He probably played a couple

songs too many (given the nature of his setup it’s pretty hard to differentiate most of the tracks), but his energy and enthusiasm was largely appreciated.

Up next were Glass Vaults, whose unhurried approach and delicate vocals immediately distinguished them from the dancier acts that made up the rest of the bill—TV DiSKO’s eclectic between set beats all but demanded headnoddery. Live, Glass Vaults more than match the command of tension and dynamics that marked out their recently released debut EP as a local release of the highest calibre. Richard Larsen’s achingly gorgeous voice was all the more compelling when experienced at close quarters, and drummer Rowan Pierce turned in a potent shift on the skins.

Complaints? It would be interesting to see them stretch everything out a little more, but this was neither the time nor the place, and after one last round of tasteful TV DiSKO disco it was 47 Diamantes’ turn to take command of the room. The effect was not dissimilar to a mass contraction of nerve stimulant; everyone danced in a convulsing frenzy, while synthist Kelvin Neal played massive drop after massive drop (and also mashed a keyboard with his beardface). Unleashing her trademark shriek, vocalist Gemma Syme swooped into the crowd and was soon thrashing about on the floor, catching the audience in two minds. Did we keep dancing, or get the hell out of the way? By the end of their set it didn’t really matter, as nothing was going to stop the duo from having their way with us. In the best way possible. Thanks guys.

The Go Solo Season at Toi Whakaari is an annual event in which the third-year acting students perform 20-minute-long solo works. As a woman sitting next to me put it, “Go Solo is usually the cheapest and best theatre in Wellington.”

Group A

Helen Grant—Basted. Grant’s solid, interesting performance of Daphne Day, has-been TV host and plastic surgery addict, doesn’t save Basted from the fact that it doesn’t really seem to develop its ideas beyond their surface meaning.

James Tito—Untitled. While there is something undoubtedly worthwhile in the content explored about troubled childhoods and the universal yearning for fame, Tito’s presentation—that of just a man, a mic and a guitar—quickly becomes wearisome and self-indulgent.

Simon Leary—The Election. An interesting ‘high concept’ (a high school head boy election framing a discussion of homophobia) and an assured performance from Leary mark this out as a work that would be rewarded by expansion into a longer form work.

Meg Alexander—Untitled. Alexander spends too much time judging her character, the bolshy bar hound Karen, to let the audience really connect with her on her own terms. Also, the interesting storytelling device of karaoke is underused.

Group B

Jamie Smith—Untitled. Smith’s highly impressive circus skills—he climbs across the freaking ceiling—fail to carry an uninspired and underdeveloped ‘post-apocalyptic wasteland’ setting and story.
Ivana Palezevic—Promena. Palezevic’s brave decision to perform the whole piece in her mother tongue of Serbian is rather undermined by a pedestrian plot (that is entirely spelt out in the programme blurb). However, there are smattered throughout it some breathtaking images.

Michael Leota—The In-Between Space. Leota’s dynamic use of Krump as performative device stands out although the work as a whole disappoints in its lack of development.

Jennifer Martin—Ivylution. A delightful and quirky performance is enhanced by a glowing (occasionally overly erratic) text which gets the audience to take joy in the pure power of imagination. Also, dinosaurs. Would be lovely to see again.

Group C

Chelsea Bognuda—She Said, I Made, Done It. The rather beautiful performances in this piece about aspiration and bullying struggle with a text that at points seems to over-complicate itself for no reason, alienating the audience from the story.

Richard Osborne—Dickie’s Meadow. This high-energy exploration of ideas of prejudice doesn’t really live up to its promise due to a too terse running length (eight minutes when I saw it) and a failure to really unpack its ideas.

Tola Newberry—Pohatu. Newberry’s juxtaposition of the personal (the mundanity of plastering) with the political (the public reaction to the recent “terror raids”) is highly effective in its understatement.

Tess Jamieson—Untitled. Jamieson is clearly a very talented comic performer but she spends too much time over-emphasising her point (the distorted relationship between dreams and ambition) when she could be exploring it.

Group D

Catherine Waller—The Creeps. With endlessly impressive vocal and physical dexterity, Waller channels an engrossingly disturbing cast of characters that inhabit what seems to be a nightmarish fun fair. Unforgettable. A highlight.

Robert Hartley—D.R.E.G.S. Hartley paints an entertaining and in-depth portrait of self-inflicted social awkwardness. His character, Eugene, is a triumph of both performance and writing. Hope to see it return. Another highlight.

Melissa Reeve—Camera Obscura. La Donna Bruno Meets the Light. An intriguing and perfectly pitched exploration of the politics of the pictorial representation of women. A jaw-dropping combo of style and substance. Completes a hat trick of highlights.

Bianca Seinafo—Untitled. A very accomplished look through ideas of addiction—the use of KFC as the addictive substance is a masterstroke. Let down by some ill-judged and slightly racist humour.

Group E

Moana Ete—I Love You… Toru, Wha! Beautiful singing and a top notch performance hold up a needlessly flimsy plot. Also, you should not learn more about the inner workings of a character from the programme blurb than from the work itself.

Philip Ward—Untitled. Ward tells interesting stories and has a real charm about him. His failure to really commit to his ‘What should I do with my Solo?’ concept, however, makes the whole thing seem lazy and unfinished.

Esmée Myers—Curiousity Killed the Kid. A well-shaped story dotted with a few marvellous comic set pieces—condoms as waterproof socks, for instance—distract from a lack of thematic development.

Jonathon Kenyon—Untitled. Kenyon’s perfectly pitched almost robotic clowning is entrancing and the only real mark that can be made against this piece is that when he finally speaks, it is not quite as interesting as you want it to be.

Go Solo 2010
dir. Sophie Roberts
in the SEEyD space at Te Whaea, 26 July – 7 August 2010

Poetry
Director: Lee Chang-dong

In the wake of the release of Peppermint Candy, the film’s director, Lee Chang-dong, came under fire for the ‘gendered’ approach to South Korean history that the film seemed to advocate. One prominent critic, Kim So-young, suggested it rendered the struggles of women in South Korean history “invisible”; indeed, the title of her essay boldly stated, ‘Do Not Include Me In Your Us’. It’s not odd, then, that Lee addresses that critique in his latest film, Poetry, a scathing attack on the exploitative and patriarchal ways of modern South Korean society, and essentially a direct response to Kim’s criticisms.

Poetry’s focus is squarely on our female protagonist, the kind-hearted and unappreciated grandmother Miji. The stroke sufferer she looks after sexually harasses her; her grandson is a disinterested, lazy shit; her daughter is too focused on her career to care about either Miji or the son she left behind. When Miji’s grandson and his friends are incriminated in a local girl’s suicide, their guilt unquestionable, she finds herself being cajoled by the boys’ rich fathers into coming up with five million won as a ‘settlement’ for the dead girl’s family. Miji’s meagre income is of no concern to them. She escapes from these pressures through a poetry class, searching for “poetic inspiration”, and slowly coming to terms with the world around her and the position it’s forced her into.

The film’s power hinges on Yoon Jeong-hee’s performance as Miji, and she delivers in stunning fashion. She perfectly encapsulates Miji’s apparent need to be everything to everyone, and it’s hard not feel a profound sadness for her as she reluctantly allows herself to be exploited by a society that couldn’t care less about her. Meanwhile, Lee’s direction is typically incredible, the striking stillness of his camera as poetic and evocative of the anxieties bubbling under Miji’s surface. The film suffers from Lee’s apparent struggle with making the revealing of life-shaking criminal activity seem realistic, but with Poetry and his previous film, Secret Sunshine, Lee’s ‘us’ is no longer gendered or restricted by age or infirmity—rather, it is all-encompassing, universal.

Paper Scissors Rock is a story of both sisterhood and what it is to be a daughter. Bex (Bonnie Soper), Sophie (Colleen Davis) and Penny (Yael Gezentsvey, who wrote it as well) are three sisters. The day after a shock announcement at their mother’s 50th birthday celebration effectively destroys the bedrock of their family unit, and the sisters are left in the house they grew up in to reminisce about both the previous night and the previous few years—during which they have all been separate.

Gezentsvey’s script has a strong dramatic shape to it. The themes and feelings she’s wishing to evoke are also very worthwhile. However, it often gets bogged down in needless cliche and leaves things a bit too open at the end for the story to be satisfying in and of itself. Paper Scissors Rock is, all things considered, a strong first work for Gezentsvey and one cannot help but hope she produces more refined work in the future. Her heart is really in the right place; she just needs to be a bit surer with the structure and form within which she is expressing herself.

The performances are across the board solid. Bonnie Soper’s uptight but not rigid elder sister Bex finds just the right niche between being sensible and being cold and distant. Gezentsvey’s Penny, pregnant and conflicted, is more than workable, though there are snatches of the usual problems associated with a writer performing their own work. She has written for her own voice so at points seems to be failing to really do anything—she hasn’t written a big enough challenge for herself. Colleen Davis stands out as wild child Sophie, bringing a real heart, soul and arc to a character who very easily could have grated and annoyed.

The direction by Dena Kennedy is clean and clear, though a mite more modulation of the rhythms of the piece would have stopped it noticeably falling into a distracting monotonous rhythm from time to time. The uncredited set is nice, if somewhat standard—two couches and a table—and the great scenographic provocation of hanging strips of wallpaper is disappointingly not utilised at all.

Paper Scissors Rock is a solid and strong first work, one that would be worth further development and a longer form (this production runs to 40 minutes).

Paper Scissors Rock
wri. Yael Gezentsvey
dir. Dena Marie Kennedy
perf. Yael Gezentsvey, Bonnie Soper and Colleen Davis
at BATS theatre (www.bats.co.nz), 6.30pm, 5 – 14 August 2010

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls
Author: Steve Hockensmith

Whoever said that you can’t judge a book by its cover clearly hasn’t read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. It’s all there in the title, and it even has a blood-spattered monster child on the front for the benefit of the less literate among us. The book’s blurb beats us to it by making the obligatory joke about Jane Austen rolling in her grave, but luckily that’s about as terrible as the jokes get.

Set four years prior to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, we’re deprived of the characters that fleshed out the original novel and left with the Bennet family as they hesitantly set off on the path of monster-hunting, katana-wielding social ruin. The plot wastes no time, opening with a funeral where the reanimated flesh of a dead guy rises from his coffin to signal that all is not well in regency England. Forgoing the traditional ‘cup of tea’ approach to crisis management, Mr Bennet—previously a human metaphor for detached fathering—quite literally leaps into action, revealing himself to be a martial arts trained warrior, sworn to defending the living against the scourge of the undead.

According to his code of honour, the Bennet brood must also be trained in the deadly arts, prompting the arrival of Master Hawksworth, their (young, handsome) instructor who falls for Elizabeth’s skills with the sword. But he has competition. (Young, handsome) Dr Keckilpenny likes Lizzy “for her mind”, and attempts to woo her with his scientific prowess. The zombie apocalypse plot happens in between the awkward love triangle, so at least we know the author had his priorities straight. While clearly piggybacking off the success of its quirkier, more satirical sequel, one can’t help but accept the inevitable: zombies are here to stay, whether Jane Austen likes it or not.

It’s almost ironic that you’re reading this now, because Alan Wake is a game about writing. No, it’s not Shakespeare, but something more akin to Stephen King’s Secret Window, Secret Garden. Alan Wake is an author of a series of thriller novels. He’s actually pretty famous too. But at present he’s having a bit of writer’s block, and thus escapes to a picturesque village named Bright Falls. Over the course of his story, some pretty weird shit goes down. Alan wakes up in bizarre places, his wife goes missing, and there are these shadow demon dudes (also known as the Taken) who seem to want nothing more than to impale an axe into Alan’s face.

This is the game Remedy Entertainment, the developers behind Max Payne (another game named after its main character), have been working on for the last five years. So if you haven’t guessed it already, Alan Wake is basically a horror survival game like Silent Hill or Resident Evil. There’s also some television thrown in for good measure. The game is split into episodes and even features “Previously on Alan Wake” titles, and live-action shorts displayed on in-game televisions.

During the day as Alan you will be scoping out the town of Bright Falls, asking questions, bothering the local inhabitants, trying to find your wife and solve those freaky mysteries. You’ll come across manuscript pages, foretelling things that haven’t yet happened but will—typed by Alan’s own hand, though he doesn’t remember it. There’s also these coffee thermoses you can collect too, but they don’t seem to offer any sage advice.

