Archive

Mull It

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Kirsty Dunn

Even though spring is almost upon us, I figure Dunedin still has a few chilly nights up its sleeve during which a bit of mulled action will go down a treat. If you haven’t had a go at making your own (or worse yet, if you’ve never even sampled the stuff – tsk tsk), now’s the time; have a farewell Read more...

Free Will

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Lucy Hunter

Sam Harris explains, in 83 pages, the illogic of free will. Our society functions on the assumption that we all have it: without free will, any claim to justice, morality, personal accomplishment, intimate relationships (and virtually anything else we care about deeply) seems ridiculous. Free will Read more...

Ukiyo-e, The Floating World

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

The woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), which features rolling, white-tipped waves, has become a legendary emblem of Japanese art. Having been heavily appropriated by artists such as Manet, Gaugin and Van Gogh, the influence of the distinctive woodblock Read more...

Now You See Me

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Tamarah Scott

Rating: 2/5 When you watch the trailer for Now You See Me, you get the distinct impression that the film might actually have some merit. The trailer features Morgan Freeman’s melodic voice promising a cryptically intriguing film about illusionists. The film itself, however, could not have Read more...

Only God Forgives

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 2/5 The crime thriller genre is rarely graced with the artistic flair that Nicholas Winding Refn brings to his films, but his previous works Drive and Bronson are proof that it can be done well. His latest film Only God Forgives, however, is an example of it being done very poorly. Read more...

The House of Radio

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

The Regent Theatre - Octagon Saturday 24 August 1pm Rating: 3/5 The House of Radio is the newest delight from French documentarian Nicholas Philibert. Philibert spent half a year filming the inhabitants of France’s public radio station, allowing the viewer to gain a better insight Read more...

Which Way is the Front Line From Here?

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

Rialto Cinema - Moray Place Monday 19 August 4:45pm, 8:30pm Tuesday 20 August 8:30pm Rating: 3.5/5 Which Way is the Front Line From Here? is a documentary that explores the life and work of world renowned war photographer Tim Hetherington. Through Hetherington’s footage, Read more...

The Weight of Elephants

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

Rialto Cinema - Moray Place Monday 19 August 12pm Rating: 3.5/5 The Weight of Elephants is a dramatic film set in rural Invercargill, directed by New Zealand born and raised but Denmark-based Daniel Joseph Borgman. The story follows 11-year-old Adrian (Demos Murphy), a sensitive and Read more...

The East

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Jonny Mahon-Heap

Rating: 4/5 A rare environmental-political thriller, The East represents one of the bigger-budgeted and more purely enjoyable options from the 2013 film festival. It’s a curious combination of The Departed meets Martha Marcy May Marlene, and combines the best talent from American indie cinema Read more...

Us and the Game Industry

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rialto Cinema - Moray Place Friday 23 August 6:30pm Rating: 2/5 The video game industry is currently nearing the end of a transitory period. The transition isn’t happening within the industry, but rather in how people outside of the industry perceive it. It is a transition toward an Read more...

Pussy Riot: A Punk Rock Prayer

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Josef Alton

Rating: 3/5 It’s a story that has begged to be told outside of the news media. Maxim Pozdorovkin and Mike Lerner’s Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer is an intriguing documentary that tells the story of how and why three young activists were arrested and prosecuted for publicly opposing the Russian Read more...

Interview: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Aaron Hawkins

The film Blackfish: is it about orcas in captivity, or is it about the SeaWorld empire and their treatment of orcas in captivity, or is the overlap of those two so strong that it’s one and the same thing? Yeah, you know, I told a story. I came in as a mother who took her kids to SeaWorld and Read more...

Interview: Anthony Powell

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

Through your film you explore many aspects of Antarctica, but did you have one encompassing goal or message you wanted to communicate? Yeah I guess my initial drive was just trying to articulate the experience, and I guess I had the “a picture tells a thousand words” cliché in my head. I just Read more...

App of the Week | Issue 19

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Raquel Moss

Pixlr is a great web app for quick but thorough image editing. It’s better than Microsoft Paint; it’s not as good as Photoshop. This is not one for graphic designers, and if you use it, your graphic designer friends will cringe. But it does the trick. Open up the web app and you can choose Read more...

