Classics : Ernest and Celestine
Life on the emotional edge, with the bear father and the mouse child
Arts
Gods and Monsters
Maybe Pacific Rim is the best film that Guillermo Del Toro could have made right now
The Complicatist : Bobby Bland R.I.P., Laura Marling
Eagles may be high and free, but they’re also birds of prey
The Complicatist : Lil B, the Based God
The clown prince of hip hop comes to town
The Complicatist : Precious Bryant
Paying dues to the Piedmont style of blues
Beyond The Pixie Dream Girl
Silver Linings Playbook, Liberal Arts and the universal love for Jennifer Lawrence
The Complicatist : Lee Moses, and Friends
More obscure soul music gems from the vaults
The Complicatist : Somewhere In Time
Celebrating the life and music of Gary Stewart
Go To China
The best (and worst) films of 2012
The Complicatist : Serengeti, Del Shannon, Lana Del Rey
Learning survival tactics from Brian Dennehy
Acting Under Orders
Does John Key know the conditions facing Kiwi workers within US film and TV productions here?
Punishment Park
Five attractive teenagers, a remote cabin in the woods … What could possibly go wrong?
The Complicatist : The Spirit of Rockabilly
The sound of white trash contenders, from over 50 years ago…
The Complicatist : Music Gonna Shock You Like Electric
Celebrating Jamaica, and 50 years of independence
Cartoon Alley : Mat Tait & Mike Brown
Mat Tait is a South Island based cartoonist and illustrator. Mike Brown lives in Wellington and is currently writing a PhD thesis on New Zealand vernacular musics.
Dark Knight of the Soul
The Batman finale, plus Alyx Duncan and Dan Salmon
The Complicatist : Fiona Apple, appreciated
True, blue, and the art of getting over it
Ghosts and Empty Sockets
Looking back at Paul Simon, Graceland and the end of apartheid
The Complicatist: El-P, Killer Mike
Philip K. Dick Meets the Rappers, Downtown
Milestone Movies: Out of the Past (1947) and Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
The past may be a far country, but we still live in it
Cartoon Alley : Brent Willis
Brent Willis currently lives in Lyall Bay, Wellington and has been making underground self-published comics since the mid 1990s.
Old Blighty Goes Down For The Count
Patrick Keiller’s films about his faux intellectual, Robinson. Also : Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre
The Complicatist : Choirs Are Cool, Again.
From Sacred Harp music to doo wop, via Africa
Hello Madness, My Old Friend
The films Mental Notes, A Dangerous Method and Spider tackle mental illness in very different ways
Webs of Maya
Underground film-maker Maya Deren still casts a spell
What Would Katniss Do?
The Hunger Games heroine is a sign that women are adapting better to today’s economic realities….
The Complicatist : Songs About Money
The economics of rhythm and melody…..
Personal Archaeology
The Politicisation of Remembering —Judge Dredd and Horror Stories
Pedro Does Vertigo
Pedro Almodovar’s fresh take on the Hitchcock classic about sex, obsession and second chances
Classics : The Hunger Games (2008)
When life is a war game, you need friends to survive