Toni Collette is fabulous and utterly convincing in this low-key drama about a magazine music writer whose latest assignment is to go in search of her ex-boyfriend, cult rock hero Matthew Smith, who mysteriously disappeared 10 years ago.

Thursday's concert came with transtasman connections, being played by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra a day before the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra delivered it to us.

Motorbike title Ride hasn't exactly reinvented the wheel. All it's really done is removed two.

Almost a quarter-century of Mortal Kombat has brought us to this, the Xth edition of a series heavy on the blood and liberal with the letter K.

For Russian writer-director Zvyagintsev, whose 2003 debut The Return deeply impressed, this is feature number four, though only his second to be seen here outside festivals.

This is McGlashan's third solo album and though the previous two had plenty of terrific songs, they had a grab-bag kind of feel about them.

Age of Ultron feels less of an event than the first film, just a reasonably exciting instalment in Marvel's ongoing mega-franchise.

Psychologist Nigel Latta is on a quest to find out ‘how stuff happens,’ writes Alex Casey.

Ricky Martin kicked off his global One World Tour at Auckland's Vector Arena last night. But it wasn't what fans were hoping for.

Back-door internet TV services this week defied a ‘cease and desist’ order from the country’s biggest broadcasters. Geoff Cumming considers what happens now.

The title of Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's concert, Out of This World, hinted at Dutilleux's Tout un monde lointain that was on the bill; but it also nailed, in just four words, the APO's trademark programming savvy.

Blackbird Ensemble's latest sortie into chamber music cabaret involves a wide-ranging playlist, from Nick Cave to The Smiths, Gillian Welch to Nina Simone.

TV reviewer Duncan Greive checks in with the latest from the CSI franchise and enjoys the entertaining silliness of it's cyber sleuths.

Baby boomers were celebrating last night as Rod Stewart led his latest world tour to Vector Arena in Auckland.

Screams erupted from the crowd as singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran stepped into the spotlight and plugged in his guitar.

John Steinbeck's classic American tragedy-in-miniature has had five screen adaptations (including an Iranian film) but the only theatre version was the author's own, published and first staged in 1937, the same year as the novel.

The NZSO brought out one of its 2015 stars on Saturday and was duly rewarded with a full house.

Thomas Monckton is forging an international reputation with a style that has acrobatics, clowning and mime bouncing off each other in a wildly imaginative piece of absurdist comedy.

Existential loneliness is writ large in the three short Samuel Beckett solos presented here by actor/producer Edward Newborn and director Paul Gittins.

In the black-and-white photograph of her that appears briefly during the end credits of this true-life melodrama, Maria Altmann looks somewhat more interesting than her screen version.

The new film by the writer-director duo behind the 2011 hit The Intouchables is not as formulaic and manipulative but it lacks the single-minded coherence that was so crucial to that film's success.

A claustrophobic city slice of intriguing, aggressive and hyper-articulate characters whose vulnerability (and self-obsession) makes them rough each other up.

The first artist comparison that springs to mind when listening to this second album from local lass Jamie McDell is Australian songstress Missy Higgins.

Wearing a plain white T-shirt against an colourful street art backdrop, Paolo Nutini was a simple but eye-catching figure as he took the stage at the Powerstation for his first ever New Zealand concert last night.