Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
Going from "you should play a certain amount of nz music" to something further - whether it be "here's what you need to play" or "here are some people to help you decide what you need to play" gives me the heebee geebies however.
But it currently goes the other way: "these are our commercial boundaries, as defined by these charts in Billboard and these offshore playlists so we insist that you use your money to make music that we deem acceptable to those to play on your airwaves."
We know from history that radio will happily ignore music which would have fitted perfectly - Th'Dudes for example got no airplay at the time - and happily, too, that has changed over the years for a variety of reasons, NZoA providing several and the Labour government's quid pro quo of a voluntary quota or you get a Youth Radio Network and/or statutory quota. They did however, go down with some resistance. They've managed to manage the endgame however by ensuring that music that is funded at the commercial end of the spectrum still apes the balance of what they play from abroad by picking the winners which suit.
The raft of press over the last few days praising The Phoenix Foundation (who have, of course, had NZoA support) in the UK (including The Guardian's 'the simultaneously sad and euphoric feel of an album that already seems destined to be among the best of 2011') makes me fairly certain that they are going to have longer legs than every act added to NZ commercial radio playlists (which ignored the band) in the last two years combined.
Why this is seems obvious to me.
It's great that they have had NZoA support but I'm uncomfortable in the thought that they only had more than token support because they were unavoidable. I wonder how many artists with a lower profile who were perhaps deserving (and made music that would have worked on radio but pushed the envelope in our direction a little) were given no or token support in the funding rounds but were overshadowed by repeated funding of acts deemed safe and acceptable to the radio people who dominate the choice process.
I really don't know the answer to that, although I can think of a few, but I wish somebody was asking these questions closer to the decision process than the voices on the periphery like mine.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Speaking as somebody who spent a great deal more time abroad than you did
Which was how long? Just curious, because I'm not exactly sure myself.
An Angel at My Table and The Piano were way bigger than Once Were Warriors. And so was The Bone People. Just FYI.
I wonder why they were never once mentioned by anyone to me? Probably not hanging out with enough literary types.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Which was how long? Just curious, because I'm not exactly sure myself.
The first twenty-eight of my life.
I wonder why they were never once mentioned by anyone to me? Probably not hanging out with enough literary types.
There was a time in the Nineties when New Zealand was quite the darling, at least in Italy. Hard to know why exactly that was, and it may have just fizzed out had it not been for LOTR, it's hard to say. In the UK this was even more pronounced by hey, it hardly qualified as "abroad" seeing as it was lousy with Kiwis.
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recordari, in reply to
An Angel at My Table
Having seen that in a cinema in Japan while living there, I can say it made me almost pathologically desperate to 'visit' New Zealand, even though I felt like a tourist for the first three months after coming back.
Wasn't there some mention of Redheads round here? Love that movie to bits. Must watch it again.
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
I ever heard abroad were about Once Were Warriors.
I was at a dinner some years back and an American woman (who I was told was once married to Nile Rogers) at the table announced that she had come to Auckland to meet some of the 'boys' she'd seen in Once Were Warriors.
We offered to drop her in certain parts of South Auckland after the dinner party..
WWW was heavily identified as being from NZ and I've met countless people around the world who referred back to it when I said I was from the country. It was very much a point of reference for a generation.
OTOH far fewer seemed to have made the connect between the country and The Piano which may have generated more at the box office.
I'd argue a similarly high percentage have failed to make any connection between NZ & LOTR, if my conversations can be extrapolated out into anything as tangible as an average.
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recordari, in reply to
WWW
So we did invent the Internet! Damn American's stealing our thunder.
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The first twenty-eight of my life.
I was actually asking about me, you seemed to know, whereas I don't. I can only guess at roughly 7 years. Mostly in the 90s. And mostly in Australia. I have a funny feeling that Once Were Warriors struck a chord with them, that they felt affirmed that urban Maori society could be highly dysfunctional, since that is their general perception of Aboriginal society.
