Show Me Shorts
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNA4bC0-7tw]Show Me Shorts Film Festival rolls into town this Thursday for 6 days with a fine selection of the New Zealand and Australian short films that were contenders for the 8 awards.
Tomorrow is Wellington’s opening night at the Paramount kicking off at 7.30pm. Opening night showcases the 8 winners in each category, tickets are $20 and include a glass of wine.
Full details of the Festival, including the full schedule, themes and details of each film can be found in the pdf linked to from this page. (We will report back with suggestions about the best sessions to attend.)
Come celebrate the short form and see if you can spot the next Taika Waititi.
West Hollywood lounge experience
Today’s Dom Post reports that the Loaded Hog will, intriguingly, be redeveloped into a "west Hollywood lounge experience".
Los Angeles’s West Hollywood area is best known for its large gay village and its notorious nightlife.
It’s the home of the Chateau Marmont (where John Belushi died and numerous stars did very bad things), the Viper Room (where River Phoenix died), the Roxy (where the first American run of the Rocky Horror Show was performed), the Whisky a Go Go (the club that invented go-go dancing) and the Sunset Strip, where dreams are made and crushed, daily.
And it’s also known for being the home of the second wave of hair metal, spawning such masters of mascara as Poison, L.A. Guns and Mötley Crüe.
So will we see the ‘Hog transformed into a sort of late ’80s theme bar – a faded 1960s nightclub with chipped paint, used needles and the aroma of hairspray wafting from both the men’s and the ladies’?
And – more importantly – will we expect to see a nu hair metal scene evolve, with a local version of Mötley Crüe?
One can only hope the answer to all these questions is, "Hell yes, please".
Spartacus R rounds off Soundstage for 2009
The debut season of Downstage’s Sunday music programme ‘Soundstage’ has been a tearaway success. The formidable line-up of bands including The Woolshed Sessions, Little Bushman, Sam F Scott and The B.O.P and Rhian Sheehan have all thrived in the theatrical environment playing to capacity audiences.
We’re now at the last Soundstage gig for 2009 and Wellington six piece psychedelic psychonauts Spartacus R are the perfect band to close out the season. Their theatrical credentials are impeccable having built a reputation for unique and innovative performances at the NZ Fringe Festival. At the Fringe 07 they presented Spartacus R in Octophonic, and the following year at the Fringe 08 Spartacus R in 3D, combining live music with 3D visuals in the Paramount.
Based on a foundation of blues, rock and funk, Spartacus will deliver a captivating and electrifying performance that explores new musical and visual territory. For Soundstage on 15 Nov Spartacus R have crafted a completely new show combining 100% new musical material with projected visuals, actors and even live poetry.
More about Spartacus R and Soundstage after the jump.
The Wellingtonista & Twitter’s Lists
We’ve talked about Twitter before – we’re on it, of course, as over a thousand of you already know. Over time Twitter has evolved from a WTF? (back then at the same stage in its life as Google Wave is now) to an indispensible part of our social networking landscape.
If you’ve logged on to Twitter recently you’ll have seen their newest feature, Twitter Lists. These are a way to group up other Twitter users, both among the people you follow and the people you don’t. You might want to group up some of your friends; or make a list of your favourite bands; then you can conveniently view just those tweets from those people.
Where this becomes interesting is that it’s possible to follow other people’s lists. A nice example of this is @webstock‘s Speakers List – a List of speakers at past and future Webstock events. Following this list allows you to immerse yourself in the whole Webstock vibe, months in advance of the event itself! Very handy.
Of course The Wellingtonista is not to be left out of this action. It can be quite hard to find the best people to follow on Twitter – so let us do it for you! We have compiled some must-follow Wellington-themed lists for you to follow, with more on the way.
- @wellingtonista/team – Us! Or at least, the large subset of us who are on Twitter. We are, of course, all well worth following individually, but following the list is probably easier.
- @wellingtonista/wgtn-music – Locally based musicians, venues and record shops. Why aren’t there more out there?
- @wellingtonista/wgtn-theatres – A mix of cinemas and playhouses. Good for finding out what’s on, and whether there’s any competitions, specials or other promotions running.
- @wellingtonista/wgtn-food-and-drink – all the cafés, bars, venues, restaurants and bottlestores we could find. The interplay between the various cafés in particular is quite nice and collegial and almost warrants its own List, really.
- @wellingtonista/wgtn-events – Events. You know what they are: Festivals; Markets; Carnivals. And the occasional, uh, sporting event.
Clearly these lists could do with a little fine tuning, as well as additions. So let us know!
You’re fly-erred
Plenty of Wellingtonians would have spat out their flat whites on Saturday morning when the Dom Post cover revealed that our old friend Terry Serepisos is going to host New Zealand’s version of The Apprentice. As I’m sure you’re all aware, the American version Donald Trump is famous for putting his name on all sorts of ridiculous things:
With his success in real estate and television, Trump has succeeded in marketing the Trump name on a large number of products. These products include Trump Financial (a mortgage firm), Trump Sales and Leasing (residential sales), Trump University (a business education company), Trump Restaurants (Located in Trump Tower and consisting of Trump Buffet, Trump Catering, Trump Ice Cream Parlor, and Trump Bar), GoTrump(an online travel website), Donald J. Trump Signature Collection (a line of menswear, men’s accessories, and watches), Donald Trump The Fragrance (2004), Trump Ice bottled water, Trump Magazine, Trump Golf, Trump Institute, Trump The Game (1989 Board Game), Trump Vodka, and Trump Steaks. In addition, Trump reportedly receives $1.5 million for each one hour presentation he does for the The Learning Annex.
