March 29 2010
Walkshort and Other Choice NZ On Screen Links
posted by Steven Shaw at 11:46 am
My picks this month from NZ On Screen – New Zealand’s online showcase of TV, film and music video – include Walkshort, a NZ short set on Karangahape Rd with Don McGlashan and Harry Sinclair, and a documentary about New Zealand humour with everyone from Fred Dagg to Funny Business. Check them out below…
Walkshort, starring The Front Lawn’s Don McGlashan and Harry Sinclair, is an iconic NZ short film, set on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd. And yes, they do wear those polyester walk shorts that NZ civil servants and geography teachers used to love. Sinclair and McGlashan — in one guise sporting a frighteningly tall red pomp and with pen snugly tucked into his knee-high socks — walk past the Singing Cowboy and stop outside long-serving K Rd menswear shop Colmax, which specialised in old geezer attire like cardies and shorts. Colmax is gone now, but you can watch Walkshort here
Start Again, made by Roger Donaldson for TV, interviews young people who took a peek at city life and the associated commercialism and opted out, swapping their walk shorts for gumboots, living in railway carriages and producing their own food. Features footage of BLERTA folk talking about their bus and building a geodesic dome house. Disturbing opening scenes paint a bleak future for urban dwellers, complete with Dalek-style voiceover. Watch it here
Made in 1995, Beyond a Joke is a documentary about New Zealand comedy, with classic clips from NZ television shows. They’re all here — Fred Dagg, Barry Crump, A Week of It, McPhail and Gadsby, Billy T James, Pete and Pio, the Topp Twins, Gliding On, Lyn of Tawa and Funny Business. Interviews with Tom Scott, John Clarke, David McPhail and Jon Gadsby put it all in context and reveal the nature of New Zealand satire. Fred Dagg on Daylight Saving: “You can’t play around with nature like that David, it just can’t be done.” Watch it here