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class acts:

Laszlo Kovacs (cinematographer) b.1933 (Budapest, Hungary) d.2007 (Los Angeles). A refugee (with friend and colleague Vilmos Zsigmond) from the 1956 Hungarian revolution, Kovacs arrived in the U.S. in March, 1957. Ten years later, he was a key figure in another revolution, the Hollywood New Wave. The (usually un-acknowledged) films which spearheaded this were Hells Angels on Wheels (Richard Rush, '67) and Targets ('68), Peter Bogdanovich's first film. Then came the most famous one. Kovacs described it to David Geffner in 1999: "...the thing about Easy Rider was that most people thought we all just got lucky shooting in a haphazard way, but it was totally planned out. It may have seemed wild and experimental, but Dennis (Hopper) and Peter (Fonda) were scrupulous in their preparation. I had done a lot of non-studio, low-budget films by then-using natural exteriors and practical locations, etc - and I was getting pretty daring. Back then shooting out on the road was unheard of. I used a '68 Chevy convertible as a camera car because the shocks were so good. We laid a sheet of plywood on the open back, put the camera, which belonged to Vilmos Zsigmond, on a high-hat and hit the road. I was trying to control the flaring light that was shooting over Dennis and Peter. I was trying to make them very heroic and larger than life." Kovacs' career took off, with a non-stop stream of off-beat projects for Paul Mazursky, Bob Rafelson, Martin Scorsese, Norman Jewison, Hal Ashby as well as continuing his work for Hopper, Altman, Bogdanovich & Rush. By the end of the 70s he was widely regarded internationally as a leading cinema stylist, at ease in a period or contemporary setting, with a gift for atmospheric lighting which could be discreet or expansive as required. If the 70s and 80s were Kovacs' golden period, where he was well matched to the above-mentioned directors' idiosyncratic personalities, the same could not be said of the 90s and beyond. It was a time of bland, routine studio projects like Multiplicity, My Best Friend's Wedding, Miss Congeniality and Two Weeks Notice, whose directors were lucky to have Kovacs on board; his contribution was the best thing about them.

Antonia Prebble (NZ actress) In her sly, witty portrayal of Loretta West in NZ TV series Outrageous Fortune Prebble demonstrates that perhaps not since Sherilyn Fenn in David Lynch's Twin Peaks has a TV character so deserved the epithet "clever little minx" with all the animal cunning it invokes. It is tempting, but unwise, to assume that this talented newcomer is playing herself. That's one of the hazards of being so clearly in command of the role - she makes it look easy.

Eva Birthistle (Irish Actress) 2005 was Birthistle's year. She had a small part in Bloody Sunday, the Paul Greengrass movie, and the TV version, Sunday, scripted by Jimmy McGovern, with Chris Eccleston and was feisty and fearlessly uninhibited in Ken Loach's interracial drama Ae Fond Kiss, giving one of the great performances of the year. This was closely followed by memorable characters on TV, playing an expat New Zealander(!) in a two-part Silent Witness with Amanda Burton, and one of the sharp team of corporate lawyers in the series Trust, where she held her own with experts Robson Greene, Sarah Parish and Ian McShane. Since then, at least outside the UK, Birthistle's been seen in small parts in Imagine Me and You (Ol Parker) and Breakfast on Pluto (Neil Jordan).

Sidney Lumet (Director/writer/producer) The 82-year-old New York-based filmmaker was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2005 Academy Awards ceremony, and not before time. But how many in the audience had seen any (or all) of the films represented in the patchy selection of clips screened? Some recalled Serpico perhaps, Twelve Angry Men, or his biggest commercial success, the all-star Murder on the Orient Express. My own favourites in a career which encompases every genre are: the intense dramas, The Pawnbroker (65) & The Hill (67); the John Le Carre thriller, The Deadly Affair (67); the New York comedy, Bye, Bye Braverman (68); the Chekhov adaptation, The Sea Gull (68); The Anderson Tapes (71), which deals with robbery and electronic surveillance ; Dog Day Afternoon (75) depicts a bungled Brooklyn bank robbery; Paddy Chayevsky's satire on commercial TV, Network (76); the epic Prince of the City (81), where a whistle-blowing cop exposes police corruption; a legal drama of medical malpractice, The Verdict (83); Running on Empty (88), in which onetime student radicals spend years laying low from the FBI; Q & A (90) and Night Falls on Manhattan (97), both dealing with NYC police corruption. Lumet recently completed Find Me Guilty with Vin Diesel, based on the epic criminal trial of mobster Giacomo "Fat Jack" DiNorscio - shot on HD TV, which along with his series 100 Center Street (screened in Australia but not New Zealand) brings him full circle, back to his live TV roots. Indeed, Lumet had impressive list of TV drama productions behind him prior to his first film. Lumet's last few films have not even had a cinema release outside the U.S., so don't expect to see Vin Diesel at your local multiplex anytime soon. What you can see, if you're quick, is his post-9/11 TV movie, Strip Search, with Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Peter Jackson: (director/writer/producer): Along with Jane Campion, Vincent Ward, Lee Tamahori and Roger Donaldson, one of the few internationally-recognised New Zealand film directors. The self-taught filmmaker from Pukerua Bay (north west of Wellington) and one-time photo engraver at the Wellington Evening Post, splattered onto local screens in 1988 with his now-legendary first film, Bad Taste. Jackson was writer, director, co-editor, star and special effects "designer", and the production took four painstaking years, shot with Jackson's 16mm Bolex during weekends.

Warming to his theme, he followed up with his outrageous muppet movie, Meet the Feebles, and the attention-seeking (and getting) Braindead, films which brought him praise from judges like Oscar-winning effects man Carlo Rambaldi, awards at European festivals as well as satisfaction to aficionados of horror and splatter movies. When you have this kind of talent, checking in to Film School simply puts the brakes on, and Jackson effortlessly moved into the mainstream.

Suddenly, came the sublime Heavenly Creatures. Not only was this a startling change of style for the precocious schlockmeister, it introduced international audiences to Kate Winslet. Jackson's next coup was making a Hollywood film, The Frighteners, (under the shrewd eye of executive producer Robert Zemeckis) without even bothering to leave New Zealand.

With the first part of Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring and now The Two Towers and The Return of the King, Jackson achieved what many believed impossible: he managed to please almost everyone - the fans and the non-believers, young hipsters and their parents, the financial backers and his international peers, culminating in a clutch of Academy Awards. Best of all, he appears to be (apart from giving the NZ Film Commission a well-deserved shafting) still the same unassuming, dedicated, single-minded filmmaker he was when he started.

Prior to shooting the mammoth three-film, multi-unit Lord of the Rings, in New Zealand, Jackson re-enforced his commitment to local production by acquiring the National Film Unit, "a one-stop post-production facility." Jackson's endearing comment after his purchase: "If (the Film Unit) had closed I would have had to go on a plane to Sydney a lot, which would have been pretty boring." Jackson is now owner or part-owner of production companies Wingnut Films, Park Road Post, Weta Workshop and Weta Digital - not to mention a vintage Sopwith Camel airplane.

David Lynch (writer/director): He is still one of the most imaginative movie directors currently working. This is a guy confident enough to toss off The Straight Story as an ironic riposte to those who were annoyed by his narrative sleight-of-hand in Lost Highway (my personal favourite) and then salvage Mullholland Drive from a rejected TV pilot - with the help of French finance. The result was Lynch in full flight, a dazzling landscape of the (L.A.) mind, brimming with references, but without the all too common "nudge-nudge" sensibility of many younger hot-shots. Lynch may be quintessentially American in manner and personality, but his best films have a European disregard for traditional narrative and a disdain for tying up loose ends as decreed in Scriptwriting 101. Do not look for Lynch at the helm of the next ep.of the latest franchise.

