Chatterbox: The gang's all here

Just when the depths of winter was meant to slow down the flow of interesting tourists, here come some shows that just might spark it up again.

Next month comes The West Coast Block Party - a US hip-hop extravaganza featuring Kurupt, Roscoe, DJ Quick, Hi-C, Tupac Shakur's old cronies the Outlawz, Kam, Young MC - and yes, he's still out there doing the Wild Thing - Tone Loc. South Auckland's Deceptikonz will provide some local vocals to the night at the Logan Campbell Centre on Sunday July 21.

There has long been a martial arts thing to hip-hop and you bet a lot of the folks who will be buying tickets to Block Party might also be saving for Shaolin: Wheel of Life - a show by the Shaolin Kung Fu Monks on at the Civic on Tuesday, August 13. One English newspaper described their performance of martial arts contortion, and acrobatics as "remarkable", adding somewhat worryingly that the touring troupe is "likely to do for Shaolin Kung Fu what Riverdance did for Irish dancing".

THAT LOOKS FAMILIAR: We've been closely following the progress of our very own amateur penis puppets, Aaron Bloomfield and Brad Reid, since both bendable chaps subsequently won a place at the "Dick Trick Uni" in Melbourne to be trained as professional puppeteers. But who should suddenly appear on screen again this week but Aaron as one of the contestants on 100 Hours, the "reality" series in which people are locked up for all that time, have to master tricks (stand back from Aaron, ladies) and are judged in three categories: the body, the mind and dexterity. Needless to say, Aaron won his heat (unfair advantage in the dexterity section, we say) and will be back later in the series. This lad is keen as mustard to have his many talents recognised (he's a promo man for 91ZM in Taranaki) but all we're wondering is, will he keep his kit on in the finals?

AND TO FINISH: A quick review of the new-look, wide-format 34th Auckland International Film Festival Programme out this week. On the plus side, it's easier to read, the pages stay open where you want them to, its various categories provide logical divisions among the various types of films on offer and the pictures are bigger. Disadvantages? It doesn't fit in your back pocket quite the way the old ones used to. Oh well, never really liked those pants anyway.