Archive

Alone in Berlin

Posted 2:07pm Sunday 19th March 2017 by Shaun Brinsdon

Rating: 2/5 Alone in Berlin is based the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel (named Otto and Elise Quangel in the film) who, after their son dies in 1940 while fighting in WW2, silently protest by writing postcards criticizing Hitler and the Nazi regime and urging others to protest against it. Read more...

Big Little Lies

Posted 2:02pm Sunday 19th March 2017 by George Hellriegel

Rating: 4.5/5 Based on the bestselling novel by Lianne Moriarty, Big Little Lies showcases a star-studded cast, including Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Alexander Skarsgard and Laura Dern. The characters are placed in a perfect world of seaside mansions and upper-middle-class Read more...

Dramaworld

Posted 1:55pm Sunday 19th March 2017 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: 4/5 Claire Duncan (Liv Hewson) is a fangirl. The 20-year-old college student is obsessed with K-drama (Korean drama TV shows). She knows all the ins and outs of the genre, and hangs excitedly on every line, cliffhanger and dramatic turn the shows throw her way. Stuck between work and Read more...

Review: Chandeliers

Posted 3:35pm Monday 13th March 2017 by Marlee Partridge

Dunedin has long been renowned for its glass speckled sidewalks, Speight’s branded jumpsuits, and echoing chants of “fuck Arana”, but it could soon be known for an entirely, less alcohol-fuelled reason: Chandeliers. No, not the ceiling sort, or the drinking game; the Dunedin-based, Read more...

10 Quick Questions with Flavia Rose

Posted 2:19pm Sunday 12th March 2017 by Monique Hodgkinson

Flavia Rose is an emerging artist and creative raised in Dunedin and based in Wellington. She sat down with Critic’s Art Editor, Monique Hodgkinson, for ten quick questions about all things whimsical and lovely. Describe your artistic style in three words. Delicate, whimsical, Read more...

Sweet & Sour Pork

Posted 2:06pm Sunday 12th March 2017 by Kirsten Garcia

My SO repeatedly went out for takeaway over the summer break when he was too tired to cook from work. The ridiculous thing is that every time he would get exactly the same thing, from the same place: Sweet and Sour Pork. Seriously, the restaurant probably knows it’s him by his voice when he Read more...

Final Fantasy XV

Posted 1:57pm Sunday 12th March 2017 by Chris Lam

Rating: 2.5/5 For thirteen hours, I have watched four cosmopolitan titans of men slide through the air like greasy hamburgers. Ignis clicks his gloved fingers and a meal of bacon and eggs materialises. He sits silently as Noctis picks at it with a fork. Prompto proceeds to writhe on the ground. Read more...

‘Beautiful Mire’ -The River Jesters

Posted 1:51pm Sunday 12th March 2017 by Reg Norris

I had to throw away the bean metaphor. It wasn’t working. I was trying to say something about the bleak future of modern rock. Can anything really exciting and new come out of this genre? And by saying new I don’t mean NEW NEW because rock ‘n’ roll is locked down to Read more...

Manchester by the Sea

Posted 1:47pm Sunday 12th March 2017 by Jaxon Langley

Rating: 3.5/5 Kenneth Lonergan is famed for exploring grief in his films. His previous film, Margaret, was a character study of a high school girl who is traumatised after witnessing a woman hit by a bus. She begins to over-involve herself in the case as she can’t comprehend why no one is Read more...

Logan

Posted 1:43pm Sunday 12th March 2017 by Brandon Johnstone

Rating: 5/5 Set in the year 2029, years after the events of 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, Logan brings the story of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine (AKA Logan AKA James Howlett) to its logical conclusion. Fully embracing the ever-deepening growling bitterness in Jackman’s Read more...

iBoy

Posted 1:36pm Sunday 12th March 2017 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: 1/5 I don’t know about you, but when a Netflix original rolls my way, I tend to get pretty excited. Netflix has a habit of picking up cool, interesting shows and movies that wouldn’t necessarily get funding from conventional studios. I trust Netflix with my viewing pleasure. Read more...

T2: Trainspotting

Posted 1:31pm Sunday 12th March 2017 by Siany O’Brien

Rating: 4.5/5 T2: Trainspotting is everything a sequel should be. It has the original cast and director (Danny Boyle), and is a continuation of the original story set 20 years later, but it still has the same charm as its predecessor. For all you who were scarred by the first film, fear not! T2 Read more...