Rose McGowan (actress) Sure, she's one of the most glamorous women in Hollywood, but as we all know that's not enough. But the supremely talented McGowan should have been catapulted into the big time solely on the strength of her self-effacingly brilliant performance in Greg Araki's The Doom Generation. She did go on to roles in Scream, Jawbreakers, The Last Stop (with Jurgen Prochnow), Monkeybone (with Brendan Fraser & Bridget Fonda) and others have noted her fine work in Strange Hearts (2001).These were all prior to her current incarnation as Paige, one of the three witches in the TV series Charmed. Producer Alyssa Milano, no slouch herself in the glamour stakes, obviously had no fears about the competition, and casting McGowan proved to be an astute business decision - can you recall who she replaced?

Leon Narbey (cinematographer/director) Despite being a major creative force among those responsible for the internationally successsful Whale Rider, this characteristically modest New Zealander was rarely singled out for his vital contribution in the volumes written about the movie since its release. Some may see this as a cinematographer's main purpose - to make his or her work invisible. I take the opposing view: to blend (in this case) documentary realism - the lives of the Maori community in a small coastal town in NZ, and dreamlike underwater special effects - Pai's riding a giant whale, and make it just as convincing takes a skill which cannot be ignored. Narbey has been a part of the local film scene for a long time: shooting Geoff Stevens' Strata, Desperate Remedies and The Price of Milk as well as writing and directing Illustrious Energy and The Footstep Man.

Ken Burns (documentary filmmaker): It was clear from Burns' first 60 min film Brooklyn Bridge (1981), a soaring, poetic celebration of the New York landmark, that it was the work of a major talent. From this promising start, Burns created a stream of one-off and multi-part series documentaries which examined American life, culture and institutions in a scholarly and entertaining fashion. There were films on painter Thomas Hart Benton (1988), architect Frank Lloyd Wright, The Civil War (1990), Baseball, The Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, the polymath US President Thomas Jefferson, and the 10-part Jazz. Made for PBS, most of these brilliant films have been screened on free-to-air TV in the US and even Australia. In New Zealand there has been limited screening of some titles (most recently the 1985 The Statue of Liberty) on pay-TV, but ABC (Australian) videos and DVDs of Jazz are available - at a pretty hefty price.

Isabelle Huppert (actress) It's astonishing to see this iconic French actress appearing in the current I Heart Huckabees and thus being exposed to an audience probably oblivious to her reputation and talent. The coincidental re-release of the ill-fated Heaven's Gate in which she also starred should remind filmgoers of her previous Hollywood career, however ill-chosen the films. She is still one of the world's great movie actresses, who's had six or seven recent roles which easily eclipsed the Oscar winners of the past five years - yet she wasn't even nominated. I would make a case for Merci pour la chocolate (Claude Chabrol), Saint-Cyr (Patricia Mazuy), La pianiste & Le temps du loup (Michael Haneke), Pas de scandale & L'Ecole de la chair (Benoit Jacquot) and La vie moderne (Laurence Ferreira Barbosa). Physically slight, professionally fearless, her pale, freckled face (think a Gallic Julianne Moore) frequently gives only a subtle indication of the psychological horrors her characters are called upon to stoically endure and though her finest roles are in her native French, this has proved no barrier to appreciation of her work by English-speaking audiences. Indeed, she is not seen at her best in Hal Hartley's Amateur, Paul Cox's Cactus nor I suggest, in I Heart Huckabees. Run, don't walk to your nearest specialist DVD supplier and apart from the French titles listed above, grab La ceremonie (Chabrol), La Fausse suivante (Jacquot) and La vie promise (Olivier Dahan).

Michael Mann : Director of The Insider, which depicts the clash of the "prestigious" CBS TV program 60 Minutes and corporate America in the form of the tobacco industry. Lining up a wonderful cast: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora and Phillip Baker Hall, is part of the director's job, of course - and Mann is the consummate director. Serving time in the '70s on TV's Miami Vice squad and his DGA award-winning TV movie, The Jericho Mile, took away nothing from Mann's brilliant feature debut, Thief. The 1981 heist thriller with high-tech safecracker James Caan, dazzling colours, Robert Prosky as the egregious face of the Mob and wall-to-wall Tangerine Dream score was regarded by one critic as "the most consciously Marxist American gangster film since Abraham Polonsky's 1948 Force of Evil". High praise indeed. Since Thief, Mann, also a writer and one of the few directors who likes to operate the camera too, has often returned to TV series. I've yet to see his highly recommended 1989 TV Movie L.A. Takedown - a precursor to Heat, itself one of the great '90s movies. His other films have been The Keep, Manhunter (an early version of the Hannibal Lecter story) and The Last of the Mohicans. Chicago-born Mann is a graduate of the London School of Film Technique, training which has not stopped him progressing to the pantheon of quintessentially American directors.

Cliff Curtis: Local boy on a role... The ubiquitous actor has appeared in virtually all the major New Zealand films over the past few years: The Piano, Desperate Remedies, Once Were Warriors, Rapa Nui as well as the mini-series The Chosen. Now, in quick succession, he's had small but significant parts in big American productions: Six Days Seven Nights, Three Kings, Bringing Out the Dead and The Insider - working with directors David Russell, Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann (see above). But don't expect to see Curtis as a New Zealander - he seems to be cast as dubious Middle Eastern types, characters which once might have been played by British actor Art Malik.

Hope Davis: Currently in the mainstream Arlington Road, Davis is a willowy 32-year-old blonde who first caught our attention as the stoic wife of missing Stanley Tucci in The Daytrippers and The Myth of Fingerprints, though she had small parts in Flatliners, Home Alone, Kiss of Death and The Imposters. Just hope Hope's Next Stop Wonderland (currently screening in Australia) gets this far...there's no guarantee. Also coming up: Lawrence Kasdan's Mumford.

Laura Harris, Jordana Brewster, Heather McComb, Ali Larter. Phew! Look out, here they come - just as the current crop of the young and the restless manage to make their mark, despite, rather than because of industry pundits, a new group appears, bursting with talent.Canadian Laura Harris (23, left) skilfully played the ethereally beautiful Southern "outsider" in the suspicious class of The Faculty. A refugee from Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Harris appears in the upcoming The Highwaymen and the sci-fi thriller The Calling. Her Faculty co-star was the even more glamorous Jordana Brewster (in danger here from nothing more than an over-application of blusher) but these two gave the Faculty class some real class as they effortlessly shifted their stereotyped roles into believability.19-year-old Brewster was a regular in All My Children. Heather McComb was a stand-out in a recent episode of The Practice, but she's already a veteran at 22. From Francis Ford Coppola's Life Without Zoe (she played Zoe) in New York Stories, to roles in TV's Party of Five, Chicago Hope, The X-Files, and soon, the hit movie Anywhere But Here. Another attention-getter: 23-year-old Ali Larter has a dual role in The House on Haunted Hill. You've probably seen her already in Dawson's Creek, Chicago Hope and the movie Varsity Blues. Horror movies like House on Haunted Hill have been good to people like Neve Campbell don't forget, so rather than sneer at these opportunites, these skilled youngsters relish the chance to make something of the exposure these teen-oriented films give them. In a recent episode of Movie television, the weekly TV magazine program, Ali Larter was an impressively articulate interview subject on the location of her new movie Final Destination.

Catherine Breillat: The French actor-writer-director has been receiving critical praise for Romance, initially banned in America. It's been labelled 'controversial' due to its frank depction of sex, and Breillat's confronting sexual politics. She staked out her

territory with 36 fillette few years ago and the even more startling, ironically titled, Parfait amour! in 1997. I wonder what Americans would make of this one, which opens with an autopsy of the main character, a thirtysomething career woman who's been sodomised with a broom handle by her teenaged lover. Audiences who went the distance were treated to plenty of explicit - not to say real - sex at the teens' party too. You won't see this in American Pie.

Elodie Bouchez:French actress extraordinaire, Best Actress winner at Cannes last year (with co-star Natacha Regnier) for her performance in La vie revee des anges (The Dreamlife of Angels). Race off to catch this one - it's now in commercial release in NZ. However, the Bouchez admirers seem to have forgotten her dazzling turn in Andre Techine's Les roseaux sauvages (Wild Reeds) in1992. She's clocked up another 6 films since Dreamlife, including Dogma 5, (not to be confused with Kevin Smith's Dogma).

