Teen survives off the farm
It’s not everyday that your family member is standed in a jungle as part of a television show.
McClintock family, if you are reading this right now it might come as news to you that your 19-year-old daughter and granddaughter has been stranded in the Nicaraguan jungle as part of a television show.
Louisa McClintock, a fulltime farmer at 17, was part of a cast of 16 who have been roughing it in Nicaragua for up to 40 days.
McClintock left Christchurch Girls’ High School after getting NCEA Level 2 so she could live and work alongside her grandfather, Graham McClintock.
They don’t use the internet, have no computer and like to do things the old fashioned way, she said.
The teenager doesn’t party, doesn’t drink (instead of drinking, McClintock hunts), and says living in a boarding house was like ‘‘being sent to prison’’.
So going on the first season of Survivor NZ seemed like a pretty good idea, she says.
‘‘We do overnight camping out the back, light up a fire, eat what we’ve pretty much just killed.
‘‘We’ve got cattle and sheep so we just eat our own,’’ she says.
McClintock, her grand father,
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (M, 137 mins) Directed by James Gunn
What’s the one bad thing about making a box office smash that blew everyone away?
Trying to come up with a sequel that will live up to some incredibly high expectations.
Clearly, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 could never match the magic of the original 2014 Marvel film. That one had the element of surprise, with writerdirector James Gunn providing a fresh and fabulous take on superhero films that tended to take themselves a bit too seriously.
This time around, we all know what to expect, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. The impact isn’t quite the same, yet it’s still a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with this merry bunch of misfits. You want more witty one-liners, kick-ass 70s tunes and crazy space shenanigans? You got it – and then some.
The gang’s all here again – well, more or less, depending on how you view the unbearably cute Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) – and not much has changed. Smart-mouthed hero Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), still has daddy issues and the hots for green assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), who definitely hasn’t healed the rift with bionic sister Nebula (Karen Gillan).
Rocket, the wise-ass raccoon and their colleague Joe, live a few kilometres up from the North Canterbury town of Cheviot where they farm beef and sheep on a farm in the hills.
They’re a tight group, the three of them, she says.
Everyone pitches in on everything.
That includes repairs to the books - literally - there’s no computer on the farm.
But McClintock didn’t tell them when she left the farm for Nicaragua.
She and the other contestants were bound to secrecy. In fact, McClintock says this article will most likely break the news to most of her family.
‘‘I said I was off on an OE, just on an overseas experience. I’ve always wanted to go to Canada, always wanted to, I never said where.’’
On her return, McClintock says few questions were asked: ‘‘It was really great, no one asked any. They thought I was having the time of my life.’’
Producers of Survivor NZ confirmed nothing was exaggerated for the camera.
The contestants had to hunt or forage for food, which shouldn’t be (voiced by Bradley Cooper), is still a trigger-happy jerk, while Drax, the tactless muscle man (Dave Bautista), gets all the best lines – and an amusing new buddy named Mantis (Pom Klementieff).
The Guardians get in trouble after Rocket steals some fancy batteries they’re meant to be guarding on a planet ruled by a golden queen (Elizabeth Debicki). The angry golden gang comes after the Guardians, a mighty battle ensues, and lo and behold, Peter bumps into his long-lost daddy Ego (Kurt Russell).
The reunion doesn’t quite go as planned, but with family being a clear theme of Vol. 2, there are too much of a challenge for a few of the competitors.
Former army sergeant Tony Deane, 55, and a few other hunters plenty of touching moments thrown in among all the action and wisecracks.
There’s also a whole other storyline involving the Ravagers and Peter’s pseudo-dad Yondu (Michael Rooker) – complete with a Sylvester Stallone cameo.
At times, there’s a bit too much going on, and it starts to feel like maybe we’re just being set up for Vol. 3.
But so what if we are? Fun is the name of the game here, and Vol. 2 has it in spades. So just sit back, relax and enjoy this space ride for what it is – and don’t forget to stay for the credits. – Christina Kuntz were sent to the jungle as well.
Deane says he was well prepared for the physical and mental survival aspect of the
Brothers butt heads
Rams offers yet another surprise 2016 package from Iceland, the Nordic land that former English footballer Gary Lineker described as having ‘‘more volcanoes than professional footballers’’ (after they defeated his home nation at Euro 2016). Writer-director Grimur Hakonarson ( A Pure Heart, Summerland), skilfully manages a number of tonal transitions, keeping his focus on the changing relationship between two estranged farming brothers, as they firstly seem set to escalate to open warfare, before realising they may have to work together for a common goal.
