Everyone has something they love, but wouldn't feel comfortable recommending to the general public. This is a weekly series of fascinating chats about problematic faves, great trash, and our complicated relationships with art and culture.
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With the sad passing of National Treasure Sam Neill, it seemed only fitting that we look at probably his weirdest role - Andrzej Żuławski's 1981 divorce-(monster)-horror movie "Possession". Neill plays Mark, a spy (and dog assassin?) who abandons his job in order to return to his family, only to find that his wife Anna (a truly haunted-looking Isabelle Adjani) has been having an affair, and wants…
"The Polar Express" (2004) is a divisive movie, in which 6 separate Tom Hankses (Toms Hanks?) hold conversations with one another in different voices and neither of the two primary characters actually have names. It attempts to adapt a very quiet, dreamlike picture book into a riotous early 00's 3D animated adventure movie and makes a series of completely deranged choices in trying to bridge that…
Saul Bass is a guy whose work you have definitely seen, even if you don't know it. Between 1954 and 1995 (along with his wife Elaine) he provided title sequences and posters for a staggering array of movies, in addition to designing some of the most recognisable and iconic logos for major American corporations. In 1974, he made his directorial debut with a quiet, meditative, cerebral science…
Russ Meyer's "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!" (1965) might be the ur-example of a cult movie. Widely derided as trash on its release, it has been re-evaluated as a camp classic and is now regarded (amongst other things) as part of the weird overlap of Venn circles where the creator's thinly-disguised fetish (in this case enormous powerful women running amok) also leads to an oddly-empowering…
Amid the global panic about the rise of fascism, I take a second to wonder if there's a different right wing form of power consolidation on the menu, and look to fiction for possible answers. Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.
I take a solo minisode to explain what I've been up to for a month and a half, and how Winston Peters Has Always Been Like This. Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.
"The Howling III: The Marsupials" (1987) was genuinely the stuff of schoolyard legend when I was in primary school in the early 90s, due to a notorious sequence involving a female lycanthrope giving birth to a "joey" who seeks refuge in her pouch. I did not, however, know what this rumoured movie was *actually called* until I came across author and journalist Asher Elbein (www.asherelbein.com) on…
Originally started by Peter Furler and George Perdikis in 1985, Newsboys are such an enduring mainstay of Christian rock that the band is still going strong absent any of the original members. Over that 40 year career, their sound has changed so drastically that if you say that you either love or hate Newsboys, the only logical response is "which Newsboys?" In addition, if you are a Kiwi or Aussie…
Admittedly, I love me a novelty instrumental cover (ask me about my surf rock habit) but I've never really understood the cringe that greets the mention of ska music. Part of this is probably being a kiwi - we have a different relationship with the pop-punk side of ska music than Americans do - but I've always felt like people who didn't appreciate the genre just hadn't found the good stuff yet.…
Prompted by last episode, in concert with a conversation about Normality the RPG, and a viewing of Cargo (2017), I talk about an idea cooking in the back of my head about the ways that people who say and do horrible things act like victims. Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.