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Howard Davis
Scoop Arts Editor
Educated at Cambridge and UCLA; worked on several major Hollywood feature films and as a Kundalini Yoga instructor in Los Angeles; currently enjoying life in Wellington.
Howard Davis - Latest News [Page 1]
Malicious Melodrama - Todd Haynes’ ‘May December’
Sunday, 18 February 2024, 7:30 pm | howard davis
Loosely based on a tabloid headline, Todd Haynes has directed another intriguing and mysterious portrayal of an enigmatic and contradictory female who was jailed as a sex offender for her underage affair with a young high school student more than ... More >>
The Austerity Of Quiet Despair - Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’
Monday, 12 February 2024, 8:22 am | howard davis
Given his obvious admiration for the films of Yasujirō Ozu, it’s hardly surprising that Wim Wenders should have chosen Tokyo as the location for his latest film. A stripped-back, pared-down homage to the great Japanese director’s laconic and laid-back ... More >>
The Irreverence Of ‘Being Earnest’ At Circa Theatre
Tuesday, 10 October 2023, 11:07 am | Howard Davis
“Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?” Jonathan Price’s idiosyncratic version of Oscar Wilde's timeless masterpiece 'The ... More >>
NZSQ’s ‘Woven Pathways’ Tour Wraps Up In Wellington
Monday, 18 September 2023, 4:29 am | howard davis
NZSQ’s ‘Woven Pathways’ Tour Wraps Up In Wellington The NZSQ concluded their national tour of ‘Woven Pathways’ in Wellington last week with two stunning performances that reaffirmed their position as NZ’s premier chamber music ensemble. The first ... More >>
What Larks!
Monday, 28 August 2023, 7:43 am | Howard Davis
Singer-songwriter and APRA Silver Scroll nominee Tom Lark has released a wonderful debut album, ‘Brave Star,’ full of catchy melodic hooks and nifty guitar licks. Shaped in equal parts by the confronting vulnerability of John Lennon and the troubled ... More >>
Wes Anderson’s Tupperware ‘Asteroid City’
Tuesday, 22 August 2023, 4:29 pm | howard davis
Among contemporary American films directors, only David Fincher rivals Wes Anderson for sheer cinematic prowess. His tightly controlled environments are cleverly constructed doll’s playhouses, his characters apparently present only to deliver his lines ... More >>
'Prima Facie' At Wellington’s Circa Theatre
Monday, 26 June 2023, 9:35 am | Howard Davis
Prima Facie is a Latin term meaning ‘on the face of it.’ In Australia, the 1.7 million women who have been sexually assaulted rarely receive justice. Instead, their stories are filtered out of the system as they encounter one hurdle after another. ... More >>
Redmer Yska - 'Katherine Mansfield's Europe'
Monday, 15 May 2023, 10:13 am | howard davis
The Mansfield Industry continues to proliferate. Frances Wilson, in a recent NYRB review of Claire Harman’s All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything (from which the following information was largely gathered), wrote More >>
Dave Flynn’s Airs & Graces
Monday, 20 March 2023, 9:43 am | howard davis
The NZSQ celebrated St. Patrick’s Day at Wellington’s Public Trust Hall with an assortment of Irish reels, jigs, polkas, and contemporary pieces lead by guitarist and composer Dave Flynn and an assortment of traditional Irish musicians. More >>
In Bed With Schoenberg
Tuesday, 7 March 2023, 1:07 pm | howard davis
“If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.” - Arnold Schoenberg. Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was an Austrian-American composer and teacher, widely considered one of the most influential in the twentieth-century. As a leader ... More >>
Indigenous Voices - We Are Still Here
Wednesday, 15 February 2023, 8:46 am | Howard Davis
Few major movies were made in response to the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s arrival in the Pacific, perhaps reflecting some uncertainty about how best to represent a voyage that had such a devastating impact on indigenous people. The opening night ... More >>
Blanchett Nails ‘Tár’
Monday, 30 January 2023, 5:23 pm | Howard Davis
<img src="https://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/2301/tar_pic.jpg" width="500" height="281"> There is not much I can add to Zadie Smith’s wonderfully acute assessment of ‘Tár’ in The New York Review ... More >>
‘The Menu’ - Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold
Monday, 21 November 2022, 10:29 am | howard davis
Swiftly slicing and dicing the pretensions of ‘haute cuisine,’ director Mark Mylod (‘Game of Thrones’ and ’Succession’) skewers the preposterous egomania of bullying chefs and the captive consumers to whom they pander. More >>
Robin White - Something Is Happening Here
Tuesday, 15 November 2022, 12:13 pm | Howard Davis
‘Ko e Hala Hangatonu: The Straight Path’ Dame Robin White was recently awarded an Icon Award in recognition of a remarkable fifty-year career during which her painting and printmaking have helped to shape a distinctive visual language for life in Aotearoa. ... More >>
Aotearoa’s Native Plants & Birds
Wednesday, 19 October 2022, 1:19 pm | howard davis
About eighty-five million years ago, New Zealand split away from the supercontinent Gondwana. On board were plants and animals that evolved without predatory land mammals. Most plants and animals arrived here after crossing the ocean and many developed More >>
NZSQ Conclude National Tour With ‘Release’ Programme
Wednesday, 27 July 2022, 1:26 pm | Howard Davis
The NZSQ concluded their national tour in Wellington with a three-part programme, the triumphant final installment of which was entitled ‘Release.’ It included three pieces representing radical musical innovation - Mozart’s ‘Quartet in B ... More >>
The Show Must Go On - ‘La Traviata’ Opening Night Wobbles
Tuesday, 12 July 2022, 9:31 am | howard davis
Casting problems have beset ‘La Traviata’ since its first performance in March 1853 at Venice’s La Fenice opera house. Sadly, Saturday night’s premiere at Wellington’s newly-restored St James Theatre proved no different. NZ Opera’s new production More >>
Joel Coen’s Monochromatic Macbeth
Friday, 1 April 2022, 7:05 pm | howard davis
“Man that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.” - Job 14, King James Version of The Bible , 1611. More >>
Kenneth Branagh’s Black & White Belfast
Sunday, 27 March 2022, 5:10 pm | howard davis
As Simran Hans noted in her review for The Guardian , Kenneth Branagh’s “unabashedly feel-good memoir of growing up in Belfast in the late 1960s suffers from a problem of perspective.” This is both the film’s strength and its weakness, as cinematographer ... More >>
Hilma af Klint & Rita Angus
Saturday, 12 February 2022, 6:49 pm | howard davis
Two major exhibitions by female artists currently on view in Wellington could not be more exciting or different. Hilma af Klint’s large, abstract, and light-filled geometric compositions contrast sharply with Rita Angus’ small, but densely layered ... More >>