Jocelyn Pook : The British composer contributed some striking music for a characteristically eclectic score in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. It's as clever as Abigail Mead's work in Full Metal Jacket all those years ago. Pook is a co-founder of the group 'Electra Strings' who work regularly for TV and film. She's scored several British TV dramas and documentaries, including The Alien, Half the People and Butterfly Collectors.

David Strathairn:The 50-year-old actor, a standout in John Sayles' Limbo, has been making it look easy for years. Also for Sayles, he appeared in The Return of the Secaucus 7, The Brother From Another Planet, Eight Men Out and Passion Fish. He was disturbingly fine as a father unable to come to terms with his son's dying of AIDS in Christopher Reeves' In the Gloaming and unsettling as a snaky villain in L.A. Confidential. Another "overnight" success.

Robin Tunney: Bright young actress recently in Queenstown, New Zealand shooting The Vertical Limit with director Martin Campbell. Her low-key portrayal of an outsider inducted into a schoolgirl club who dabble in witchcraft in The Craft remains a model for her contemporaries. See her (on video) in Niagara Niagara and Nothing Personal, and on the big screen in End of Days, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gabriel Byrne. She also made the cover of the current Details mag. She was not as lucky when her (un-captioned) pic was used as a pointer on p1 of the NZ Herald (July 2006), leading to an article on the series Prison Break, where she was still unidentified in the cast photo.

Portia de Rossi: Actress, an Ally McBeal alumnus. This little Aussie battler has quietly eclipsed many of her flashier cobbers. In her first film, John Duigan's Sirens, she was the second-best thing in it (after Tara Fitzgerald) and was far more at ease than her buxom co-stars Elle Macpherson and Kate Fischer. So what if she was christened Mandy Rogers? - she looks like Portia de Rossi to me. Currently in Stigmata with Patricia Arquette and Jonathan Pryce.

Ellen Kuras: One of the few female cinematographers working in the US. Her debut feature, after several notable docos was Tom Kalin's b&w Swoon. This led to many similar projects, and it was probably inevitable that her skilled use of several types of filmstock in the fashion doco Unzipped would lead her to a director who likes the technique also, Spike Lee. Kuras has since shot Lee's doco 4 Little Girls, and the controversial Summer of Sam. In between were the mainstream Just the Ticket and The Mod Squad.

Tom Tykwer: The German writer director is the toast of everybody with his flashy Run Lola Run, which is certainly a lot of fun, but I prefer last year's Winterschlafer (Wintersleepers),ore conventional perhaps, but more involving too. Currently Tykwer and Lola star Franka Potente are shooting Der Krieger un die Kaiserin in his home town, Wuppertal. He is of course being courted by Hollywood, which is probably not a good sign.

Kimberly Peirce, Hilary Swank, Chloe Sevigny & Alison Folland: the gang of four from Boys Don't Cry, the gender-bending flick which is getting a lot of attention, but my bet is that (however unfairly) it won't stick. Folland has already starred in one of these, All Over Me, a couple of years ago - her budding lesbian character was universally praised. Then she disappeared. Back from the wilderness, she's well down in the billing in Kimberly Peirce's film. Sure, Sevigny and Swan are both class acts in the key roles; even here Sevigny is (typically) self-effacingly brilliant opposite Swank's girl/guy transformation. She's always made it look easy. If you've seen Sevigny in Kids, Trees Lounge, Gummo and The Last Days of Disco, you'll know what I mean. She's coming up in American Psycho. Swank has come to the film via the indifferent movies Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Next Karate Kid plus a recent Beverly Hills 90210 ep but Boy's Don't Cry should put her up in the A-team. Here's why it may not happen. Remember the groundbreaking lesbian drama Desert Hearts, (1985)? Helen Shaver (already well-established, now directing series TV) was partnered with new-comer Patricia Charbonneau, who made such an impression, it looked as though she was destined for great things. Although she appeared in Michael Mann's film Manhunter the following year, her career has been disappointingly patchy, with many industry insiders suggesting it was the "lesbian" role which derailed her. It's hard to refute the evidence; she was last seen, very briefly, in the weak teen flick She's All That.

Natalie Portman: Making waves not so much for her (literal) Teen Queen in The Phantom Menace, but with her latest outings, in Anywhere But Here with Susan Sarandon and Where the Heart Is, with Ashley Judd. The former is a companion piece to Tumbleweeds, apparently. Portman's brilliant debut was as a precocious (aren't they always?) companion to Jean Reno's hulking, monosyllabic assassin in Luc Besson's The Professional. She has not quite sustained the initial momentum, but was very assured in Heat, Everyone Says I Love You, and Beautiful Girls.

Thandie Newton: It's sobering - though not surprising - to think that more people will see this striking Zambian-born beauty in the elephantine MI-2 than in the rest of her films combined. That includes those who spotted her in Interview With the Vampire. Last year she was a major contributor in making Bertolucci's Beseiged my film of the year. It balanced her lead role in the disappointing, overlong and earnest Beloved. Newton is yet another discovery from an Australian director, this time the quirky John Duigan who teamed her with Nicole Kidman in Flirting, where she made an immediate impression. She gave solid performances in Duigan's recent The Leading Man and The Journey of August King as well as the underrated Merchant-Ivory Jefferson in Paris. I had totally forgotten she was in Anna Campion's dire UK flick Loaded, with Catherine McCormack. (I felt obliged to catch up with it as it was co-financed by the NZ Film Commission ).even though the video was of appalling quality.

James Gandolfini: has lead role in The Sopranos, the Emmy award-winning TV series, which PBS commentator Roger Rosenblatt called a "situation tragedy...the best written and directed TV series ever." Gandolfini has played plenty of finely shaded three-dimensional thugs - and bent cops - before, and sharp-eyed viewers will have spotted him in Sidney Lumet's Close to Eden & Night Falls on Manhattan as well as Get Shorty, 8MM, She's So Lovely , A Civil Action, Fallen, True Romance, The Mexican, and The Man Who Wasn't There.

Embeth Davidtz: At 34, she's no longer an ingenue; indeed she remains a face you think you've seen before, but in what? She appeared in the prestigious Schindler's List and Sam Raimi's notorious Army of Darkness in the same year, yet her follow-up roles were more interesting than sensational. A small part in Murder in the First, with Kevin Bacon; one of a bevy of heavyweights in a typical ensemble cast for Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man; the lead (with English accent) in the low-key Merchant-Ivory production Feast of July (on TV4 recently), directed by Christopher Menaul; overshadowed by seasoned scene-stealer Robin Williams in Bicentennial Man. Coming up: Mansfield Park with Frances O'Connor and Bridget Jones' Diary with Renee Zellweger - which means two reasons to see it, dreadful as it may otherwise sound.

Illeana Douglas: Robert De Niro sliced her up in Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear (1991). She should have known what to expect after her first part - in Scorsese's seminal Mob film, Goodfellas. But it was Cape Fear which got her noticed; her scenes were shocking in a film full of shocking scenes, and her unusual rather than glamorous appearance added to her appeal. One of the most satisfying denouments in one of the silliest of recent movies occurs in the madly overrated To Die For, where Douglas ice skates over her entombed sister-in-law (played by Nicole Kidman). Since then, Douglas has had a string of "buddy" roles in Household Saints, Stir of Echoes and Picture Perfect, where she effortlessly overshadowed the colourless Jennifer Aniston. Douglas peaked in the lead in Allison Anders' Grace of My Heart, not to mention the refreshingly scathing, but sadly short-lived TV series, Action! Wanted: A movie script intelligent and interesting enough to match this woman's unique talent.

