Dame Whina’s long march
Between March 12 and April 6, 1930, the world’s media contained daily reports of an Indian protest march from the Sabarmati ashram to Dandi on Gujarat’s western coast. Led by Mahatma Gandhi, it became...
View ArticleWar poet’s survival guilt
It is a conventional view of history that World War I could have been prevented and its tragic legacy avoided. Apart from history-telling, it left a large trove of literature, notably Britain’s war...
View ArticleLegend survives fictional life
The decline of Netflix is an example of Mark Twain’s saying that rumours of his death are greatly exaggerated. A drop in global subscriptions, due to a more competitive environment, was reversed in the...
View ArticleSherlock’s detective sister
The superiority of what streaming services provide for home entertainment is more obvious when cinemas can only rustle up second-class fare. This has been the case for several months, thanks to...
View ArticleLooking back at the best of 2022
Movie attendances bounced back in 2022 as quantity far exceeded quality. Only 20 exceeded the $1 million mark at the box office, with reboots dominating the most popular offerings. Top Gun: Maverick...
View ArticleWhere worlds collide
Authoritarian states have historically put a lot of effort into using movies for propaganda, sometimes with spectacular results. While the Nazis forced much of Germany’s top talent to Hollywood, much...
View ArticleEpic ice journey retold
Few tales from the heroic age of Antarctic exploration have been studied as closely as the Imperial Trans-Atlantic Expedition led by Sir Ernest Shackleton between 1914 and 1917. Thanks to having...
View ArticleFestival spotlights ‘parcel children’
The annual festival season is under way, and that means a torrent of foreign films. Yet the multiplexes these days, at least in Auckland, show fewer English language movies. Instead, they are more...
View ArticleStar-filled cast flames out
Few filmmakers impose a visual stamp on their work as much as Wes Anderson. It has evolved over nearly a dozen movies, to a point where it is now more of a hindrance than a help. Anderson’s first...
View ArticleFilm festival in the skies
Long-distance international travellers are more dependent than ever on in-flight entertainment. Unless you can afford lie-flat sleeping, sitting upright and watching a screen is the only alternative....
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