During the night Alan will go into the forest armed with nothing but a torch, some batteries, and maybe a revolver. Shotguns, flare guns and other offensive materials can also be found along the way. So why does Alan need this much fire power? For those shadow demon dudes I mentioned earlier. Shine your torch at their shadowy body and BAM, shoot them in the face while they’re weakened.

So what else can you do in Alan Wake? Driving, running, climbing, dodging, more running and more shooting. It does get a tad repetitive, but the story’s enough of a driving force to get you to the end. It’s not extremely scary, but I must admit there were a few times I had to check my underwear.

Hey what’s this? I just found a mysterious letter left on my desk. Here, I’ll type it up for you:

I immediately closed Salient, knowing now what I must do. I stood up, and headed to the nearest video store. I spotted the Xbox 360 exclusive Alan Wake sitting nearby on the shelf and rushed it to the counter. For three to four nights I escaped and gunned down shadow demon dudes like there was no tomorrow. I went to bed confused, but satisfied, turned out the light and embraced the darkness.

Near the end of The Killer Inside Me, there’s a moment when psychotic lawman Lou Ford makes a glib observation regarding the characters surrounding him: “The gang’s all here—Howard Hendricks, the DA; Chester Conway, the villain; Hank Butterbean—don’t say anything, Hank, I haven’t given you any lines.” It’s a slight moment, but regardless of how you interpret the film’s final act, it acts as a gateway to many of the film’s themes. This is because it reveals The Killer Inside Me as not just a portrait of a violent, misanthropic lunatic in sheep’s clothing; in fact, it is as much a rumination on the nature of violence, the nature of fiction, and the nature of identity.

The film’s ostensible protagonist is Lou, a small-town deputy whom everyone knows as a stand-up guy—but as director Michael Winterbottom and screenwriter John Curran peel away the layers of lies and deceptions that define Lou, we are given a glimpse into a black, sociopathic heart, one bereft of even basic human empathy. Lou’s moral compass isn’t so much skewed as it is stuck on a moral magnetic pole, going haywire; for him, violence is simply a natural method of expressing himself that he’s had to keep hidden for fear of transgressing.

As a character study of a man in name only, the film definitely succeeds—Casey Affleck gives an excellent portrayal of the deceptive, distant Ford, and the way he chews and dribbles out his dialogue suggests a blasé attitude that chills to the bone. But the film also examines the nature of what makes us what we are and what makes characters what they are; small hints like the above line, or Lou recalling his “laughing” at the ridiculousness of needing to kill people before resigning himself to it, call us to question Lou’s ease with the lies he lives in and the actions he’s compelled to perform. Winterbottom’s anti-auteur status means it’s difficult to tell whether he’s riffing on noir films or simply doing what’s stylistically expected, and other characters are often sidelined in order to develop Ford, but the end result is effective despite this—it’s a brutal, uncompromising tale of violence, the monster inside all men and women.

It took near on ten years for Aussie writer/director David Michod to make this film; a grueling process in which he meticulously edited and re-wrote the script until he didn’t feel it could be improved. Whether or not it could is up to the audience, but one cannot deny the power that lies in his debut—a dense, emotive crime film about the bonds of family and survival.

Animal Kingdom operates more as a family drama than it does as a crime thriller—there is still plenty of tension and bloodshed, but the film’s pacing is slower, favouring the Cody family’s relational dynamics and their gradual disintegration, over that of a plot-heavy narrative. Our narrator is 17-year-old Joshua “J” Cody (a solid performance from newcomer James Frecheville), who moves in with his family, a gang of criminals, after his mother passes. It’s a coming-of-age story at heart, as Joshua learns to navigate between his explosive family and their battle against the local police force.

The characters are works of skill; expertly written and realised through exquisite performances from a cast of Australian greats. They feel like real people and the film’s tension can be largely attributed to the unpredictability of its players. You won’t be sure who to trust—even Sgt Leckie (Guy Pearce, sporting the breakthrough moustache of the year), who acts as a guardian to Joshua, renders doubt to his true intentions throughout. The cast is uniformly superb, highlights being Ben Mendelsohn’s explosively unhinged Uncle “Pope” and Jacki Weaver’s mesmerising performance as the family matriarch; both charming and chilling (“You’ve done some bad things, sweetie”). Additionally, Animal Kingdom manages to balance its rich characterisation with immaculate production—feeling like the work of a seasoned director rather than a first-timer from across the ditch. It looks and feels fabulous, with its choices in shots, music (Air Supply’s ‘I’m All Out Of Love’ has never said so much) and lighting all feeling fully realised and polished.

Animal Kingdom emerges as a remarkably accomplished and affecting film, possibly one of the year’s best. Here’s to hoping Michod doesn’t keep us waiting a decade for his next.

A Town Called Panic
Director: Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar

Any kid of the 90s knows that when it came to Sunday afternoon television, the place to be was Kablaam!—V8 Supercars and Carters Gone Fishing couldn’t hold a candle to the wildly inconsistent animated sketch show. The only part of that show anyone really remembers, though, was Action League Now!, a series of stop-motion masterpieces about a group of action figures whose bizarre adventures were gallantly relayed to us by a booming narrator.

Their relation to A Town Called Panic? Ten years after the Action League’s heyday, the big screen plays host to their spiritual successors, a bonkers Belgian television series following the similarly bizarre adventures of three plasticine housemates; the immature Cowboy, big-thinking Indian, and straight man Horse. But, unlike ALN!, whose spin-off television show never achieved the heights it promised, A Town Called Panic blows the lid on convention and does whatever the hell it was, to brilliant effect.

The film is structured similarly to a Family Guy or late-era Simpsons episode, with a small storyline feeding into the narrative that takes up the rest of the film. Here, Cowboy and Indian have forgotten Horse’s birthday, and Indian, great thinker that he is, decides they will build Horse a barbeque. However, a screw-up with a coffee cup causes problems with their order of bricks, and things go hilariously downhill from there. Aubier and Patar then spend the next seventy minutes mining their unparalleled imagination and throwing all manner of shit at the screen to see what sticks, and it shows in the rapid-fire gag rate and crude, off-the-cuff animation.

Thankfully, their Airplane!-esque humour experiment works, and A Town Called Panic is home to some of the most brilliant comedy moments of the last twenty years. From barracuda chases to snowball-lobbing penguin robots, from farm animals playing instruments to the incorrigible, loud-mouthed STEVEN, Aubier and Patar complement their sharp, good-natured comedy with the kind of lunacy and surrealism that owes as much a debt to the aforementioned Airplane! as it does to David Lynch and Jan Svankmajer. All the elements of the film—the rough plasticine figures, the voice acting pitched at hysterical, the sublime physical comedy, the pastel-coloured settings—possess both a heart and a funnybone, and the slightness of the resultant product is in no way detrimental to its brilliance.

End Game is the latest work from Capital E for the 8 to 14 market. It follows on the tail of last year’s stellar Stealing Games. It tells the story of Alex (Dan Weekes) and Rosie (Amy Tarleton) his single mother, two people divided by their addiction to technology—Rosie to her Blackberry and Facebook, Alex to Fable Story, a MMORPG clearly modelled on World of Warcraft. When visiting Rosie’s dying father in hospital, a power surge throws them into the game Alex loves so much and they have to learn to work together to get back to the real world.

While End Game’s theme—that we have to appreciate what we have while we still have it—is very nice, and surprisigly complex for a children’s play, it is laid down rather heavy handedly in the script by Kate Morris and Rachel Callinan. The characters spend just a bit too much time explaining how they feel in every situation and every epiphany they have is restated into the ground. Also, while the use of the levels of a video game as a structure is an interesting one, it quickly forces the play into being just a bit too episodic for its own good. The work never really sticks together.

End Game, however, has a real success in its staging. Under the direction of Leo Gene Peters, puppeteer and voice artist Kenny King and stage manager Rebekah Sherratt bring to wonderful life the world of the videogame. The large Tetris-like pieces that make up the set are transformed (with the help of a large piece of fabric) into a swamp, a shifting mountain and a large talking trader robot. End Game’s sumptuous and simple theatrical spectacle would be impressive in any play, whether it be for children or adults.

This, along with solid performances from both Weekes and Tarleton, make End Game a success. Maybe a slightly qualified success, but a success nonetheless.

End Game
wri. Kate Morris and Rachel Callinan
dir. Leo Gene Peters
perf. Dan Weekes, Amy Tarleton and Kenny King

At Downstage, 31 July – 7 Aug
www.downstage.co.nz / www.capitale.org.nz

Arcade Fire—The Suburbs
Merge Records

Win Butler has always had a fervent preoccupation with ‘the kids’, be it the youthful escapism of debut Funeral, or anger and concern for the kids with no future on Neon Bible. Here, on their third full-length, it seems to be maturing—they’re no longer running with ‘the kids’, but they’re contemplating settling down and having their own. It’s a more tempered record than what has come before—their propensity towards arena anthems is dampened considerably, replaced with a focus on rhythm across many tracks.

‘The Suburbs’ opens the album, bouncing along as Butler sings “Grab your mother’s keys, we’re leaving”—still preoccupied with the kids, but not as joyously as before. ‘Ready To Start’ and ‘Empty Room’ couple their string section with an upped pace, to great effect. Butler’s vocal apex on the former, particularly, is a highlight. Unfortunately, the highlights are somewhat disparate across The Suburbs. At sixteen tracks, the album is overlong. By quite some distance. ‘Wasted Hours’, ‘Deep Blue’ and ‘We Used To Wait’ have no place here—their pacing is too similar, their melodies too ineffectual to warrant making the final cut on this album. ‘Month of May’ attempts what I guess you could label Arcade Fire’s version of ‘punk’, but Butler lacks the bite to pull off the viciousness that the song strives for, calling out all the “kids standing with their arms folded tight”. That’s not to fault the band though, they pull off a driving, heavy(ish) rhythm that I wouldn’t have expected of them. All in all, however, the album drags far too often, and when it drags, it draaaags. However, all is not lost, as the band redeem themselves wonderfully on the final two tracks. ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’ totally sparkles, with echoes of both Funeral’s ‘Haiti’ and Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’ in a vibrant, upbeat number. Regine Chassagne takes centre stage and makes the most of it, completely eclipsing any vocal turn by Butler on the album. Then the album is bookended by a downbeat closing to the track ‘The Suburbs’, melancholic and pretty depressing, really. But these last two tracks easily make the biggest impression on the listener, and ‘Sprawl II’ is totally one of their career highlights. I just wish there wasn’t so much fucking filler to work through to get to it.

3/5

Circa Theatre’s production of The Great Gatsby certainly had a lot of expectations to live up to as one of the most popular novels of our time, and this lively production directed by David O’Donnell certainly does that.

What really made the show for me was the singing and dancing. The cast, with choreography by Sacha Copeland and musical direction by Michael Nicholas Williams prove themselves to be multitalented as actors, singers, dancers and musicians. Jessica Robinson opens the show with the beautifully performed ‘Butterfly’ that sets the tone perfectly.

The 1920s-style singing and dancing by the cast throughout captures the playful party atmosphere of the time and the frivolity of the upper classes that contrasts with the tragic story of the garage owner and his wife. Overall the cast is solid, despite a few dodgy accents. Erin Bank’s Jordyn and Guy Langford’s Nick were the standouts for me.

The set looks good and is functional. Its simplicity allows the many changes of setting to work smoothly and effectively for the most part, and, to begin with, the miming of some props and set was clever and fresh. However, as the piece continued, inconsistencies jarred somewhat, such as the characters setting up a car and then walking right though the door, or the mimed wine glasses that some cast members fully committed to and others didn’t. Although the set is simplistic, the lighting tends toward melodrama at points, and the two styles don’t really work together.

I also had a few technical concerns, in that the lighting was a bit too dark and sometimes the characters spoke too quietly, so I had to strain a bit to see and hear. It’s true that I was seated in the second to last row but, from chatting to other audience members afterward, I wasn’t the only one troubled by this, which was unfortunate because overall it was a very good, clear, entertaining and strong production.

If you love the book, you won’t be disappointed, and if you haven’t read it, it doesn’t matter; this production will take you on a journey with the strong performers providing an engaging and entertaining night at the theatre.