Freemium and Subscription Models Making Life Harder for Pirates

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Raquel Moss

Just as with music there is a trend in the gaming industry to offer subscription models to gamers, which has had an impact on gaming piracy. Game purveyors are offering perks for players who opt in to paid subscriptions, such as free games and online multiplayer, while punishing pirates by Read more...

Fuck Buttons - Slow Focus

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3.5/5 English two-piece Fuck Buttons have spent the last decade crafting their own assaultive brand of electronica. Drawing influence from Aphex Twin and Mogwai, they snub gloss and perfectionism in favour of songs that are loud, coarse and engulfing. Though performed on an impressive Read more...

Zahava Seewald & Michaël Grébil - From My Mother’s House

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4.5/5 I have had a lifelong fascination with echolocation, the act of mapping an area through the use of sound. The most obvious example is sonar – the technique bats and whales use to gauge their surroundings. Echolocation is also popular among musicians, and is used by artists to Read more...

Cheat’s Tiramisu

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Kirsty Dunn

Tiramisu is Italian for “pick me up” – and after one mere spoonful of this delectable dessert it’s no wonder the creators dubbed it so. Tiramisu contains four of the most awesome ingredients known to humankind: coffee, chocolate, cheese, and alcohol. Boom! (Which, coincidentally, is the cry your Read more...

Pikmin 3 - Wii U

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

Rating: 7.5/10 Clearly a new definition is needed for the term “launch window.” At the moment it’s like the phrase, “I’ll be back in a moment” – it has lost any real meaning in terms of the timeframe being dealt with. We were told that Pikmin 3 (and several other Wii U games) would be Read more...

The House of the Dead

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Lucy Hunter

Dostoyevsky’s The House of the Dead, published in 1861, explores life and death in the confines of a 19th-century Siberian prison. The book is based on the journal Dostoyevsky wrote while in prison for crimes of political and religious dissent – namely, for his involvement in the Petrashevsky Read more...

Jay Z: The Modern-Day Picasso

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

For six straight hours one Wednesday afternoon, Shaun “Jay Z” Carter performed the track “Picasso Baby” from his latest album Magna Carta Holy Grail in a New York art gallery. Although the ulterior motive was to shoot a music video for the song, the entire project completely transcends this idea. Read more...

Private Peaceful

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Ashley Anderson

Rating: 2.5/5 The tag line of this movie beautifully and succinctly describes the tumultuous relationship between Tommo (George Mackay) and Charlie (Jack O’Connell) Peaceful, two brothers living in a sleepy English town during World War I. Private Peaceful, an adaption of Michael Morpurgo’s Read more...

Farewell, My Queen

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Jonny Mahon-Heap

Rating: 4/5 1789. The people are rebelling. Versailles is about to fall. Marie Antoinette, wilfully blind to the chaos around her, spends her days perusing the 18th-century equivalents of Vogue and chasing her chambermaids. Proving there is life in the period drama still, Farewell, My Queen Read more...

This Ain’t No Mouse Music

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Tim Lindsay

This Ain’t No Mouse Music is a documentary film that chronicles the career of legendary American song producer Chris Strachwitz. It takes the viewer on an auditory journey through the heartland of traditional American music and showcases some mighty fine artists and their songs along the way. Read more...

Blackfish

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013 by Alex Wilson

Rating: 3.5/5 The American summer draws to an end, and no doubt millions of Americans have now attended “Shamu Stadium,” SeaWorld, to see Orca whales wave their dorsal fins limply, jump through hoops and engage in bizarre aquatic acrobats with their perpetually smiling trainers. However, what Read more...

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...

Utu Redux

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Amber Pullin

The Regent Theatre - Octagon Saturday 10 August 8.15pm Thirty years since its release, Geoff Murphy’s Utu will be hitting the silver screen again this August, digitally restored and remastered for the International Film Festival. Starring Anzac Wallace and Bruno Lawrence, Utu is a story of Read more...

