Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Irony Deficiency Watch from (where else?) The Herald: Latest sell out to Hollywood further delays self reliance.
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From The Herald today:
Recommendation for Thursday's council meeting
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*The governing body now signals its willingness to work with the mayor and establish better liaison between the mayor's office and governing body in the best interests of Auckland and its people.
What we really need to be talking about are elected councillors who've basically (and unwittingly) admitted they don't have "functional relationships" with each other or the Mayor. What the fuck have these people been doing on the public tit all this time, and isn't it just a little rich blaming it all on Len Brown's wandering cock?
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And folks getting snotty about the malign influence of evil foreigners might want to take a look at The Weight of Elephants – which I thought was a damn fine, and much under-rated, local film despite the participation of the Danish Film Institute & Lars von Trier’s company, Zenotropa. (No stunt genitals were harmed during the making of this film.)
I know this is going to ruffle a lot of cultural nationalist feathers, but does New Zealand pay enough attention to the other c-word: CO-PRODUCTION? One of the more bitter ironies is that it was announced SyFy US had picked up The Almighty Johnsons (as far as I'm aware, the first time a US network has brought a NZ drama) a few weeks before it was cancelled here. Would that show have been more secure if it had been a co-pro from the start?
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Good that the councillors are using the opportunity of the mayor’s indiscretions to try and forge more workable relationships.
If that's what it takes, Len Brown can fuck me fifty ways to Friday and I'll spring for the motel rooms as an act of public service. Otherwise, that's just damn depressing. What the hell have you people been doing all this time, Sandra?
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Speaker: Levelling the Playing Field, in reply to Campbell Walker,
This doesn’t make better NZ films, it cripples better NZ filmmakers into learning how to make Hollywood films (or other parts of the commercial screen sector, yes), or going into the deep underground like i did.
With all due and sincere respect, Campbell, perhaps you are being pre-emptively dismissive. Maybe, just maybe, it does actually help make better NZ films – and films that are seen – if every new generation (whether “mainstream” or cinematic fucking Wombles) doesn’t end up having to start from ground zero every damn time. It’s never easy getting a film seen, but do we have to make it any harder?
but yeah: cameron and landau are hardly the first dudes you’d pick as promoters of kiwi culture.
OK, fine. How about making Bill Gosden a better offer, because he seems to have built up some non-"blockbuster" networks over his years running the New Zealand International Film Festival that might be useful to Kiwi film-makers.
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Hard News: We need to talk about Len, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Come on then. Explain why it’s a good idea to have an elected leader for councils when our central government (and almost all others apart from the US) doesn’t.
I’m still to hear why it’s a bad idea, beyond Cameron Slater, the editorial board of the NZ Herald and various councillors hating the incumbent Mayor of Auckland. Which they're perfectly entitled to do, but I don't think that's much of an argument for a non-trivial alteration in the nature of local government.
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Hard News: We need to talk about Len, in reply to Jim Cathcart,
The CEO of Panasonic had limited himself to USD100 max for hotels on his frequent visits to Tokyo and he made a point out of staying in reasonably priced hotels on overseas trips. That is leadership during tough economic times.
Ah yes, I’m sure that’s a great comfort to the 46,000 Panasonic employees who’ve been laid off over the last two years.
Maybe we should move away from elected mayors and have them indirectly elected by council. That way, if councillors are unhappy with the mayor, they can choose another one.
Oh, great. I'm not sure you're drawing a very good analogy with central government there.
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Hard News: We need to talk about Len, in reply to Russell Brown,
Orsman’s story this morning slamming Brown because he isn’t personally paying for the review is quite a stretch. He was never at any point asked to.
"Quite a stretch" is extremely generous, Russell, and sincere ups to you for managing it. I don't know if Orsman's lost his news sense entirely, or he's just being a good soldier and following the editorial line, but that was non-news. And after his *cough* rather slanted pseudo-reportage on the Unitary Plan, perhaps its time for the Herald to just stop pretending he's an actual journalist any more and restrict his by-line to the 'opinon' page.
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Meanwhile, in other news, how about that one time Auckland Council candidate who was convicted of actual electoral fraud this past week? That actually concerns me a lot more than sniffing the Mayor's gruts for spunk stains, but carry on Herald...
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Auckland is facing both opportnities and challenges in the next few years, and – in three years from a standing start – Brown and his council have constructed plans to address both. The city is growing and changing in positive ways. But Brown has deeply harmed his own ability to continue to credibly fill that role. Can anybody look at him now and be confident there’s no more to come?
Not if the unelected and ultimately unaccountable New Zealand Herald has anything to do with it. OK, I know I take a much dimmer view of the media’s role in this than a lot of people, but Jesus… I really wouldn’t mind that rag (and its more sanctimonious columnists) getting served a reality check that they don’t get to appoint Auckland’s mayor. And they sure as shit don’t get to convict anyone of a crime through trial by media.
Oh, and remember when the Herald was running hot and heavy with claims that Mayor Love Rat got his mistress a job at the Auckland City Art Gallery? Funny how the sections of the report that found zero evidence of any such thing weren’t given equal prominence. Those were incredibly serious allegations, but I guess that's The Herald's m.o. nowadays -- when you've flung shit at people, unfairly, who cares about setting the record straight unless a laywer is making you do it?