Archive

The Fall

Posted 1:54pm Saturday 17th September 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: A+ Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) is a young Romanian-born girl in a 1920s Los Angeles hospital with a broken arm. She fell picking oranges at an orchard her parents work on. She barely speaks english, has a strong and healthy imagination, and spends her time wandering around the hospital Read more...

Bad Moms

Posted 1:51pm Saturday 17th September 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: B Amy (Mila Kunis) is a young mother who works part time, takes care of her children, and does the housework. She’s stressed, busy, and always late. After a considerably terrible day, she defies the PTA president Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate), and decides to quit being a good mom. Read more...

Poi E: The Story of Our Song

Posted 1:49pm Saturday 17th September 2016 by Alex Campbell-Hunt

Rating: A One of the great things about this documentary is how well it places you in this period of New Zealand’s history. This is approximately the period that my earliest memories of New Zealand come from (or a few years earlier): the era of Crowded House, the Son of a Gunn show, the Read more...

Bobotie & Yellow Rice

Posted 1:19pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Kirsten Garcia

My first taste of Bobotie and Yellow Rice was at a charity dinner with all African cuisine. This is a South African dish. My flatmate from Zambia also made it for dinner once. Both times I've had it, it was nothing but delicious and memorable, so I had a crack at making it myself.  If Read more...

3 x 4 — Lisa Reihana

Posted 1:14pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Carolijn Guytonbeck

Take the opportunity to view some work from one of New Zealand’s current 'it' artists, Lisa Reihana. Milford Gallery are showing a range of her magnificent staged photographic portraiture work.  Distinct themes of mythology and colonisation run through the Māori descended Read more...

The Story of Your Life

Posted 1:11pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Jack Blair

Ted Chaing examines, through the eyes of Louise Banks (a linguist tasked with decoding the language of an alien species known as the Heptapods), how understanding language means more than simply understanding a conveyed message. As The Story of Your Life progresses, and Louise applies a theory of Read more...

The Nature of Jade

Posted 1:08pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

Although technically classified as a YA novel, The Nature of Jade is one of those rare books which holds something inspiring and beautiful for readers of all ages. This book has been one of my firm favourites for years now, because of its captivating and accessible writing style, unexpected and Read more...

Puberty 2 — Mitski

Posted 1:04pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Millicent Lovelock

I have been sitting on US artist Mitski’s latest offering for a while now, not because I didn’t think it would be good, but because I knew it would be too good for any mood that wasn’t the right mood.  Mitski’s songs have a particular tendency to tunnel through you Read more...

Abzû

Posted 1:01pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Lisa Blakie

Rating: B+ Giant Squid is an indie game studio founded by Matt Nava, the art director who also worked on the critically-acclaimed Journey and Flower, both of which rank among my favourite games. Giant Squid’s first game Abzû was announced back in 2014 at Sony’s E3 press Read more...

Why do we need...WeChat?

Posted 12:55pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Anthony Marris

WeChat is the Chinese multi-platform social networking app produced by Tencent which is dominating inside the Great Firewall. Available on both Android and iPhone, it makes common social media sharing apps like Messenger, Snapchat, WhatsApp and Instagram look like glorified telegraph Read more...

Our Kind of Traitor

Posted 12:50pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Nita Sullivan

Rating: B Our Kind of Traitor is the latest in spy-thriller-novel conversions by British author John Le Carre, and delivers generously in suspense, espionage, and drama. While the film is no doubt a good watch, it falters in equalling the critically acclaimed British miniseries The Night Manager Read more...

War Dogs

Posted 12:47pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Lindsay D’Alessandro

Rating: A- Based on the 2011 Rolling Stone article, “The Stoner Arms Dealers: How Two American Kids Became Big-Time Weapons Traders,” War Dogs tells the true story of two twenty-something childhood friends from Miami Beach who made millions during the Iraq War bidding on US military Read more...

Crazy ex-Girlfriend (TV series)

Posted 12:41pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) is a successful, career focused, big bucks lawyer —who is unsatisfied and unhappy with her New York life. During a panic attack over a promotion, she bumps into total heartthrob Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III) her summer camp boyfriend from when she was 16. He Read more...

Ben Hur (2016)

Posted 12:38pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Max Olson

Rating: C+ Set in ancient Roman-occupied Jerusalem, Ben Hur is a remake of the 1959 film directed by William Wyler, which famously grabbed a record 11 Academy Awards at the time. Unfortunately, I cannot see many awards lurking in the near future for the 2016 version, although I will admit that Read more...