So what this fly wants to know is what products do you see Terry putting his name on? And would you buy them?
Under the Southern Cross
A safe place to avoid all the ghouls and zombies this Saturday night will be the Film Archive cinema.
A brilliant silent feature film from the 1920s – Under the Southern Cross – is screening with live musical accompaniment by Warren Maxwell, Maaka McGregor and Himiona Grace.
This "Maori folk drama" made by Universal Studios in 1929, features an epic love triangle, cave scenes shot on Waitomo and White Islands, a fiery volcano and ‘A Contest of Spears’. It’s also worth coming to see for the intertitles alone.
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"Neither tribal custom, danger nor the sacred ban of "tapu" could covercome the strength of his love"
Limited seats available. Tickets: $10
Weight Watchers
Congratulations to Parallel Dance Ensemble (and their video making team) for taking out the top award at this year’s Handle the Jandal music video awards. Enjoy…
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQRJTVraV1M]Other winners (click thru for video on YouTube):
Best Use of Exploitative Tactics to Promote A Band:
Judah Finnigan and Ben Forman for Highlife’s Berserk
Best Editing:
Joe Fish for James Duncan’s A Obvious
Best Cinematography:
Kimberley Brown for Electric Wire Hustle’s Perception
Best Concept:
Lisa Dunn for Parallel Dance Ensemble’s Weight Watchers
Best Animation:
Preston McNeill for Isaac Aesili’s With You In My Bed
Rising Star:
Greg Pawsey for Cougar Cougar Cougar’s Satan’s Blues
Handle the Jandal – DIY
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Tonight at the Embassy theatre there will be an visual explosion of enthusiastic amateurs, with the annual Handle the Jandal DIY music video competition coming to the big screen for one night only.
This Wellingtonista hand delivered one of the entries all the way from that heaving metropolis Auckland, so may possibly be a wee bit biased about who she thinks should kick some arse.
Remember the controversy over the Hot Grits and the milk swilling babies (booze for baby?!?) last year?
Grab your Jaffas and head along tonight to celebrate the skanky and disruptive DIY spirit of our cultural sector on the big screen.
What: Handle the Jandal – DIY music videos
Where: The Embassy Theatre
Cost: $17 pre-sales $22 on the door
Details on the Radio Active website here.
Oh, Adelaide, Adelaide, I want you tonight
The first we heard of The Adelaide when it popped up on Adelaide Rd in 2006 was when Tom gave it the Mystery Bar treatment on WellUrban.
This week’s mystery bar used to be notorious for many reasons, and there would have been times when only the staunchest and/or dodgiest punters would have ventured inside. These days it seems a bit tamer, though it’s still not the sort of place that you’d take someone you were trying to impress. Unless they really, really liked cheap beer. Having said that, it was comfortable enough on a quiet Saturday afternoon, and there were no scary patrons in sight. Actually, there were almost no patrons at all, though the general is that it would get very busy at times, and I imagine it gets hard to move when there’s a rugby match on or a band playing.
… and he couldn’t have been more right! Many a wasted night has been spent in its confines, and the subsequent wasted day was always well worth it.
Unfortunately The Adelaide shuts it’s doors this Saturday after more than three years of gigs and good times. So you’ve got one last week to come down and enjoy a band, bingo and beer. We’ll be capping it all off with a massive day of music for Halloween
Weds – The Final Spin for the original BINGO event in town
Thurs – Bad Statistics, Detrytus & guests
Fri – Sniper Alley ACDC tribute
Sat – Matinee show; Streetlight Requiem, The Proxies
Sat Evening; Fosset & Badger, Cougar Cougar Cougar, The Cold Shivers
Apparently there is nothing planned for the site at this stage, but apparently alsa "the vultures are circling" and we’re sure it won’t take long for someone to move in.
What’s the story, old sport?
While buzzing around Courtenay Place recently, I noticed that the Sports Café was closed for renovations. A sign said something like "Don’t worry" (and I didn’t) "we’ll be back with a new bar soon". My antennae perked up at that: could this prominent corner soon be home to something new, something shiny, something (not to put too fine a point on it) that’s not the Sports Café?
Then I spotted an email address on the sign, one that ended in "saints.co.nz". That’s the website for the local Saints basketball team, so some sort of sports-related bar seemed likely. What’s more, the Saints are officially "The Century City Saints", since they are sponsored by Century City Developments. That company is owned by a certain Mr Serepisos, who also happens to have owned the first bar on this site: and what a many-splendoured thing Ecstasy Plus was, back when I was just a larva.
So, gentle readers, what do you know about this place? Will it be a basketball-themed bar? A return to the glitzarama of the early 90s? Or some unholy combination of the two?