There is a particular kind of stubbornness that sits right at the heart of New Zealand’s best independent events. It is not the glossy kind. It is not backed by a tidy grant application or a risk-free venue agreement. It is the grind of being told “no” over and over, then going back anyway. That […]
What do you get when you cross a world-famous comedian, his 84 year-old dad, and a trip down to NZ? A barrel-full-of-laughs, that’s what! It’s safe to say that Jack and Michael Whitehall—this dynamic duo—are the UK’s funniest men. Period. Full-stop. No questions asked. Jack, with his sweet, butter-wouldn’t-melt laddy charm and tongue-in-cheek jabs is […]
Two trained snipers are separately given the assignment of guarding a remote ravine (some might say gorge! But not me. I’m not here to uphold any brand guidelines.) Miles Teller and Any Taylor-Joy are set across from each other for a one year cycle, maintaining auto turrets and living their lives. They’re under strict instructions […]
Mangold and Timothée Chalamet, fresh from critical and awards attention for films like Call Me by Your Name and Dune, had a challenge ahead of them. That was to make a biopic worthy of Bob Dylan. That would include the actors performing their own songs and capturing an image of the legend without being a […]
Kia Mau Festival 2025 30 May – 14 June, Wellington Aotearoa’s biennial contemporary Tāngata Whenua, Tāngata Moana and Indigenous arts festival Kia Mau returns to Te Upoko o te Ika a Māui from 30 May – 14 June 2025, marking its 10th anniversary and the 8th iteration of the festival. Setting the stage for two […]
What do you get when you cross a world-famous comedian, his 84 year-old dad, and a trip down to NZ? A barrel-full-of-laughs, that’s what! It’s safe to say that Jack and Michael Whitehall—this dynamic duo—are the UK’s funniest men. Period. Full-stop. No questions asked. Jack, with his sweet, butter-wouldn’t-melt laddy charm and tongue-in-cheek jabs is […]
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. In this context—and stretching out that hackneyed proverb far—when life gives you a bright, bold Hawaiian shirt, you wear it to hopefully serve a sprinkle of personality, a razzmatazz or showmanship, in situations you know for a fact will never occur again in your lifetime. When given […]
Photography by Jimmy Fontaine As a journalist, I feel oftentimes obliged to push away a degree of creativity for the stone-cold facts in my work. Less of the mumbo-jumbo, poetic stuff and more of the nitty-gritty, with a hint of tonal tempering. Once in a blue-moon, though, I do come across opportunities in my career […]
JessB is the type of artist that you just can’t ignore. Defined and dynamic, her poetic, witty and heart-felt lyrics to her highly-acclaimed rap songs act as a breath of fresh air that resonate on multiple levels. Since her break-through debut single in 2017, ‘Soul Free’, and her number of acclaimed projects, Jess has certainly […]
I’m not big on the whole crying thing, although as a fairly new dad I find I do it more now than I did when I was foot loose and fancy free. I say this because last night at a press screening for Robbie Williams “Better Man” I sat in a row of three guys […]
In Cinemas 29 Aug We haven’t seen a movie like The Crow since we last saw The Crow in 1994. Based on the comics The Crow comes from the same alt-kid supernatural goth melting pot of the late 80s that brought us Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics. Coming out at the same time in 1989 these […]
In Cinemas 16 Aug The air duct goblin is back with another entry into the long running sci-fi horror series. This time a bunch of young colonisers go poking around an abandoned space station where they don’t belong looking for scraps to sell. Little do they know that a throat loving guest has already picked […]
Sci-Fi movies, how accurate are they really? Many of them feature a future date within the storyline as though the movie was a Nostrodamus-like vision of the future. Some of these named years are obviously arbitrary – the writer simply used any old date so long as it was in the future; as George Orwell […]
The Twisters movie is out today and I’m here to confirm it’s a certified good time of a disaster movie. The bar for disaster flicks is set exceedingly low. You go with the expectation that stuff will get wrecked and people will run around panicking. It delivers that perfectly but it also got the memo […]