Monday, 8.30pm, Rialto show, but the social side could be tricker.
Also announced on Thursday, as part of the last of four cast
Songs of protest
Soundtrack for a Revolution is a 2009 documentary which tells the story of the American civil rights movement through its powerful music – the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality. ‘‘Through vivid archival material and voice-overs, the filmmakers create moving vignettes that, taken together, form a fascinating primer on nonviolence as a political force and discipline,’’ wrote The Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday.
Tuesday, 8.30pm, Maori TV announcements from TVNZ, was youth expedition leader Avi, 32 from Wellington, and Christchurch zookeeper Shannon, 24.
Nate, a 45-year-old police sergeant from Dannevirke, was announced as the final Survivor NZ contestant for season one.
Deane and Auckland mother Barb were the only contestants aged over 50 to be selected for the show.
Asked why she wanted to go on the show, Barb responded: ‘‘let’s call it a midlife crisis’’.
A Christchurch contestant, Matai’a Salatielu (Sala) Tiatia, 40, said people had been asking him how he’d lost so much weight after he got back from the show.
Tiatia worked in alternative education at a school to help ‘‘at risk’’ kids.
Survivor NZ producers had earlier touted Tiatia as ‘‘a hugger’’.
Apparently, they had to warn him off hugging all the crew early on due to fears the other contestants may think there was some favouritism at play.
‘‘A lot of my young people still don’t understand that aspect of aroha, they themselves are growing up in broken homes or in a gang affiliated community or surrounded by drugs and alcohol,’’ he said.
He greeted everyone with a hug, he said.
Soul-filled sounds
Respected by her peers and revered internationally by those in the know – Donna Dean is perhaps our most famous singersongwriter you’ve never heard of. That’s something fellow Kiwi musician Bill Morris aims to put right with his 2016 documentary The Sound of Her Guitar. What started as an attempt to capture the two-time New Zealand Country Music Album of the Year winner in her element as she brought her music to the home of ‘‘country’’ – middle-America – soon became an intimate portrait of a woman who overcame a troubled background and poured her pain into her heart-rending songs.
Thursday, 8.30pm, Rialto
Crazy, beautiful songs
Aimee Mann has been typecast as a singer who always sees the dark lining in the silver cloud, and so she doubles down on that reputation by titling her latest album Mental Illness ( Mann’s also got a healthy sense of humour about life and herself, and she writes songs built to outlast any heartache. These are often beautiful songs about being stuck in a rut, the notion that some people’s lives are about endlessly repeating the same mistake expecting a different result. That’s a layman’s definition of mental illness, and Mann’s artfully realised songs suggest that it’s far more common than one might think. It’s among Mann’s sparest, quietest albums and also among her most beautiful. Beyond her conversational delivery, the singer’s background vocals provide a haunting, wordless backdrop that functions like another instrument. – Greg Kot, TNS
Groovy guitar work
Roy Buchanan’s Loading Zone and You’re Not Alone ( are two mid-70s classical albums from one of life’s should-have-been, could-havebeen great rock guitarists. If this album proves anything, it’s that Buchanan was not tied to any style, jumping from blues to jazz to country. And maybe that’s the problem. Without serious direction, these albums feel a little discombobulated, yet Buchanan remains the guitarist most others wanted to emulate. – Colin Morris
Better than middling
Based on the first of four books by Chris Tebbets and James Patterson, Middle School (PG, ) with its subtitle The Worst Years of My Life, is an entertaining slice of Disney Channel-esque subversive comedy that will appeal to both tweens and adults. Although its illustrative breakouts, sibling rivalry and endless pranks invites comparisons to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, it actually more closely evokes the works of John Hughes, especially Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Breakfast Club, with its emphasis on ‘‘stopping the fun being sucked out of childhood’’. – James Croot
War disappoints
John Michael McDonagh fails to get anywhere near the heights of his hilarious debut The Guard, in the lessthan-palatable buddy-cop movie War on Everyone (R16, ). Set in Albuquerque, it follows the misadventures of the Glen Campbellloving loner Terry (Alexander Skarsgard) and smack-talking family man Bob (Michael Pena). From the flashy Euro villain and bad-haired henchman, to the hip pop-culture and philosophy conversations, this is a film that desperately wants to be the 2016 equivalent of a Shane Black movie ( Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang). Unfortunately, The Nice Guys got there first. – James Croot