The Great Gatsby
wri. F. Scott Fitzgerald, adapted by Ken Duncum
dir. David O’Donnell
choreographer. Sacha Copeland
mus. dir. Michael Nicholas Williams
perf. Ray Henwood, Guy Langford, Miranda Manasiadis, Erin Banks, Jessica Robinson, Nathan Meister, Paul Harrop and Danny Mulheron

At Circa Theatre (www.circa.co.nz), 31 July – 28 August

In a year littered with releases from great New Zealand bands, it kinda looks like Auckland three-piece Street Chant topped them all. Their debut album Means has been quite some time coming (via Arch Hill), but turns out it’s worth the wait. Despite some of these songs being initially written almost four years ago, little, if anything about this album feels dated. On that note, nor does it feel particularly ‘trendy’, or adhering to a certain sound / aesthetic of the now. Means is, simply put, a collection of fucking good songs.

Opener ‘The Fatigues’ comes forth from some electronic squeal (possibly the only non bass / drums / guitar / vox input on the album) and storms the gates, its fast / medium pacing turns, keeping the listener engaged all the way. By the time it hits the chorus, you realise just what a fucking incredible opener this is. All the ‘hits’ that Street Chant fans will know are here—‘Scream Walk’, ‘You Do The Maths’, ‘Yr Philosophy’ and ‘Less Chat, More Sewing’ sound superb. Bob Frisbee’s production isn’t overbearing by any means (lol), balancing everything—the bass is fuzzed out slightly but super forceful, Emily Littler, whose vocals have never really been a ‘wow’ point of the band previously, establishes herself exemplarily as a quality vocalist, and, of course, Alex Brown’s drumming becomes a focal point wherever he is given room to move (see the end of ‘Less Chat, More Sewing’—or anywhere on the album, really).

Means exhibits excellent variation in pacing too. Slowburner ‘Stoned Again’ chronicles weed escapism and boredom in a fantastic buildup of a song, while ‘Yara Aba’ brings out one of the catchier riffs on the record. Littler’s vocals don’t quite match the frantic breaks, but as a colleague pointed out, that’s more of a production issue than anything else. Album closer ‘The Password is Password’ comes as a particular surprise. Quiet, with minimal drums and hushed vocals, it rounds out the album calmly and effectively. Even if it does sound like a track which might have benefitted more from being a full-blown grunge monster, the decision to pare it back was inspired and successful.

In any case, I’m pretty sure I’ve gone on enough about this record. There’s a sort of timeless quality here, these are songs that merit returning to again and again. For those who know the material, it’s a near-perfect summation of their career to date. For those who don’t, it’s a stellar set of heavy guitar-pop songs. Either way, this album is an essential purchase.

3/5

Summer Wars
Director: Hosoda Mamoru

Coming out of a film that is completely different and much better than you expected gives you this wonderful feeling, a feeling as if you’ve discovered something new. You have a desire to talk about it endlessly. This is exactly the feeling I had leaving Summers Wars. Expecting cutesy Ponyo meets Pokemon with creatures battling each other in the summer, I was instead privy to an intense family drama with rounded characters and a great riff on the dangers of modern technology.

Kenji is a maths nerd who is recruited by Natuski to be her boyfriend for her grandmother’s 90th birthday celebration. The complicated domestic situation Kenji is thrown into is difficult for him to handle, so he retreats to the online world of Oz. Oz is a place where people have online avatars that interact with each other in a variety of ways—a sort of Final Fantasy meets Facebook. Furthermore, Oz is a network that all emergency, military and civil services depend on. When a militant AI starts taking over the network, Kenji, Natuski and her family have to use all their strength, skill and imagination to stop it.

The portrayal of Natsuki’s family is pitch-perfect. Despite being animated, all the characters feel as if you know them. The writing and composition of these scenes are heavily influenced by Yasujiro Ozu, but a moment of comedy or a fast-paced fight in the world of Oz always stops the family drama from becoming too intense.

The film starts to drag around the end of the second act, with the family beating the AI only for it to rise from the dead again and again. Some of the animation techniques, such as a character’s body going red when they were embarrassed, didn’t seem right for the tone of the film but provided comic relief. Summer Wars is a thoroughly entertaining film, where the style of the animation hides so much of the film’s deeper meaning.

I’m going to be honest with you. I have read maybe three Peanuts comic strips in my life. I don’t have any deep-seated hatred for it or anything of the sort. I’ve just never gotten into it; I’m sure it’s great. This puts me somewhat on the back foot when reviewing Dog Sees God, a play that centres on the concept of what the Peanuts gang would be up to in high school. Or, at least, I thought it did. One of Dog’s strengths is its openness; someone with no knowledge of the source material whatsoever can enjoy this show without feeling like they’re missing something.

However, Playwright Bert V. Royal has written a mass of contradictions into Dog Sees God. In a play that actively seeks to explore the facts and repurcussions of bullying, the audience is constantly invited to laugh at (as opposed to with) the protagonists. The contradiction of a play that asks its audience to judge themselves for the cruelty we inflict on each other in the same breath as getting you to laugh mockingly at the characters is not addressed to any satsifying degree, and there is the distinct air of Royal trying to have his cake and eat it too.

It is also far too long. This production advertises a 75-minute running time but, on opening night, ran to 100 minutes. Characters endlessly repeat themselves, every joke is riffed on just a bit too long and every plot point is stated and over-stated into oblivion.

Lori Leigh, the director, clearly feels a deep connection to this text and it’s a pity that, at least for me, that passion did not transmit. Leigh is a talented director with a good eye for images and great sense of shaping scenes. She has gathered a talented cast and crew who together have produced an amazingly well put-together show. They should all be immensly proud of their work towards this production and it really should be noted that the audience I saw this show with had a very good time. It’s just a pity that they’re working with a text that shoots itself so heavily in the foot.

Dog Sees God : Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead
wri. Bert V. Royal
dir. Lori Leigh
perf. Alex Greig, Alison Walls, Anna Harcourt, David Goldthorpe, Jessica Aaltonen, Louise Burston, Paul Waggott and Theo Taylor

At BATS (www.bats.co.nz), 8.30pm, 3 – 14 August
book@bats.co.nz / (04) 802 4175

• Golden Axe’s Fantasy Footwork leaks on the internet. OMG!
• Cheeseontoast.co.nz announces ‘Awkward Feelings’—47 Diamantes play on a boat in Auckland, 4th September. Probable occurrence of a Lonely Island cover.
• Apology time! Sorry to Flora Wassilieff, credit to her for the photo of Sharpie Crows in last week’s Mole Music article.
• VBC and BTD present Xiu Xiu, San Fransisco Bath House, September 11th! May prove to be controversial and amazing. Support from dreamboat Grayson Gilmor (as Siamese) and Glass Vaults. For 25 dollars, hoooly!
• Nathan Williams a.k.a Wavves calls Walt Disney a Nazi—no one really cares.
• Christchurch Press music ‘writer’ Vicki Anderson, on Die! Die! Die! opening for the Pixies: “Proof that the Dunedin sound and Flying Nun are indeed Alive! Alive! Alive!” Anderson’s contract possibly shortened significantly.
• BBC calls Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs “Better than OK Computer”. Salient Arts Editor James Beavis begs to differ.
• Kanye West opens a Twitter account, world collectively loses it’s shit. VBC co-director Teresa Samuels opens twitter account also. Now has sixteen followers.
• Lindsay Lohan gets out of jail, drives home drunk.
• Object Lessions; A Musical Fiction open now at Adam Art Gallery. London-based art collective blow your mind. Woah.
• Vote for me and my abs in Academic Idol!!!!!

xoxo Peter Andre

The Human Centipede
Director: Tom Six

The Human Centipede proves that a unique (and disgusting) premise is not enough to make a bad film watch-able. With a questionable plot that has had horror fans salivating for months, Centipede is about a demented ex-surgeon who decides to build a human centipede by sewing people together, mouth to anus. Like last year’s Dead Snow, Centipede deteriorates into a series of largely intentional comic moments. But it never lives up to the intensity or possibility of an experience of true horror promised by the film’s premise.

The biggest problem with Centipede is the acting. Actresses who play the victims in horror films have a reputation for being cast for their looks instead of their abilities as thespians, but this film takes horror acting to a new low. These girls make B-grade pornstars look like they could handle themselves in a dramatic scene against Cate Blanchett. The villain of the piece, Dr Heiter (Laser) nails the terrifying doctor, but this can be attributed less to his acting ability and more to his utterly disturbing face.

Also disappointing was the fact that Dr Heiter’s handiwork remained covered by surgical bandages for the entire film.

Perhaps due to financial constraints, the film failed to take us into the horrific territory it promised, falling into another generic cliché of not revealing the monster. In a film which is as transgressive as Centipede, not showing the monster is the film’s crucial flaw. The terrible acting would have been forgiven if the film actually delivered. Tom Six’s direction is poor, the only things that work are the odd bus scare and an undercurrent of black comedy that runs through the film. All The Human Centipede is is a bad film, not the intense, degrad classic everyone was hoping for.

Band Substances was the second Fringe Bar musical comedy night of the year. While it couldn’t live up to the first one, where the Flight of The Conchords did a “surprise” set, it was a better produced and more sustained night of musical comedy. I am crediting producer and supporting performer Robbie Ellis for much of this. The man is a musical genius with an acute comic bend. Bringing the musical comedians/comic musicians of Wellington together and making them perform with a seven piece band instead of just a guitar and a smile was a good idea executed well. Rumour has it that he arranged most of the music too.

The night was a mix of comic song, musical gimmickry and “normal music”. Some was amusing yet disposable: The Fringe Bar Operatic Soloists performing operatic versions of popular music is a sort of thing that I’ve often heard before but was happy to listen to. Other sets were rather marvelous though: I consider Matt Mulholland Wellington’s best kept comedy secret; every time I see the lad he delights me, and his new songs were no exception.

The different energies of the performances gelled together rather breezily, with the exception of three staggered character songs performed by members of improv soap The Young and the WITless (Paul Sullivan and Karen Anslow), which melded a brief moment of character-based improv with a musical standard. I didn’t get these sequences—they weren’t funny enough to be comedy and not captivating enough musically to keep my attention. The songs were really well performed, but it felt like unnecessary filler.

I understand that musical comedy takes ages to write and score, but I saw a large portion of material that I, and most of the crowd were overly familiar with, including stuff that was performed at the last music comedy gig in April. This isn’t an insurmountable problem, but it makes me fear for the sustainability of such a show.

Ellis’s new arrangements did keep the old content from becoming overly stifling and, in fact, made some of the songs more interesting than they ever were. Sarah Harpur’s songs especially benefited as her lyrics are grand but her music is often a bit mechanical. Gabriel Page, the headliner of the night, also responded well to the backing band treatment. The man writes some highly amusing love songs, and seemed almost like a legit rocker up there, and that was cool to see.

Band Substances
July 30, Fringe Bar

City of Lost Girls
Author: Declan Hughes

Prepare to have your preconceived, Southpark-based notions about Irish detectives demolished. Running with a crime-fiction genre this week, City of Lost Girls is the fifth instalment of Declan Hughes’ Ed Loy series, about the aforementioned private eye kicking ass and taking names in his native Dublin. The story reintroduces us to Loy as he enjoys a rare lull between tempestuous storylines and a promising relationship (for once) with All the Dead Voices character Anne Fogarty. As fate would have it, renowned director Jack Donovan, Ireland’s favourite son and Loy’s estranged friend, is shooting his latest epic in Dublin, and has called on his old amigo to find out if the hate mail he’s been receiving has anything to do with the disappearance of two ‘extra-special’ extras.

Inevitably, Loy’s detective intuition slithers to life and he unearths a connection between present-day events and the similar disappearances of three female extras on a Jack Donovan film ten years prior. Light bulb moment: a killer is on the loose! After wading through allegations of incest, psychotic breaks, and of course, gold-digging ex-wives, Loy narrows the suspect pool down to Donovan and his three-man inner circle. What’s refreshing about Lost Girls is that it manages to adhere to the basest of crime fiction conventions without needing stake-out overkill or smoke-encircled vixens to remind us of what we’re reading. Although slow-moving in parts, where the plot drags, the Irish quips come a’rolling, and as long as you skim through the italicised chapters of the killer’s internal monologue, you should have a pleasantly engaging read on your hands. Oh, in case you’re wondering, Bono is referenced as the most annoying Irishman to have ever lived, and no, strangely enough his mention doesn’t cheapen reader enjoyment, and for that, I can almost hear Raymond Chandler applauding from his grave.

She said of winner Benjamin Kemp’s winning poem:

“In ‘Ju-ni Gatsu’ the writer has entered ‘the arteries’ of where he/she lives. I love the way an emotional state is conveyed through the careful detailing of physical life. The writing itself is ‘delicate’ and attentive—rich in detail and full of surprising images. This is a strong, quiet poem which fully realises the sense of a ‘delicate’ landscape and concludes with a gorgeous final image.”