I can only speculate on why NZ would be a darling at any time - my guess is that it's mostly through lack of actual knowledge, which leads to essentializing and romanticizing a place. NZ has a couple of extremities which can make it a natural settling point for theoretical views. It's really remote, and really small, whilst at the same time being moderately developed. It's the modern Timbuctoo. One of the first places you might think of when you wanted to get as far away from where you are as you can, in every sense of the word, without actually going into the wilderness or the third world.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
I was actually asking about me, you seemed to know
No, I figured I could probably beat you though thanks to my being Italian-fu.
I can only speculate on why NZ would be a darling at any time - my guess is that it's mostly through lack of actual knowledge, which leads to essentializing and romanticizing a place.
Perhaps, and didn't the magnificent opening sequence of Once Were Warriors satirise precisely that essentialised and romanticised view? But hey, at least we weren't Middle Earth!
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
WWW
Heh... OWW. It's early in BKK.
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That lovely scenic opening shot of "OWW" was a photograph by the wonderful Andris Apse...who received a token payment after he complained about copyright et al, I understand...
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Perhaps, and didn't the magnificent opening sequence of Once Were Warriors satirise precisely that essentialised and romanticised view?
It did feel nice to see NZ that was more familiar to me, I must confess. Too many movies set in rural locations had given me the shits over the years. The country's nice, but I don't get out there that much and it really doesn't strike so many chords.
But hey, at least we weren't Middle Earth!
That particular use of the countryside didn't get my dander up. At least it wasn't full of early 20th century rural NZ cliches. I can imagine baby boomers feeling all gooey and sentimental about then, but to me it didn't seem to have much to recommend it and I'm rather glad not to have been born then.
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recordari, in reply to
Heh...
yeah, sorry. Moreso because I nearly did it myself in an earlier post. ;-)
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stever@cs.waikato.ac.nz, in reply to
I can only speculate on why NZ would be a darling at any time – my guess is that it’s mostly through lack of actual knowledge, which leads to essentializing and romanticizing a place. NZ has a couple of extremities which can make it a natural settling point for theoretical views. It’s really remote, and really small, whilst at the same time being moderately developed. It’s the modern Timbuctoo. One of the first places you might think of when you wanted to get as far away from where you are as you can, in every sense of the word, without actually going into the wilderness or the third world.
This really does strike a chord for me, as an immigrant. And talking to my (still) European family (i.e they haven't moved form Europe), this does seem to be what they think of "us" (which is now how I think of myself, BTW). They romanticize it (when they think of it as anything but little Britain).
Brilliantly put, imho.
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BenWilson, in reply to
<blush>
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early 20th century rural NZ cliches. I can imagine baby boomers feeling all gooey and sentimental about then
(that would be them I guess)
SHIT we’re not that old! You must be talking about the bb’s descended from the Four Shippers. Such cliches would only have had time to get into their memes.
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For younger angry fogies: baby boomers date from the end of the 2nd WW (1945 in most parts of the world...) until 1965. When you say 'baby boomers' you are talking about A GENERATION of people, each year's birth of which will have very different experiences of growing up et al.
"early 20th century rural NZ cliches. I can imagine baby boomers feeling all gooey and sentimental about them"
Geez mate!
a)you know nothing about baby boomers.
b)you know nothing about 'early 20th century rural' life.
c)you clearly know nothing about ANZ time spans.Go away & learn.
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Jacqui Dunn, in reply to
New Zealand was quite the darling, at least in Italy. Hard to know why exactly that was
Quite obvious, I would have thought. New Zealand looks like Italy, cut in half, and turned upside down.
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Danielle, in reply to
(Rugby is a minority sport in all of the countries that play it except NZ and the Pacific Islands. Outside those countries, it’s a completely marginal sport).
We know. It's still OK for people to enjoy something which isn't popular worldwide, I take it?
Speaking of Once Were Warriors, an American friend of mine recently saw it for the first time and thought it was melodramatic, overwrought, and cheesy! I was all 'but... but...' and then I thought 'hmmm, yes, perhaps the suicide scene was a bit much...' Then I felt guilty for being disloyal and mentally sang a rousing round of 'What's The Time Mr Wolf?' This cultural nationalism lark is very fraught on occasion.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
The point of the digitally removed Maori is not that evil Peter Jackson does it, is that it's how we are happy to be branding ourselves for the sake of the tourist dollar, to the point of subsidising a whole industry.
