The director's latest may namecheck Auckland, where it premiered last night, but his new Western is short on wit and long on brutality.

It's hardly surprising that stories of immigrants to the Land of the Free have such a proud cinematic history: the immigrant experience has everything - risk, longing, regret, hope, danger - that makes for great drama.

If you're looking for a sweet family film to entertain the younger kids these holidays, Oddball will do the trick.

Newsreaders could learn something from summer shows, says Calum Henderson.

The Big Short is equal parts goofy crime caper and cold-blooded rage against the machine that created the Global Financial Crisis.

Carey Mulligan stars in a riveting true story about the struggle for women's emancipation.

If you're planning on seeing Kate Tempest live anytime soon, be prepared to be hit by an avalanche of words.

If you want to get a sense of exactly how big Six60 have become, last night's concert at Villa Maria was a pretty strong statement.

Netflix doco shows investigative journalism at its compelling best, writes Duncan Greive.

The pall of Bowie's unexpected death now hangs over this exceptional album, bringing an element of tragedy to it that, just last week when it was released, wasn't there.

'King Push,' 'Push-a-ton' and 'El Presidente'. There are many names Pusha T goes by, but perhaps the most fitting is, 'Greatest Rapper Alive'.

Despite a few hit-and-miss moments, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler prove yet again to be a dynamic duo, Francesca writes.

Well-matched actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy help deliver a savagely authentic Old West survival thriller

Where Coldplay's 2014 album Ghost Stories was a somewhat downcast and subdued affair of heartbreak and uncoupling, an album of woe if you will, then A Head Full Of Dreams is an album of woaahhhhh'.

When the promoters behind AC/DC announced they were bringing the show to New Zealand, they wanted to stress a point - these days, AC/DC is not a rock show.

Last night's Shortland Street finale was an eruption of bloodshed dominated by a hostage crisis and punctuated with a whodunnit, writes Duncan Greive.

They were spontaneously whooping, smiling, talking too fast, unable to stop jiggling on the spot.

The strength of this show was the ongoing miracle of Silver Bullets, the Phillipps band's first proper album in nearly 20 years and the lively delivery its songs got from him and his 21st century line-up.

The future of television, we've been hearing for ages now, is online.

STEVE BRAUNIAS' THE BLOCK FINALE REVIEW: Cat and Jeremy, not Brooke and Mitch, deserved to win - they are a true reflection of New Zealand.

Tools down. This week The Block NZ: Villa Wars marked the end of the build, the final bang of the hammer, the last creak of Cat's croak.

Dominic Corry looks at five films based on survival at sea.

Despite a shaky start and dubious encores, Lucinda Williams' Auckland show proved something special.

Father John Misty's impassioned, whole-hearted, and hilarious performance at the St James on Thursday night was one of the best shows of 2015.

I just nailed the riff from Jack White's Lazaretto, the crowd is chanting my name, and I'm pretty sure my band's female bassist is into me.

And so Downton Abbey ended, as many things do, in a graveyard.

A seemingly innocent quiz brought up memories of TV3's darkest chapter last night, writes Steve Braunias.

The last time Shellac played in Auckland it was at the beautiful Mandalay ballroom in Newmarket in March 2001. Sadly the venue is long gone, but the memory of Shellac's angular attack has been etched permanently in the recesses of my rock'n'roll mind.