Prepare to cringe as NZ episodes of America's Next Top Model finally make it to our screens.

This globe-spanning contemporary drama from Swedish writer/director Lukas Moodysson (Lilya 4-Ever) can function as a slightly less histrionic take on the multiple-narrative films of Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel).

Britney Spears' seventh studio album - released more than a decade since her debut Baby One More Time and three years since her flop-of-a-comeback Circus - sees her shed all those guises and play the woman she is now.

The name might not be familiar but from the first bar the voice certainly is. It belongs to that rusty balladeer in Gomez.

An offbeat odd-couple comedy with a deliciously bittersweet centre, this highly enjoyable film struggles slightly to communicate across a cultural divide.

Battle Los Angeles drags out every war and alien invasion movie cliche it can in two hours of noise and action, and very little else.

Auckland Chamber Orchestra looked good on stage at the Raye Freedman Centre, the group's new home for the 2011 season.

With the reliably stoic Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) in the lead and a cracking trailer, this alien invasion flick had a decent amount of promise.

R'n'B star Chris Brown says his latest album is more "grown up" than his last, Graffiti, a record he oddly put out just months after pleading guilty to assaulting Rihanna.

Grotesque parodies - and a lack of laughs - leave Deborah Hill Cone dismayed at the latest offering from Little Britain duo Matt Lucas and David Walliams.

Starman captures only some of pop icon David Bowie's intrigue.

When Robert Duvall first looms into sight here, a menacing silhouette whose reputation scares children sick, it's impossible not to think of his first big-screen role almost 50 years ago.

With Doug Liman's name poised Tarantino-ishly as executive producer above the credits, this debut feature by Mongolian-born Chinese advertising whiz-kid Wuershan presents itself as an east-west hybrid.

Having helped make the world safe again for garage rock on 2001 debut Is This It and its 2003 follow-up, the Strokes seemed to lose their way on 2006 third album First Impressions of Earth.

Duran Duran must have felt pretty slick when they returned to the studio to record their 13th studio album. They had Mark Ronson - the guy who produced Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen and Adele - behind them.

Some albums are more important for what they are than what they deliver. So it is with this double-disc, the final concert Bob Marley ever played: September 23, 1980 in Pittsburgh.

Carlos Santana is in love with a black magic woman. Really, he is, and she's got a wild afro, saucy style, and plays drums.

Link between the plot and Tim Finn's songs is tenuous, but it's a striking piece of theatre.

It was 1956 and Eric Newby, the man who would become one of Britain's most admired travel writers, was stuck in a fitting room with a designer, a model and a lady with a mouth full of pins.