A tormented shriek, a sudden drop into darkness and a tall figure in robes emerges from the shadows, ranting.

A loss of focus turns this small English feature from an excellent film into a routine and mediocre one about half-way through, but its opening reels have touches of understated genius about them and it is full of undeniably moving moments.

Liam Neeson sure is making the most of his late career run as an action hero.

Looking for light, cheerful entertainment for the littlies these holidays? Meet Home, the latest animated family film from DreamWorks Animation.

This simple, measured, gentle charmer can be found inside a soft white cube inside the black box studio of Q Loft.

Successor is still an album mostly recorded by a band, still combines adventurous guitar sounds and keen drumming with elegant melodies and winsome lyrical ideas, and is still one of the most memorable albums you'll hear this year.

"This is for the world" is the first thing you'll hear on Six60's new record, as front man Matiu Walters makes the band's ambitions clear from the start.

Te Uru is an attractive venue for music, especially in the more informal space of the gallery's workshop, with the ambience of Titirangi greenery outside the windows.

Silo Theatre brings flair to the stage adaptation of a delightful modern fable by Dutch writer Guus Kuijer.

Two cooks, high drama and hypnotic rhythms - yet this illustrated drumming show from South India is emphatically not some relaxed mix of My Kitchen Rules and Stomp!.

Chicago-based hip-hop crew the Q Brothers bring plenty of verve to their remix of Shakespeare's cross-cultural tragedy Othello.

Live review of Sharon Van Etten's show at Auckland's King's Arms.

The It company from New York City boasts 14 of the best dancers that the money of its founder and funder Wal-Mart heiress, Nancy Laurie, can buy and what those 14 fabulously honed and interestingly diverse beings can do is certainly superb.

Chameleon character actor Marsan has a long list of supporting-role credits in big films (Sherlock Holmes; Mission Impossible III) and small (X+Y), which releases here next week.

Free of the Harry Potter juggernaut, British actor and director Alan Rickman has finally returned to the director's chair, almost two decades after his directing debut with The Winter Guest.

A good kidnapping requires clever design, meticulous planning and a magician's sense of timing; so does a good kidnapping film. This isn't one.

House of Dreams was an ambitious time trip courtesy of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, transporting us through the homes of 17th and 18th-century music and art-lovers.

If you know anyone who thinks the arts festival isn't for blokes take them to see BLAM! - a 75-minute blast of testosterone-driven mayhem with amped-up, gaming style SFX and a heavy-metal soundtrack.

Activism through art specialist Lemi Ponifasio and Mau take Colin McCahon's iconic painting as a huge and architectural backdrop to their spellbinding tribute to the fallen of World War I - and take....

Nobody likes a smart-arse. Nobody likes the smartest guy in the room if he's a smug bugger. Nobody likes a goddamn moaner. And nobody likes seeing a boss abuse his staff.

Good humour softens collision of settler cultures, writes Paul Simei-Barton