Archive

The Rocket

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Tamarah Scott

Rating: 4/5 Viewers often engage with films in an effort to derive pleasure from an existential experience. The Rocket truly gives the viewer a chance to walk in someone else’s shoes by transporting them directly into young Alo’s (Sitthiphon Disamoe) life and culture in rural Laos. The film Read more...

Antarctica: A Year on Ice

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 4/5 When the Dunedin International Film Festival schedule was released this year I was excited to see what would be kicking off the festival. Every year the opening film is something unique and spectacular, such as last year’s Moonrise Kingdom (directed by Wes Anderson). I was a Read more...

Much Ado About Nothing

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Lyle Skipsey

The Regent Theatre - Octagon Thursday 22 August 8.30pm Friday 23 August 11am The Guardian has called it “the first great contemporary Shakespeare since Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet.” Now Joss Whedon’s take on the Bard’s Much Ado About Nothing is coming to the New Zealand Film Festival. Read more...

The Deadly Ponies Gang

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Amber Pullin

Rialto Cinema - Moray Place Friday 23 August 12.30pm Sunday 25 August 2.15pm This documentary follows very-best mates Clint and Dwayne: the sole two members of the Deadly Ponies Gang. The Deadly Ponies are not exactly a conventional gang. No cars, no motorbikes: these two fellas go Read more...

Interview: E. L. Katz (Director of Cheap Thrills)

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Aaron Hawkins

Rialto Cinema - Moray Place Saturday August 10 8:30pm The Regent Theatre - Octagon Sunday August 11 - 8:45pm Director Evan L. Katz’s latest film, Cheap Thrills, is a devilish morality tale in which a wealthy couple (David Koechner and Sara Paxton) test how far a poor couple (Ethan Read more...

App of the Week | Issue 18

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Raquel Moss

Weebly is a drag-and-drop, no-coding-required platform for creating websites that actually look good. If you need to create a quick website to advertise your tutoring skills, or your Mum’s clothing-swap event, Weebly is the way to go. Think of it as the 2013 equivalent of GeoCities, with nicer Read more...

I Just Want to Watch Game of Thrones, Damnit

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Raquel Moss

Television networks have pulled their socks up over the past few years. The proliferation of piracy online means it is no longer acceptable to air international TV shows in New Zealand months, or even years, after their inception. Not that it was ever acceptable, really – we just didn’t have much Read more...

Bliss N Eso - Circus in the Sky

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 2/5 When their new album Circus in the Sky materialised in the Critic office, I hadn’t the faintest idea who Bliss N Eso were. However, I fell hook, line and sinker for the ludicrously shiny packaging the CD came in, making me just curious enough to find out. For a long time I Read more...

μ-Ziq - Chewed Corners

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3.5/5 Michael Paradinas, most commonly known as μ-Ziq (pronounced “music”), is an English electronic musician. Though an influential figure in IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) over the last 20 years, he has never received quite the attention or acclaim of his contemporaries, such as Read more...

State of Decay XBLA

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 9/10 No doubt many of you have noticed that the world seems to have come down with a nasty case of zombie fever. Films, books, video games – name it and there is probably a large number of zombie iterations currently being developed or hitting the crowded market. This is the fifth Read more...

Pumpkin Pesto Risotto

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Kirsty Dunn

Tis the season for pumpkiny goodness. I picked up a fine, fresh looking specimen from the Dunedin Farmer’s Market last weekend for just $2 and managed to make this, a few servings of soup, and even had a little left over to go with the roast last night. Cooking with seasonal produce requires a bit Read more...

Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Feby Idrus

This entertaining read is the newest collection of short essays from humourist and writer David Sedaris, who burst onto the scene with his second book Me Talk Pretty One Day. As with his previous essay collections, Sedaris’ essays cover his childhood in North Carolina, the state of present-day Read more...

A Micronaut in the Wide World

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

Hocken Library, 15 June – 10 August Exhibitions featuring an illustrator are few and far between. Depending on the number of bedtime stories you demanded as a kid, they can plunge you nostalgically back into childhood. Although he lived most of his adult life in London, Graham Percy Read more...

It’s A Wonderful Life

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

Frank Capra’s 1946 It’s a Wonderful Life is the best Christmas film ever made. Don’t worry, not in an oh-my-Jesus-I’m-so-hipster-I-can-only-appreciate-films-made-before-the-advent-of-the-toaster-oven kind of way, but in a highly-accessible-heart-warming-life-affirming way. James Stuart, in Read more...

The Wolverine

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 4/5 It takes a movie like The Wolverine to make you realise why all of the superhero films (particularly Marvel’s) are beginning to feel stale, and it is because they all feel exactly the same. Although they all have different heroes facing different situations, they share virtually Read more...

Ping Pong

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

Rating: 2.5/5 Ping Pong is a documentary that follows eight competitors at the World Over-80s Table Tennis Championships in China. These elderly sportspeople include such characters as terminally ill Terry from Great Britain, 85-year-old Texan first-timer Lisa and 100-year-old ping pong Read more...

The World’s End

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Lyle Skipsey

Rating: 4/5 I feel there should be a disclaimer up front: when I left the movie last night I fully expected to give it a rather mediocre score. However, having slept on it, maybe I judged too soon. The World’s End is the third instalment in the “not a trilogy” Cornetto trilogy that Read more...

Gardening With Soul

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

Gardening with Soul is a New Zealand documentary film that tells the story of a year in the life of Sister Loloya Galvin, the 90-year-old head gardener of Wellington’s Home of Compassion. Director Jess Feast follows Sister Loyola through the four seasons, in which their conversations and Loyola’s Read more...

To the Wonder

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

The Regent Theatre - Octagon Sunday 18 August 8.45pm Rialto Cinema - Moray Place Tuesday 20 August 4pm Terrence Malick is a director lucky enough to have been stamped with auteur status. Nature, love and religion are the core of his past works Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Read more...

The Gilded Cage (La Cage dorée)

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

The Regent Theatre - Octagon Friday 9 August 6.30pm Tuesday 13 August 11am This upstairs-downstairs drama/comedy was a break-out hit in France, closing on 1.2 million admissions and sparking a Latino remake that is currently in the works. Set in present-day Paris, The Gilded Read more...