They say to never judge a book by its cover. In addition to filling for Graeme Tuckett on Nine to Noon whenever he gets a better offer, I’ve been reviewing some books. Last Friday I had the great pleasure of talking to Lynn Freeman about the wonderful history of New Zealand cinema exhibition, “The …
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Louise Doughty on authors and public speaking: Most novelists are shy and retiring people; when we get up and read, we’re like badgers who have to come up from our burrows and do a tap dance. [via The Guardian]
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It’s the same wherever you go — that desperate search for a pub when the All Blacks are playing. Even if you are Archbishop Desmond Tutu: We meet the irrepressible Anglican archbishop and Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu, stranded in San Francisco and looking for a bar that might broadcast the rugby game … (the 1995 World Cup […]
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This morning I hustled across town to Radio NZ House on The Terrace to review Duncan Sarkies’ new novel “Two Little Boys” for Nine to Noon. You can click here (for a week at least) to listen to what Kathryn and I had to say. As is often the case when I’m doing something …
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Satirist George Saunders speaking at the Brooklyn Academy of Music back in January: He aims to “take his reader by the shirt and fling him; you send him 15 feet and you’re done. And I don’t think it’s in your power to control what he’s feeling as he’s flying through the air.” I first heard …
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A little late, but still recommended, Jane Campion remembers Janet Frame and making An Angel at My Table, in The Guardian: Each room and even parts of rooms were dedicated to a different book in progress. Here and there she had hung curtains to divide up the rooms like they do in hospital wards to give […]
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Dan Slevin is a New Zealand-based writer, broadcaster and consultant. He has reviewed cinema for the Capital Times weekly newspaper since September 2006, seeing and reviewing every film commercially released in Wellington in that time (except, for some reason, Flicka or Beverly Hills Chihuahua).
Dan is a regular contributor to Radio New Zealand National’s Nine to Noon programme and produces and co-hosts the weekly movie podcast, Cinematica.
In addition to being the finest swordsman in all France, he is also the meanest hombre west of the Pecos. He tweets here.
Why Funerals & Snakes? In Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (Le Mépris; 1963), Fritz Lang said of CinemaScope: “It’s only good for funerals and snakes.”