Daily News Channel
The wonderful (“wonderful”) thing about television is that just as soon as you think it has finally reached its nadir – Celebrity Big Brother, Duck Dynasty, Outrageous Celebrity Lookalike Behaviour Caught On Tape 2 – it somehow manages to plumb even further depths.
Arab Idol is an over-the-top TV ratings smash in the Middle East, and a young crooner from a Palestinian refugee family, whom admirers have nicknamed “the Rocket”, is stealing the show. The surprise breakout of the second season is a 23-year-old Gaza Strip resident named Mohammed Assaf, whose patriotic folk songs and romantic ballads – with their themes of grit, longing and love – have propelled him into the final rounds.
Shopping (R16) 100 mins Written from the heart, and directed with a talented eye.
The food was 100 per cent pure American – hot dogs smothered in mustard, and burgers, chased by icecream sandwiched between two cookies. But there was more than a smattering of 100 per cent pure Kiwi accents mingling among the several-hundred-strong crowd gathered for a New Zealand film evening at Paramount Studios.
The relationship between the flamboyant pianist Liberace and his young lover has dazzled at the Cannes film festival and threw the spotlight on gay rights at the movie industry’s largest annual gathering. Director Steven Soderbergh said he struggled five years ago to secure funding for Behind the Candelabra because some financiers thought the film would only appeal to a gay audience and, at a cost of US$25 million (NZ$30.6 million), would be a financial risk
In the long and steamy affair between fantasy and cartography, certainly the most mesmerising image of recent vintage is the dynamic beauty kissed alive by the title sequence of Game of Thrones. At the start of each episode, the viewer is strapped to a rollercoaster and swept across its alternate world.
TV singing contests around the world tend to serve up light, glitzy entertainment with a dash of emotional drama. But in the Middle East’s version of American Idol, it’s the region’s troubles that often take centre stage
Say hip hop, and images of gangster wannabes smoking blunts, dripping in gold, guns and women are likely conjured up.
Melbourne’s Metro Trains’s rail safety public service campaign Dumb Ways to Die, which went viral,
As the show with the most foetuses in jars on television continues, Nelson Mail reporters and bloggers Sarah Dunn and Adam Roberts continue their discussions about the land of Westeros. Note: Sarah is on holiday this week, so Nelson Mail web editor and Tyrion fanboy Lee Henaghan will be standing in for her.