Land of the Long White Cloud I really liked too, it was lovely. A lot easier…

I can't quite articulate…

Umm, as many of you may already be following the Crazy Horses Gang on Facebook, is it Ok to link to a fan photo? Oh well, here goes... This was…

Boy helps Poi E climb the charts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQLUygS0IAQ

I don't geddit...

Tweetable (and tweetworthy), young skywalker

138 characters, just sayin

I don't geddit...

Colm Toibin had a good comment on this the other day, on radio: he sees these books everyone else is reading and immediately wants to read George Eliot or something no one is reading.

I said as much the other day. If I'm…

I guess your workmate stopped reading a couple of pages before the end.

I know what you're trying to do, and thanks. But it's okay, I've read Kafka. I'm cool was bleak endings to bleak books.

Although maybe it was my workmate who was being more clever than I give…

138 characters, just sayin

What happens in the playground stays in the playground?

Just as well most of my school-yard commando activities happened in the 70s, and I can legitimately claim memory loss. But in similar form, I was the one throwing the insults, not the punches.

In related news,…

Just as well I inisuated that Willie Apiata smelled like he was over-affectionate towards farm animals before he got all that SAS training

138 characters, just sayin

I've just picked up Cormack McCarthy's 'The Road', putting me in probably the same place vis-a-vis other people as you are with the Wire. It's bleak. And my workmate kinda ruined it by saying : "And you keep hoping something will get better and it never does."

I guess your…

Bloody hell, isn't it just...

Just as well I inisuated that Willie Apiata smelled like he was over-affectionate towards farm animals before he got all that SAS training.

(At which time, I was punched in the face by a future V.C. winner, but that's a whole other story.)

Bloody hell, isn't it just...

Like @recordari, I didn't see stereotypes, certainly not such that they grated. The kids' dialogue seemed particularly natural to me, but then again I wasn't a Maori kid living on the East Coast in the 80s.

I was, for about six months in 1984, going to school not that far…

@Cecilia – maybe the generational thing does explain it. I dare say if Boy was set in modern day, the conversation would be much different, and probably full of…

Perhaps "egg" is the ultimate in insulting someone's lack of maturity.

If it was Shakespeare that wrote it, then "egg" must have been the pen-ultimate insult, thus implying it really was the "chicken" that came first as the ultimate insult.

This could be the makings of a good yoke. I'll just go see if I can crack it.

Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd villain!
What, you egg!

Thousands of fifth formers doing Macbeth?

Exactly where I remember it from :D
Maybe that is the answer. My god. That'd be hilarious.
I wonder if it is part of the Australian curriculum too?

Hmm, not sure I can let that go ;-)

Sigh. I'll have to try again.

Can't read Fforde. Tried and failed.

Hmm, not sure I can let that go ;-)

Thousands of fifth formers doing Macbeth?

And recordari – chacun a son gout??? Can't read Fforde. Tried and failed.

But I'm so wired – I'm nearly all the way through Season 5 of The Wire and I've got no one to discuss…

Does anyone know where the insult 'egg' came from? I know it's in Macbeth, and possibly more Shakespeare – but how the hell did we end up with it? It fascinates me.

Me too. It's at least as common in Australia as it is here. Very big with people who…

I'm confusing myself now.

I'll let it go. After all you recommended Murakami, and now I'm three books in and loving it. Forget the 80s, I'm getting nostalgic for Jolisa's bookie thread. I'm reading a new Jasper Fforde and I have no where to talk about it. Sorry, thread anachronism.

You saw them as stereotypes, I saw them as manifestations of people I knew growing up.

I suppose I'm forgetting the 80's setting when y'all grew up. I grew up in the 50s so I've got a different perspective.

Eleven year old boys are not quite so cute and innocent…

site of Robert Kerridge's first picture theatre

yeah, the guy at place where we stayed told us a bit of the history. the cinema thing being just one of a whole lot of amazing facts about the place that seem so unlikely when you go there now.

Waipiro Bay
a truly amazing place. only been there twice for a couple of days each. won't ever forget it though. hope to go back again a few times too...

Indeed amazing – but a significantly different coast, different environment, different iwi from that the focus of 'Boy'.

Still, one…

Waipiro Bay

a truly amazing place. only been there twice for a couple of days each. won't ever forget it though. hope to go back again a few times too...

You are forgetting about Black Sheep and Second Hand Wedding

I haven't seen the latter, but don't know anyone who raved about it – in fact just yesterday a couple of friends were saying just the opposite. Black Sheep wasn't exactly funny either. Nor was it the abortion Kombi Nation…

I'd just like a grown up NZ feature about a Maori community without the stereotypes of Boy

You saw them as stereotypes, I saw them as manifestations of people I knew growing up. "There's such and such". "Oh look at that Humber 80. Such and such had one of those.…

OWW

not even,

a plotline which is about coming to terms with the death of a mother

spoiler

You are forgetting about Black Sheep and Second Hand Wedding, which were a giggle or two. The problem is to do with distribution, publicity budgets + the fact that all our major film distributors/exhibitors are overseas owned, with no particular loyalty to local film.