Dial M for Murder

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

Rialto Cinema - Moray Place Saturday 17 August 8.30pm Sunday 18 August 5.45pm Dial M for Murder has everything you’d expect from a great Alfred Hitchcock movie: Grace Kelly, greed, and scissors as a murder weapon. Driven by betrayal and lust for money, ex-tennis star Tony Wendice (Ray Read more...

App of the Week | Issue 17

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Raquel Moss

Did you know that there are still people who carry their assignments around on a USB drive? It’s a risky game. Half the time you forget to bring it; the other half you leave it in a library computer. Awesome. Save yourself the pain by signing up for Dropbox. It’s a simple but powerful service Read more...

The Many Paths to Yeezus—Piracy or Purchase?

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Raquel Moss

Ten years ago, you may have been regarded with awe when you successfully downloaded the new Green Day album and burned multiple copies so that your friends could listen to “Wake Me Up When September Ends” on their discmans. No? Just me? These days, piracy is a pretty casual pastime in Read more...

David Lynch - The Big Dream

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4/5 David Lynch began his career as a solo musician with his 2011 album Crazy Clown Time, but his knack for sound design dates back a good thirty years. Lynch helped compose the unsettling ambient score to his 1977 film debut Eraserhead, and has been involved in the music for all of Read more...

Jon Hopkins - Immunity

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 5/5 Producing for Coldplay. Collaborating with Brian Eno. Scoring films. Over the course of the last decade, London-based producer Jon Hopkins has built himself an impressive CV. However, almost all of his work has been on the periphery of or in cooperation with other artists. This Read more...

Mario and Luigi: Dream Team (3DS)

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 8/10 How is it that an Italian plumber has become such an iconic and enduring figure within the gaming industry and pop culture in general? It’s a question that has been posed many times over the years, and though many have proffered possible answers, I don’t think there is a Read more...

MOTHRAs

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Tim Lindsay

The MOTHRAs were a way to celebrate Scarfie filmmaking, and usually featured a wide variety of submissions ranging from wacky and weird to funny but sincere. It was sort of like the Oscars, except it was probably much less grand. The Mothra is a fictional Japanese monster. It sometimes Read more...

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Rosie Howells

“The Belafonte, home to Team Zissou, skilled crew of deep sea divers, adventurers, documentary filmmakers. Led by internationally renowned oceanographer captain Steve Zissou, expert on every aspect of marine life.” The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was Wes Anderson’s fourth feature film, Read more...

Pacific Rim

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3.5/5 Guillermo del Toro is one of my favourite modern directors. Regardless of whether he is dabbling in horror (The Orphanage), dark fantasy (Pan’s Labyrinth) or action (Hellboy), he brings to each of his movies a unique sense of wonder and imagination. Pacific Rim sees del Toro Read more...

Twice Born

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Jonny Mahon-Heap

Rating: 2/5 The trope of love blossoming amid war is as old as cinema itself, with many of these films achieving classic status (Casablanca, Atonement, The English Patient – to name a few). Plenty more, however, have struggled to depict romance against the backdrop of conflict without lapsing Read more...

Monsters University

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Amber Pullin

Rating: 4/5 As the “prequel” to Monsters, Inc. (2001), Pixar’s Monsters University revisits monsters Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) in their college freshman days, before they became “scarers.” Now, don’t be put off by this film’s “prequel” status; this Read more...

Self-Crusting Tomato and Brown Lentil Quiche

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Kirsty Dunn

Halt! Before you freak out at the presence of the “L” word and let memories of bland bygone quiches prompt you to move on to the next column, let me assure you that this is, hand on heart, the tastiest, most flavoursome quiche I’ve ever had; maybe even the best of all egg-based savoury dishes ever. Read more...

The Violent Bear it Away

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Lucy Hunter

Francis Marion Tarwater was born in the wreck of the car crash that killed his mother and grandmother and drove his father to suicide. Adopted by Rayber, his school-teacher uncle, baby Francis is oblivious to the devastation he was born into. But crazy great-uncle Tarwater decides he need someone to Read more...