Janet McTeer: Lanky (6' 1") British actress who the Americans are just discovering in Tumbleweed, where she sports an impeccable American accent. She's already a Tony Award-winner for her performance as Nora in A Doll's House on Broadway. British TV aficionados will be familiar with her eponymous role in the prison series The Governor, (I loved the question put to her by one of the hardened crims as she does the rounds: "Who's face did you have to sit on to get this job?") Also on TV: the 1992 production of Wuthering Heights and the cerebral, literary detective story A Masculine Ending. She had small roles in Half Moon Street with Sigourney Weaver, Carrington with Emma Thompson and Saint Ex with Miranda Richardson. Also due for release: Songcatcher, The King is Alive and Waking the Dead (from Jodie Foster's co, Egg Pictures).

Steven Soderbergh: Writer/director/cinematographer. The triple threat filmmaker is on a roll not merely because he is nominated twice (for an Academy Award) in the same year for two big movies, Erin Brockovich and Traffic, which were commercial and critical successes (Hollywood loves those), but because in both photographing and directing Traffic he moves into the elite group of American directors who have shot their own films. [Josef von Sternberg, Stanley Kubrick, Haskell Wexler, Peter Hyams, Gordon Willis and Doug Liman are others.] Soderbergh hit the big time with his first feature, sex, lies and videotape, which he wrote, directed & edited, winning the 1989 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or and International Critics Prize. His career since has been patchy, largely because he's chosen projects which were deemed distinctly uncommercial: the B&W biopic Kafka (1991), shot in Prague, with Jeremy Irons, virtually unreleased and still not available at your local video store (but you can buy a very expensive US copy); King of the Hill (1993), a defiantly un-nostalgic depiction of a 12-year-old growing up fast in the Depression era. Shown on TV, but looks wonderful on the wide screen; Out of Sight (1998) was a sleeper hit which made money, but other more personal projects, a remake of Robert Siodmak's 1949 Criss Cross, The Underneath (1995) - a genuine modern film noir, Schizopolis (1996), Gray's Anatomy (1996) and The Limey (1999) were quickly forgotten in the wake of his new commercial clout. You'll be lucky to find his concert film for the band "Yes", 9012 Live, but his episode for TV's anthology series Fallen Angels, The Quiet Room, is on video. As well as this impressive output, Soderbergh co-scripted Nightwatch (1998), directed by Ole Bornedal. Traffic, says Soderbergh, is a kind of hommage to a film he admires very much, Alan Pakula's All the President's Men (more). Note: On Traffic, Soderbergh was not permitted to use the credit "Photographed and Directed by...", and to avoid giving himself two separate credits, used instead the pseudonym Peter Andrews for cinematographer.

James Toback: Writer/director. The one-time literature Prof scripted one of my favourites from the '70s, The Gambler (with James Caan - not Kenny Rogers), then went on to one of the most arresting directorial debuts in American movies, Fingers (1978) with Harvey Keitel and a virtuoso turn from Michael V Gazzo. Toback's next two films, Love and Money and Exposed were deemed too idiosyncratic, even in the '70s and were relegated to videoland. The Pick-up Artist (1987) with Molly Ringwald and Robert Downey Jr was just quirky enough for mainstream release, but since then Toback has been condemned to the wilderness, with very patchy international release for Two Girls and a Guy (just out on video), B&W, Love in Paris and it's anybody's guess if we'll ever see Harvard Man in 2001. One oddity that is available on video is The Big Bang, Toback's fascinating 1990 doco where he puts some basic philosophical questions to various people - from astronomers to ball players, even the late film producer, Don Simpson.

Amanda Redman: The forty-something British actress was memorable in the 1980 film Richard's Things where she played the 20-ish mistress to Liv Ullman's 40-ish wife. It was a chamber piece of uncommon subtlety. However, it was not until the mini-series Body and Soul (94) with Kristin Scott Thomas as a nun who has to re-enter the outside world that Redman appeared in a role of substance. As the bitter, slothful widow (and sister-in-law to KST) she was alarmingly unattractive, which made her tour de force performance as the well-groomed,compassionate, lottery-winning wife and mother in At Home With the Braithwaites such a revelation. She remained an anchor in a series where none of the actors took any prisoners, nailing their respective characters with deadly precision. Currently sparring with veterans James Bolam, Dennis Waterman & in New Tricks.

Philip Baker Hall: The prolific character actor (didn't Laurence Olivier say, "Dear boy, all actors are character actors"?) who's appeared in 60-something movies and climbing...From Cowards (1970), through to Altman's Secret Honor (84) where he joined the swelling ranks of those who've played Richard Nixon, Hall has laboured in virtual obscurity, though the sheer number of film roles in the '90s has moved him into "familiar face" status. Recent roles include: The Truman Show, Rush Hour, Enemy of the State, Psycho (remake), Cradle Will Rock, The Insider, The Talented Mr Ripley, Rules of Engagement as well as the Paul Thomas Anderson trilogy Hard Eight , Boogie Nights and Magnolia, where some of Hall's best work is on display. Current movies: The Contender and Lost Souls. TV work includes MASH, Cheers, Seinfeld, Chicago Hope, The Practice et al.

Bebe Neuwirth: Overlooked and underrated actress who first came to my attention in Peter Weir's Green Card (90), where she skilfully played second fiddle to Andie MacDowell and Gerard Depardieu. Check out the scene where the trio meet in the supermarket. Neuwirth did a witty reprise of this "heroine's best buddy" role in the otherwise awful The Associate with Whoopi Goldberg. Along the way she's appeared in Say Anything, Bugsy, Malice, Celebrity (Woody Allen, as always, picks the most interesting women), Summer of Sam, Liberty Heights. On TV you can catch her in Oliver Stone's Wild Palms and as Dorothy Parker in Dash And Lilly. OK, she was in Cheers too.

Dan Hedaya: This versatile and memorable actor appears about as regularly as Philip Baker Hall, and like him has played Richard Nixon too (in Dick, 1999). Everyone remembers him from the Coens' Blood Simple (84) - just as they recall the wonderfully seedy M Emmett Walsh - but Hedaya's screen career goes back to at least The Seduction of Joe Tynan (79) with Meryl Streep and Alan Alda. Since then it's been virtually non-stop, with stints in TV on Hill St Blues, Homicide and Law and Order alternating with movies: True Confessions (with De Niro), Tightrope (with Eastwood), Maverick (with Gibson), Clueless (Alicia's dad), The Usual Suspects (with Spacey & Co), Marvin's Room, Alien: Resurrection, A Civil Action, Shaft, The Crew and many more...

Penelope Cruz: She's still only 26, but already a veteran actress, with a string of distinguished films behind her in her native Spain. Introduced to international audiences in 1992 with Fernando Trueba's Belle Epoque and Bigas Luna's Jamon, Jamon, where she was the uninhibited object of desire, this dark, luminous beauty's career did not really take of until she appeared in Pedro Amodovar's Live Flesh and All About My Mother. She was more impressive in the lead role in Alejandro Amenabar's Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) however, but the patchy release of this one limited her exposure. The execrable English-language If Only... was more widely seen. Even Stephen Frears' The Hi-Lo Country made little impact. Now with the imminent release of Ted Demme's Blow and Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses, plus scoring the plum role in John Madden's production of the cult novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Cruz seems set for the international recognition which only the big Hollywood films can deliver.

Todd Field: Actor/director who came into sharp focus in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (right), where he stood out among a particularly good line-up of supporting actors. Field played the mysterious piano-playing friend who triggers Tom Cruise's nocturnal odyssey. He has an impressive string of credits: roles in Radio Days (Woody Allen), Fat Man and Little Boy (Roland Joffe), Ruby in Paradise (with Ashley Judd), Twister and The Haunting (Jan de Bont), and TV's Chicago Hope, Roseanne and Once and Again. Field has also directed episodes of the latter and several shorts and is an accomplished composer - he wrote the score for Ruby in Paradise, among others. Perhaps is is no surprise to find Todd's feature directing debut, In the Bedroom, winning the Special Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Todd also scripted and acted as camera operator on the film, which stars Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson as a waspish New England couple. Described as "an unblinking study of bereavement," in which Field establishes himself as "...a filmmaker of rigour", In the Bedroom was not picked up immediately by Sundance patron Miramax, with some suggesting that the original 140 min running time went against it. However, a year later - it was an Oscar contender.