But both those films did really…

Honestly I do like comedy too but to focus a comedy around a plotline which is about…

the past decade has been particularly bad.

You are forgetting about Black Sheep and Second Hand Wedding, which were a giggle or two. The problem is to do with distribution, publicity budgets + the fact that all our major film distributors/exhibitors are overseas owned, with no particular loyalty to local…

And Theresa Healey was a bonus.

Bloody Shortland Street. Ruined my favourite actress for me. Well, sort of. Still watched it. When I arrived in Wellington in 1989 was briefly in a flat with TH and another soon to be famous actress who also ended up on the Street*.

That's…

The past decade has been particularly bad.

Won't argue with that. I thought the 90s/early 00s was really bad for comedy — those ones like Chicken, Toy Love, I'll Make You Happy, Via Satellite. The Film Commission was trying too hard.

being called an egg rang pretty true

We did that on the dreaded Shore, too. What was up with the 'egg' thing in the 80s, I wonder?

(I love Kitchen Sink. Yay.)

Sione's Wedding

And prior to that, probably Footrot Flats: The Movie was the biggest-grossing comedy. I don't think NZ film's comedy record has been that dismal: the first three Peter Jackson movies were comedies, Came a Hot Friday back in the 80s, even Goodbye Pork Pie can be taken as…

I was a kid growing up in Opotiki around that time, and it felt distinctly like a documentary to me. Agree with Damian about it being pitch perfect.

Ha! Another one. We're everywhere, so look out...

NZ has an equally bad record of shit comedy throughout the same period.

Yes, but not much of a record on good comedy. It's a pity, a lack, which seems to be slowly changing. One of the best things about Outrageous Fortune is the humour. Oh, and the rude sex.

If it's any consolation, Danielle, (and it won't be) my mother had that problem with Eagle vs Shark, and she loved Boy.

I'm with your mother too, Emma. I wanted to like Eagle vs Shark but just couldn't and didn't, but loved Boy. (And, I may add, so apparently did…

And he plundered his own successful film Two Cars One Night. Shot for shot he reprised it in parts.

Yeah, what Robyn said. And by 'plundered', I think you might mean about three lines, starting with "Do you know why I pulled you over miss."

But that's cool, not everyone…

I only saw Eagle vs Shark recently (I think it was on TV?), and I found it boring and tedious.

Phew, not just me then. I'm looking forward to Boy though, expecting some reminders of childhood living a way up the coast. Nostalgia humoured.

I too have a dream of fighting the power while riding the whale...

roflnui

And he plundered his own successful film Two Cars One Night. Shot for shot he reprised it in parts.

"Boy" originally started as a feature-length version of "Two Cars, One Night", so that's where the similarities come from. But as the script was developed, the film became its own thing,…

personally i'd call it once were warriors without all the freaking angst. it really is worth seeing on the big screen.

and... it was a tiny bit like growing up in the mount. being called an…

Days of body-surfing, fishing, exploring. Nights of campfires, stories and dares. It felt almost dreamlike, like stepping into a different time.

Yes, all that too. Sitting in a tractor tyre while others dive down for kina and crays. It's still there, and much unchanged. Last time I was down there…

Oh bugger. I was hoping for an improvement on that score.

I only saw Eagle vs Shark recently (I think it was on TV?), and I found it boring and tedious. The ungainly lead characters just annoyed me, rather than entertained.

I do wonder if it would have been better…

I was hoping for an improvement on that score.

If it's any consolation, Danielle, (and it won't be) my mother had that problem with Eagle vs Shark, and she loved Boy.

incidentally what previous comedy did Boy just surpass to be more successful than

Sione's Wedding

I saw Boy at a preview and the audience laughed up a gale. Another example, I guess, of what Sam Neill now refers to as __a New Zealand cinema at ease-- (revising his former…

I found most of the characterisation muy simpatico and well rendered. The story, I felt, wasn't meant to…

But I just found rather refreshing to see a film full of Maori who aren't patched wife beaters and victims of colonialist/neo-liberal opression.

I enjoy agreeing with Craig. I thought: an indigenous movie that didn't feel it had to be an Issues movie. Unlike Warriors or Whale Rider, you could…

I totally get why some might find it (like Eagle vs, Shark) too self-consciously quirky and awkward to get with

Oh bugger. I was hoping for an improvement on that score.

I too have a dream of fighting the power while riding the whale...

The Arrival was the one this year.

One reviewer said he thought some of the film's more emotional moments were ruined, or at least didn't reach their full potential because the director would cut to a gag.

Oh, let's translate that into "you're not a real Kiwi film unless you leave the theatre in a state of…

if i'm gonna spend 30 odd bucks at the movies there better be hot bodies, blood, carnage and some epic special effects.

incidentally what…