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A wrap of the day's big stories

All the top stories and other headlines from the day

The Weed Eaters is a Kiwi comedy-horror set in North Canterbury, following two couples on a New Year's camping trip who encounter a particular strain of weed with unexpected consequences. It debuted at the NZ International Film Festival, won Best Feature at SXSW Sydney, and is currently touring the country. Made for $19,000, the film stars writer Finnius Teppett and Alice May Connolly, known for Sweet Tooth, Wellington Paranormal and The Power of the Dog. Both join Culture 101 live.

Lisa Reihana has spent more than three decades using film, photography and installation to centre Maori and Pacific perspectives in history. She represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and her work sits in collections from Te Papa to the Brooklyn Museum. Right now her installation ANZAC, eight metres high and twenty metres long and made from 180,000 shimmering discs, runs along the Auckland waterfront as part of the Aotearoa Art Fair Sculpture Trail. She joins Culture 101 live to discuss the work, her shimmer-disc technique and thirty years of using the computer as her carving tool.

Dan Slevin is back

Dan Slevin is back

Dan Slevin reviews three new releases: Michael, Antoine Fuqua's biopic of Michael Jackson starring the pop star's nephew Jaafar Jackson; The Time Traveller's Guide to Hamilton Gardens, a documentary about the transformation of a former city rubbish dump into one of the world's great gardens, launching the Resene Architecture & Design Film Festival this week; and Sgt. Haane, Tearepa Kahi's ANZAC Day release about 28th Maori Battalion soldier Haane Manahi.

Laura Jean Shannon is a superhero speciality costume designer whose credits include Iron Man, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Murderbot. For the past seven years she's been working on The Boys, the Amazon Prime series about a group of corrupt celebrity supervillains led by Kiwi actor Antony Starr, with the fifth and final season now streaming. Shannon is in Auckland this weekend for Armageddon Expo and joins Culture 101 to talk about what it takes to dress a superhero.

Brett Graham has been a prominent figure in contemporary Maori art since the 1990s, with work shown at the Venice Biennale and in collections around the world. His latest work, Doorway Into Night, is a large, near-entirely black Whare Mate at Gow Langsford Gallery in Onehunga, shrouded in dyed cabbage leaves and accompanied by a text from Ngahuia te Awekotuku and an original soundscape. Perlina caught up with Brett at the gallery in the final hours before the exhibition opened.

The top stories and other headlines at midday

The Rabbit Hunter III is the third book in Christopher Worth's trilogy about the battle for Crete in World War II. The book opens where the previous book ended, with Second Lieutenant Neil Rankin standing forlorn on a deserted beach, with no rescue in sight. Christopher joins Jim to talk more about the finale of the trilogy, with a reminder that the cost of freedom is high and always paid in bitter coin.

Bonnie Harrison is here guiding us through the latest weird and useful headlines from the world of science, including the rhythm of the rain speeding up plant growth, and why first-born children earn more than their siblings.

Our US politics commentator, Statehouse News bureau chief Karen Kasler, joins Jim to discuss the latest in US politics.

Loneliness is on the rise and younger people are among the hardest hit. While around 9% of New Zealanders report having no close friends, that number jumps to 15% for mid-life men, with Gen Z and Millennials far more likely to feel friendless than previous generations. Jim discusses that and more with Marc Wilson, Professor of psychology at Victoria University.

How significant is our diet when it comes to how fast we age? For his new book Dr David Cox met with experts who have investigated what is accelerating our biological clocks and what we can do about it. David joins Jim to discuss The Age Code and why our eating habits need to change to help us live longer.

New Scientist journalist Matthew Sparkes recently chucked out his boots after travelling deep into Chernobyl's exclusion zone. Forty years on from the world's worst nuclear disaster, the site has become a vast, living scientific experiment where researchers are now working under the constant threat of Russian military activity. Sparkes talks to Jim about visiting some of Chernobyl's most sensitive and closely guarded scientific sites, and what the disaster can teach us about how to respond to future nuclear accidents.

What was once a city rubbish dump is now recognised as one of the world's great gardens. A new documentary hitting cinemas next week, The Time Traveller's Guide to Hamilton Gardens, tells the story of how mastermind designer Peter Sergel has captured the history of gardens through time. Award-winning photographer and filmmaker Grant Sheehan talks to Jim about this unique "museum of humanity".

Quiz master Jack Waley-Cohen is back with his Sunday Morning quiz. Jack is the mind behind the questions on BBC's quiz show Only Connect, renowned for being both hard - and at the same time totally obvious. Wake up your brain and have a go!

British historian and geopolitical commentator Mark Almond joins Jim to discuss the latest about the conflict in the Middle East. Almond, who has written for The Independent, Daily Mail and The Telegraph, among others, is the director of the Crisis Research Institute in Oxford (CRIOx), an organisation dedicated to analysing historical and contemporary crises.

This morning's top stories and other headlines