Feisty Bette Davis was memorably photographed by Roddy McDowall in 1981, holding a cushion inscribed, "Old Age Ain't No Place for Sissies".

Some things in life need not be messed with. Fairy bread was perfected ages ago and kids are probably happier for it, the developed world knows what happened when Coca-Cola went "New", and Pokemon's still Pokemon.

Chief Waterboy Mike Scott said after his last album - musical settings of poems by W.B. Yeats - that he wanted to return to rock 'n' roll, hence these nine often rambunctious, sometimes soulful, occasionally thoughtful and mostly engaging songs.

Remember Kriss Kross? Those two-hit wonders who wore all their clothes backwards and wanted to "warm it up" and "make you jump, jump" in 1992? Get ready to meet 2015's version.

Didn't get enough at Laneway? Flying Lotus kept the party going with his very own sideshow at Auckland's Powerstation. Rachel Bache was there.

There are times in this brilliantly acted and understated psychological drama when it seems very little happens at all, but when the lights go up you're left reeling by the culmination of events that have quietly unfolded.

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.

Fed up with a lack of stimulating female leads in Hollywood, Reese Witherspoon formed a production company and started making her own work. She's created herself a doozy (and a deserved Oscar nomination) playing Cheryl Strayed in Wild.

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.

A patient watchfulness and an often exquisite visual sensibility distinguish the first film outside his native Norway by writer director Poppe.

A searching examination of middle-class complacency and gender roles in an age of us-or-them individualism, this assured Swedish drama is the kind of film that's hard to watch and harder still to tear your eyes away from.

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

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.

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

If you thought the lovable penguins were out of control in 2012's zany third instalment of the Madagascar franchise, Europe's Most Wanted, then think again.

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.