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Is there any genre Rowling cannot master?

OPINION: Perhaps most surprising about the news JK Rowling wrote The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith is not that she should take a fake name or that she should write a crime novel – after all there were plenty of nasty goings-on in the Harry Potter books – but that she would have the time to write it given her first official novel for adults, the much anticipated The Casual Vacancy, was published only late last year. The Galbraith book slipped under the radar in this country but received positive reviews in Britain when it was published in April.

A monster challenge for special effects

The robot on the computer monitor stands about 30 centimetre tall. For visual-effects wizard Hal Hickel, the mission was simple: Make audiences believe the metallic creature was real and soared to a height of 75 metres

Watch: PJ picks up the pieces

Picking up where you left after a year is not easy, Peter Jackson’s first The Hobbit production blog of 2013 shows. The clip covers the so called pick-up shooting for which “props, people, and sets” where reunited in Wellington in the last couple of months.

McKellen wraps it up for Gandalf

Sir Ian McKellen has played wizard Gandalf for the last time, as filming in New Zealand wraps for a number of The Hobbit’s major characters. Sir Peter Jackson shared a picture of himself and McKellen just after shooting ended for the Grey Wizard Gandalf last night.

Wicked witches put spell on audience

Becoming an actor isn’t as easy as tapping your sparkly red slippers together, Wicked star Jay Laga’aia has told a group of aspiring performers. Laga’aia, who plays the Wizard of Oz in the upcoming Auckland season of Wicked, visited Wellington’s Whitireia Performance Centre on Tuesday to give advice to about 100 students who want to break into the theatre industry

The wizard of Oz

Baz Luhrmann is temporarily lost for words. It’s possibly jet lag from two weeks of traipsing from New York and London to Cannes and Sydney, or maybe this is a question he hasn’t heard before

Harry Potter copy sells for 280k

For fans of the boy wizard, this could be the most coveted copy of all the Harry Potter books in the world.

Witch song second in UK charts

A campaign by opponents of late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to get the song Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead to the top of the British pop charts to celebrate her death failed on Sunday (local time) although it did manage to reach second place. Thatcher, who died aged 87 last Monday, deeply divided Britons and while some have paid warm tributes to the achievements of her right-wing Conservative governments, others said her privatization of swathes of industry had destroyed communities.

Into a world of magic

Oz: The Great and Powerful (PG) 130 mins ——————– Sam Raimi probably set out to produce an ambitious, cutting-edge prequel to the Wizard of Oz, but instead Oz: The Great and Powerful offers something of a return to classic Disney storytelling values, and that’s no bad thing. There’s already plenty of negative online chatter about Raimi’s arguably excessive use of CGI animation and other fripperies, but you should ignore that and look at how Oz does the basics, and does them well

Girl pranking father will melt your heart

In the grand history of pranks, hiding in the closet is probably not the most innovative technique. Still, what this 4-year-old’s prank may lack in creativity, it more than makes up in sheer enthusiasm and adorableness.