Pioneer has gone out of it’s way to develop a DJ mixer that makes you feel one with the music. It’s been carefully crafted inside and out to give flawless performance. The same can’t be said for the dude standing too close to his amp. All the sound is piped through a transformer circuit co-designed […]
In my career as a writer for M2, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to some pretty rad people. Conor Mason of UK alt-rock band, Nothing But Thieves, though, takes-the-bloody-biscuit. Hands-down. A punch-the-air moment, for sure. For the first time ever, the hugely successful UK alt-rock collective CAME down to these shores to play to […]
Hearty, homegrown music is what keeps the music industry alive in New Zealand. That’s a fact. As is Kiwi custom, listening to classic homegrown musicians is a go-to for many a Kiwi playlist. The songs of Dave Dobbyn, Neil Finn, Tiki Taane or The Exponents permeate freely to the sounds of our glorious nation. Being […]
When one files through the Spotify playlist of artists that have helped create the artistic landscape of Aotearoa, certain names pop out, for sure. Dave Dobbyn, Split Enz and Six60. Kimbra, Marlon Williams and Lorde. Stan Walker, Fat Freddy’s Drop and Tiki Taane. All these names, admittedly, hold such huge weight on how music is […]
Ever watched a DJ at a party and wished you could do that? Well, Pioneer DJ have brought out the perfect controller to get you started, even if you’re a complete beginner. The all-new DDJ-FLX4 has a professional feel and its simple, user-friendly design makes it super easy for you to find your way around […]
The time had turned 7:10pm on Sunday the 25th of June, the night of the Auckland leg of Michael Bublé’s seventh world-tour, in support of his 11th studio-album, Higher. My right-sided tremor (the result of a brain-injury I sustained when I was nine) was going like crazy. My heart was thudding out my chest. I […]
While the Myers NmG and Aston Martin Superleggera are technically both ‘cars’ that can get you from A to B – let’s be honest, you’d only drive one of them around to pick up your date on a Saturday night! It’s exactly the same scenario with DJ systems, there are some decks that are perfectly […]
Once Disney got its sweaty little mouse hands on Star Wars, the franchise didn’t stand a chance. Previously left to only get the occasional cartoon here and there, Star Wars is now getting a deluge of movies and live action shows to pump Disney+ subscriptions. So let’s sort the wheat from the chaff. The Book […]
The soft swell of a sweet, sweet bass, the building clunk of that sick drop and a mix of emotive lyrics is what many music listeners worldwide absolutely live for. It fuels the cockles, lights the fire and soothes the soul. All you need is that crashing music wave. good music that gives you that […]
Street Fighter 6 PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X and Series S, PC Coasting off SF5 released in 2016, we now have a new numbered entry in the series. The roster has new and returning characters and unique resource mechanics for each hero, outside of the usual drive mechanics. A new World Tour mode mixes up […]
You do anything for a long time and it starts to wear you down; your back starts to ache, your boots blister, your shirt chafes. Even seemingly insignificant objects like a screwdriver can feel as heavy as an anvil if you’ve been using it for several hours on end. Fatigue is cumulative and inevitable so, […]
Music certainly has that magic way of pin-pointing moments in life. When Gorillaz’ ‘Feel Good Inc.’ pops up on Spotify, I get taken back to age 12—the first smooch I had with a girl. ‘Summer of 69’ by Bryan Adams is embedded in my brain as one, specific summer holiday getaway to the family caravan. […]
Auckland Anniversary; 29th of January, 2018. The City of Sails was, as I recall, filled to the brim with excitement. Thousands, I would say, of tiny sardine-like people stretching from the waterfront, through the viaduct and all the way to the top of Queen Street. All of them appeared to be following the current upstream […]
If you’ve ever admired the power an awesome DJ has to control a party’s mood, then this is some very good news. Pioneer have brought out a new controller with all the gear you need – plus some really clever new features that replicate the skills most DJs spend years perfecting – for you to […]