FRENCH IMPRESSIONIST BEHIND THE CAMERA

Claude Sautet: The French writer/director whose speciality was chronicling the the lives of the urban middle class with psychological insight and technical flair died in Paris last week. Despite his long and distinguished career: first feature, Bonjour sourire 1956; his second, Classe tous risques/The Big Risk (1960) premiered a week after Jean-Luc Godard's A bout de souffle/Breathless, he was virtually unknown outside France - certainly not receiving the universal acclaim given his "new Wave" countrymen. His remarkable ensemble film Vincent, Francois, Paul et les autres (1974) ensured he could no longer be ignored; leading even lazy foreign critics to reassess his Prix Delluc winner Les choses de la vie/The Things of Life (1970) and Caesar and Rosalie (1972). The former was remade recently as Intersection, with Richard Gere and Sharon Stone. Une histoire simple/A Simple Story (1978), a distaff version of Vincent, Francois..., was his fifth collaboration with Romy Schneider, his muse in a series of films which gave leading French actors (though all had Italian parents) Yves Montand, Michel Piccoli and Serge Reggiani some of their best roles. Garcon! (1983) a warm and ingratiating film celebrating food and friendship, with Montand as a waiter, is full of elaborately choreographed restaurant scenes, which undermine Sautet's reputation as merely an accomplished crafstman. In the '90s, Sautet made two of the finest French films of the decade: Un coeur en hiver?/A Heart in Winter (1992) and Nelly and M. Arnaud (1996). With a new muse, Emmanuelle Beart, (she appears in both) and his love and knowledge of music informing the first (Ravel's exhilarating trio music is the centrepiece), and in the second, the debonair Michel Serrault confronts both his age (as he discreetly longs to seduce his much younger assistant), and computers: "That's what scares me - a memory with no memories," he confides at one point. These vividly personal films are the work a filmmaker who gave no indication of slowing up, and it's a shock to discover that his career spans virtually the entire postwar period.

Helen Baxendale, perennial British TV star, burst onto the small screen, not as many local writers (with short memories) have suggested, in the scathing comedy/drama Cold Feet, but in the earlier, equally savage drama, Cardiac Arrest, where she played a NHS doctor fresh out of med school. Sure, she guest starred on the increasingly tiresome Friends, but her best work has always been in the UK. Two TV movies, Truth or Dare (directed by Shakespeare in Love's John Madden) and The Investigator, with its explicit lesbian scenes (which you would never see on the prudish Sex and the City), saw her in top form. Even though her co-stars in Cold Feet are wonderful; well, the women are perhaps idealised while their respective partners (ie the guys) are uncomfortably familiar flawed types - yes, congenital screw-ups, Baxendale is especially memorable, looking uncharacteristically buffed - as though she'd just walked off the Friends set. Mondays on TV One have now become hers, with the new series of Cold Feet and (much later) the occasional series An Unsuitable Job For a Woman (above), from the ubiquitous P D James. Baxendale plays the mousy Cordelia Gray, novice private detective who's always attracted to the ne'er-do-wells she keeps running into.

Mike Hodges: British director of the 1972 Michael Caine gangster film Get Carter. The Americans are just discovering this one too. And no wonder, it makes the current crop of New British Cinema look pretty weak, and must be the best film ever made by a one-time chartered accountant... And it was on my Top Ten for 1972 - but apparently had a spotty US release, if indeed it ever was screened there. As the L.A. Times says, "See it before Hollywood remakes it." (With Sylvester Stallone!) Hodges' new one, an unmissable "interior thriller", The Courier, with Clive Owen and Gina McKee appeared in a season of British films which screened throughout NZ recently. In between, Hodges has made Pulp, The Terminal Man, Damien - Omen II, Morons From Outer Space, A Prayer for the Dying, Black Rainbow and several TV movies.

Volker Schlondorff: The German filmmaker, most famous for The Tin Drum, though his Circle of Deceit, shot in war-torn Beirut, and Voyager, the pick of his films made during an extended period in the U.S. and both, in my view, among the best films of their respective years, is back in now re-unified Germany. His new film, Die Still Nach Dem Aus (The Legends of Rita), is an ironic account of West German terrorists taking refuge in the East during the 70s, who end up "in the trash can of history." The situation and characters are dramatised, though based on events during the period when the Baader-Meinhoff guerillas were an undeniable political force. This winner of the Silver Bear at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival also screened at the last year's Sydney FF, but it's not, alas, in even this year's NZ program.

Kerry Fox Even the eminent Guardian critic Derek Malcolm described her as "Australian" in his report from Berlin where she picked up the Best Actress Silver Bear for her role in Patrice Chereau's Intimacy (Intimite). Too bad that New Zealand's most famous actress is still a virtual unknown. Of course not having your films released here - or at least the last half-dozen - does little to raise one's profile. The last, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, was Australian, come to think of it. Prior to that she convinced director Michael Winterbottom to make her foul-mouthed TV producer a New Zealander in Welcome to Sarajevo. Fox did move to Australia, and was a stand-out in Last Days of Chez Nous, even in a secondary role. Now based in London, she's worked in South Africa, Canada and Europe but paradoxically, Chereaux (Reine Margot), chose to shoot Intimacy in London. She's coming up in Po Chi Leong's The Wisdom of Crocodiles, a vampire story set in London, with Jude Law and Elina Lowensohn, and Fanny and Elvis, with bovver boy Ray Winstone.

Anna Paquin, after a flying start in The Piano is now an American teenager manque - and her bumpy o/s career refects this. Maybe it's not such a big leap - she was born in Canada. She was hard to spot in She's All That - I expected to see her in the ugly duckling role, which went instead to the impossibly beautiful Rachael Leigh Cook, but Paquin made an impression in the more controversial Hurly Burly with Kevin Spacey et al, last year. Then there was A Walk on the Moon, with Diane Lane, directed by actor Tony Goldwyn (he played opposite Kerry Fox in the NZ movie The Last Tattoo, set in wartime Wellington).

Alas, it didn't make the big screen here; perhaps the distributors confused it with The Man in the Moon, the Jim Carrey movie which did get a release. And anyone expecting Paquin to make a big splash in the big-budget sci-fi X-Men (right) would be disappointed; it's difficult to get past the publicity for her fem co-stars Halle Berry, Rebecca Romijn and Famke Janssen, and she's unrecognisable in any stills in which she actually appears. Likewise Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, his autobiographical pic about his days as a rock journo for "Rolling Stone" mag. Paquin plays a groupie, (Polexia) but in pretty heavy company: Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Fairuza Balk and Zooey Deschanel. Also in the wings, All the Rage, a cable TV movie. It's a cautionary tale about the lack of gun control in the U.S.

Melanie Lynskey, the other heavenly creature from Peter Jackson's benchmark NZ movie, seemed to go into limbo after her dazzling debut with Kate Winslet. (Wonder what happened to her?) Lynskey went straight into Jackson's The Frighteners, then o/s into parts like stepsister to Drew Barrymore in Ever After, Dunyasha in Michael Cacoyannis' version of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard", Vanya. Then there are the assorted adolescents in Detroit Rock City, But I'm a Cheerleader and the upcoming Coyote Ugly. You have to wade through plenty of promo blurb and photos re Piper Perabo and Tyra Banks before you discover Melanie actually made the cut in this one though. Lynskey's visit here to shoot Snakeskin for Gillian Ashurst was typically, not to say obsessively, low-key, but there's always the promise of her yet-to-be-released backlog revealing unexpected pleasures.

media watch:

2006:

television:

> With the release of ex-TV One newsreader Judy Bailey's tell-all book, My Own Words, it's a good time to look at the whole sorry mess that is New Zealand TV news. I haven't read Bailey's book; hey, I haven't even started Clive James' North Face of Soho, Point to Point Navigation from Gore Vidal or Robert Hughes' Things I Didn't Know. But I did see one of the stream of "exclusive" promotional interviews with Bailey and note that some of the juciest bits in her book were apparently "legalled" out of it. No, her lawyers were not going to screw up this one as had TVNZ's in not one, but three expensive salary disputes. John Hawkesby, Susan Wood and Bailey all cost the wretched organisation millions because its legal department could not write a watertight employment contract. Say what you like about Kerry Packer and the Nine Network (my old employer) but he would never have let such incompetence go unpunished. On the other hand, Bailey was astonishingly naive in not having seen that the moment she closed the deal on her negotiated $800,000 salary - a one year contract - management were busy organising her demise, including, however deviously, leaking the details to the public. That was the price for Bailey's getting on the "brandwagon". As the new solo newsreader, in itself a positive move after the monstrously outdated "happy talk" format which most major international networks had dispensed with prior to its introduction at TV One, she had to reposition herself as a journalist. So we had the silly promos showing her input at production meetings, but sadly no let-up with the "dead donkey" stories which had become a TV One staple.

