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Pop CultureMay 7, 2015

The Bachelor NZ: Power Rankings, Week Eight – The Golden Final Moments on the GC

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Alex Casey delivers her (possibly) final power rankings for The Bachelor NZ. With a winner decided, it’s time to rank the greatest moments of the final week in paradise.

We made it guys, finally tottering along the sandy shores of love to the finalé. And what a finale episode it was – like the producers just whipped out everything they had to put on a tremendous show. Gongs. Jewellery barons. Incontinent koalas. It was there all. Oh, and the winner of course.

Congratulations Matilda on securing the final rose. Did I say rose? I meant comedy-sized ring. Hilariously huge ring. Hope you’ve been drinking loads of milk to strengthen those bones because that sucker looks weighty. But with a great ring comes great hardship – namely the fact that I can no longer power rank anymore. Sorry for your loss Dani, but remember that the finale meant sadness for us all.

So with that, it’s time to bring in Arthur. And/or my final power rankings of the best moments from the final week of The Bachelor NZ 2015.

1) Loose Unit Koala

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At the zoo, Matilda and Art shared an intimate conversation over a cacophony of koala farts. Unhappy with not having his butt opinions heard, Happy Jay the koala proceeded to crap INTO Matilda’s bellybutton. The moral here? Never wear a midriff top to a Koala encounter. Or, maybe, never go to Australia. The rivalry lives on.

2) “Oh my God”

The moment Art revealed that he is not the perfect specimen of masculinity, but in fact a little old lady in prosthetics. Dani had just told him that she has fallen in love with him, and Art nailed the response even more than if he had said “thank you”, Ryan Atwood-style. More breathtaking than The Notebook.

3) Michael Hill Lizard

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Who better the help Art chose the “will you maybe be my girlfriend one day” ring than Michael Hill himself. The diamond baron flew all the way out to the Gold Coast with a trunk full of ornate rings to help out our main man. Mikey Hill himself has been married for 50 years, and told Art that the secret to marriage was to “do stuff together”. I’m just disappointed we didn’t get a cameo from Sir Charles Snack Yoghurt or Dame Diana Revlon.

4) Art’s Mum

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As Dr Hook (a prominent part of my Bachelor experience) once said, “crazy eyes, moving across the floor got me wanting more, crazy eyes.” Art’s Mum’s eyes had all the blue vibrancy of Poppy, and all the erratic twitching of the Whitcoulls Santa in its final moments.

5) Art makes Alysha soup

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“Wine is antioxidants” Art yelled, pouring wine into the tub like a rapper with a hit single hitting the strip club. Adding oils like crazy, it seemed like less of a relaxing soak and more of a jus preparation.

6) Art eats a plastic stick

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Art ate a plastic stick.

7) Best adapted screenplay

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Kudos to whoever wrote Art’s script for the final rose/huge ring ceremony. Pity it’s taken from this scene in Iron Man 2 though. Derivative.

8) Quincegate

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Almost the return of Black Doris, another blonde-haired beauty voiced their own confusion about a luxe fruit-based product. On their final date, Alysha had all eyes on the condiments as she chugged a beer and requested a Ted Talk from Art about the mysterious product. Informative though, we weren’t all born with a silver spoon of quince paste in our mouths.

9) Middle finger to Michael Hill


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Matilda flips him the bird.

10) Art uses his words

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They clearly only had a scriptwriter in for the finale, so Art was left struggling big time on the faux-Venetian gondola with Matilda.


The journey has ended, but it doesn’t have to end for you. Please enjoy our Fantasy Suite podcast below, or click here to read the rest of our coverage of The Bachelor NZ

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ReviewMay 7, 2015

Review: Joseph Moore’s 1989 at the Montecristo

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Despite what Taylor Swift’s album would have you believe, she does not hold the monopoly on 1989. As we found out in Joseph Moore’s comedy show of the same name – there was much more going on that year than the birth of a lady in a “nice dress staring at the sunset”.

Bookending his solo show with loud musical extravaganzas, Joseph Moore packs in as much energy, noise and coloured lighting effects as the dingy subterranean Montecristo room will allow. Even on a Tuesday night, the venue was buzzing with the famed holy trinity of pizza, beer and live comedy. The posters ain’t lying, it’s a pretty great place to be.

Moore’s opening was more than “quite-high-energy”, as his neon pamphlet wearily promised – it was flat-out berserk, and had the whole room laughing. You can immediately see where Jono and Ben – for which he writes – gets their wild musical numbers.

Taylor’s 1989 is an autobiographical and observational journey, and Joseph’s 1989 is too – with almost as much pop music and slightly fewer free polaroids. He’s on a quest to be a better person, with all his anecdotes purposefully concluding with the message that he’s a “piece of shit”. But if he’s a piece of shit, then so are we, and no tale passed without that crushing recognition in each and every member of the audience.

Along with his titular pop culture reference point, Joseph manages to pepper his tales of woe with some breathtakingly uncool cultural figureheads. Hurricanes players from the ’90s. The Hits DJs Polly and Grant. His uncle Phil. The fact that he generates the same response from such off-brand choices ensures that he’s not limited by his age or his very ‘cool’, very ‘now’ style of comedy. It’s all a ruse – he’s as uncool as the rest of us pieces of shit. To borrow a phrase.

It’s easy to draw parallels between elements of the show and the style we see on Jono and Ben. He sets an unbelievably fast pace, plowing through a plethora of gags from accents to prerecorded audio interactions to prop comedy. 1989’s pace and breadth mirrors that of his day job, and his grounding there might well be why he’s able to successfully weave so many elements together. The main difference between the two is that he is consistently a lot funnier – and far more deserving of a one hour slot.

The influence of his background is evident in the spectacle, speed, and sheer quantity of jokes, but this is no bad thing. If anything, it’s a continuing testament to the skill level of this particular generation of young NZ comedians (Rose Matafeo’s show was the same). You can see what happens when they apply their comedy tools to a longer DIY project, rather than having to just do repairs on a drafty hovel week to week. Whatever flack Jono and Ben might get, it’s ultimately doing God’s work in prepping their young team of comedy writers to soar far above the shoulders of the Hallenstein’s suit-wearing radio giants someday very soon.

[Full disclosure: I tried to write for Jono and Ben once, it was outrageously difficult and I was never asked back.] 

With all that said, there were also points of difference from the brand of humour on display at Jono and Ben. Moore was not afraid to slow down slightly and open up about himself, weaving in traumatic near-death experiences and their existential outcomes as well as his own penchant for long-distance relationships. As his year-twin once said, “boys only want love if it’s torture”. I jest, but these more reflective moments were crucial and could have come more often. They showed that behind all the jazzy sound effects and strobing technicolour lights there lies a beating heart inside this piece of shit.

[Full Disclosure, part II: I wish to disclose that Joseph and I know each other and have worked together. In fact, we used to share a feature on this very website called Catch Up Club. Just as Taylor Swift is open about her relationships, I wish to be open about mine within this comedy review. As you were.]

But wait there's more!