Inevitably, the buzz around town this week has been the Michael Hill Violin Competition. With last weekend's Queenstown eliminations over, and all performances still available online, the contestants and adjudicators have come north.

Kiwi directors Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland hail from the fine tradition of making acclaimed short films before moving on to the coveted first feature.

Sarah Lang finds the latest TV sci-fi offering sadly lacking.

As the Nazi machine gathers steam in Germany, Swedish newspaper editor Torgny Segerstedt (Jesper Christensen) writes rhetorical invectives denouncing Nazism.

The pathway to James Ehnes' superlative Elgar Violin Concerto was a beguiling one.

Samoan Language Week runs until Samoan Independence Day on June 1, so the season of this bilingual play set about Mau - the non-violent Samoan independence movement - is timed very nicely.

It is never difficult to find contemporary events that point to the relevance of Titus Andronicus, but Shakespeare's reflections on the extremes of human cruelty are given particular poignancy by the recent murder of a young soldier on a London str

When Ursula Robb, New Zealand dancer turned global star, takes the stage in her stunning solo Faune the everyday world stops.

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's Friday concert took its title from Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending and its quarter-hour of pastoral rapture was a sober entree.

An Israeli drama directed by Nadav Lapid, Policeman is a peculiar beast that unfurls in fits and starts, yet never fulfils its dramatic potential.

After a commercially successful but critically derided Part II, The Hangover gang returns to try to make things right for the finale marketed as "The End".

Based on the excellent eponymous novel, this political thriller is set in 2011 as anti-government protests and police brutality flare in Lahore.

Nick Grant steels himself to travel down memory lane.

Every two years, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra presents a concert of half-a-dozen workshopped compositions in a specific genre.

New York four-piece Vampire Weekend have never seemed lacking in inspiration or momentum.