The hunt for the great New Zealand sport film
Arguably, New Zealand lacks a great sport film. Sure, there's the Richie documentary, the Amazon documentary and quite a few more All Black documentaries if you type 'sport' into NZ on Screen, but where's our Rocky? Our Dammed United? Our Slap Shot? (And is Rounders a sport film?)
Sport has barrels of agony and ecstasy, played out by heroes and villains, with all kinds of comedy around the edges. Do we have a great NZ sport film? Do we need one? Here's a few, and a couple of documentaries, I recommend tracking them all down if you can.
Stickmen trailer
Stickmen is an underrated and forgotten 2001 film starring Kirk Torrence, Robbie Magasiva and loads more you'll recognise. It's stylistically indebted to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but anyone who's spent time playing pool in New Zealand pubs will recognise the intricacies. The 'drunken master' scene is particularly relatable. Watch excerpts.
Carry Me Back - No shit, this is the best trailer I've ever seen. New Zealand in the 70s! Rugby! Drinking! Car chases! Men having difficulty genuinely expressing their emotions! Prostitution! I saw the film back in the day, and it's a cracker, there's a fair chunk of it over at NZ on Screen. Excerpts.
'81 Springbok tour: Rage and Patu! Rage is the Tom Scott-penned television movie that was well received, while Patu! is Merata Mitu's documentary of a New Zealand that might as well be another planet. Watching NZers who are pretty comfortable with being racist is extremely uncomfortable viewing, and knowing the shocking violence that's coming makes your skin crawl. You can watch the whole thing at NZ on Screen.
Britten - Backyard Visionary - The World's Fastest Indian had better PR, but this is a better story. Christchurch Man knocks up stunning, beautiful and innovative Super Bike in his workshop, beats the world with it and dies tragically young. You can watch the whole documentary at NZ on Screen.
The Kick - if, like me, you well up at the merest thought of Stephen Donald coming off the bench with his determined chin and too-small jersey to win us a bloody World Cup, the story of Waiuku's finest is probably already on Keep in your MySKY box. A great production of one of our great sporting stories, more like this please.
Thanks for reading - Richard
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The week's best NZ sport writing
Mark Richardson is like speed cameras - mysterious, everywhere, and annoying. Steve Kilgallon found out what makes him tick. [stuff.co.nz]
The only female chair at our domestic cricket major associations, Sally Morrison is the daughter of cricketer / mayoral candidate / quote for hire John Morrison, and has made her mark in a short space of time at Cricket Wellington. [stuff.co.nz]
Ben Smith looks at the 2009 Springboks, and argues they're the All Blacks' last actual rivals. He's right [Rugby Pass]
Dylan Cleaver has 46 points on oval ball codes, and they're all typically prescient, needless Waikato-trolling aside (minnows?!?). [NZ Herald]
Video nasty
Irish yachting commentator is one of the great internet videos (NSFW language warning!).
Long read
The Paul McCartney GQ interview - yes, this is the 'Beat the Meatles' one. A cracking interview from Chris Heath, one of the best rock writers going [GQ]
Selected weekend fixtures
It's All Blacks v South Africa in Wellington at 7.35pm Saturday night, where in all likelihood the competition will be over at about 2/3rds of the way though. Australia v Argentina at 10pm will be interesting from a 'new low' perspective, they're on SKY
Mitre 10 cup highlights happened last night when the Mighty Waikato defended the shield against Hawke's Bay. Comedown from that is massive, but North Harbour v BOP at 2.05pm and Canterbury v Auckland at 4.35pm on Sunday will be worth a watch, they're on SKY
Spurs v Liverpool at 11.30pm Saturday night is the tastiest-looking EPL figure, it's on BeIN
Bring back the gif
When you finally spot a park, but it's a tricky parallel, and you don't fancy it.
