In this volume the Griffith writers look inward and backwards to gain some fresh insight into not only their own lives but the lives of us all.

Just as Ayrton Senna rose above being just another fast driver in his decade of Formula 1, this film of his life rises above being just another sports doco.

The Chilis still manage inspired moments without guitarist John Frusciante.

This Finnish documentary, surely the best film ever made about men sitting in saunas, will not be for all tastes.

Good time listening, horn-driven party music mostly, and the stepping stone to that remarkable Palmer doco.

It's business as unusual for a band big on chords and enjoyably familiar progressions, hook-filled pop-rock, sometimes lazily obvious lyrics and the occasional sense of Cheap Trick-like irony.

A terrible thing happened, that day, up at Blackwoods' place, in The Secret River, the first of Grenville's historical novels set in the penal colony of New South Wales.

This book might more accurately have been titled In Love With Dante. It is a wholehearted piece of advocacy for the 14th century writer, of whom Wilson says it "could be argued that he was the greatest of all European poets, of any time or place".

This first live album by the Los Angeles-based Kiwi songwriter has that all-important crackle, freshness, and smouldering purity that transports you back to the venue where the songs were first performed.

This debut effort from the man who wrote the screenplay for Heath Ledger's 'Ned Kelly' is an enjoyable, if derivative, comic romp.

Currently on tour with the Foo Fighters, Mariachi El Bronx is the Latin-cum-mariachi guise of rowdy and reckless Los Angeles punk band the Bronx.

Although "surf rock" sounds a limiting description, echoing guitar twang can equally conjure up wide-open dry spaces or brooding spaghetti westerns.

From the amusing band name through their swooning post-REM pop-rock, this fine and play-loud album so adeptly juggles Tom Petty/Byrds, slacker alt rock and post-grunge 90s pop that you can't help but like it.

Two years after the release of Cut Off Your Hands' first album, new album Hollow has emerged and it's a more settled and melancholic offering - with smooth and soaring melodicism and often-plaintive tenderness.

A contemporary tale for this century, this is no longer just the fun story of a man randomly sent a penguin by an explorer, it's now the story of a man trying to reconnect with his family, and must learn there's more to life than working.

The first comedy-drama to be produced by and starring Steve Carell since his exit from the television show The Office, features a fabulous cast doing their best with a script that's quietly amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny.

The thing about the movies that we've never got over is that they move. In doing so, they evoke a facsimile of life better than life itself. Even the "fractured flickers" of the early cinema commanded an instant suspension of disbelief.