In his early days, Lupe Fiasco was billed as a mini-Kanye, full to the brim with self-aware raps and smart social commentaries, with an ego to match.

Unassuming and amiable, this road-trip buddy comedy, which played in the festival last year, belongs squarely in the sub-genre of very-low-budget American indies with untrained actors and improvised dialogue that has been dubbed mumblecore.

The challenge of putting on Dido and Aeneas is usually to find a suitable short opera to complete the evening. Last night, at Te Uru Waitakere, there were no such worries.

Dave Dobbyn, Don McGlashan, Supergroove and Anika Moa deliver a enjoyable mix of musical fireworks and song power on this year's Winery Tour.

Delightful show about marriage that's funny without trying too hard.

The recent movies that have looked at the impact of dementia - Away From Her, The Savages, Aurora Borealis, A Song For Martin, Lovely, Still - have tended to focus on the effect on those left behind as the light dies.

Sages and songwriters have warned us of judging books by their covers; the same holds true for a recent CD of Richard Strauss.

What's a shock rocker to do when he can no longer shock, or rock?

Two movies in and Angelina Jolie the director seems to have already developed a speciality. Her debut In the Land of Blood and Honey was about a Bosnian prisoner of war.

Mark Ronson is a peculiarly modern musician, whose talents in twiddling knobs and selecting the perfect collaborators are just as important as his magpie-like ability to pick out half-buried musical jewels from the past.

When it comes to career resurrections, Fall Out Boy's recent resurgence is nothing short of miraculous.

In the 1994 original Dumb and Dumber there was something endearing about Lloyd and Harry's idiotic, crude behaviour.

An all-star cast brings Disney's adaptation of the James Lapine/Stephen Sondheim musical to life on the big screen, and it's hard not to get wrapped up in their obvious enthusiasm.

Smart, sassy, and super scary, it showed that at her best, the 32-year-old can be considered among the best rappers around.

D'Angelo actually dropped his first release in 14 years in 2014, a musical surprise just before Christmas, but that left us no time to review it before the holidays.

Here are all 12 songs collected, and show this group/these groups at the top of their game as Martin Phillipps helms them through some classics.

Marianne Faithfull is perhaps the most over-admired, least listened-to and sometimes most tuneless singer of our time.

Five times honoured at Cannes, Turkish writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan won the festival's supreme Palme d'Or last year with this film.