I just found it a rather distasteful snark from a nation whose film and television industries still have a rather nasty whitewash habit of their own, and distributors and cinemas that used to take a punt on foreign films are folding at a scary rate. Who needs to "digitally remove" Maori when Boy (as far as I'm aware and am happy to be proved wrong) couldn't even find a distributor in the US. Then again, according to the review in Variety it lacked that "arthouse-ready anthropological edge" which I guess is provided by meth-head hillbillies and Mr. Darcy with a stutter.
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Then I felt guilty for being disloyal and mentally sang a rousing round of ‘What’s The Time Mr Wolf?’ This cultural nationalism lark is very fraught on occasion.
Free advice: don't even try to show someone Footrot Flats: A Dog's Tale when you find it on HBO Movies On Demand for Kids (?!?!?!). It devolves very rapidly from "well, uh, that's the stereotype of what NZ farmers wear" through "maybe you have to have grown up with it" to "nooooo, come back, you have to see him dance around the pie cart". The soundtrack still owns, though.
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nation whose film and television industries still have a rather nasty whitewash habit
Sorry, is it still the 1950's?
W.A.S.P. wash still holds sway in some minds.
Who'da thunk it. -
Joe Wylie, in reply to
Free advice: don’t even try to show someone Footrot Flats: A Dog’s Tale when you find it on HBO Movies On Demand for Kids
While there was some serious talent involved in FF the Movie - some of the background art is gorgeous - it was directed by the odious little slimeball responsible for the previous decade's dancing cossacks.
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Islander, <sigh> read what I said. I said the period seems to make baby boomers all gooey, not that it was when they were born. Also it doesn't interest me, the way that M*A*S*H doesn't - I've just seen too much of it.
Which is not to say that baby boomers aren't entitled to their sentimentality, of course they are. But when a movie came along that told a story about the time and place I actually live in, it made a much deeper impression. On me.
Speaking of Once Were Warriors, an American friend of mine recently saw it for the first time and thought it was melodramatic, overwrought, and cheesy!
LOL, the irony! But they're right. It's kiwi cheese. Not as aged as European cheese. Not as bland as American cheese. Not made from an alternative animal, like Asian cheese. There are definitely cringe moments if you're inclined to cringe.
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The Footrot Flats movie was not a children's movie. I found it rather dark and strange, having expected (unfairly, in retrospect) to be laughing through most of it, as I did through the comic strip, at least in the early years. Of course most of the humor in the strip could not carry. When the Dog is faced with disaster, his observations were still humorous. In the movie, the same action, without the humorous observations, seemed tragic.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Maybe that will compensate for the non-rugby tourists who will give NZ a wide berth next summer. (Rugby is a minority sport in all of the countries that play it except NZ and the Pacific Islands. Outside those countries, it’s a completely marginal sport).
And your point is what exactly?
Also, the RWC won’t be played in summer – it’s in September and October – so I can’t really see it deterring the usual summer trade. And would it really, anyway? The sour and negative view that it’ll all suck balls seems to be one peculiar to New Zealand.
Is there any actual academic evidence that spending public money on glamour projects, like movies and sporting events, actually produces a return? Or compares that return with money spent on education, housing and public transport?
Or hip operations, to bring us back to John Drinnan’s non-argument.
Yes, there’s been quite a lot of research into the economic impact of major events for New Zealand, and a range of opinions as to what works and what doesn’t. MED produced a series of reports on the economic impact of the America’s Cup defences in Auckland, attributing about a half a billion dollars in new economic activity to each defence.
It felt like that in Auckland at the time. Yachting bores me rigid, but it was great to have the regatta in town. Wellington certainly seemed to flourish during the LOTR production years.
The really big RWC money is being spent on infrastructure, and that that will take years to pay back, but at the small business level I know there are people with high hopes of it making their year.
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