Café Art

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

A friend of mine regularly teases me about being a “snob” when it comes to all things cultural. The best example of this snobbery I can give you is refusing to get coffee from the link – the aesthetics just don’t cut it. The counter-argument, however, is that having standards is not Read more...

Interview: Ruban Nielson (Unknown Mortal Orchestra)

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

In between touring the world and playing gigs with international acts like Grizzly Bear and Wavves, Ruban Nielson has returned to New Zealand to tour with Nielson’s current band, Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Loulou Callister-Baker had a brief and appropriately abstract conversation with Nielson to work Read more...

App of the Week | Issue 16

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Raquel Moss

You know those vibration masturbation apps that are widely available in app stores? I have questions: Why would that be a good idea? First of all, your phone is a disgusting piece of equipment. It’s covered in germs and you probably use it while you’re on the toilet. And secondly, the Read more...

Mundane, Fleeting, Fun

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Raquel Moss

Occasionally, I have reason to suspect that at the grand age of 22 I might already be “over the hill.” This realisation came several weeks ago when I found myself asking, irritably, “what is this Snapchat thing and should I be on it?” I had heard that teenagers were using it to sext each other. As Read more...

Shortbus (2006)

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Rosie Howells

Shortbus is the holy grail of sex cult films. It makes The Rocky Horror Picture Show look like My Little Pony: The Movie (this actually happened – Danny Devito voice acted for it). The plot follows love therapist Sofia on her quest for sexual discovery, her blossoming friendship with gay couple Read more...

The Lone Ranger

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3.5/5 Director Gore Verbinski really rubs film critics up the wrong way. This is likely due to the tendency his films have to be loud, densely-plotted and half an hour too long. His latest, a big-budget adaption of The Lone Ranger, is no exception. Like most of Verbinski’s films (such Read more...

The Look of Love

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 3/5 This biopic, directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring English comedian Steve Coogan, tells the true story of real estate mogul and smut peddler Paul Raymond. Though Paul Raymond is not well known to our generation, he was once known as the “King of Soho” due to the large Read more...

Despicable Me 2

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by AJ Anderson

Rating: 4/5 Heading off to see Despicable Me 2 I was filled with high hopes of fake Russian accents, adorable one-liners and, of course, the darn cutest minions you’ve ever seen. Within the first couple of minutes I already knew that I was not going to be disappointed. The movie takes Read more...

Whip It

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Kirsty Dunn

Now that I have your attention, deviants, listen up: If Barry White’s voice could be distilled into dessert form, it would look, and taste, like this. This sumptuous chocolate mousse takes a mere twenty minutes to prepare, pleasures the palette in ways you never knew existed, and allows you Read more...

The Walking Dead: 400 Days

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 8.5/10 Telltale Games announced earlier this year that season two of The Walking Dead was indeed in development – an announcement that surprised very few considering the runaway success of the first season of this flawless point-and-click adventure based on Robert Kirkman’s comic Read more...

Let’s Get Physical

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Basti Menkes

The BestMassive Attack - Mezzanine Ignore the album cover. When it comes to “soundtracking” coitus, Massive Attack’s third album Mezzanine is the undisputed champion. Regardless of where you are, what state you’re in, who you’re with and in what position, the album’s brooding textures and Read more...

Sweet Tooth

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Lucy Hunter

This is the sex issue, so I decided to write about a sexy spy book. It is 1972. Serena Frome is the beautiful daughter of an Anglican bishop, groomed by her much older lover to join the British Secret Services in the patriarchal ranks of MI5. Serena is considered something of a freak of Read more...

Among the Machines

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

The use of technology has become a natural part of our lives. However, the idea of technology manipulating nature itself and becoming a controlling, dominating force tends to sit a little uncomfortably. Among the Machines is one of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s (DPAG) major exhibitions for 2013 Read more...

App of the Week | Issue 15

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Raquel Moss

Evernote is not just an app – it’s so much more than that. Evernote, once you start to use it, becomes an extension of your brain. If you’ve ever sat in the middle of a pile of paper, wailing because you can’t find the notes you need, you could probably benefit from using it. There’s a reason its Read more...