Unfortunately, no sooner had Bailey gone for R&R after the salary scandal, than the Asian tsunami struck, on Boxing Day, 2004. I happened to see this reported from BBC World's London HQ by newsreader-journalist Lyse Doucet. A couple of days later, Doucet was reporting from the devastated beach in Tamil Nadu, India, anchoring the coverage from several other BBC reporters in the region. No autocue and no make-up here, thank-you. This was just another assignment for the vastly experienced Doucet, who in any one week can be heard on BBC World Service radio, reading news on TV's BBC World (which includes interviewing from the desk), anchoring in her no-nonsense fashion the international TV/radio programme, Have Your Say, or maybe reporting from regular beats, the Middle East or Afghanistan. In an archive episode of BBC Radio's Correspondent's Report she spoke about interviewing Yasser Arafat. At one stage, he became enraged at her question, and "grabbed my jacket lapels and pulled me towards him, to make a point," recalled Doucet. You don't get much closer to newsmakers than this. More recently, in a report from Afghanistan, she was interviewing a local tribesman, who could not speak English. No matter, Doucet spoke to him in Pushto and translated for us, on the run. Is this an unfair comparison with Bailey? Of course! You don't find too many Afghani tribesmen in Auckland. But newsreaders invite this comparison when they describe themselves as journalists, and talk about "branding". Both TV One and TV3 are guilty of this, and only TV3's Mike McRoberts, who's covered major international stories, emerges with any credibility from this hype.

> So, at the end of 2006, what are we left with as a TV news service? Nothing too impressive, from either network. The cleverly woven myth (by TV3) that disaffected viewers from TV One's dismal, revamped 6pm News have switched to TV3 because they provide a superior alternative is just that - a myth. Both networks follow the same well-worn template: Two readers, a bombastic set, big local stories first, often including a sporting item; brief international headlines, with an occasional "in-depth" (ie 2-minute) follow up from an international source; a medical research update, telling us what will be available "in about five years"; a "furry animal/whale/dolphin story" which would once have come at the very end of the bulletin; weather info at the half-way point; sport "in-depth" through until more weather details round out the hour. Regardless of who wins the Qantas TV Award for "Best News" both services are parochial (understandable), treat international stories superficially (unforgiveable) and include sport in such detail it should really have its own dedicated half-hour, following and not incorporated into, the news hour.

The readers, TV One's Simon Dallow, Wendy Petrie & Kate Hawkesby, TV3's Hilary Barry, Mike McRoberts & Carolyn Robinson are all competent enough - as readers - as are Prime's Eric Young & Suzy Clarkson. However, when they want to be seen as journalists, things come unstuck. When Simon Dallow went to Fiji recently, to report on the miltary coup, he was reduced to interviewing veteran Pacific affairs correspondent Barbara Dreaver, who'd been in Fiji covering the story in admirable detail. She, in turn, was reduced to delivering her reportage partly to Dallow - as an answer to his questions, and awkwardly turning to the camera. In short, Dallow did nothing he couldn't have done from his Auckland desk. Contrast this with Mike McRoberts' expert on-the-spot reports from Pakistan or Baghdad.

Even when TV One uses its European correspondent for anything more than reporting on the Royals or the celebrity beat, it comes unstuck. I recall Lisa Owen reporting ("live") from a non-descript location in the Palestinian West Bank. There did not appear to be any reason for the live cross, but the news anchor asked her about the tensions in Gaza, prior to Israel's withdrawal. Here's where at least we cut to the B-roll with dramatic footage, I assumed. But no, Owen told us how horrible the conditions were and how the atmosphere changed at the border crossing. Well, that's fine, but she could have done that from her London HQ. It was another wasted opportunity. Owen's successor, Melissa Stokes, reporting from Gallipolli at the Anzac Day ceremonies this year, claimed in her live report that the Gallipolli debacle took place in 1925. I missed this, but sharp-eared media commentator Phil Wallington didn't, pointing it out on his National Radio spot. Stokes later reported "live" from Northern Israel during the Lebanon debacle but TV One quickly cut to the BBC coverage, leaving Stokes' token appearance as superfluous. These days she appears to be more comfortable keeping us up to date with the "Prince William's girlfriend" saga, something which will keep her busy until the end of her London stint.

> TV One has made a couple of attempts to plug us into major international events by opting for abandoning scheduled programming for continuous live coverage. Both were unfortunate miscalculations: the Beslan, Russia, school massacre, and the London terrorist bombings. The CNN feed from Beslan showed very little development over two hours. Since it was after the event and prior to its resolution there was endless repeat footage and comment from CNN's distant Moscow correspondent, but nothing that could not have been covered in the late news bulletin. Likewise, the two hours of BBC coverage from London, the aftermath of the Underground bombings. It was the awkward in-between period where there was confusion, endless recycled footage and the appearance of "nothing happening". Hardly riveting on-the-spot reporting in either case, in spite of it being "live".

> The coverage of the kidnapping in Gaza of New Zealand cameraman Olaf Wiig and his colleague from Fox News, Steve Centanni was more problematic. The NZ connection (Wiig and his wife, the honorary Kiwi Anita McNaught) meant that all local media responded with blow-by-blow accounts until the emotional climax. Normally blase journalists seemed so overwhelmed they forgot the real story (about the appalling conditions in Gaza which led to the kidnapping, however ill-advised it may have been) as they revealed that on the intrepid pair's release they (and McNaught) were whisked off to the US "in Rupert Murdoch's private jet." The TV footage of Centanni telling anyone who would listen that "the Palestinians are beautiful people" as he was hustled away from the media pack was almost risible considering the past FOX coverage of the Middle East, and it must have been a relief for them to get back to the inevitable soft interview at home base in New York, conducted by FOX's idea of a heavy-hitter: Greta Van Susteren. Of course, there has been zilch from FOX or NZ Television about Gaza since, but no surprises there.

> What was surprising was the astonishing number of screw-ups in identification of people and places by TV News programmes, and that was just in the stuff that I watched; I did not see every minute of every broadcast. (Luckily, neither did the Qantas TV Award judges). Some examples: Alistair Wilkinson (TV3 News) interviewed former Norwegian PM Gro Harlem Bruntland when she visited NZ, but identified her in VO and on-screen caption, as Bruntman. He also invented a new African country, "Nigier" - confusing Nigeria and Niger - in this case he was referring to Niger. TV3 also had trouble finding a sound-bite from the then US ambassador to the UN, John Boulton, so they captioned somebody else. This was a story where Boulton had left the assembly in protest as they did manage to show his empty seat. TV3 is also unfamiliar with outspoken US Senator Chuck Hagel, who despite having a clear nameplate on his desk at a recent Senate Committee hearing, thay captioned "Chuck Hagen". Over at TV One News, they seemed to be the only media outlet unable to identify one of the most recognisable figures in the long-running Michael Jackson trial - defence lawyer Thomas Mesereau, with his distinctive grey mane. On the day of the verdict they supered his caption over an anonymous legal commentator. During the 9/11 commemorations in New York city last year, TV One (again) identified NY City mayor Michael Bloomberg as (State Governor) George Pataki. Less excusable was their confusing our own Governor-General with Chief Justice Sian Elias at the opening of a new session of Parliament. OK, both women were wearing judicial wigs, and they may have got away with the incorrect caption if only the (then) G-G had not immediately intoned, "I, Silvia Cartwright..."