1Q84

Posted 1:21pm Sunday 12th March 2017 by Anna Linton

Murakami is known for writing more similar to a corporealized acid trip than contemporary fiction. In 1Q84 (one-q-eighty-four) surrealism and dystopia combine to fuel a fustercluck equal parts modern love and old-fashioned vengeance set against the backdrop of Tokyo. In maintaining the thematic Read more...

Vietnamese “Summer” Rolls

Posted 1:28pm Sunday 5th March 2017 by Kirsten Garcia

You’ve heard of Spring Rolls, but have you tried Summer rolls? If you visited the Dunedin Noodle Market last week, you might have seen these at one of the stalls. Makes 24 rolls Ingredients 24 Rice Paper Wrappers 200g Frozen Shrimp  Lettuce leaves (butter Read more...

The Last Guardian

Posted 1:22pm Sunday 5th March 2017 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: 4.5/5 I think The Last Guardian was inevitably going to be a bit disappointing. Its director, Fumito Ueda, has such previous games under his belt as ICO, a puzzle platformer with a dedicated cult following, and Shadow of the Colossus, an abstract adventure game that is considered to be Read more...

When Breath Becomes Air

Posted 1:16pm Sunday 5th March 2017 by Zoe Taptiklis

I might be biased when it comes to reviewing When Breath Becomes Air: my degrees in Neuroscience and English are the same as Paul Kalanithi’s, his favourite books are my favourite books, his fascination with identity matches mine, and his notions of mortality, while far more informed, are Read more...

Dunedin Murals: A Snapshot

Posted 1:11pm Sunday 5th March 2017 by Poppy Henderson

During recent years, the urban art scene has taken Dunedin by storm. Our buildings are becoming a canvas for internationally renowned street artists, who have been flocking from all over the world to make their multicoloured mark. These unusual artworks are a far cry from the graffiti-style tags or Read more...

Fifty Shades Darker

Posted 12:58pm Sunday 5th March 2017 by Florence Dean

Rating: 2.5/5 This saucy flick follows the ridiculous relationship of Anastasia Steel/Ana (Dakota Johnson) and Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). James Foley deserves half a clap on the back for accomplishing the, not very hard, task of making this film slightly better than the last. I couldn’t Read more...

Moonlight

Posted 12:55pm Sunday 5th March 2017 by Jaxon Langley

Rating: 5/5 This film was originally based on a play called In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, written by Tarell Alvin McCraney to cope with his mother’s death by AIDS. Indie filmmaker Barry Jenkins stumbled upon this hidden piece of greatness and adapted the long-shelved play into one of Read more...

Silence

Posted 12:51pm Sunday 5th March 2017 by Saskia Bunce-Rath

Rating: 2/5 Silence is Martin Scorsese’s latest offering, it’s about two priests (portrayed by Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) who travel to 17th century Japan to find out what happened to their mentor (Liam Neeson) and help spread the Catholic faith.  I could tell from the Read more...

Toni Erdmann

Posted 12:43pm Sunday 5th March 2017 by Jaxon Langley

Rating: 5/5 “It isn’t a comedy - I’m not sure why people think it is” speaks the confused Maren Ade of her acclaimed film. It is at times uproariously funny, but also achingly sad. Toni Erdmann is an unexpected deadpan delight that’s worthy of your time. After the Read more...

Track of the Week

Posted 12:38pm Sunday 5th March 2017 by Erin Broughton

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 24.0px; font: 15.0px 'Fira Sans Light'} This week we’re pleased to present our first Track of the Week for 2017, carefully selected by Erin Broughton, MD.  Erin knows her stuff. As the Music Director at Radio One, she trawls Read more...

Music Interview: Still // Alone

Posted 12:22pm Sunday 5th March 2017 by Bianca Prujean

Penelope Trappes and Stephen Hindman are The Golden Filter, a UK-based electronic duo who hail from Australia (Trappes) and the US (Hindman). Their latest sonic offering is STILL // ALONE, an album that is divided into two distinct parts, and was recorded in old studio spaces across the Read more...

OM MANI PADME HUM

Posted 1:03pm Sunday 26th February 2017 by Monique Hodgkinson

My first glimpse of this work was an unexpected one: while chatting with a friend in Nova. I was thoroughly preoccupied with my cappuccino and not ready to be introduced to my new favourite contemporary art piece, but there it was, unavoidable —OM MANI PADME HUM by Tiffany Singh, towering Read more...

