Award-winning content – Made For Love – I Like to Watch
...and other recs this week!
Kia ora, welcome to this week’s newsletter.
It is always a small pleasure to be able to type “award-winning” before the title of something. Sometimes if I’m writing to a word count I’ll drop the hyphen and make it “award winning” so that it counts as two words instead of one. Anyway, this has been a great week for me because I can now start typing “award-winning” before the titles of two podcasts and a video series.
Three cheers to Business is Boring (Gold, Best Business Podcast) and The Real Pod (Silver, Best Entertainment & Comedy Podcast) on their success at the inaugural NZ Podcast Awards last week, and to 100 Year Forecast director Alexander Gandar who picked up Best Director: NZ Factual at NZ Web Fest 2021 at the weekend. If you have listened to or watched any of these, thank you for supporting The Spinoff’s award-winning content.
–Cal
This week’s new podcasts
Episode rua of Nē? [Apple Podcasts, Spotify] is a kōrero about all the ways the moana sustains us – from kaimoana to surfing to our spiritual needs – with longboard champion and kaitiaki moana Raniera Proctor.
On When the Facts Change [Apple | Spotify], Bernard Hickey speaks to Simplicity’s Sam Stubbs and NZ Living’s Shane Brealey about how they’re teaming up to build quality affordable rentals.
On The Fold [Apple | Spotify] this week, Duncan Greive talks to Discovery boss Glen Kyne about the new owners’ vision for Three.
The Gone By Lunchtime [Apple | Spotify] gang are back with some hot takes on the events of the last two weeks in New Zealand politics.
And as always The Real Pod [Apple | Spotify] takes us on a trawl through the week’s realest news.
Follow and listen now wherever you get your podcasts!
Extremely Online: What is the dark web?
Did you know only 4% of the internet is discoverable through Google search? The rest is what's known as the deep web, and beyond that there’s the dark web. What is it, why was it created and who uses it? The Shit You Should Care About team explains in this week’s episode of Extremely Online.
Made For Love
Toby says: “In the wake of Mark Zuckerberg's weird "Meta" rebrand and his even weirder animated projections of the "metaverse" utopia, I recommend a rewatch of Made for Love on Neon. Cristin Milioti is outstanding as the spouse of a megalomaniac tech billionaire, named, a little on-the-nosely, Byron Gogol. Creepy Byron has built something called "the Hub", a largely synthesised world for them to inhabit, complete with a happy dolphin doing laps of the pool. It's uneven but beautifully shot, and very funny in parts. Mostly, though, Milioti is all of us, staring dumbstruck at the techbro supervillain masters of the metaverse in their turtlenecks and spacesuits and wondering what the bejesus we've gotten ourselves into.”
I Like to Watch
Sam says: “I’m usually allergic to Drag Race content outside of the actual franchise, but I Like to Watch, a Netflix Youtube series hosted by Drag Race alums Trixie Mattel and Katya, is one exception. It doesn’t turn the queens into walking meme machines, but lets them riff on shows and movies with an infectious glee that has taken up many hours of this lockdown. I recommend starting with their enlightening and educational observations of Pose, their enshrining of My Best Friend’s Wedding or their screed against the worldwide scam that is heterosexuality via Too Hot to Handle.”
Piranesi
Shanti says: “I read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke over the weekend. It's that rare thing: a slim (272 pages!) fantasy novel. Written through the author's chronic illness, it’s a book about being deeply lonely, but also deeply attentive to beautiful and strange things within the borders of your life. When I finished I felt grateful, like the world was glowing more than I expected.”
All This Mayhem
Saj says: “I rewatched one of my favourite skateboarding docs All This Mayhem recently and it’s a film you don't need to be into skateboarding to appreciate. Legendary skaters and charismatic brothers Tas and Ben Pappas share an intense bond that not only propels them to the pinnacle of their sport but also proves their undoing in this tragic story. They hate Tony Hawk and it's great to watch. You can find it on Apple TV, or there's a few clips floating around YouTube.”
Succession but it’s a Romantic Comedy
Bel says: “In between Tuesday and Monday nights, something has to happen. I give you: Succession but it’s a Romantic Comedy.”
A message from The Spinoff’s new editor Madeleine Chapman:
Like any good door-to-door salesperson, I’m about to cheerily introduce myself and then, in the very next breath, ask you for money. Hi! I’m Madeleine (or Mad) Chapman, previously an intern at The Spinoff, then a staff writer, senior writer and now editor. It certainly wasn’t the plan to step into this role in the middle of a delta outbreak, nor did I think my first weeks on the job would unfold alongside New Zealand’s largest city slowly coming out of stagnation. But despite the strange and unfortunate circumstances, The Spinoff team has stepped up once again, working tirelessly (and mostly from our bedrooms) to bring you the most important news when you need it, and the lighter moments when things are looking a little bleak. We’ve been able to continue this work because of the ongoing contributions from our members, and I can’t thank you enough.
But I can boldly ask that you consider becoming a member if you aren’t one already. If you’ve read something on our site recently that you enjoyed or appreciated, consider it a koha for that alone, because every dollar donated through The Spinoff Members is used to create more of the work you see every day. And with Christmas around the corner (which I’m finding genuinely hard to believe), there’s no such thing as shipping delays on a membership of The Spinoff bought for whānau and friends.
That’s all for this week. Please reply to get in touch and share with anyone else who might like to subscribe too. See you next Wednesday 👋