> Still with TV One, late news stand-in for Kate Hawkesby, Sacha McNeil, a poor reader, apparently confronted with the US state Arkansas for the first time, decided to pronounce it as written. She also had trouble with the Sydney suburbs, "Lamkemba" and "Cranulla" (sic). TV3, always eager to bring us non-essential entertainment news, got into some awful tangles last year: Ingrid Leary was assigned a story on the (movie) Golden Globe Awards, and in her short summary: mispronounced actor Ralph Fiennes' name (as "Ralph Feens" rather than "Rafe Fines"); used a clip of Steven Spielberg's Munich to illustrate David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, and described Woody Allen's Match Point as a "remake" - which it wasn't. For that matter TV3's regular movie reviewer, Kate Rodger, called Woody's previous film Melinda Melinda - inexplicably leaving out the "&". She has trouble with names too: Amanda Bynes ( it's "Bines" not "Burns") and Daniel Auteil (he's French you know) does not pronounce his name as it is written. (Why not ask somebody?) Still on TV3, in an interview with LOTR and King Kong co-scriptwriter and Academy Award-winner Phillipa Boyens, she was incorrectly given the title "Producer". And Kate Lynch (TV3) obviously never watched France's TV2 News (when it was screened on Triangle nightly) or she would have known how to pronounce Segolene Royal, (hard, not soft "g").

> Prime TV may be first with the (evening) news, but it's no better that the other offerings. Eric Young began a recent item: "Israel has bowed to international pressure and begun an inquiry into its conduct in the war with Lebanon..." Surely journalist Eric would have spotted the obvious error here. Israel does not "bow to international pressure" and certainly did not in this case. The Israel government launched a limited inquiry because of internal pressure from Israelis, who were more concerned about the inconclusive stalemate, rather than Israel's dubious behaviour which caused international concern. Prime's team does not seem too au fait with leading international figures either, a hazard if they insist (as do other channels) on using their own captions. Former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, was re-named "Martin Indy", in an item about escalation of violence in Iraq - a 20-second story!

> Both bright newcomer Olivia Kember (in TV One's Headliners) and veteran broadcaster Nick Bollinger in RNZ National's The Sampler, described the famous American resort island Martha's Vineyard as being "in New York state". Oops, Martha's Vineyard is off the coast of and part of Massachusetts. On the plus side, Kember is one of the very few of the TV tribe who speaks with a natural rhythm, rather than the peculiar cadence adopted by 60 Minutes reporters and later taken up with a vengeance by others who turned it into self-parody. Even on a lowly magazine show like say Getaway, you'll hear the globetrotting hacks intoning: "This. Is one of the most amazing places. In the world." Prime also has trouble with foreign place names. On US election day last year, vision of the Bush family arriving by helicopter at his Crawford, Texas ranch was captioned Chapaqua (sic), NY. Huh? Why would the Bushes be dropping in on the Clintons (who live in Chappaqua, New York) I wondered. Oh right, the caption was meant for the next item.

> This just in: Introducing a story about the new UN Secretary-General, Wendy Petrie (TV One News) decided he was (Mr) "Moon". He is of course, the former South Korean politician, BAN Ki-moon. Surname first. And TV One's "US correspondent," Tim Wilson, responsible for those jokey items during his live crosses in the late news bulletins, was credited with an uncharacteristically thoughtful piece on US reaction to President Bush's new Iraq strategy on the day of its release. Then it was revealed that Wilson was actually in Auckland, sitting with Peter Williams at the newsdesk, and the penny dropped. He had merely read the narration over an item supplied by an American network. The journalist who did the original report gets no credit (the vision being a clean feed with no captions, which are replaced locally), the assumption being that it's all Tim's work. As I've pointed out before, this is reading, not reporting. Hot on the heels of this blatant misrepresentation, TV3 led viewers to believe that Kate Rodger interviewed Lucy Lawless at a recent Los Angeles gig. Lawless answered Rodger's VO questions which seemed an odd way of doing it, until it became clear that somebody else was interviewing her. The anonymous (Australian?) hackette was shown with Lawless in the closing shot so who did TV3 think they were fooling? TV3 scoop: Feb 21. 10 minutes into the 6pm news bulletin, there was Australia's beleaguered PM, John Howard, being interviewed. Here's where he's asked about the implications for Australia re: the imminent British troop pullout from Basra, I assumed. No way! Here's where he's asked about the NZ cricket victory. Silly me.

> It's interesting to see which of the current international fads in TV news the local networks have picked up and which they have let go. Almost overnight, for example, it became essential to couch all/most of a bulletin's headlines in the form of a question. (Rather like TV One's ill-fated billboard campaign). Now everyone does it. TV & radio, news, current affairs, promos, even sport. The news chiefs have not yet followed international networks in having a newsreader stand in front of a large screen to conduct a satellite interview; for that matter they have not let newsreaders do any interview from the desk. The "starter" question to a journalist in the field doesn't count - I'm talking about a real interview with a newsmaker of the day - a regular feature of BBC, Aljazeera and US networks. And mercifully, the ghastly trend for playing dramatic "drum & bass" music under the headlines (FOX News specialises in this and the BBC keeps its news theme running) does not seem to have caught on here - yet.

> I rarely watch Close-Up or Campbell Live. The Family Guy and King of the Hill are preferable; you get life lessons and humour, and during the "silly season" TV3 sensibly puts on The Simpsons in the 7pm slot. An embarrassment of riches! However...I did tune in to Campbell Live to check out an interview with Stephen Clarke, author of the best-seller A Year in the Merde. Carol Hirschfeld and crew went all the way to Paris to do the 5-minute piece. To show us they were indeed in Paris, France, they shot the interview at a sidewalk cafe with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Unfortunately it was done so ineptly - the below-the-eyeline angle, the wide-angle lens, the shine on Carol's nose emphasised by her distorted features - I completely forgot to listen to the hapless interviewee. There is a way get the effect they were trying for here but this was a great example of how not to do it. More recently I noticed that at an outdoor shoot with John Campbell interviewing photographer(!) Ans Westra they had the wide-angle lens out again, distorting Campbell's face and waving hands. Not a good look, but apparently the house style.

print

> Ok, I'll bite. The NZ Listener in its Media column (Nov 18, 06 issue) called for nominations for worst magazine cover of the year. For 2005, they picked an easy target, a New Idea cover featuring celebrity brides. (Surely any issue would have done.) However for 2006, they do not have to look any further than their own publication (right). Yes, it's plugging an "exclusive" interview with ex-National Radio "star" Linda Clark: "I'VE GOT TO GET OUT" She breaks her silence on what's wrong with journalism, the myth that women can have it all, and her new life...
Readers prepared to venture inside would have discovered that this was not a stab at editorial irony; it was not a satirical swipe at the Listener's sister publications, nor had somebody delivered the cover art to the wrong office, this was meant to be taken at face value.

> The Charlotte Dawson prize for worst travel writing goes to Bobbie McKay for 36 Hours in Hong Kong from the Sunday Star-Times Sunday Magazine. A blatant promotional piece without even an admission that it was a junket provided by the luxury Peninsular Hotel (plus business class travel), all that was missing was the heading: "Advertorial". The website address provided was incorrect so I did my own research, and discovered (a) that Ms McKay is actually an advertising copywriter (surprise!) and (b) for mere mortals/readers, the Peninsular's suites range from NZ$1090 - $1750 per night. Sweeeet!

The Herald on Sunday's Antony Phillips apparently went on the same junket but his report was both more informative and less offensive. Prices were included, but again, no acknowledgement. Photos accompanying both pieces were so-so.