Introducing the Music Editors

Posted 12:59pm Sunday 26th February 2017 by Bianca Prujean

SIDE A: Welcome to the first 2017 issue of the music section. Your previous music editor, accomplished writer and journalist, songwriter of New Zealand’s most beloved band, and voice of a generation: Millie Lovelock, has vacated her post at Critic. Big shoes to fill… Who am I? Read more...

A Little Life

Posted 12:46pm Sunday 26th February 2017 by Jessica Thompson Carr

Rating: 10/10 Very few books make me cry out loud. Internally, sure, a few have broken my heart, and safe to say I am no longer a whole person after a childhood of Charlotte’s Web and every last book in an epic series, but I don’t remember the last time I actually wept into my pillow Read more...

Thumper

Posted 12:41pm Sunday 26th February 2017 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: 4.5/5 Rhythm games are usually defined by musical melodies. With the Hero games, whether they are of the Guitar, DJ or Band variety, you are tasked with recreating a specified popular song, with the effect of getting to feel like you are on stage with one of your musical idols. Even in Read more...

Lion

Posted 12:37pm Sunday 26th February 2017 by Florence Dean

Rating: 5/5 An emotional rollercoaster well worth the ride. Garth Davis did a stellar job directing his first feature film, the cinematic adaptation of Saroo Brierly’s autobiography ‘A Long Way Home’.  This uplifting true story follows the adorable 5-year-old Saroo Read more...

Crazyhead

Posted 12:33pm Sunday 26th February 2017 by Ceri Giddens

Rating: 3.5/5 Bright and raunchy, Crazyhead is Britain’s latest addition to the urban fantasy genre. It stars Cara Theobold as Amy, a mousy twenty-something bowling alley worker who is also a ‘seer’ of demons, and Susan Wokoma as the larger-than-life personality Raquel: a demon Read more...

The Great Wall

Posted 12:30pm Sunday 26th February 2017 by Brandon Johnstone

Rating: 4/5 The Great Wall is a Chinese-US co-production, marketed heavily to Western audiences as an intense, gritty action film. About ten minutes into the film it becomes pretty clear that this is a bold-faced lie. Set during the gunpowder-fueled Song Dynasty, Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal star Read more...

Teriyaki Quorn & Tofu Donburi

Posted 1:00pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Kirsten Garcia

For all the vegans, if Quorn isn't already your friend, it will be. The Quorn pieces are the closest plant based product I have found that resembles the texture of chicken. There is also a "mince" product too, you can find them both in the frozen products aisle at your Read more...

Observations

Posted 12:55pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Carolijn Guytonbeck

This Dunedin exhibition showcases some of the local artistic talent incorporating varied styles but all figurative in form. If you didn’t manage to get to the show you can still easily access these artists if not directly via the gallery. People will always love paintings for their Read more...

Freedom

Posted 12:42pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Lucy Hunter

The most unsettling things are the most familiar —the more you know somebody the stranger they seem. And nothing is more familiar than family. Patty Berglund is an ex college basketball star and fanatically perfect mother. She bakes cookies on all her neighbours’ birthdays and never Read more...

Dear Amy

Posted 12:39pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Hayleigh Clarkson

Helen Callaghan’s debut novel Dear Amy is one hell of a ride. Callaghan writes from the perspective of Margot, a teacher at the local college and also the writer of the Dear Amy help column in the local paper. Typically she deals with mundane relationship issues until one day she receives a Read more...

Harry Styles — Going solo & Another Man

Posted 12:35pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Millicent Lovelock

Four days ago Harry Styles posted three blank white photographs to his Instagram, a day later he revealed three covers for Another Man magazine. Two of the covers feature Styles in a dog collar (not the priest kind), staring broodily into the camera, in the third he is dressed in a turtleneck Read more...

Dunedin Symphony Orchestra

Posted 12:32pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Ihlara McIndoe

When an audience with a mean age of seventy energetically jump out of their seats in enthusiastic applause at the end of a work, you know it’s been a good performance. Associate Professor of Music, Anthony Ritchie’s composition Gallipoli to the Somme traces the journey of Dunedinite Read more...

