AndrewPaulWood

Given the tendency of the New Zealand media to be relentlessly jingoistic to the point of sycophancy when it comes to our film-makers in Hollywood, by way of counterpoint and because you are highly unlikely to see attention drawn to them elsewhere, I have compiled a list of less than glowing reviews of Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit , concentrating on the ones that raise interesting points rather than merely being snarky. In no particular order: Richard Brody, "Springtime for Nazis: How the Satire of "Jojo Rabbit" Backfires, The New Yorker , 22 October 2019. Peter Sobczynski, "Jojo Rabbit", eFilm Critic , 23 October 2019. Nick Schager, "Jojo Rabbit": Taika Waititi's Nazi Satire Tries and Fails to Find the Funny in Fascism", The Daily Beast , 19 October 2019. Adam Nayman, "Jojo Rabbit" and Taika Waititi's Childish Approach to Nazism", The Ringer, 18 October 2019. Jonathon Romney, "Film of the Week: Jojo Rabbit...

Elicited by the decision of the Otago University Proctor to sneak around private student flats thieving Dunedin flats are cold and damp, Responsible for ague and cramp, With bath-sponge walls and landlord hassles, But Scarfies’ dives are still their castles (Though if you think it be more meet, Their hovel is their Castle Street), And though the boards that girt about Be rotten, who would dare to rout the fragile safety hole provides for harried rat where rat abides? At Troy, cynic Achilles slew Tenes and Troilus in full view Of Phoebus in his temple’s heart, Thus did the god guide Paris’ dart. But no Achilles is the Proctor, And many an Aotearoan doctor Inhaled the herb while at Med School, Ergo, I pray Sir, who’s the fool? A Proctor’s beat lies in the pale Of campus, Sir, so epic fail, And if you think such prowling fine, Dost likewise you the washing line Eye-up for dainty bits of lace To sniff and finger?         ...

Public notification that a strategy policy was even being developed has been appalling. That aside, if the CCC truly does want Christchurch to be "an innovative and exciting place to live, where our creativity helps us reach our potential", it must first address the following things: (1) Even before the quakes of 2010 and 2011, and massively exacerbated by them following, is the issue of affordable space, both for creative working environments (exhibitions, studios, rehearsal, performance etc), but also living space because creative practitioners for the most part don’t have a lot of disposable income. (2) Relevant to point (1), the cities that attract creative talent and sustain vibrant national and world-class cultural lives (Berlin, for example) combine a balance of affordable living, lifestyle and working with places to exhibit/perform, patronage and audiences. (3) The current post-quake arrangement of arts advocacy being essentially a duopoly between Arts V...

Sometimes I haul on the hazmat suit and read the Daily Blog. This particular bloviating pontification by Chris Trotter caught my eye on the whole business with that Canadian dollar store Tomi Lahren, Lauren Southern, and that creepy Renfew thing, Stefan Molyneux, being denied use of the Bruce Mason Centre by Phil Goff and Auckland Council for their little Nuremberg Rally Lite, and I felt I had to respond. I quote Trotts in italics. THAT THE INSPIRATION for this posting came from a man who spent his life studying grizzly bears is entirely fitting. The free speech debate of the past fortnight has seen more than a few angry grizzlies come galloping out of the woods. The question in most need of an urgent answer is – why? What is it that leads the Right to defend the principle of free speech so vigorously? And why has the contemporary Left departed so dramatically from Noam Chomsky’s free-speech absolutism? Well, Chris, the answer to that is because the Far Right overlapping with th...

This online article criticising Luke Willis Thompson 2018 Turner Prize-nominated work for essentially being appropriation because he has light skin and, in the author’s estimation, “passes” for “white” has recently provoked discussion on social media. It has raised some interesting points, but (acknowledging I really can’t speak to the indigenous perspective and don’t claim to) notions of a melanin pantone chart being applied to indigenous people in colonised places is spectacularly grotesque. Putting aside the quite natural variations in complexion among Polynesian and Melanesian peoples, Thompson’s indigeneity is inalienable from his genealogy/whakapapa and his being raised as iTaukei. This sort of discourse has been insinuating itself in postcolonial discourse in New Zealand lately. It has been very popular with neocolonialists seeking to alienate indigenous people from their identity, and more disconcertingly, turns up in internal Māori and Pasifika politics (shades of Deleu...

Recently the Spinoff published an opinion piece by Peter Gilderdale of AUT contending that Auckland University’s threatened closure of specialty libraries represents some kind of internal schism within the bourgeoisie, and that the outrage expressed doesn’t go, “beyond cost-cutting and general ideological antipathy as an explanation for what the university is doing. ...Well written as they are, the articles boil down to arty people expressing outrage to other arty people. And the people doing these cuts don’t care about arty folks.” Gilderdale opens his explanation for his view like this: “I sometimes wonder whether the arts community entirely realise the depth of the antipathy for, or (what is worse) indifference towards them which these cuts represent. If you live in Grey Lynn, Titirangi (or Wellington), read the  Listener , go to the theatre, and listen to RNZ, your cultural support networks mean you are barely going encounter people for whom the arts are not a vital part...

This was an interview originally commissioned by the New Zealand Listener last year, which they never used, never paid for, and so I'm putting it here: Categorising what Karl Fritsch does – jeweller, artist, craftsman – isn’t easy. “I make rings,” he says. “A jeweller makes rings, so that suits well. I think jewellery can be art as much as anything nowadays. I wouldn’t create a new art form for what I’m doing; I’ll stick to making rings and being a jeweller… Or goldsmith, I quite like that. And I certainly agree that the outcome can be art. People in that art world can see it as art as much as a book or anything can be art today.  “I like making rings. I like the form and I like the size. It’s made with your hands and it’s worn on your hand. It touches everything we touch. It’s what it is. It sounds like a limit, but actually I can’t reduce it to a solitaire ring, it’s a great challenge every day to make a new version of a simple solitaire ring.” A leading figure in conte...