Making the web your bitch

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Raquel Moss

You’re already one of the thirty-seven per cent of people worldwide using Google Chrome to navigate our beloved web, right? So I don’t have to begin this by nagging you to use it? No? Still using Internet Explorer like a schmuck? Come on, even my Nana uses Chrome, and all she’s doing is playing Read more...

Deadpool (XBOX 360, PS3, PC)

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 8/10 Just when you thought Marvel had adapted every single one of their heroes, here comes Deadpool, a character I believe has been under-utilised and misrepresented thus far in Marvel’s attempts to take over the world … or at the very least the entertainment industry. For those of Read more...

Austra - Olympia

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3.5/5 Canadian synthpop outfit Austra emerged in 2011 with a bang, their first album Feel It Break among the finest debuts in recent memory. It wove gothic electronica around Katie Stelmanis’ operatic vocals to stunning effect; picture Kate Bush collaborating with The Knife and you Read more...

Kanye West - Yeezus

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Bella King

Rating: 4.5/5 The moment Yeezus, Kanye West’s sixth solo album, leaked online, it set a million keyboards around the globe on fire. Suddenly everyone was a critic, scrambling to push their opinion of an album worlds away from its predecessor, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Indeed, in Read more...

Winter Whisk(e)y Cake

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Kirsty Dunn

Gie him strong drink until he wink, // That’s sinking in despair; An’ liquor guid to fire his bluid, // That’s prest wi’ grief and care: There let him bouse, an’ deep carouse, // Wi’ bumpers flowing o’er, Till he forgets his loves or debts, // An’ minds his griefs no more. (Robert Read more...

The Silence of the Lambs

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Tim Lindsay

Read the title to yourself a couple of times. It is freaking creepy. It sends shivers down your spine then back up to your head to remain for days. When you watch this film, you do not see the face of evil. You enter its mind. The Silence of the Lambs won five Oscars in 1991: Best Actor and Read more...

White Lies

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Rosie Howells

Rating: 3/5 White Lies is a film adaptation of Witi Ihimaera’s novel Medicine Woman, which tells the story of Paraiti (Whirimako Black), a Maori healer from the 1920s, and her strange involvement in the lives of the rich Pakeha woman Mrs. Vicars (Antonia Prebble) and her maid Maraea (Rachel Read more...

After Earth

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 2.5/5 M. Night Shyamalan has had a roller coaster of a career, from the unadulterated success and cultural penetration of The Sixth Sense to his ultimate demise with the painful The Happening and the destruction of the much-loved Avatar with The Last Airbender. Frankly, he has become Read more...

The Internship

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Tim Lindsay

Rating: 2/5 Start of the U.S. summer? Check. An assorted cast of misfits with the odds stacked against them? Check. A worrying lack of originality in the plot? Check. Welcome to The Internship, your regular Hollywood light comedy. The film seems to benefit from director Shawn Levy’s Read more...

The Magic of Reality

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Lucy Hunter

“Reality is everything that exists. That sounds straight forward, doesn’t it? Actually, it isn’t.” Thus begins Dawkins’ introduction to science for young people. I didn’t realise this was a young adults’ book until I started reading it, but, being an eager yet largely ignorant admirer of science, I Read more...

Art From a Laboratory

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

I don’t find a plastic crucifix immersed in a glass of urine offensive. However, the artist responsible for the Piss Christ received death threats for this sacrilegious work, indicating that some feel otherwise. Different individuals find different things “shocking,” but in spite of this it often Read more...

The Great Gatsby

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Ella Borrie

Rating: 3.5/5 Baz Luhrmann is known for making beautiful films, and The Great Gatsby is no exception. The film is a polished homage to the roaring twenties that emphasises aesthetics over source material. The story follows Nick (Tobey Macguire) as he befriends the mysterious Jay Gatsby Read more...

The Hunt

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Rosie Howells

Rating: 4.5/5 Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) is a gentlemanly father who, due to a lack of teaching work in his small Danish village, takes a job at the local kindergarten. Owing to an imaginative child and a jumpy co-worker, Lucas is wrongly accused of sexually abusing his best friend’s young Read more...