Ju-ni Gatsu (‘December’ in Japanese) by Benjamin Kemp

Japan is delicate,
& in December when snow settles
upon the branches,
it feels like a Buddhist prayer…

listening for you
for Manutuke…
the Te Arai river…
& the sound of oranges growing.

American: The Bill Hicks Story
Director: Matt Harlock

There is a myth of Bill Hicks. We are told of a bright-eyed young stand up who, like the progressive rockers of old, threw away his old stuff and strove for reinvention and righteousness, chasing his art’s truth through drugs and alcohol, before cancer killed him at the peak of his excellence. According to American: The Bill Hicks Story, it’s surprising where that legend maps onto what actually happened in his life. His relationship with alcohol and eventual abstinence from it and most other drugs doesn’t sit well with what I felt when listening to Tool. That’s what’s cool about honest documentaries: you can learn stuff that will alter your perceptions. There was little romancing of drugs or sobriety, or of being a comedian or a star, and while you could see the personal love in the interviews, you could see that he fucked those people off quite often as well.

Director Matt Harlock’s visual scheme for the film was unique and profoundly personal. They matched a collage of archived photographs to animation, scored with music that Hicks’ band made, to the interviews with his close friends and family. This created an authoritative narrative with a sense of amusing and psychedelic timelessness. I’m so stealing that concept if I get the chance, it was beautiful.

Three distinct types of people sat around me at the screening of American: comedy geeks (guilty), drug culture nerds (guilty), and the over sixty(?!)­—I don’t understand why there were so many geriatrics there, maybe they like watching films about dead people and the past, maybe their feet were sore and they wanted to sit down. I can’t begrudge them this, as I too often have aches in my feet. My point though, is this: you don’t think of the ravaged by age enjoying counter-culture stuff, unless they look like a burnt-out hippy. That misses what Hicks was about. He’d write intellectually honest material that would play well with a literate HBO-style crowd. Part of the aforementioned Hicksian canon sees Bill frustrated with his lack of recognition in the borscht/bible belts of America, heading to Britain where he became an international icon. As long as you’re intelligent you can appreciate what the man stood for.

Ned (Gavin Rutherford) and Joy (Heather O’Carroll) have been married 11 years and the spark is gone. Their cheeky chappy neighbour Dale (Christopher Brougham) narrates their tale of cookie-cutter suburbian repression. Things start disappearing from their house. First, it’s small things; cufflinks and the like. It soon escalates with larger and larger objects disappearing. As the house empties, Ned loses his grip on reality and things start to go a bit weird.

Parlour Song has an interesting premise, and for a few of the early scenes, it looks like it’s going to deliver. However, as the tension builds and the twists get turny, Parlour Song bottles out. The questions raised at the beginning are left limp through the overlong middle only to be answered, almost as an afterthought, at the end. However, the third act grinds so crunchily and inelegantly into a totally different tone and style that you are too busy being jarred by the new, unneeded theatrical grammar to care about any of the resolutions.

The cast all give well-shaped performances, especially Brougham, whose knack for comedy shines through. O’Carroll and Rutherford’s evocation of a relationship run cold is also well rendered. Susan Wilson’s direction is clear and clean. She does, however, struggle with the over-length of the script—it runs to 105 minutes and should, at most, be 75—you very quickly feel the length of the work. It should, at least, have an interval.

The set by John Hodgkins and lights by Jennifer Lal work together extremely well to carve a particular sense of place into the tricky space that is Circa Two. The AV projections by Andrew Simpson are a creative triumph in and of themselves, but feel often like a superfluous addition to the work as a whole.

Parlour Song is, at the end of the day, harmless. It is American Beauty writ small. And a bit dull. But it is far from a failure. The assured performances and stellar design simply need a leaner and more focused script to work with. When you leave Parlour Song you do not feel that you have wasted your time, you just haven’t gotten much in exchange for it.

Parlour Song
wri. Jez Butterworth
dir. Susan Wilson
perf. Christopher Brougham, Gavin Rutherford and Heather O’Carroll

At Circa Two (www.circa.co.nz for booking deets), 24 July – 21 August 2010

Ronald Hugh Morrieson is something of a Kiwi literary outlaw. An author who consistently challenged the prudent literary values of his time, Morrieson spent his years living and writing in South Taranaki until his death in 1972. Throughout that time, he wrote four novels—The Scarecrow, Pallet on the Floor, Came A Hot Friday and Predicament, all depicting copious amounts of gambling, sex and murder in small town New Zealand. The first three all had their film adaptations in the 80s, and now, in 2010, Predicament finally gets its big screen treatment.

Jason Stutter’s adaptation faithfully follows Morrieson’s coming-of-age tale of naïve teenager Cedric Williamson (newcomer Hayden Frost), drawn into a blackmailing scheme by two would-be crooks: fast-talking Mervyn Toebeck (Heath Franklin—best known for his comedy character Chopper ‘Harden the Fuck Up’ Reed) and ‘Spook’ (Jemaine Clement). But as one can expect, the con goes awry, resulting in betrayal and murder.

Clement has brought the most press and attention onto the film, even though his role is relatively minor. Nevertheless, he is at his scene-stealing best here and provides the film with the bulk of its giggles. Franklin is well cast, conveying the necessary charm and menace the role demands, and Hayden Frost, given the unenviable task of playing straight man to the two crooks, contributes an admirable effort, even if he overplays his stammering schtick a little too frequently.

Predicament looks quite brilliant; there is some fabulous gothic/noir influence in the art direction and the cinematography is suitably elegant, capturing a dark and palpable feel for Morrieson’s crooked Hawera. Director Stutter has clearly improved dramatically as a helmsman from earlier efforts, exerting obvious control, but he can occasionally still be a little too heavy-handed, preventing the film from breathing on its own. In keeping faithful to source material, Stutter snuffs this out a little, keeping things at a medium simmer. It’s still tense and comic, but with a tightened script and looser tone, it might have really been a knockout for wild laughs. Yet despite its flaws, Predicament is a fitting tribute to Morrieson, a fun slice of Kiwi black comedy and proof of a blossoming director on the rise.

Predicament
Director: Jason Stutter

Sam Hunt is one of New Zealand’s most eccentric characters, known for his personality as much as his poetry. Purple Balloon is a loosely structured narrative of Hunt’s life. Included are the biographical details of his upbringing in Auckland, significant milestones, various jobs and numerous road adventures. The film is not arranged in chronological order, rather information is presented randomly, much like the perplexing compositions of Hunt’s poetry.

Interviews with prominent New Zealand artists, personalities and literary figures such as Robin White, Dick Frizzell, Gary McCormick and C.K. Stead provide varying angles of Hunt. Interestingly, Stead receives a large proportion of screen time with no clear intent, except to perhaps contrast traditional literary style with the idiosyncrasies of Hunt. The image of Hunt that transpires from these interviews is one of stark authenticity, and it appears that the documentary is attempting to achieve this same sense. The inclusion of raw interview footage (awkward questions such as “Are we filming now?” are not edited out) presents a somewhat earnest impression, but the effect is lost after the second occurrence.

A captivating opening scene depicts Hunt reciting some of his much-loved poetry, with quick editing to complement the lyrical flow. Yet this slows for the duration of the documentary, causing some points to become tedious. Fortunately, the quirk and charisma in the words of Hunt, rarely shown without a glass of wine or smoke in his hand, carry the film forward. Strangely enough, Hunt asserts that he did not utter a word until the age of four (a tale which is confirmed by his brother) and suffered from a stutter throughout adolescence.

A great deal is made in reference to James K. Baxter, who was a significant influence and early mentor for Hunt. When talking about writer’s block, Hunt fuses Baxter’s poetic notion of listening with his own, describing how one must go to a place in order to listen to it. The documentary delivers a candid portrayal of a local icon, and would be warmly received by those who enjoy him and his work.

Sam Hunt: Purple Balloon
Director: Tim Rose

When I reviewed Mark Twain and Me in Māoriland’s first iteration in the International Festival earlier this year I said that it was a “brilliant mound of clay needing a firmer shape”. It was too disparate, too liquid to fully satisfy as a theatrical experience. Its many moments of sublime beauty and profound weight felt disconnected from each other, playing as more of a selection of scenes than a cohesive work.

What a difference a few months make. The company and crew of Mark Twain have clearly developed and refined it as they have toured it around the country. The bulk of what made up the first run of the show is still there, but with many minor tweaks, Mark Twain has had its Lego moment. It all clicks and fits together now, it is a whole and complete work. And what a work it is.

This return season of Mark Twain and Me in Māoriland is, easily, the best show I have seen all year. It is almost too good. It is the kind of great that makes you somewhat jealous that you will never produce anything of a similar scale and quality.

The play tells a fictionalised version of the most famous person in the world, Mark Twain, as he tours through New Zealand in the late 1800s to pay off his numerous debts. Stopping in Whanganui, he becomes embroiled in the aftermath of local land wars and, more specifically, the divide it created between the Maori who fought for the Pakeha and those who defended their land. It uses these events as a cipher to discuss much wider issues of the place of both Maori and Pakeha in modern New Zealand.

As much as Mark Twain is an elegant, subtle state-of-the-nation work that is brave enough to know that if it poses the right questions it does not in fact need to answer them, it is also an interesting and invigorating exploration of historiography. Historiography is the theory of how history exists as a system of stories that humanity speaks into existence. Mark Twain, with its stripped, almost-Brechtian staging, hides nothing and takes pleasure in revealing the technique behind their tricks. A boat paddling downstream is simply and effectively evoked with the sharp swishing of a water bottle. Empty coats fill the stage to be a corpse-strewn battlefield. The stage manager becomes almost a sixth member of the cast, bringing on and off smoke machines and hitting gallon bottles for gun shots. In its transparency, in its openness, Mark Twain makes you question the very nature of storytelling and how we communicate and mediate the past. Director John Bolton and writer David Geary expertly balance the wider philosophical and political gestures of the work with perfectly pitched personal stories, expertly expressed by the world-class cast.

Every element of this show is nothing less than breathtaking. From Martyn Robert’s sharp and simple lighting to Kasia Pol’s single white stripe of a set to John Gibson’s emotionally epic soundscape. Everything about Mark Twain works in perfect harmony to produce a stunningly complete and effective experience. The cast (Stephen Papps, Ngapaki Emery, Aaron Cortesi, Allan Henry and Maaka Pohatu) are universally excellent, all giving career-best performances and operating as one of the finest ensembles I’ve ever experienced. The sheer sense of connection and sharing between them was palpable and a commendable achievement in itself.

It is so easy to be apathetic in the theatre. It is so easy to sit there and just not care. Actors are, after all, professional liars. Pretenders skipping dementedly in a made-up land who you pay to see and encourage. The theatre audience is too often a landscape of knowing smirks and pointless, pretentious toffs. It is hard to connect in the theatre. It is often hard to feel in the theatre. This is not the case in Mark Twain. The overwhelming reaction I had after seeing this return season was not one of wonder at the technical brilliance of it or joyful curiosity at the questions it raised, but one of just being blown away by how much I had felt. By showing its process and sharing so much of itself, Mark Twain and Me in Māoriland allows you to connect on a very profound level with what is being undertaken. This is a play with a brain, a heart and a sense of humour. This is everything the theatre tries to be but isn’t.

Basically perfect.

Mark Twain and Me in Māoriland
Written by: David Geary and the company
Director: John Bolton
Cast: Stephen Papps, Ngapaki Emery, Aaron Cortesi, Allan Henry & Maaka Pohatu

At Downstage, 14 – 24 July 2010

Today, climate change is defined by images of smoking industrial towers, footage of polar bears stranded on broken icebergs, and caricatures of American politicians. Breaking this stereotype, There Once Was an Island examines climate change through the eyes of those experiencing it first-hand. Yet, what should been an emotional examination of an island threatened by water results in a content-bloated flood of information that essentially loses focus and sincerity.

The film’s credit lies in modesty. A film about a world issue, it engages its audience by capturing it on a local stage and conveying it on a personal level that isn’t married to scientific jargon, multicolored diagrams or the pretension of Al Gore. Devastation isn’t depicted by dramatic footage of melting ice shelves, but in the humble loss of makeshift huts and school books. Supported by an impressive score, the film has some genuine emotional moments where culture loss and memory, and the concept of home, are truly conveyed and dealt with.