Riven: The Sequel to Myst

Posted 12:29pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: CLASSIC To round off the year, I would like to be indulgent and review something slightly different. Riven: The Sequel to Myst is my single favourite game of all time. In the game, you have been transported by your friend Atrus through a Linking Book – books that spirit people away Read more...

SOMA

Posted 12:26pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: B+ SOMA is a first-person science fiction horror game that was released online in late 2015. Its story begins with its protagonist Simon Jarrett waking up in his apartment to a phone call from a doctor about an appointment for a brain scan later that day. After searching his apartment and Read more...

Why do we need...more women in STEMM?

Posted 12:21pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Anthony Marris

By rights, this piece should be titled “How do we recruit, retain, and recognise women in STEMM”, but I was not clever enough to devise a snappy title that sums it up in eight words. STEMM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine – all vital Read more...

Chasing Great

Posted 12:13pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Hugh Baird

Rating: A+++++++ After watching Richie McCaw's latest film Chasing Great, I’ve come to the careful conclusion that the man pisses excellence. He was dux of his high school, he flies planes and helicopters, and he is now widely regarded as our greatest All Black of all time. Despite all Read more...

Bridget Jones’s Baby

Posted 12:10pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Not Hugh Baird

Rating: B+ So there I found myself, on my lonesome sitting in the movie theatre with about nine younger women and twenty seniors all staring at me, wondering what the hell I was doing with my life. I must say, in the midst of my hangover I was thinking the same thing. I slumped low into my seat Read more...

2001: A Space Odyssey

Posted 12:08pm Saturday 8th October 2016 by Jac Aske

Rating: F--- I want to preface this by saying that I only saw this movie because my Dad got a Kubrick box set from The Warehouse and said we had to watch it. It’s about some astronaut guys who are on a spaceship going somewhere and it sucks. I don’t care how fancy a director Stanley Read more...

The Good Place

Posted 11:28am Saturday 8th October 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: A- In the pilot episode of The Good Place, Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) is sitting in a perfectly pleasant waiting room. Michael (Ten Danson) calls her into his office and explains that she has died, and she is now in the afterlife. He assures her that she is in “The Good Read more...

Gnocchi

Posted 1:50pm Saturday 1st October 2016 by Kirsten Garcia

Viva la Pasta. If you want to expand your pasta dishes beyond the 95 cent budget spirals, give this a go. Gnocchi, pronounced knock-e, are little potato pillows. They're a great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. The most time consuming part of this was rolling and cutting the dough. You Read more...

Blaine Western’s ’Grammars’

Posted 1:45pm Saturday 1st October 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

What do a greyscale hand poised mid-click, a brick wall, and large concrete arches laid on a gallery floor all have in common? When I entered this exhibition I had absolutely no clue. But apparently Visiting Artist Blaine Western did, the guy who curated Masques, one of the latest shows at the Read more...

The Sandman

Posted 1:41pm Saturday 1st October 2016 by Anonymous Bird

If you’ve ever been curious about graphic novels but aren’t interested in the superheroes or serialised never-ending issues of comics, I would highly recommend Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. It tells the story of Dream of the seven Endless, essentially the god of dream world. The other Read more...

Girl at War

Posted 1:37pm Saturday 1st October 2016 by Hayleigh Clarkson

When you grow up surrounded by war, how do you continue through life once the war is over? This question hangs over Ana in her adult years. She grew up in Zagreb and spent her youth, the development years, calling the war-torn country of Croatia her home. Now in America, Ana struggles with her past Read more...

Why do we need…social media/networks?

Posted 1:33pm Saturday 1st October 2016 by Anthony Marris

This question has constantly plagued me. I have always maintained that I have no need for a social media/network (sm/n) account of any form. I firmly believe, in the spirit of 15th century Dutch scholar Eramus, that in this new land of complete observation, the person without any links to sm/n Read more...

Inside

Posted 1:28pm Saturday 1st October 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: A I was 17 when I played Limbo for the first time. I remember sitting on the floor in front of the TV at my friend’s house, eagerly playing this beautiful and creepy puzzle game. Since then, I have replayed the game multiple times. I was told that I would like INSIDE, but had not Read more...

Don’t Breathe

Posted 1:22pm Saturday 1st October 2016 by Alex Campbell-Hunt

Rating: B There was a lot of buzz about this being the best American horror movie in decades, or some such. Personally I wouldn’t go that far; however, a lot of the film was very effective.  The quick summary of Don’t Breathe is that it’s like a darker version of Home Read more...