Archive

Graffiti in Chernobyl

Posted 6:34am Thursday 19th May 2011 by Hana Aoake

In the last few years, images have surfaced of street art in the abandoned city of Chernobyl, which was victim to a nuclear explosion in 1986 after a reactor malfunctioned. Like Hiroshima, the desolate landscape in Chernobyl highlights the city’s process of being moulded and manipulated, but in a Read more...

Fiona Amundsen: First city in history.

Posted 6:33am Thursday 19th May 2011 by Hana Aoake

Dunedin Public Art Gallery At 2:45am on August 6, 1945 a B-29 under the command of Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, a twenty-nine year old veteran pilot, began to roll down a runway on Tinian Island to take off on its historic mission to Hiroshima.   The title of New Zealand artist Fiona Read more...

God of Carnage

Posted 5:04am Thursday 12th May 2011 by Jen Aitken

Directed by Lara MacGregor. Starring Phil Vaughn, John Glass, Claire Dougan and Barbara Power. Written by Yasmina Reza and translated by Christopher Hampton, (4/5). Carnage: the killing of a large number of people. Although God of Carnage did not actually present on stage the killing of a Read more...

Feastock; The Arrival of the Invercargill Sound

Posted 11:44pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Sam Valentine

Say the word “Invercargill” to many musicians, and you’ll probably get a rather mixed response. But standing amongst the damp, leafy surroundings of 3 Fea Street, in secluded Pine Hill, I was struck by an interesting concept. Has the country’s most southern city better known for, um, well let’s be Read more...

Outland

Posted 11:42pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Toby Hills

Platforms: XBLA, PSN, (4/5). Outland is alchemy. Take a sickle's worth of Mario Bros 2D platforming, and heat in a geothermal pool with the polarity mechanic most famous in Ikaruga. Distill a generous ounce of Metroid's adventuring with a batch of art and sound design reminiscent  of Shadow Read more...

Hector: Badge of Carnage: Episode 1 - We Negotiate With Terrorists

Posted 11:41pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Toby Hills

Platforms: IOS, MAC, PC, (3.5/5). A trend is developing, and it's kind of frustrating. Twice this year I've had to admit that - despite proudly displaying the juvenile shades that are kind-of-sort-of crippling the industry's artsy potential - I really appreciate it when games like Bulletstorm and Read more...

Three Mince Recipes

Posted 11:37pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Leah Hamilton

Mince is really cheap, isn't it? Doesn't taste too shabby either. Well, unless your flatmate, like mine, simply fries it and serves it plain on gooey rice. Mmmm. To save you all from Mincezilla, here are three delicious recipes that will put your mince to good use. Enjoy! Chilli Con Carne Read more...

Sarah’s Key

Posted 11:34pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Zane Pocock

Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner, (4/5). I haven’t read the best-selling novel by journalist Tatiana de Rosnay on which this film is based, but going by what director Gilles Paquet-Brenner has produced, my guess is that it would be well worth it. Like most Holocaust films, this will bring Read more...

Mozart’s Sister

Posted 11:26pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Nick Hornstein

Directed by René Féret, (2.5/5).   Mozart’s Sister portrays the life of Anna Maria Mozart (nicknamed “Nannerl”), who was denied a similar path to that of her younger brother, Wolfgang. In the beginning, she is still performing, though overshadowed and sidelined as Read more...

Fast Five

Posted 11:17pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Matt Chapman

Directed by Justin Lin, (3.5/5). We’ve come a long way since 2 Fast 2 Furious, and Fast Five wants to make that known. Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster return for the fifth installment in the Fast and the Furious series, and Justin Lin returns as director. Yet, Lin takes a Read more...

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (3D)

Posted 11:14pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Sarah Baillie

Directed by Jon Chu, (4/5). I am not afraid to admit it; I am in love with Justin Bieber. Knowing little about the phenomenon of Bieber fever but thinking it would be hilariously awesome to go and see “the Justin Bieber movie”, I headed down to Hoyts, 3D glasses in hand. Little did I Read more...

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Posted 11:11pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Ben Blakely

Directed and written by John Cameron Mitchell. Starring: John Cameron Mitchell, Miriam Shor, Andrea Martin, Michael Pitt. Hedwig is in a bit of a slump. She’s on tour with the band the Angry Inch, but the gigs they play aren’t in flashy arenas; they are in fast food and Read more...

Style shepherds

Posted 10:13pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Eloise Callister-Baker

In New Zealand we seem to be living in the time of choice, so why do we limit our outfits to clothing that will blend into a crowd? Why do girls enjoy oversized off-the-shoulder knits with black tights; why do boys save up for their Lower jeans and black t-shirts? It seems that there is such a Read more...

Queen gives McQueen the royal seal of approval

Posted 10:10pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Mahoney Turnbull

Sarah Burton, quiet achiever of the House of McQueen; what a stunner of a dress. Make that plural sorry, dresses, even if they were curiously similar - you’d swear the latter was a refinement of the first. But when Westminster’s at stake, hell, why not? As the newest addition to the Royal Read more...

From Under the Overcoat

Posted 9:44pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Charlotte Doyle

Author: Sue Orr. Publisher : Vintage, (3/5). You are told all your life to never judge a book by its cover, but secretly everyone does. The cover of From Under the Overcoat by Sue Orr isn’t exactly the most appealing. It first gave me the impression that it would be a light-hearted, Read more...

Sacha Lauchlan: Dunedin sculptress

Posted 9:40pm Monday 9th May 2011 by Elaine Stevens

While Dunedin's art scene may attract less attention than our famous music scene, promising young graduates from the Dunedin School of Art have the potential to reverse the “underground” nature of Dunedin art. One such artist is sculptress Sacha Lauchlan, the inaugural winner of the Feldspar Award, Read more...

Critic reviews the Easter Weekender

Posted 5:02am Monday 9th May 2011 by Sam Reynolds

Warning, warning, warning; the monotonous sounds of MC Beau bounce across a wave of moving bodies, all swaying in time to the rhythmic wop wop of Nero’s beat. The crowd only stops moving for a split second to catch the Foreign Beggars MC as he jumps off a speaker; once he’s back on stage the Read more...

Mortal Kombat

Posted 4:59am Monday 9th May 2011 by Toby Hills

Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, (4/5). Some fool somewhere said that videogames couldn't possibly get any more violent. That's exactly what they said at the beginning of the twentieth century and look where we ended up. Despite the series being as old as I am, Mortal Kombat hasn't yet Read more...

Portal 2

Posted 4:57am Monday 9th May 2011 by Toby Hills

Platforms: PC, MAC, XBOX 360, Playstation 3, (5/5). I can feel it, like ten-thousand drummers marching in a cool valley miles from my ajar bedroom window. An amazonian torrent of internet memes. So many memes. But to focus on the individual moments Valve has created in Portal 2 would be to ignore Read more...

Foccacia

Posted 4:55am Monday 9th May 2011 by Niki Lomax

There’s something very satisfying about making bread from scratch. Getting dough under your fingernails is totally worth the hassle. The last time I did this was in February during the post-earthquake bread shortages. I was kneading for Christchurch, sort of. This week I decided to make some Read more...