Much better (also in the HoS) were Sarah Stuart's pieces on London, with up-to-the-minute info and useful tidbits presented with a sense of personal discovery. The stock photographs (uncredited) weren't bad either.

Back at the SST, a recent Getaways column featuring singer Katherine Jenkins (I've never heard of her either) who apparently has entertained British troops in Iraq. I liked the accompanying tranquil shot of a domed building and nearby minaret with a lonely visitor (?) strolling by. The deadpan caption: Basra, Iraq. (Oh, that Basra).

> Denis Dutton (of the essential website Arts and Letters Daily) had a nice piece in the SST on what Robert Hughes dubbed, in his TV series American Visions, "the most powerful city in the world," Washington, DC. That DC suffix (District of Columbia) meant nothing to the SST crew who carefully included a map of the (west coast) Washington state to aid prospective travellers. While we're on the US capital, could we have a moratorium on our local political journalists using the phrase "inside the beltway" instead of "Wellington"? In the US capital it means, literally the area encircled by the Capital Beltway, where the machinery and personnel of government, bureaucracy plus assorted hangers-on are located. If you work "inside the beltway" you're by definition, an "insider" and journalists love that idea, even in New Zealand, where the Parliamentary press gallery takes itself very seriously. Look at the reaction to John Tamihere's interview with Ian Wishart in Investigate Magazine. Tamihere was widely ridiculed by mainstream journalists for his refreshingly candid comments, not least because he made them to an "outsider" and even though there were endless shots of the magazine on the many TV reports, nobody mentioned one of his quotes clearly visible on the cover in heavy type: on the press gallery: "utterly and totally useless".

> It wouldn't do any harm for media wordsmiths to check out Robert Hartwell Fiske's list of Dimwiticisms, or Matt Groening's (yes, the Simpsons guy) annual Forbidden Words list (published in the LA Weekly) or Australian Don Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Cliches, Cant and Management Jargon or any of the other collections of buzzwords. The late Kingsley Amis, in The King's English, suggests that journalists who spot one of these annoying terms coming into vogue immediately find another more original replacement. Do we need, for example, to continue with on the ground prefixing "in Iraq"? It adds nothing, but has not been around as long as the most irritating post-9/11 phrase of all: it changed his/her life...forever. It will never be eradicated from TV promo voice-overs, and possibly comes from the same source (a PR firm) as the latest moronic tagline for book titles: ...before you die. As in: "1001 places to see/ films to watch/ books to read - before you die." How else are you going to manage this stuff - unless there's some metaphysical revelation that somebody's not letting us in on?

Then there's our own Antipodean list of "inescapable pairs" (two words used when one is enough). Some American imports, like for free and free gift are so entrenched there's no way to kill them off, but others are now coming into alarmingly frequent use, even by those who should know better. The main offenders: added bonus - what other kind of bonus is there? end result - you can have an interim result, but 99.9% of the time, "result" will do. separate out - what happened to "separate the milk from the cream"? eclectic mix - a favourite of interior designers and food critics; most of the time "mix" will suffice. sign off - what you now do with a document or contract. Or it may be a report from a committee or group that you head up. You thought you worked with colleagues? No way, they're work colleagues and don't you forget it. ensemble cast - now universally used instead of "cast" which used to do the job adequately. As for single buzzwords which have become so pervasive they have now lost any currency they may once have had and are now simply irritating, my nominations for the three main offenders are: Absolutely! (Whatever happened to "yes"?), compelling (the current adjective of choice for book, movie and TV programme reviews), and arguable. As the Sydney Morning Herald columnist Ruth Wajnryb suggests, "like deceptively, arguably is...a word whose entire purpose is to confuse. Arguably, all an 'arguably' achieves is an argument." You'll read/see/hear all of the above on a daily basis (ie daily).

Let's not forget the mangled metaphors. "The proof is in the pudding" is now universally used as a half-baked? version of "the proof of the pudding is in the eating", and doesn't have the same meaning, though I'm sure those from the "language-is-constantly-evolving" school would insist otherwise. Even the clearly smart Simon Dallow fell into the "one foul swoop" trap the other day, closely followed by Te Radar on National Radio. From the same source, political reporter Julian Robbins suggested Nicky Hager had "over-egged his book" The Hollow Men.(Wouldn't all the pages stick together?) Not to be left out, Linda Clark regularly asked her guests "is it the thin edge(sic) of the wedge?" Too much like splitting hairs? Try this from Rachel Glucina, the HoS gossip columnist, who's more into splitting infinitives. Item: "Which magazine editor sent provocative pictures of himself to an unassuming female colleague wearing nothing but red lacy panties?" At least Glucina's clumsy grammar unwittingly made the item even funnier. Not so funny was her botching three famous names in her first item, same edition: Wine critic Janis(sic) Robinson, actors Ray(sic) Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter (who she called Carter, rather than Bonham Carter). Perhaps she could do Unitec's Bachelor of International Communications course, recently promoted in a print advertisment with the first line of copy reading: "A room full of reporters are waiting." Are it indeed? Then I picked up the brochure for Auckland University's Department of "Film Television and Media Studies"(sic) only to discover a page headed: "The Department and it's Staff". As I suspected, those who bought Lynn Truss's Eats Shoots and Leaves were the very ones who didn't need to. How else to explain the advertising campaign for a hair dye which boasted (in giant type) on posters everywhere: "Your blonde only lighter"; "Your brunette only darker" etc? (I'm paraphrasing, but I've reproduced the error exactly).

> Most effective book review of the year was that from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, addressing the UN General Assembly in New York. He expressed his admiration for Noam Chomsky's Hegemony and Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance.
Runner-up is Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, plugging his own book, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, in a hilarious interview with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. His disarming sense of humour took the edge off his appalling opportunistic alliance with the US President and his "war on terror". (AP photo)

radio

> Once upon a time to get a radio gig, you had to have a radio "voice". In this postmodern age, where everyone is "equal", it's open slather: anybody can do it, right? Er...no, not exactly. Take Linda Clark, late of National Radio's Nine to Noon. She may be a journalist who has (as others have unkindly noted) "a good head for radio." But alas, her voice is shrill, with an unpleasant timbre, her interviewing technique only slightly less hectoring than Kim Hill's, and that's before we get to her appalling taste in music. Could anyone stomach those patronising discussions with music reviewer Manu Taylor? You think I'm being mean to Clark? Here's writer Chad Taylor's reaction after an interview where she asked him if he took drugs: "I really got fucked off with her...it just takes away from the whole thing of the novel." But the good news was that any of the frequent substitutes for Clark - Eva Radich, Kathryn Ryan or Maggie Barry were preferable, and when Ryan got the gig permanently she quickly put her own stamp on proceedings. An incisive interviewer, with a well-modulated voice, who is sharp enough to let evasive guests have enough rope to hang themselves, Ryan also realises that the best tactic with somebody like the irrepressible Clive James is to kick-start proceedings and stand clear and let him provide the entertainment. The male voices on National Radio are all fluent with a preferable "neutral" accent. Yet, expert female newsreaders/presenters Nicola Wright, Janine Sudbury and Catriona McLeod are up there with the best. Let's not forget the underused Liz Barry's smooth voice and warm personality and the frisson generated by Veronika Meduna's "foreign" accent is one way of making science sexy. Chris Laidlaw's Sunday morning programme is usually so interesting it passes the acid test; I cannot read the newspaper while I'm listening - I have to give him my full attention. He's probably the closest we have to the Aussie (ABC) radio guy, the polymath (though not a rugby player) Phillip Adams. As for the radio shock jock, the infamous Mayor of Wanganui, did you notice he's the only one who doesn't find Jeremy Wells amusing? Would this be because Wells showed Mr Laws behaving like an utter prat on EML (end of year special)?

Quotes of the year (2005):

"It's a small country where fuck-all ever happens" Presenter Jeremy Wells sums up New Zealand in TV2's Eating Media Lunch.