Those wacky Kiwis again

So I fired up my RSS reader this morning and what did Radio New Zealand have? There was some news, and a lot of reports about the lastest overblown movie to be based on the work of JRR Tolkien opening in New Zealand where it was mostly filmed. Yes, I'm talking about The Hobbit, as if three Bored of the Rings movies weren't enough. Of course, being an American, I don't always get the pride that people in smaller countries get when something related to their country hits the world spotlight in a positive way. I suppose it's like those "Hollywood in Your Hometown" pieces TCM airs, only at times it goes much further: my Finnish friends inform me that the tabloids have gone nuts over a Finnish reality show contestant who is boinking an American reality show contestant. (The Finns I know don't care, but there seems to be an air of "Isn't this the greatest thing ever!!" from the tabloid articles. One can also presume the tabloids wouldn't report on this stuff if it didn't sell.) As for New Zealand in the movies, it's not as if the country got much attention from Hollywood during the studio era. I can think of Green Dolphin Street back in the 1940s and Until They Sail from the late 1950s, and that's about it.

But that's not really why I'm writing this particular post anyhow. This morning, one of the Radio New Zealand feeds had the following report:

Teen movie blogger

A movie blog called Cinematic Paradox, that includes movie reviews, Oscar predictions, and advice to directors about how to make their movies better, is winning awards. Stevee Taylor writes the blog and has won "Lammys", or Large Association of Movie Bloggers awards for best blog, best rating system, best awards coverage and more. And she's just 17-years old. The Dannevirke High School student spends two hours most nights writing the blog from her bedroom and more than 50,000 people have viewed it.

The report is a 3.3 MB audio file, and based on the last RNZ report I linked to, that should probably run around ten minutes; I haven't listened to it yet. If you want to read the Cinematic Paradox blog, there's your link.