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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 2]
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 >>
Ali Harper Covers The Songs Of Carole King
Thursday, 27 January 2022, 8:00 pm | howard davis
Following hard on the heels of her previous hit show The Look Of Love , which focussed on the songs of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Christchurch chanteuse Ali Harper has embarked on another nostalgic musical ride, this time covering the songs of Carole ... More >>
Dennis Villeneuve’s Dune - A Brief History
Monday, 24 January 2022, 9:48 am | howard davis
“The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.” More >>
'The French Dispatch' - Wes Anderson's 'New Yorker' Tribute
Tuesday, 14 December 2021, 9:56 am | howard davis
Apart from Spike Lee and David Fincher, very few contemporary American film directors can claim to have earned the title of auteur , but for sheer visual invention and cinematic joie de vivre , there is no more consistent director working in Hollywood ... More >>
Emerald Fennell's 'Promising Young Woman'
Monday, 3 May 2021, 5:07 pm | howard davis
“You were a little worse, or the better, for wine. And there are rules about that.” - Katherine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story , to James Stewart, who assured her that nothing happened after they spent an inebriated evening together. More >>
The Back of the Painting
Monday, 19 April 2021, 3:38 pm | howard davis
Painting conservators are the forensic pathologists of the art world. While they cannot bring their subjects back to life, they do provide fascinating insights into the precise circumstances of a painting's creation, its material authenticity, and ... More >>
Jill Trevelyan's 'Rita Angus, An Artist's Life'
Sunday, 18 April 2021, 12:04 pm | Howard Davis
Along with the works of Colin McCahon and Toss Wollaston, Angus' oil and water colours are now considered among the most important in the development of twentieth-century New Zealand art. She was a pioneer of modern painting during the 1930s and 1940s ... More >>
Black Panthers on the Prowl
Sunday, 18 April 2021, 8:20 am | Howard Davis
A passionate and gripping, “inspired by true events,” political drama from director and co-writer Shaka King, Judas and the Black Messiah is a informative and instructive tale of human frailty that centers around the charismatic Chicago Black Panther leader ... More >>
Controlling the High Ground
Tuesday, 9 February 2021, 1:48 pm | Howard Davis
“Perhaps it is impossible to understand anything unless it happened to you yourself.” - Martha Gellhorn. More >>
Dryzabone - Robert Conolly's 'The Dry'
Saturday, 9 January 2021, 11:25 pm | Howard Davis
After the terrible devastation caused by last year’s bushfires, which prompted hundreds of Australians to shelter in the ocean to escape incineration and destroyed uncountable amounts of wildlife, The Dry has been released during a totally different ... More >>
Benjamin Ree's 'The Painter and The Thief'
Friday, 8 January 2021, 4:44 am | Howard Davis
Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree had long been fascinated by art thieves who commit high-stakes crimes with a delicate touch when a chance Google search in 2015 uncovered a botched heist in Oslo. The Czech hyperrealist painter Barbora Kysilkova had just ... More >>
Anna Coddington Beams
Wednesday, 30 December 2020, 11:10 am | Howard Davis
Anna Coddington Beams; Anna Coddington's thin, wispy vocals fit her songs beautifully, providing a wonderful lilting quality that pervades her latest album latest deceptively soft and insubstantial album. More >>
Hit The Road, Jack - Chloé Zhao's 'Nomadland'
Wednesday, 30 December 2020, 9:35 am | Howard Davis
Winner of both the Toronto Film Festival People's Choice Award and the Venice Golden Lion, 'Nomadland' is perhaps the ultimately 'road' movie as it follows a group of dispossessed and disenfranchised domestic refugees after the economic recession of 2008 ... More >>
Byrneing Down the House - Spike Lee's 'American Utopia'
Monday, 7 December 2020, 3:48 pm | Howard Davis
In 1990, I was fortunate enough to see David Byrne perform songs from 'Rei Momo' at London's sweaty Brixton Academy with a twenty-two piece band of superb Latin American musicians. Two decades ... More >>