However, while it manages to put a human face on a somewhat distant issue, the film struggles in its ability to sustain the emotional response it hopes from its audience. Personal strife, political complications, social discord and the history of the culture proves to be too much content for the film, and the result is a muddled, rather than informed, product. Similarly, the film’s supposed focus on three main islanders isn’t made particularly clear, and their experiences are lost in the surrounding detail. Most disappointing, however, are the seemingly staged interactions between the islanders. Appearing scripted and forced, the exchanges come across as a device to plug more information or ‘depth’ into the film and its parallels with Hills-esque conversations are sorry ones.

There Once Was an Island has a premise of promise in its capture of this quietly frightening situation, yet the film fails by trying to incorporate too much background, and neglects the issue at its foreground. Ironically, in trying to develop a story from the context that surrounds the islanders, the film forgets its modest essence—its people—and produces a confused, slightly falsified, version of real experience.

There Once Was an Island: Te Henua E Nnoho
Director: Briar March

It was The Truman Show that revealed Jim Carrey’s serious acting chops to the world—an unexpected revelation against the goofy slapstick he is famous for. The subsequent films he has made since have been a mixed bag of both restrained dramatic performances (The Majestic, Eternal Sunshine) and his trademark OTT comedic stylings (Bruce Almighty, Yes Man). I Love You, Phillip Morris provides Carrey with what might be his best-suited role yet in real-life con man Steven Russell—a character that allows room for both Carrey’s physical comedy and emotional depth.

Based off the fascinating true story of Russell’s exploits—his cons, arrests and numerous prison escapes—the film has plenty to keep us interested in the way of Catch Me If You Can-style con capers. Even if you don’t go see the film, you could do worse than Googling the actual guy (his resume is pretty impressive). But as the title suggests, the film is romantic at its core, centering on Russell’s relationship with his boyfriend/prison roommate: Phillip Morris (a likable Ewan McGregor). Directors Ficara and Requa cut no corners sexually, with quite a brave and explicit depiction (well, as far as mainstream cinema is concerned) of the couple’s relationship.

But the actors save it from being meaningless shock with heartfelt and dedicated performances. Ewan McGregor’s quiet and sweet Morris is a delight, and makes for a perfect contrast to Russell’s confident exuberance. While most of the characterisation is spent on Russell, kudos to McGregor for managing to still make Morris believable and human. But the film belongs to Carrey, who gives a fantastic performance; funny, affecting and sometimes, offering glimpses of a desperate torment within. By the time the film builds to its climax between them, there is a darker, tragic tone underlying the screwball comedy, ending on a surprisingly moving note that sneaks up on you. The comedy occasionally misfires, and the film isn’t as cohesive as it means to be, but I Love You, Phillip Morris is a bold, romantic and ultimately tragic comedy, boasting great performances and compelling, fact-based entertainment.

I Love You, Phillip Morris.
Director: Glenn Ficara & John Requa

The announcement that Seth Frightening would be opening for Jonsi Birgisson—of acclaimed Icelandic act Sigur Ros—on the Australian leg of his upcoming world tour came as a pleasant surprise to Wellingtonians who have grown fond of Sean ‘Seth Frightening’ Kelly’s melancholic brand of indie folk. So it was with much anticipation that a healthy cluster of warmly clad hipsters descended on Happy for a reorientation VBC showcase—standing on chairs, even sitting on the bar—for a final intimate glimpse of the humble and über-talented minstrel before he jets off to perform to larger, more intimidating audiences.

Moments into opener ‘Can We Eat It (Truth) So We Know What To Say (Visions)’—also the opener on his debut album, The Prince and His Madness—Kelly’s eyes were closed, his face strained as if in a trance as his charming vocals filled the venue. Unafraid to explore the entire spectrum of his vocal range in what is becoming an increasingly diverse live set, Kelly startled viewers with explosive, Sung Tongs-esque shrieks that shatter his customary fragile wail.

Accompanied by two backing guitarists rather than the usual one, Kelly’s emotionally charged lyrics took on a heavier, almost grungier feel (perhaps an influence of his recent ‘metal’ side project, Cancer). Not only was ‘Selfish’ played at fiercer pace than before, but it was also driven by layers of distorted sound, giving the lyrics a darker, almost sinister resonance. Yet it remains Kelly’s near angelic voice and his poignant, crestfallen lyrics that linger in your head long after listening that is winning over audiences and tour promoters alike. An entertaining and emotionally charged final performance then, we can only hope for more of the same upon his return.

Earlier in the evening acoustic two-piece Ogliocene Drowning, the band of Kelly’s younger brother, charmed early attendees with their wide-eyed, fresh-faced enthusiasm and homespun minimalist folk. Driven by a lively beat, garage-punk three-piece ‘Mammal Airlines’ roused a merry cluster of groupies into a lively jig. The ever-idiosyncratic Alex Wilson, performing under the pseudonym of ‘Ocelot’, entertained too, with distorted chanting and singing over trippy spaced-out psychedelic beats.

Seth Frightening
Live at Happy, with Ocelot, Mammal Airlines and Ogliocene Drowning—Friday 16th July

The name How to Destroy Angels conjures images of a big, long-haired bogan screaming over a deathly guitar riff—for me at least. It’s with some relief that How to Destroy Angels is nothing like that at all. In fact, they’re oddly quite amiable. Not in the post-Juno, twee boy/girl acoustic-indie couplet way, but with the harder edge that their name suggests. How to Destroy Angels is the latest project from Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, along with wife Mariqueen Maandig. While Reznor’s influence is distinct on this self-titled EP, he takes a (slight) step out of the spotlight with Maandig taking on chief vocal duties. Though she doesn’t have a particularly distinctive voice, that’s not to say that it’s insipid or no good. Quite the opposite. The pairing of Maandig’s vocals over blustering guitars and abrasive electric drum loops complement each other, and she shows she can hold her own alongside Reznor as they share the mic on ‘Parasite’.

Though How to Destroy Angels’ six tracks give it a teasing length, it is well structured and progresses soundly. Opener ‘The Space in Between’ is gratifyingly menacing, with drums that sound like the hammering of weapons to… well… destroy angels. It is a worthy starting point, building the sinister atmosphere before unexpectedly ditching you into the aforementioned ‘Parasite’. A reprieve from doom comes midway through the EP, with the irrepressible swagger of ‘Fur Lined’ and ‘BBB’, which not only welcomes you to strut along, it all but demands it. But the fun has to end somewhere, and ‘A Drowning’ makes for a satisfying conclusion, blending many of the elements thus far explored on the EP but pulling the reigns on the swagger and submerging it in a bit of despair. Thus as a whole, this EP sounds less like a choir of angels and, aptly, more like their impending destruction. Hopefully it’s a taste of what is to come.

Band: How to Destroy Angels
Album: How to Destroy Angels
Label: The Null Corporation

Age: 4 (ish)
Salient Picks: Sharpie Crows, DHDFDs, Rifles, Nevernudes, Deer Park… fuck, all of them
Website: molemusiconline.net

After a brief hiatus, the series of pieces on New Zealand record labels has returned. This week I talked to Sam Walsh, of Auckland-based Mole Music, who are responsible for bands such as Nevernudes, ex-Wellingtonians Sharpie Crows, Deer Park, and Wellington residents The Body Lyre.

It all began about four years ago, with Walsh working with bands such as The Vacants, and moving from there: “There have been some pretty big gaps in regards to the label’s output, as it’s always been run on a part-time basis, which is why our releases are a bit muddily. I was overseas for a while but moved back to New Zealand earlier in the year to study, so Deer Park, Rifles, Nevernudes, Sharpie Crows, Mild America and Body Lyre are all fairly new projects.”

Mole’s approach to the label-artist relationship shares a similar ethos to those that we have covered before: they don’t have binding agreements (Walsh quips “I’m not sure what I would actually offer them if I did.”), rather it is a mutually beneficial partnership between the two parties: “In the past, we would create weird mini-partnerships with bands, and depending on what the project is, provide organisational and financial support. This year I’m trying to do it a little bit differently though, and have been working much more collaboratively with bands to create something more like a family or small gang, which has been way cooler, and I think (hope) the bands feel like they are part of something communal rather than a strict, creatively subdued business arrangement.”

While the relationship between Mole and their bands echoes that of previously mentioned labels, the point of difference with Mole would have to be production quality. Across the board, their roster appears to have a definite onus on quality of recordings, something which Walsh admits is a factor in who they collaborate with, even if not the defining quality: “In regards to production, we are pretty strict about quality (within a releases context), but the production varies from band to band with each release. We do have a studio we have started working with, and a few of our upcoming projects were recorded there, but by no means will every future Mole release be taken there. Believing what you hear when you watch a performance or hear a song is super important to us and would definitely be the main factor in choosing bands. Also what type of people are in the bands—their work ethic, personality, ideas and stuff can sometimes be just as important as the music they are making, so that also helps shape our overall aesthetic.”

Thus, with this framework in mind, Mole has set about working with the aforementioned bands, promoting, funding, recording and assisting their groups where possible. It will always be difficult to get your bands’ material out into a wider audience, but that’s not Walsh’s short-term target: he understands the limitations of what Mole is doing, and embraces it, pushing his bands towards audiences that he knows will enjoy the output, rather than incessant promotion of bands everywhere he can: “Promoting our stuff is definitely something we have have started getting better at, but also an area we still need to improve on. There are so many avenues available with Facebook and Bandcamp and MySpace and Twitter and blah blah blah, which are amazing resources, but it can sometimes get really overwhelming. With Mole we have platforms for letting people know about what we are doing and we have relationships with media and radio etc, which is helpful for our bands and something I really want to continue to develop this year; we are also trying to figure out who actually listens to what we put out, and focus our promotional efforts on them. We are just a tiny label so angling what resources we do have towards the smaller but evangelic group of supporters makes more sense for us than a watered-down attempt at preaching to a larger group of the uninterested.”

It’s a method that has resulted in good exposure for Mole music over recent months, particularly with the release of their band sampler, The Burrow, Pt 1. Walsh not only works with his bands, but also together with other labels and people around Auckland and Australia. “Everyone seems to want to work together rather than compete with one another, which is pretty special… There has been an increase in the number of worthwhile bands coming out in New Zealand over the last year or so and lots of younger kids are starting to get involved in making and presenting music, which is super rad.”

Effectively, everyone seems to be working towards a situation where everyone can help one another out, between bands, and between labels. It’s this appreciation of mutual benefit that has helped so many bands across the country (mostly in Auckland though) get started, and get the recognition that they deserve. Mole Music has planned six releases, in addition to tours and shows on the back of these, just in the next few months. It’s the busiest they’ve ever been, and is probably a reflection of the burgeoning quality in the work that they are releasing. Walsh is contemplating a move to China next year, so will either “take Mole with me, or put it to bed. I’m not quite sure yet”. Either way, Walsh and Mole are yet another label reinforcing the quality of current music around New Zealand, and leading from the front too: they’re not just another independent New Zealand label, they’re one with the best roster of current bands around. Look it up.

Ponder this spine-chilling thought: if two geeky Harvard undergrads had gotten enough sex at uni, Facebook may never have happened. Thank you social hierarchy, thank you! Because Facebook rules. Even your gran has it. And while I’m sure she appreciates the profanity-laden status updates and classy post-town Maccas photos, we all know that without Facebook, the world would die. From SARS. Or Mel Gibson. Or reruns of Friends.

The point I’m so elegantly making is that The Accidental Billionaires chronicles the life and times of Eduardo Saverin, a wannabe businessman/social climber who befriends awkward computer genius and future Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg at an underground Jewish fraternity. In and around such exotic locations as said frat, toilet cubicles and Silicon Valley office space, unfolds the conception of Facebook, and its early growth as an Ivy League networking tool. Things start to go awry when Saverin, who fronted the start-up cash they needed to get Facebook off the ground, is systematically worked out of the picture when he prioritises Harvard living over the website. Adding to the complications are the Winklevoss twins, a pair of male Evers-Swindells who sue Zuckerberg for stealing their business idea.

Don’t expect a soul-stripping exposé or accolade-garnering writing here, as the author, Ben Mezrich, relies on Saverin for the majority of the firsthand accounts. Without any input from whizz kid Zuckerberg himself, we’re stuck with Mezrich’s imagined, excessively naff descriptions of what may have possibly, maybe, perhaps have gone down in the guy’s head. Most surprising is the fact that the blurb on the book’s sleeve is better written than most of the ‘non-fiction’ novel, but that said, if you’re blessed with the ability to enjoy narrative intended for the lowest common denominator, there should be enough hot Asian chicks and James Bond references to keep your boat floating.

