COLUMN | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist A Boy Named Charlie Brown (Bill Melendez, 1969) Out of the gate, one must admit this feature – 86 minutes of Charlie Brown, what a dream! – isn’t the peak of Peanuts. It has the mood but not the wit, and in its slight lack of inspiration it even flat-out reprises scenes from the beloved, 25-minute television specials: Snoopy twirling on an icy lake to Guaraldi’s “Skati

COLUMN | ISSUE ELEVEN | MAHIMAHI / SEX Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist Toute Une Nuit (Chantal Akerman, 1982) Belgian pioneer of avant-garde film, Chantal Akerman, left behind a legacy of stillness in both domestic (kitchens and bedrooms) and transitory (train platforms and corridors) spaces, with critics' appeal commonly bestowed on her career centrepiece, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). And yet I find th

COLUMN | ISSUE NINE | WHAKAKATA / HUMOUR Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist Da Hip Hop Witch (Dale Resteghini, 2000) Directed by the music videographer who’d go on to lend tone-deaf visuals to Busta Rhymes’ ‘Arab Money, Da Hip Hop Witch was a Blair Witch parody riding on four plots interwoven with no discernible rhythm. (A) Female staff at the office for a tabloid magazine fight off their creep of a boss. (B) A gang of youngins from Sal

FILM COLUMN | ISSUE EIGHT | SCREENS Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist Millie Lies Low (Michelle Savill, 2021) As everybody’s third or fourth choice for a Commonwealth nation — including ourselves, judging from how many of us move to Australia — it’s perhaps not as much a mystery where all the self-diagnosed ‘imposter syndrome’ in New Zealand comes from, especially if you’re competing with your colleagues for the best opportunities. The

FILM COLUMN | ISSUE SEVEM | MATARIKI Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist The pūrākau about the formation of Matariki tells us that its stars were formed by an act of grief and anger by Tāwhirimātea, the god of wind and weather. To match, I’ve dusted off three essential films on the subject of wind. The Wind (Victor Sjöström, 1928) Checks out. If there was ever a more comprehensive depiction of wind in film, it’d have to be called Wind 2.

WEB EXCLUSIVE Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist Leviticus is named after the book from the Old Testament, which in part lays out the archaic laws of sexual morality. Most controversial is one commandment which, even in its slight variations of phrasing from one translation to another, has rippled appalling consequences throughout the rest of history: ‘18:22 – You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination’. Historia

FILM COLUMN | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist A Bucket of Blood (Roger Corman, 1959) Whether you’re burdened by imposter syndrome or choked by a creative block, if you’re an artist in a rut, seek the protagonist of A Bucket of Blood for reassurance that you’re not fucking up this badly. In this dark comedy, Dick Miller plays the nebbish Walter, a busboy at a beatnik café who doesn’t fit in with the so

COLUMN | ISSUE FIVE | PUORO O AOTEAROA / LOCAL MUSIC Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist Music and movies pair together like Marlborough wine and Eltham cheese. For this issue’s film column, I’ve plucked out three song lyrics from present-day Aotearoa and partnered them with films that, to me, evoke those words. Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, 1961) Song: Avantdale Bowling Club, Friday Night @ The Liquor Store (2022) The lyric: “The best of We

RICK'S REEL RECOMMENDATIONS | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai & Letterboxd | Film Columnist I Don’t Hate Las Vegas Anymore (Caveh Zahedi, 1994) A warning: mileage may vary for this road trip documentary. Caveh Zahedi is perhaps the documentarian most committed to self-sabotage since the time Morgan Spurlock ate 270 Big Macs to conceal his alcoholism in Supersize Me . Zahedi, an impolite, offhanded nebbish who is openly manipulative, is as h

RICK'S REEL RECOMMENDATIONS | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai & Letterboxd | Film Columnist Chocolat (Claire Denis, 1988) Don’t get mixed up here: I don’t mean ‘ Chocolat ’ (2000). Not the shlocky rom-com starring Juliette Binoche as a travelling chocolatier who brings love back to rural France with the power of sweeties, the DVD which you find on op-shop shelves next to Hayley Westenra CDs. I mean the lesser-known ‘Chocolat’ , about a nati

RICK'S REEL RECOMMENDATIONS | COLUMN | TUAKIRI / IDENTITY Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Film Columnist We're All Going To The Worlds Fair (Jane Schoenbrun, 2021) Spirit of the Beehive (Víctor Erice, 1973) The infallible tale of Mary Shelley’s ‘ Frankenstein ’ has seen a well-deserved refresh in the people’s consciousness since it was resurrected last Halloween season by Guillermo Del Toro, the monster-lovin’ sweetheart. As much as I wa

DEBATE X NZIFF | REVIEW | WEB EXCLUSIVE Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickylaitheokperson | Contributing Columnist Follow Ricky Lai...

DEBATE X NZIFF | REVIEW | WEB EXCLUSIVE Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickylaitheokperson | Contributing Columnist Follow Ricky Lai...

DEBATE X NZIFF | REVIEW | WEB EXCLUSIVE Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickylaitheokperson | Contributing Columnist Follow Ricky Lai...

RICK'S REEL RECOMMENDATIONS | COLUMN | DRUGS Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickylaitheokperson | Contributing Columnist Social Media...