After two old-school jazz albums - the acoustic The Poet's Embrace and Vermillion Skies, recorded live in the studio and direct to tape - multi-instrumentalist Haines here reverts to the amalgam of sax 'n' flute jazz.

Here's the problem with Batman right now - he's bloody everywhere. The Dark Knight has just appeared in The Lego Movie, he'll be showing up in the new Batman v Superman film, and there's even a real-life Batman doing good deeds in Japan right now.

You want them to remind you why they're great. You want them to teach those hip-hop pretenders a lesson. You want them to spit hard and fast over brilliant beats.

We review the final instalment of Sir Peter Jackson's Middle-earth epic, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies.

Friday's Settling the Score Live drew an enthusiastic APO audience to hear what radio listeners had taken to the top of this year's poll, writes William Dart.

I do hope they rescreen Olive Kitteridge. The HBO drama, which finished its four-part run on Sky's SoHo this week, should be made compulsory viewing for anyone with a family, which means, of course, all of us.

It's incredibly cheeky to include on your debut a single that's 3 years old, no matter how good it is.

A very loose remake of a 2008 Argentinean romance which was itself pretty soppy, this story of love in the autumn of life is not without its charms.

The American dream is given a twisted makeover as Jake Gyllenhaal goes to extreme lengths to make a living post-GFC.

Set on the streets of Brooklyn, The Drop is a quietly foreboding psychological thriller set in the criminal world.

At first, opening track Next Time suggests Soul Power has a fairly conventional modern soul approach, but then the rock elements creep up, the rougher, grittier production, the wild organ solo, and Curtis Harding's nuanced vocals filter through.

Grand Theft Auto V's been rebooted for next-gen consoles - complete with a first-person mode. Is it any good? Chris Schulz goes on a rampage...

Peter Scholes marked another fruitful year for the Auckland Chamber Orchestra with a concert focused very much around the string players of his group.

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's Tuscan Summer concert promised a festival of Italian sumptuousness with a poster featuring a double-headed gelato, writes William Dart.

A madcap Satisfaction lit the fuse on the fireworks finale. It was the Rolling Stones’ best NZ show of their senior years.

The Rolling Stones finally broke cover last night to rock New Zealand in spectacular style.

John 117 has finally made landfall on the Xbox One. The Master Chief Collection brings together the core titles of the Halo series so far.

No matter what your favourite is of films based on Elmore Leonard books (and I'm for Out of Sight ahead of Jackie Brown), this crime comedy will deliver a surprise.

The Dadrock season is already upon us with everybody from Pink Floyd to Bob Dylan flogging off their odds and ends.

Twice garlanded with Cannes' Palme d'Or, the Belgian brothers who are Europe's modern masters of naturalism lost this year to Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Winter Sleep.

Director Ken Loach, now 78, announced during the making of this modest but moving historical drama that it would be his last film, though there have been later suggestions of a change of heart.

Time has taken tragically little toll on David Hare's 1995 play. The pungent one-liners amuse, but the real sting is that references to inequality and the erosion of social conscience have become more pointed.

In Slipknot's sick world, death isn't an ending - it's a reason to celebrate. It's been six years since the Iowa act's last album, something the band blames on the loss of two key members: bassist Paul Gray.

Neil Young only occasionally reveals his private life, but in July he filed for divorce from his wife of 36 years, Pegi, and is now with actress Daryl Hannah.

Adam Mcgrath has one of those voices that sums up the struggles of the everyman in one line. Gentle, husky, weary, righteous.

With their awkward song structures, sludgy production and multilayered harmonies, TV on the Radio have always been the oddest barflies at Brooklyn's alt-rock bar.

The biggest star of Far Cry 4 might not be the game's hero, but its villain. Chris Schulz investigates.