Author: Ben Mezrich

Mā ngā waiata o te manu tīoriori, a Toni Huata, e whiti ana ngā rā o te wiki o te reo Māori i tēnei tau.

A te Rātapu nei he rā whakahirahira mō tēnei wahine o Ngāti Kahungunu me Rongowhakaata, i te mea ka tuku atu tōna kōpae waiata tuatoru ki te rohe. Ka orua tēnei whakangahau me Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori.

Mai i ngā karapu pā auahi o Rānana, ki ngā ahurei pūoro o ūropi, ka hoki mai te Kōkā ki Te Whanganui-ā-Tara, ki Te Papa Tongarewa hei tuku i tōna kōpae – Whiti – ki Aotearoa.

Ko Te Papa hoki te wāhi i tuku a Kōkā Toni i tōna kōpae waiata tuatahi – Te Māori E – i ngā tau e iwa kua pahure.

Nā te kaha o tēnei Kōkā ki te tū māia ki runga i te atamira waiata, te whakamahana me te hōhonu o tōna reo waiata i āhei ia ki te tū māia ki Aotearoa, ki tāwāhi hoki. Ko te whakangahau mō tōna kōpae tētahi o ngā mea whakamutunga hei oti i Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, ā, ko tēnei wiki tēnā.

Ko te tikanga o Whiti, hei tiaho, hei kawe atu te kaiwhakarongo ki runga. “Ko tōku tūmanako mō Whiti, ka hikia i ngā kaiwhakarongo ki runga,” tā Kōkā Toni kī mō tōna kōpae.

Heoi, e kore e riro mā Kōkā Toni noa iho e hari i a koe ki runga i tēnei haerenga pūoro. I te hanga o tēnei kōpae, ka mahi ngātahi ia ki ētahi o ngā tohunga o te ao pūoro Māori. Arā, ko Maaka McGregor e whakaaria i te hanga o Whiti. Nā Gareth Farr i tuku a tōna reo ki te waiata “Taku Tamaiti e” – ko tēnei waiata hoki te hiringa o Whiti. Nā Charles Royal i tito i te waiata “Koa”. Tino āhuareka a Kōkā Toni i te pātai a Te Taite Cooper ki a ia hei waiata i te tino waiata o ngā pūoro Māori a “Te Hokinga Mai”. E rua tekau ngā tau i mua ka tuku atu tēnei waiata ki te rohe. Tautokohia mā runga rakuraku a Karl Teariki mō taua waiata, mō te waiata Soul True hoki. Nā Hira Huata hoki i tautokohia i te Kōkā hei whakanui i te reo o tō rāua whānau o Ngāti Kahungunu.

Ka tau te whakangahau mō te tukunga i tēnei kōpae o Whiti ki te taumata tuawhā o Te Papa, arā, ki te marae, a te Rātapu, te tuatahi o Here-turi-kōkā, a te rua hāora i te ahiahi. Ka taea ki te hoko i te kōpae Whiti huri noa i te motu mai i te rā tuarua o Here-turi-kōkā.

Kaiwaiata: Toni Huata
Kōpae pūoro: Whiti

Tērā pea ka maumahara koe i tēnei manu tīoriori mai i te hōtaka o Homai Te Pakipaki i te tau kua pahure. Engari, inā kāore anō koe kia mātakitaki i taua hōtaka, i tae a Susan ki te pō whakamutunga o taua whakataetae. Nā tērā, i huaina ngā kūaha o te ao pūoro ki a ia. I ngā marama whai atu, ka pukumahi a Susan kia whakataka i tōna kōpae waiata tuatahi i tēnei tau.

He tino ngākau nui a Susan Rose ki tōna kāinga a Mill Pā, Te Kapu (Frasertown), ki Te Wairoa. A ka whakaatu ia i tēnei kōingo mō tōna tūrangawaewae ki roto i te waiata Haukāinga. Ahakoa ōna haerenga ki roto i te ao whānui, kei Te Kapu tōnu tōna manawa. Nā kōnā, he tika tōnu tāna kia whakataka i tana kōpae tuatahi me tētahi konohete ki te tāone o te Wairoa.

Ko Nei Ko Au ­– This is my story te ingoa o te kōpae nei. He wheako whaiaro te āhua o ngā waiata ki runga i tēnei kōpae pūoro. Nā tēnei ka tika tōna tīmatanga me tētahi karakia whakatuwhera, hei whakatau i te hinengaro. Ka whitiwhiti haere ia i ngā reo e rua – arā te reo Māori me te reo Ingarihi.

Ka kōmitimiti a Susan i ngā momo pūoro e tāngia ki tēnei kōpae, pērā ki te āhua bluesy/jazzy o te waiata ‘This is my story’ me te waiata ‘What about our son’ ki te discoey-poppy ‘Mr. Right’, anō hoki te RnB/roots āhua o te waiata ‘Haukāinga’. Heoi, nā te kaha o te hiere o te reo o tēnei wāhine māia, he tino mahana te āhua o tēnei kōpae. Ka rongo hoki te māia, te aroha hoki, i roto i ōna waiata.

Ko tētahi o ngā mea tino pōuri o te kōpae nei ko te waiata o Goodbye. He waiata tangi tēnei ki tōna Pāpā i mate tūkino i te wā he kōtiro tōnu a Susan. Ka waiata ia mō tōna mamae me te mamae o tōna whaea me tōna whānau anō hoki.

Ki ahau nei, ko ngā waiata autaia o tēnei kōpae, ko This is my story, Mr. Right, Goodbye, anō hoki ko Haukainga. Engari, ko tāku he rawe rawa atu te katoa o tēnei kōpae. Anō hoki, te waiata whakamutunga At Last, he tāruaruatanga o te waiata aroha nā Glen Millar mai i te tau 1941.

Kaiwaiata: Susan Rose
Kōpae pūoro: Nei Ko Au—This is my story

Nō ngā tau e whā kua pahure ake nei, kua tū a Peter Karena hei kaitito, kaihautū hoki o te pakipūmeka ‘This Way of Life’, e hāngai pū ki tōna oranga me te oranga o tōna whānau hoki. Me he tangata e mau ana i te mata e pupū nei i te mura o Hollywood, ā, he matatau, koi hoki ki te eke hoiho, ko Peter tēnā. Kāti rā, ka ora ai te toki nei mā te whai i nga uara o te ora me te tika, e ngaro nuitia nei i ēnei ra. Ahakoa no Ūropi te tangata nei, i whāngaitia ia ki tētahi whānau Māori, ā, kua Māori katoatia, i tua atu i tōna kiri. He toki ki te whakawhiti-kōrero ki ngā hoiho, he toki mō te rapu kai, mō te mahi hanga whare, ā, he hoa rangatira, he matua hoki.

Ahakoa ngā piki me ngā heke, e kore rawa a Peter e mate ā-moa, ā, ko tētahi tino tūāhuatanga kua pokea nei i ōna pokohiwi, ko tōna hononga kua roa nei e noho whati ana, ki te hoa rangatira o tōna whaea, e kore rawa e waihotia nei i a ia.

Ko te hoa rangatira o Peter, ko Colleen Karena (nō Ngati Maniapoto), te kaipupuri i ngā taonga tuku iho o tōna whānau. Me he hanga e rite nei ki ngā tūpuna whaea rangatira, ko Colleen tērā e whakarite nei i tōna whānau ki te mea nui o tēnei ao, anō hoki, ko tōna tūranga hei Māma tōna mahi tūturu i roto i tēnei ao. Hei ngā wāhanga whakaotinga o te pakipūmeka, ka kite tātou ko tōna tūāhuatanga noho ngū e taupokitia nei tōna manaakitanga ki ōna tamariki, ā, ka kitea ki roto i te oranga ā-tinana, ā-wairua hoki o ōna tamariki. Tokoono ngā tamariki, anō hoki, e rima tekau ngā hōiho kei te whānau nei. Kei ngā pae maunga o Ruahine, kei tētahi ākau huna e mura ai te ahikā o te whānau Karena. Ki kōnei kite ai ngā whēkau o te whānau, tā rātou hononga ki te Wao-Nui-a-Tane hei kaitiaki, me te aroha nui rawa atu i waenga i a rātou.

Ka pupū ake ngā kare ā-roto i te nui o ngā mahi a te whānau nei, pērā i tō rātou whakapau kaha kia tau te rangimarie i waenga i a Peter rāua ko tōna pāpā; te pāhuatanga o ngā hōiho; me te toronga o tōna hau kāinga te hua noa. Ka whai atu te hunga kaimātakitaki i a rātou nekehanga i tēnei ao hurihuri, i te taiao, i te ngāhere.

I ēnei rā, te āhua nei ko te mea nui e raru ana i a tātou ngā tamariki a Tāne ko tēnei mea e kī ana ko te “Whakamahana o te Ao”. Inaiānei ka tautoko te nuinga o ngā kaipūtaiao te whakaaro nā ngā mahi o te tangata e whakatere ana tēnei wā whakamahana, arā, te climate change. Inā noa nei, kei te āhua pukuriri a Tāwhirimātea – te atua o ngā mea huarere – me te maha, te kaha kino hoki o ngā āwhā e tau nei ki ngā pito o te ao.

E ai ki ngā kaiwhakarite, a Mike Smith rāua ko Hinekaa Mako, ko te hua o tēnei kiriata, He Ao Wera, hei whai mōhio ngā iwi me ngā hapū huri noa i a Aotearoa mō tēnei take tino nui. Hei arahi hoki i ngā rōpū me pēhea kia whakarite i o rātou hapū/whānau/iwi mō ngā hua o te ‘climate change’. Ko Hinekaa te kaikawe kōrero mō tēnei kiriata. Nāna i tuku atu ngā kōrero katoa i roto i te reo Māori, hāunga i ētahi o ngā kōrero patapātai o ētahi o ngā kaipūtaiao.

I roto i te kiriata, ka haere ia ki ngā pitopito o Aotearoa hei whakaatu i ngā mahi o ētahi hapū hei whakarite i tā rātou haukāinga mō tēnei Whakamahana. He take nui mō Ngāi Māori mēnā ka whakamahana te moana, arā, ka tere whakarewa ngā awa kōpaka, i te mea ko te nuinga o ngā haukāinga e tau tata nei ki te tai, ki ngā awa hoki. E kī ana te whakataukī: “Ko te wai te oranga o te tangata”.

Ka rongo tātou mai i ngā tangata whenua o ētahi o ngā haukāinga huri noa i te motu, me pēhea o rātou raruraru, me ngā mahi kua whakarite ētahi rohe hei whakarite mō ngā raruraru ka tae mai nā Te Whakamahana o te Ao. Ko ētahi mahi i roto i tēnei kiriata, he hīkoi atu ki Bridge Pā i te Matau a Māui, ki Parihaka, ki Te Hokianga, ki Te Taitokerau hoki. Ka whakaako hoki mai rātou i ngā raru ka pā i o tātou whanaunga i ngā motu o Te Moana Nui a Kiwa.

E kī ana ngā kaipūtaiao huarere, ka whakamahana te ao, ā, nā tēnei ka waikawā ngā moana. Nā te kawanga i tino raru mō ngā mātaitai pērā ki te kūtai. Arā, ko te hua o tēnei kiriata hei whakaatu ki ngā whānau, hapū, iwi Māori katoa kia whakarite ai o rātou hau kāinga mō tēnei take. He māmā te rere o ngā kōrero hei whakamārama i ngā take o te climate change mō tātou i Aotearoa. Ki ahau nei, he tino pai ki te mātakitaki, he rawe hoki te waiata pātōtō (rap song) i te mutunga.

He Ao Wera
Kaiwhakarite: Mike Smith rāua ko Hinekaa Mako

(Or, In Which I Try Not To Say “Summer Vibes”)

Bethany Cosentino, newfound beach babe, used to be in a band called Pocahaunted. Delving into quarter-hour hypnotic drone jams, she has since moved to greener pastures, in the form of Best Coast. In collaboration with Bobb Bruno, she has been spewing out hazy summer tracks for the best part of the last two years. Now, on the eve of the release of her debut LP Crazy For You, we have a few mumblings from her (and us) about the Best Coast project, and probably a little too much talking about California.

