Their dalliances with Josh Homme as producer on third and previous album Humbug might have set out to prove the Arctic Monkeys didn't want to be limited to writing toe-tapping tunes about life down the chip shop.

It's surprising, given Jon Toogood has been making a rock 'n' roll racket for more than 20 years now, that he's never ventured out on his skinny little lonesome.

Heartwarming story of an unlikely friendship.

It's time for utter musical madness to take hold once again. And it's about time because it's been four long years since New York instrumental crazies the Battles released their classic brain-addling debut, Mirrored.

Mention a trip to see Bridesmaids and someone will likely comment "oh yeah, the female version of The Hangover".

The Girl In The Polka-dot Dress could be described as a "road novel", since most of the action takes place on the freeways of America as Harold Grasse drives his newly bought, second-hand camper from Maryland to California in the 1960s.

Two middle-aged ladies are central to Alan Bennett's reflective pair of comedies in Smut.

When anyone precious dies, most people attempt to keep their memory alive. This can be done by using their name a lot. Valuing the things they once touched. Or even wore.

When Michael King died in a road accident in 2004 at the age of 58, New Zealand lost one of its most admired writers and this collection, edited by his novelist daughter Rachael King, reminds us how he earned his reputation.

Beethoven was a man of volatile emotions, a personality trait that, a few years ago, was attributed to lead poisoning. More recently, such theories have been quashed, but there is no denying that Ludwig was an irascible chap.

It's 30 years since this Australian pub rock-meets-synth rock band changed their name from Flowers to Icehouse.

What better way to document 15 years as one of New Zealand's most dependable and pioneering electronic acts than with an album of their best (not to mention diverse) remixes, and some Pitch Black tunes you may not have heard before.

A "tuakana" is a mentor (literally "older sibling") to a "teina", and this $20 double bill includes Strong Hands, a contemporary drama by Michael Rewiri-Thorsen and Te Awarua, a tragicomic melange of history and myth by tuakana Albert Belz.

After a weightless galaxy-soaring opener, hip-hop dance three-piece Kidz in Space throw their debut album a few hard punches, and raise burning questions over how to define them - heavy pop, strobe-lit hip-hop, Kiwi-Brit rap?

The previous album by this Auckland-based four-piece, Cross Your Heart, announced a heartland country-rock band in the Warratahs' lineage, but one given a slightly more alt.country twist.

Ed Helms, the uptight guy from The Hangover films, gets further typecast in this smutty, sweet indie comedy.

This knockabout British comedy has good intentions: to confront the horrors of Arab-Israeli relations by laughing at them.

Russell Baillie reviews the highly anticipated Green Lantern movie directed by Kiwi Martin Campbell and starring Ryan Reynolds.

If the 2009 debut from London's Durham clan was the soundtrack to a very cool 1950s' school dance, then follow up Smoking in Heaven is a more rollicking and reckless knees-up for grown-ups.