World War Z

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Rosie Howells

Rating: 3.5/5 World War Z is the sophisticated man’s zombie film, the fine malt whiskey to the rest of the genre’s pre-mixed orange and vodkas. Based on the 2006 Max Brooks novel of same name, production companies have been scrambling for the film rights ever since the book was published, Read more...

Man of Steel

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 3.5/5 In the eight years since Superman was last on the big screen in Superman Returns, the film industry has gotten into superheroes in a big way. Whereas we used to see only one or two of these films a year, it now seems a week doesn’t go by without a new caped crusader hitting Read more...

Southern Comfort

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Kirsty Dunn

Ah, the Great Cheese Roll. The epitome of comfort food in all its toasted, cheesy, buttery, get-it-in-your-mouth-quick-before-it-runs-down-your-chin-y glory, these bad boys are the perfect antidote to a cold Dunedin eve. Not only are they tasty, inexpensive, and easy to make, they take pride of Read more...

App of the Week | Issue 14

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Raquel Moss

Google Reader is dead. Google Reader, that faithful web servant, which, for the past seven years, has fed me my web content. Its demise is a sad loss for we traditionalists who still get our news and read blogs via RSS. But all hope is not lost – hopefully, before its end, you exported your Google Read more...

Putting the Social Back in Social Networking

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Raquel Moss

Remember when social networks were new? And Facebook? Back when you could poke someone and gift them a picture of a flower … just because? It was exciting back then – social networks were revolutionising the way we connected with people. But what has that really amounted to? Facebook has become a Read more...

A Broader Perspective

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

At the beginning of last year I was lucky enough to be taken to the United States by my parents, which involved traipsing around the Midwest and California for five weeks. Being avidly art-oriented, my mother has an incredible knack of finding galleries: take a very recent trip to the depths of the Read more...

E3 2013

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

The next generation of gaming is upon us. Despite industry assurance that the next generation of consoles would not hit the market until 2015, it seems that fierce competition between Sony, Microsoft and, to a smaller degree, Nintendo, have pushed that date forward a year. Nintendo launched Read more...

The Last of Us (PS3)

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 10/10 The gaming industry is abuzz with anticipation surrounding the impending new generation of consoles and games, as am I (turn the page for my coverage of E3 2013). However, while we are all dreaming of what the next generation has to offer, the future of gaming is right before Read more...

Sigur Rós - Kveikur

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4.5/5 Fairies. Fireflies. Icebergs. Rain. Learning how to fly. Whatever imagery people associate with Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Rós, there is a common sense of wonder to it. I’ve always likened listening to them to diving into an ocean, the way their music engulfs you and makes Read more...

Beady Eye - BE

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 2.5/5 There is no shame in not knowing who Beady Eye are. After a tumultuous relationship with brother Liam for the entirety of Oasis’ 18-year career, chief songwriter Noel Gallagher exited the notorious Britpop group once and for all in 2009. Intent on carrying on making music but Read more...

The National - Trouble Will Find Me

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Richard Ley-Hamilton

Rating: 3/5 With every listen of The National’s latest, I have become more and more conflicted. This time around, should I be expecting something refreshing and innovative from the Brooklyn quintet? Or should I be satisfied with something familiar, a more reassuring release? In brief, Read more...

Boards Of Canada - Tomorrow’s Harvest

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4.5/5 No electronic composers affect me quite like Boards Of Canada. With but a few notes the Scottish duo can fill me with loneliness, nostalgia, dread, or a mixture of all three. Since their 1998 debut Music Has the Right to Children they have maintained a distinctive sonic Read more...

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Lucy Hunter

Mary Shelley, at the age of 21, published what is arguably the first science fiction novel; a fantasy story with a scientific rather than supernatural explanation. Shelley had apparently heard of recent experiments to “reanimate” corpses by making them jerk around with electric shocks, and dreamed Read more...

The Editor

Posted 3:03pm Sunday 26th May 2013 by Josef Alton

Tales of obsession never lose their appeal. If there is a character’s flawed logic, actions ignited by the flame of desperation, and the smell of blood disrupting the logical flow of common sense, we the readers love to wait for the eventual calamity. Samuel Dansam’s The Editor reads like an Read more...