Cosentino loves the beach. The sandy disposition is immediately evident in any of her tracks, from the early blog-hit ‘Sun Was High (So Was I)’ to her album cut ‘Summer Mood’. The sentiments are all Californian palm trees and beach blankets, seeing as she now lives Westside following a stint in New York. But where other summery bands like Ducktails manage to emanate these sunstoned sounds from the faraway reaches of New Jersey, Bethany found creating the music away from the source couldn’t work for her: “When I was living in New York, I really wanted to be playing and writing music—but I just didn’t feel any form of inspiration in terms of music. I went to college out there, for creative writing, and essentially EVERYTHING I wrote was about California—so I guess that is what I was doing there—and this is what I’m doing here. I really truly do feel that I couldn’t be doing this any place other than California, it just doesn’t feel like it would fit… at least not for me.”

Jumping from ten-plus minute drone ecstasy in Pocahaunted into 2–3 minute pop songs may come off like an active movement against her old band, or drone music in general, but apparently not. In fact, according to Bethany, Pocahaunted may not even be entirely defunct: “To be honest I’m not 100 per cent sure what is currently up with Pocahaunted. I didn’t start Best Coast to intentionally go against what I was playing in Pocahaunted. Pocahaunted was then. Best Coast is now. I am really happy playing the music I am playing, and I was really happy playing that music at that time. Honestly, it’s a lot easier to play two-minute pop songs than it was to sit on the floor and play 13-minute-long drone jams—but I had fun doing that, and I’m really happy to be doing this now.”

It’s this enjoyment of her current work which seems to have Cosentino on a roll, releasing Where The Boys Are on cassette approximately a year ago, and having it sell out almost immediately. There were a bunch of CD-Rs floating about, but they’ve been snapped up too. The last year has seen a plethora of 7” and 12” releases across labels such as Art Fag, Tightener, PPM (Dean Spunt of No Age’s label), all leading up to the July 27th release of Crazy For You on Mexican Summer. It’s all fairly straightforward, minor chord changes and longing for boys, the beach, or her cat Snacks, who features on the album cover. It’s a simple sound, but one that seems to have found Cosentino and current collaborator Bobb Bruno plenty of fans in the last year or so, fitting in snugly with those who enjoy lo-fi pop, but don’t want to deal with the tinnitus-inducing Wavves.

And now to the aforementioned Bobb Bruno. The partner in shine for the Best Coast tracks, Bruno is a “magically rad-sounding” collaborator, who helps record, produce and perform in Best Coast. If you watch her video for ‘When I’m With You’, you can see him loitering in the background, while Cosentino relaxes on the beach and orders burgers with a copyright-inducing depiction of Ronald McDonald. According to Cosentino, “(He) will say stuff to me like, ‘Okay, let’s do two layers of that vocal track,’ and as soon as I hear it back I’m like ‘FUCK YES!’ (We) just work together so perfectly that I don’t want to really ever add anyone else into the equation! Just two Bs hanging out, and we plan to keep this going for a while, taking it as it comes.”

So good news all round for those who dig the Malibu aesthetic and good feelings that seem inherently associated with California. And what of those who don’t dig her sound so much? It’s fair to say there’s been more than a little hate for the seemingly scrappy lo-fi output over the last two years, and the lack of production quality for much of her material, and in fact the general Best Coast aesthetic of weed / pizza / chords has been more than enough bait for potential detractors of her output.

“I mean, I’m sure there are already haters out there. It’s sooooo crazy to me how people on the internet act. I mean in all honesty, I haven’t had any direct negative feedback—which is nice, but I’m definitely prepared to deal with the haters when they start showing up, haha. I just think that people who sit around on the internet and blog about how much they hate so and so when they don’t even know them, is really childish and kind of pathetic. But there will always be haters no matter what.”

Until the inevitable hate waves hit Best Coast, it seems to be pretty smooth sailing. With internet kudos riding in from many corners of the globe and her Crazy For You set to be released in a mere fortnight, it seems she can look forward to a pretty stellar 2010. CFY itself is a continuation of what’s come before, albeit with much better production, allowing for vocal audibility, and therefore a chance to showcase her songwriting, without it being buried under fuzz. It’s good lyricism too, extremely self-aware and filled with wry humour about boredom and boys. And yes, the beach. It’s probably about time we had a moratorium on beach-blanket stoner pop (it’s all about Witch House now anyway, duh), so let’s hope that CFY is the last release of this type we have for a while.

In any case, babin’ Bethany looks set to move from blog fame (woooooo) into bigger things with her next single: in a true what-the-fuck move, she has collaborated with members of Vampire Weekend and Kid Cudi. From the beach to the big time, all the way.

Crazy For You is out digitally July 27th on Mexican Summer.

Widely touted as the “Citizen Kane of bad movies”, Tommy Wiseau’s The Room has become an instant cult classic—if not for all the wrong reasons. Offensively bad dialogue, outrageously discontinuous plotlines that appear and disappear with little logic, and some of the most terribly memorable one-liners of all-time make this a film not to miss at this year’s International Film Festival.

The Room is set in San Francisco and follows a bizarre love triangle between central character Johnny (Wiseau), his friend Mark and his fiancée Lisa, who is having embarrassingly unsexy sex with the two of them. Add to this a handful of inappropriately cast and melodramatic sideline actors who tackle heavy issues such as drug use, adoption and cancer, and you get a spectacularly terrifying effort that, as one Boston fan convincingly puts it, is “so bad it’s awesome”.

The film itself is a $6 million (US) vanity blow-out by the eccentric writer, director, producer and star Wiseau, who purportedly funded the film with money made importing leather jackets from Korea. Although that may be a rumour, it’s really just an example of the mystique that surrounds this bizarre cinematic experience. Following its abysmally bad initial reception, Wiseau has since turned to marketing his hopelessly amateur and narcissistic efforts as a ‘black-comedy’ after it became a cult-classic in the mold of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Expect some golden cinematic moments which include the particularly (un)convincing ‘flower shop’ and ‘rooftop’ scenes, inexplicable framed prints of plastic cutlery, and some stunningly terrible dialogue including the line “I definitely have breast cancer” as a casual off-hander during one onscreen conversation.

The verdict: definitely worth an hour and a half of your Saturday.

Screening as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival—July 24 (Paramount)

See the AV Club for a viewer’s guide to appropriate The Room watching etiquiette!

The Room:
Directed, produced, written by and starring Tommy Wiseau

In an age of starchitecture with the likes of Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouvel pumping out sleek, headline-grabbing cultural icons like Justin Bieber singles, little attention is often given to the unsung heroes of the architectural world.

Samuel Wainwright Douglas’ new documentary offering, Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio, charts the life and influence of hero-architect Samuel Mockbee and his brainchild Rural Studio—a design/build practice focused on providing better housing and civic structures to some of the poorer rural communities of Alabama.

Rural Studio was founded in 1993 at Auburn University in Alabama as an architectural programme that required students to live with and get to know their ‘clients’ before designing (and constructing) life-changing buildings out of locally available materials, and in the vernacular tradition. Until his death in late 2001, at age of 57, Mockbee created some 25 buildings with the Rural Studio programme from materials as diverse as hay bales, old car tires and automobile windscreens.

In opposition to some of the loftier architectural socialists such as LeCorbusier, who had little regard for existing conditions, Mockbee’s regard for the local cultures and traditions provides a refreshing antidote. Having been brought up in the rural South of the US, Mockbee witnessed the ravages of poverty and segregation firsthand, eventually devoting himself to architecture as a means to promote an idealist approach that emphasises community involvement from those around him.

For fans of architecture, this documentary may not present enough of those stoic camera angles, and high-end sterile interiors more typical of the genre, but Mockbee’s treatment of architecture as a ’messy’ and collaborative art is excellent for a bit of cultural uplift and inspiration.

Screening as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival

Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of Rural Studio
Director: Samuel Wainwright Douglas

The Young and Hungry Festival of New Work has been running for 16 years and it’s stronger than ever. It was not long ago that it was the unerring trend of Young and Hungry for there to be one terrible play, one great play and one okay play. Usually in that order. Last year broke that cycle with three solid, watchable and very well-made works. The same can be said of this year. It’s great to see three good shows by young people, for young people. There is no real dud in this bunch, so season tickets are a must.

Song of Four (6.30pm)

In a worn-out day-after-tomorrow, the human race has lost the ability to reproduce. The dysfunctional group who hold the key to continuing the human race realise that the supposedly alturistic people who brought them together have a much more sinister agenda in mind. Old lovers with a lost child in their past are reunited.

While the points of comparison number about the same as the differences, Song of Four clearly owes a lot to Alfonso Cuaron’s tour-de-force film Children of Men. Starting with very similar concepts, where they differ is in the execution. While Men was harsh and immediate, Song is icy and distant. Men focuses very much on the philosophical implications of a world with no future, Song has a character that reads a book about philosophy. Men rushes forward all full of momentum, Song gets lost in uninteresting side plots and droops noticeably in the middle. Men reveals the unspoken past through glimpses and whispers, making its audience work to understand the world they’re meeting and the people they’re encountering. Song of Four foregoes such subtlety and gives everyone a good whopper of a speech or two to explain rather directly and clearly to the audience what is going on, what they feel about it and why they feel such feelings. In a play which should be about questions there are far too many answers.

This is not to say that Song of Four’s lack of depth is crippling. Many of its high points are when it throws itself whole heartedly into its broad strokes. The expositional news broadcasts are a particular delight, with actors Oscar Shaw and Alice Pearce giving marvellous and hilariously dedicated performances. The rest of the cast all acquit themselves admirably. Although the four leads, the four remaining fertile people in the world, do have an annoying tendency of falling into the same rhythm in all the scenes they share. Also, Vicki (Miranda Webster) has a propensity to yell at the top of her lungs, which becomes, at points, physically painful to hear.

Song of Four is far from a failure. It succeeds on its own terms, which is all you can really ask of art these days, but you have to wonder if its goal posts are set too low. Song of Four has an air of unearned self-importance. Its failure to explore or develop any real ideas more than hey wouldn’t it be funny for people to have sex on stage, drags it at points into self-indulgence. The wildly unneeded and mawkish (if very well executed) AV sequence compounds this even more.

Song of Four is well designed. You’re never bored and the people involved are clearly enjoying themselves and developing as theatre-makers. It just doesn’t have the guts to address itself on any worthwhile terms, and when you refer so heavily to a work that succeeds on just those terms like Children of Men, you’d have thought they’d have stopped screwing around and put some feeling into it.

Sick! (8pm)

Hannah (Alice Varcoe) is the Queen Bee at her school. Her posse is composed of the streetwise chessmaster ‘T’ (Acushla-Tara Sutton) and the recovering bulimic wannabe model Fleur (Emma Hayward). Together they take massive amounts of pleasure in tormenting their supposed friend Nalini (Anisha Parshottam), until the remarkably exotic Kilmineny (Lauren Gibson) shows up. Kilmineny is a master manipulator (part of me really wants her to take on Bond), and before the 50 minutes of Sick! is over, she has taken everyone for a ride.

Writers Ban Abdul and Antonia Bale have sewn together a pacey and loud explosion of a play. Paul McLaughlin’s tight direction means the energy drops and the focus never floats. Every note of the play is twanged to the highest pitch. Which is fine. Because Sick! is mental. Like crazy mental. Its characters talk in a jargon so crude and obtuse that it turns into poetry.

All five members of the cast have razor-sharp comic timing. You are too busy laughing at the joke-packed performance to really notice the pedestrian plot. Sick!’s only real problem sits in the moments when it tries to be more serious. When, rarely, it takes the mood down to lightly brush past some issue or other, it all falls apart a little. You have no sympathy for any of these characters, and why would you? They’re all, with the exception of the meek Nalini, clearly monomaniacal sociopaths. But since we don’t care about them, it is hard to take them seriously. Which is all fine, when so much of the play is there very much to entertain. But when it aims for somewhat loftier goals, when it asks us to care for them, it fails. The one exception to this being the scene shared between Nalini and her mother (Sutton), which is charming and endearing, if over long.

Sick! is slight. Some may even call it vacuous, but it moves at such a pace and the jokes have such a high hit rate that it’s easy not to care and just enjoy the ride.

Addendum—Many of my female friends who have seen Sick! have commented on how uneasy it made them due to how accurately it represented the all-girls high school environment. Which, put bluntly, makes me concerned for the psyche of most females.

Thinning (9.30pm)

Thinning tells the story of six friends who have just graduated high school and are celebrating by holidaying apple thinning in Nelson. Playing very much on the cusp between childhood and adulthood, this group of friends faces their collective (and individual) future.

