Archive

Dues Ex: Human Revolution

Posted 6:11am Monday 19th September 2011 by Critic

Platforms: PC, xbox 360, PS3 (4.5/5) My version of Adam Jensen, protagonist of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, practised Batman's brand of pacifism. Shattered elbow joints, enough brain trauma for hours of unconsciousness, even getting squashed by an industrial freezer; it's all dandy as long as Read more...

The Help

Posted 6:09am Monday 19th September 2011 by Lu Sandston

Director: Tate Taylor (4/5) Based on the best-selling book by Kathryn Stockett, The Help was adapted for the screen and directed by Tate Taylor. It’s the late 1960s in Jackson Mississippi and Skeeter (Emma Stone) returns from university to her hometown, which is populated by a group of Read more...

Hanna

Posted 6:07am Monday 19th September 2011 by Eve Duckworth

Director: Joe Wright (3.5/5) Think The Bourne Identity but in the form of a teenage girl who has been trained by her father from babyhood to be an ice-cold killer, and you have Hanna.   The film begins sixty miles below the Arctic Circle. There, in a snowscape across which a deer Read more...

Incendies

Posted 6:05am Monday 19th September 2011 by Michaela Hunter

Director: Denis Villeneuve (5/5)   Incendies opens with an unsettling scene of child soldiers having their heads shaved, accompanied by the evocative Radiohead’s ‘You and Whose Army?’. The undefined nature of this scene flows throughout the film, which is somewhat Read more...

The Bang Bang Club

Posted 6:01am Monday 19th September 2011 by Jane Ross

Director: Steven Silver (3/5) Based on the real-life experiences of four South African photojournalists who achieved international notoriety and recognition for their documentation of the turbulent lead-up to the Republic’s first free election in 1994, The Bang Bang Club really should Read more...

Chrome yellow

Posted 3:23am Monday 12th September 2011 by Bronwyn Wallace

This week’s lunchtime theatre featured an adaption of Aldous Huxley’s 1921 novel Crome Yellow, a story that mocks the fashions of the time and delves deeply into topics such as art, education, love and life. The director went unaccredited in the programme, so I apologise for not Read more...

Chad VanGaalen – Diaper Island

Posted 2:58am Monday 12th September 2011 by Critic

  With a prolific musical and illustrative output only matched by his passionate cult following, Chad VanGaalen seems on a mission to induct listeners into his own insular, idiosyncratic world. Populated with melancholy, melody and wonderfully off-kilter compositions existing on a musical Read more...

Beastwars with Soulseller and Idiot Prayer

Posted 2:56am Monday 12th September 2011 by Critic

Once again returning to Dunedin after a spectacular May performance, the Beastwars Winter Tour saw some true sonic weight hit Re:Fuel. Friday September 2 Re:Fuel  Opening proceedings, Idiot Prayer played an unfamiliar set comprised of new material. With almost industrial Read more...

Bastion

Posted 2:53am Monday 12th September 2011 by Markus Ho

Platforms: PC, XBLA You can’t help but feel like a child as you play through Bastion, bright-eyed and attentive, completely captivated by the story of the Great Calamity. “Proper story supposed to start from the beginning. Ain't so simple with this one” is how the story of Read more...

Moroccan chickpeas with spicy paella

Posted 2:51am Monday 12th September 2011 by Ruby the nutritionist

Chickpeas are just the best. Every time I go home for a holiday I fill a gym bag with delicious things from my mum’s pantry (Air NZ “sports allowance”, thank you!), including various nuts and seeds and dried fruit and, of course, cans of delicious legumey goodness. Mum just sighs wearily and reminds Read more...

The Guard

Posted 2:46am Monday 12th September 2011 by Daniel F. Benson-Guiu

Director: John Michael McDonagh (4.5/5)  Your average Dubliner would think a small town in rural Ireland wouldn’t need a policeman. Connemara, 200 km west of Dublin, doesn’t have a cop, well, at least not a conventional one. Jerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) could not care Read more...

Senna

Posted 2:43am Monday 12th September 2011 by Theo Kay

Director: Asif Kapadia (5/5) Senna is an unforgettable film. The documentary examines the public career of Formula One driver and Brazilian national icon Ayrton Senna. At the same time it presents an extremely personal portrait of a man who revolutionised the racing world. There is no doubt Read more...

The Tree of Life

Posted 2:41am Monday 12th September 2011 by Jane Ross

Director: Terrence Malick (4/5) Audiences fervent for a visual assault on the senses will find Terrence Malick’s brave new epic film, The Tree of Life, remarkably awe-inspiring. Although this year’s darling of the Cannes Film Festival and winner of the coveted Palme d’Or, Read more...

Crazy Stupid Love

Posted 2:38am Monday 12th September 2011 by Tom Ainge-Roy

Director: Glenn Ficarra (4/5) Crazy Stupid Love is quite simply a pleasant romantic comedy. With moments of brilliant humour and a surprise twist, the story goes from convenient to engaging whilst neatly avoiding the pitfalls of most rom-coms. As a caveat I should probably mention that I am a Read more...

Bound, Vanda Symon

Posted 2:12am Monday 12th September 2011 by Feby Idrus

Bound is the fourth book in Vanda Symon’s crime novel series starring Detective Sam Shephard, and it opens with a hell of a bang (kind of literally; there’s a reason why the murder victim’s face is described as “just dripping meat, bone and brain”). In fact, the opening made me think “Wow, she’s Read more...

SARAH LUCAS: NZU SPIRIT OF EWE

Posted 2:01am Monday 12th September 2011 by Critic

Sarah Lucas was a central figure among the wave of young British artists (YBAs), such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, who took the international art world by storm in the Nineties. Lucas is an artist whose practice spans from photography, sculpture and installation. Her works are Read more...

Cult Film of the Week: Taffin (1988)

Posted 4:27am Monday 5th September 2011 by

Director: Francis Megahy Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Ray McAnally, Alison Doody Taffin resided in relative obscurity until early this year when the Adam & Joe Show unearthed what has since become an internet meme – Pierce Brosnan, as the title character Taffin, screaming: “Then Read more...

Dues Ex

Posted 4:25am Monday 5th September 2011 by Critic

  Choice. That, fundamentally, is the purpose of interactivity. 2000’s Deus Ex opens with a simple choice made by the player on an understated wharf on Liberty Island. The rickety wood panels are rendered in graphics that were archaic even when the game was released, but Read more...

Blocks That Matter

Posted 4:22am Monday 5th September 2011 by Critic

Platforms: PC, OS X, (2.5/5 Computers, even laptops, are bulky and cumbersome. You need to wrestle with the lid, then patiently wait as the internal programming of ‘the hive from 2005’ trips over itself, straining to open its own operating system. That’s the problem with Read more...

Woyzeck

Posted 4:19am Monday 5th September 2011 by Ben Blackface

Georg Büchner translated by John Mackendric; directed by Anna Parsons and Aaron Mayes; starring Joel Rees, Dianne Pulham, Sam Irwin, Jacob McDowell, Lockie Scott When I saw that Woyzeck was in the Lunchtime Theatre programme the word that came to mind was “ambitious”, not that I Read more...