Thinning comes from the highly acclaimed pen of Eli Kent—he wrote The Intricate Art of Actually Caring don’t you know, it’s kinda a big deal these days—and to be honest it does not really stand up to his wider body of work. His trademark ear for the music of modern speech is present, but often plays a little too loud with characters occasionally sounding as if they are trying and failing to do Eli impressions. The play begins with a promise to be messy, to reflect the mishmash of beginnings, endings and unanswered questions that this time of life brings. It, however, fails to hold itself to that gesture, wrapping itself up a little too easily for my taste.

The cast all do solid (if uninspired) work. The female cast especially struggle slightly to differentiate their characters from each other, which is not helped by them not really having much difference in how they are written. I honestly would have to spend the first few moments of each scene working out which girl was which. Jack Shadbolt does marvellous work as Isaac, the joker with daddy issues, but of course he would. He’s won a Chapman Tripp. What he’s doing in a Young and Hungry play is anybody’s guess.

Rachel Lenart’s direction is clean and lucid. She has clearly done a lot of work with the actors on the atmosphere of the work, and it has really paid off. Some oddly stilted blocking does mar some scenes, however.

The design is beautiful but seems to ignore the fact that there are people sitting in the first few rows of the audience, who, in some scenes, will get a severely restricted view. This is unfair on the audience members who sit there. There should be no “cheap seats” at BATS.

It seems like I’m being unduly harsh. So let me get one thing clear. Thinning is very good. Very, very good. You really should go. You’ll really like it. But both Kent and Lenart have done much better work elsewhere. Thinning does not meet the expectations that the names attached to it generate.

Song of Four
wri. & dir. Sarah Delahunty
perf. Miranda Webster, Oliver Humphries, Taylor Frost, Ana Harris, Charlotte Pleasants, Alex Rabina, Gabrilelle Berran, Oscar Shaw, Alice Pearce, Hannah Hollamey and Adam Goodall

At BATS theatre
8 – 24 July 2010
book@bats.co.nz or (04) 802 4175

/\/\ /\ y /\ (or MAYA) is M.I.A. post-‘Paper Planes’ and living in America, trying to reconcile her indie-cred with her newfound mainstream-pop fame. She reaches to dancehall, old-school punk and dubstep for sonic inspiration, but what prevails here is the “digital ruckus”: the clicks, the beeps, the tapping of keyboards, the sound of internet connections that abound on the record. The opening lines “Google connected to the Government” are laughable rather than her usually thought-provoking commentary. (Maybe her album’s spelt like that so the CIA can’t Google her!) I’d like to think she’s more intelligent than this, and it feels like she’s been forced into a corner of being ‘political’.

Sometimes this works, like when she describes the mindset that can lead to terrorism on ‘Lovalot’: “I won’t turn my cheek like I’m Ghandi/ I fight the ones that fight me”. Sometimes it doesn’t, like the uncreative use of a Sleigh Bells sample on ‘Meds and Feds’, where she repeatedly shouts “I just give a damn!” There are still some good tunes though—‘Steppin Up’ sees Maya doing her usual call to arms opening track, following in the spirit of ‘Pull up the People’ and ‘Bamboo Banga’. “You know who I am, I run this fucking club” she repeats over an actual chainsaw and metal guitar chugs. On ‘Space’ she finally unplugs the cords that inhabit the rest of the album, for MAYA’s most serene moment. “My lines are down, you can’t call me”. It’s relief, not frustration she feels. For someone so attached to their Twitter account, she could probably use more of these moments.

Despite plenty of good material, it’s a tad disappointing that little here sounds as vital as her previous albums. But even though her paranoid rants and, at times, messy and unfinished sound doesn’t equal her greatest work, this music is still much more colourful than most mainstream pop. Here’s to hoping for a little more focus next time round.

Artist: M.I.A.
Album: /\/\ /\ Y /\
Label: XL

I’ve always known Toy Story. Woody, Buzz and the gang have been permanent fixtures in my life for as long as I can remember. The film that lodged Pixar firmly in the public subconscious in 1995 is also the film that won over the hearts of millions of then-children, and for many of us, they’re yet to be dislodged from that spot. And that’s not likely to happen any time soon, as Toy Story 3 is a suitably excellent end to the talking toy trilogy, as well as a bittersweet goodbye to characters we’ve grown up with, played with, known as intimately as one can know figures on a screen.

Toy Story 3’s narrative starts with grown-up college-bound Andy, the boy whose toy collection was always more interesting and expansive than ours, realising that something has to be done with the diminished population of toys. So when the toys, after a set of crazy random happenstances, are donated to the cheery Sunnyside Daycare Centre, they finally think they’ve stumbled upon a goldmine—always to be played with, never developing emotional connections with those playing with them, never getting hurt.

But, as is want to happen, Sunnyside is not all it seems, and the film’s subsequent riffing on prison break movies like The Great Escape and The Shawshank Redemption provides a thrilling step up from the derivative, repetitive storytelling of Toy Story 2. However, where Toy Story 3 really excels is as a character piece, developing the leads and their family dynamic more effectively and realistically than any live-action film released this winter. Toy Story 3 also complements the series’ typical hilarity and pure entertainment value with some surprisingly poignant, daring comments on growing up, moving on and remembering those connections we make along the way—indeed, the final fifteen minutes offer up both riotous laughs and devastating emotion in equal amounts. Toy Story 3 is the perfect way to end the series, and 2010’s best film thus far.

Toy Story 3
Director: Lee Unkrich

In Get Him to the Greek, Russell Brand reprises his hilarious role as rock star Aldous Snow from the excellent Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The once sober Snow has a relapse after his activist anthem ‘African Child’ turns out to be a critical and commercial flop and is branded “the worst thing to happen to Africa since Apartheid”. Record company worker Aaron (Jonah Hill) is sent by his boss Sergio (Sean ‘Puff Daddy’ Combs) to escort the self-destructing Snow from his native London to the Greek theatre in Los Angeles for a comeback gig. As is often the case, things aren’t as simple as they seem.

For the most part, the film is a very funny one. Brand alone is sufficient to provide the laughs. His pretentious rocker has many of the film’s best lines as he keeps a mostly cool demeanour in the face of a series of escalating incidents fuelled by levels of drugs and alcohol impressive even by Timaru standards. But the true star of the film is Combs; he steals every scene he is in, demonstrating a talent for comedy I had no idea he possessed.

It is, however, a very flawed film. The scenes that focus on Hill’s protagonist and his bumpy relationship lag, especially when Brand and Combs are absent. We have no reason to care as these seem redundant in plot terms and Hill is simply not funny enough to make them work. Judd Apatow films are usually notable for the beating heart that lies beneath their comedy, but in this case the heart is absent, scenes that try to add dramatic value seem awkward and the film is never more than a series of very funny set pieces. Finally, I have always been slightly uncomfortable about the way that Apatow lets his male characters away with more than his female ones. I am not saying this film is misogynist, but it does fall into these traps. Don’t feel too bad if you wait to watch it on DVD.

Get Him to the Greek
Director: Nicholas Stoller

This is a Pakistani novel and it’s also a new release. That makes it a relevancy score for me, and a cultural high five for you. Set from the early 80s–2000, the story is one of family and philosophy, unfolding against a backdrop of religious fundamentalism, political unrest, and war. It’s one of those books where the foreigners are relatable because they actually speak English. It also makes you feel a bit racist once you realise how impressed you are that second-worlders are intellectual too.

But no matter. The Geometry of God reinforces as many stereotypes as it quashes, weaving in and out of three narrators’ minds as they describe their relationships with each other and the fourth main character with unique inflections. Amal, the elder granddaughter, budding palaeontologist and Eurhythmics lover, is a headstrong rebel who inherits her grandfather’s curiosity and is shunned for it. The younger granddaughter Mehwish is heartbreaking. Blinded through the negligence of a nanny, she learns the language of the sighted and sets the scene from her own uncorrupted, surprisingly astute perspective. Zahoor, their granddad, is the Pakistani Atticus Finch, only old and scientific. As a palaeontologist, heretical philosopher and lecturer, Zahoor’s magnetic intellect attracts freethinking Noman, the son of a reactionary Islamist leader whose political party makes it their mission to get Zahoor imprisoned for bastardising their religion.

Over the next twenty years the four try to protect each other from the thought police and the real police, finding love and lust along the way. It’s excellently written. Khan makes memories sound elegant, but honest, and she gives us just enough material to tread the waters of the human condition without drowning. That said, it isn’t the easiest read, and if you’re not good with conceptual undertones and non-linear narrative then maybe give this one a miss.

The Geometry of God
Author: Uzma Aslam Khan

If there is one exhibition that should entice city dwellers to make the trip out to TheNewDowse, it should be Goldenage: Andréa du Chatenier. Greek and Roman mythology spoke of an era of peace and prosperity in which people lived in blissful happiness amidst nature, and Chatenier has taken this legend of a golden age and moulded it into a futuristic vision of glitter, polystyrene, and high-heeled shoes. Chatenier cleverly quotes famous works from the history of art and given them a twist in order to fit with the 21st century. The ancient Venus of Willendorf has been inflated to a life-sized sculpture and kitted out with a pair of fake Jimmy Choo high-heels. Facing off with the voluptuous Venus is a reclining sculpture of America’s Next Top Model dressed in a slinky golden sequined outfit.

Automatically the viewer realises that there is something not quite right about these figures. It quickly becomes apparent that these sculptures of perceived glamour and feminine beauty are made from cheap and highly disposable materials such as polystyrene. The contrast between the image and the material draws attention to Chatenier’s sceptical view of the consumer paradise in which society finds itself.

Chatenier’s works also denote society’s views on the issue of female beauty. In the past the voluptuous barefooted figure of the Venus of Willendorf was seen at the pinnacle of female attractiveness. However, staring her down now is the waif-like long-limbed figure of a participant in the reality television show America’s Next Top Model. It is a skilful piece of juxtaposition, and clearly shows that Chatenier’s works have multiple layers of meaning.

If I have one negative comment about this exhibition it is that there are too few of Chatenier’s sculptures on display. TheNewDowse needed to allocate more of its wide gallery spaces to Chatenier so that viewers could enjoy more of her savvy and unique artworks.

Goldenage: Andrea du Chatenier
15 May – 19 September,
TheNewDowse

Red Dead: Redemption is the latest from Rockstar Games, the studio responsible for the Grand Theft Audio series. And wow, does it show. This isn’t a bad thing—having played well over 30 hours of GTA IV I appreciated a familiar (read: identical) control scheme. Red Dead builds on that which made GTA so successful and enjoyable, and goes steps further in its implementation of minigames and sidequests.

If you needed any more conviction that Rockstar knows how to make good looking games, Red Dead should provide it. This is without a doubt the best looking game that you’ll have seen on a console (with the possible exception of Heavy Rain). Not just from a graphical standpoint either. The American West of 1911 is a harshly beautiful place, filled with violent weather, violent animals and violent outlaws. It’s entirely possible to spend hours exploring the world without even touching the core story, breaking wild horses and meting out vigilante justice as you see fit.

The real triumph of Red Dead’s distractions and side missions is that (unlike GTA) all of them are optional and none feel like filler. There is just so much to do in the environment that in the week I spent with the game I felt I’d barely scratched the surface. Blowing a vulture out of the sky might trigger a quest to kill nine more to improve your skill with a rifle. Ride your horse over to the bird’s carcass and you’ll be given the option to skin it for saleable goods—the rewards for which increase the more you sell.

Character development is presented in a very dynamic way, with NPCs responding to you based on your ‘Honor’. This is multiplied by your ‘Fame’ (which is gained by performing noteworthy deeds). These factors affect everything from what activities you’re able to perform to who will buy and sell to you. Slaughtering a township doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be chased across the country by posses of lawmen appearing out of nowhere either—you can simply bribe or execute any eyewitnesses to wash your hands of the deed.

With a game of this scope it’s reasonable to expect a few bugs. Fortunately, Red Dead manages to be relatively glitch-free. Those that made it to the final pressing tend to be more funny than irritating (homing dynamite, carts without horses, hilarious physics jerkery) and shouldn’t ruin your immersion too much thanks to a fairly forgiving autosave system. Take note, Heavy Rain.

If you liked GTA IV, it’s impossible for you not to enjoy Red Dead: Redemption. There’s enough familiarity there for you to be able to pick up and play, and a gorgeous setting with a compelling story and characters. Like GTA, this is the sort of game you’ll be digging out of your collection two years later and still be able to marvel at the breadth of the game world—and most of all, have a great time doing it.