Monsters — Strange Harvest

Posted 1:23pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Lucy Hunter

You know that thing when you know someone, and you know they know you, and you’ve met them a few times but they pretend they don’t know you when you see each other out in public? Strange Harvest wrote a total banger about that thing. “Monsters” is on Dunedin duo Strange Read more...

Get A Yes — SAD 13

Posted 1:20pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Millicent Lovelock

Sad13 is Speedy Ortiz singer/guitarist Sadie Dupuis’ solo project. Her first single “Get A Yes” is quite a divergence from her trademark deadpan vocal delivery and contortionist guitar lines, but this poppy little number is not altogether surprising.  Dupuis makes no bones Read more...

Nimona

Posted 1:17pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Lord Ballister Blackheart, our protagonist, scientist and villain, finds Nimona at his lair. Nimona is a young, powerful and impulsive shape-shifter with a desire to cause havoc and bring about destruction. She convinces him to take her on as a sidekick. The pair work together to mess things up in Read more...

I Hate Fairyland

Posted 1:14pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Anonymous Bird

It’s almost every child’s dream to be transported to a mystical fairyland to complete some complicated and epic quest, making bizarre and cute friends along the way, right?  The eight-year-old Gertrude might have fantasised about Fairyland, but she certainly wasn’t equipped Read more...

Why do we need...3D Printing?

Posted 1:11pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Anthony Marris

3D printing (or additive manufacturing) is the process where multiple layers of a pliable material are applied sequentially to create a new object. Youtube channel “Print That Thing” showcases some of the products being made with 3D printing. One example was motivated by the lack of Read more...

OUSA Student Art Exhibition & Sale

Posted 1:08pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

Now that the OUSA Art Week festivities have wound down for another year, I think it's safe to say that the events were a fantastic success once again. Awesome work all you painters, sculptors, sketchers, jewellers, activists, volunteers, and other art-lovers! It was a fabulous five days which Read more...

Chicken Satay

Posted 1:03pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Nick Blankendaal

I am Dutch so I thought “oh I’ll make something Dutch!” Alas, I couldn’t find anything really Dutch. Just Pancakes or how to make pea soup. I settled on making a meal based around a satay sauce recipe which, according to Wikipedia, the Dutch stole from Indonesia and is now Read more...

Shadow of the Colossus

Posted 12:55pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: Classic While it doesn’t deal with heavy psychological themes, Shadow of the Colossus is another beautifully empty game that instead imbues a feeling of the mythical. It is the 2005 spiritual successor to Team ICO’s first game, Ico. While that game was a dreamlike, Read more...

Silent Hill 2

Posted 12:53pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: Classic Modern gaming can be alienating to some. This is not because of excessive difficulty or because of technology advancing too quickly, but because of sensory overload. There is a trend for modern games to be open-world, action packed, maximalist blockbusters. One can quickly get Read more...

Steven Universe (series)

Posted 12:45pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: A+ Steven Universe is quite possibly the most progressive children’s TV show ever. Steven Universe (Zach Callison), who the show is named after, is a young (mostly) human boy with magical powers due to being the son of the Crystal Gem, Rose Quartz (Susan Egan). Gems are essentially Read more...

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

Posted 12:43pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Alex Campbell-Hunt

Rating: B+ Honey I Shrunk the Kids is a guaranteed nostalgia-tastic viewing experience for any kids of the '80s or '90s. Whether you grew up with the movie or not (though I did), the pre-CGI effects, elaborate sets, gentle pace, and general look and feel of the film place you right in Read more...

Green Room

Posted 12:40pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: B+ A broke punk rock band by the name of the Ain’t Rights takes a detour to a remote Oregon roadhouse, to play a gig in hopes of making some money after a dismal turnout at their last gig. They’re promised a decent pay and so make the trip using syphoned gas. When they show Read more...

Kubo

Posted 12:37pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: A From Laika, the studio behind the likes of Paranorman, Coraline and The Boxtrolls, comes Kubo, a magical coming of age tale. The line “If you must blink, do it now” opens the film, setting the scene for a fantastic adventure film about love, family and Read more...

2016 Otago wildlife photography exhibition

Posted 12:38pm Sunday 21st August 2016 by Olivia Lynch

This exhibition showcases the talented work of the winners of the Otago Wildlife Photography competition and a selection of other incredible amateur Otago photographers. Divided into two age categories, 14-and-under and 15-and-over, this showcase gives insight into the phenomenal skills of Otago Read more...

Total Recall (1990)

Posted 12:31pm Sunday 21st August 2016 by Lucy Hunter

Rating: A The film opens with a Martian landscape, with two moons, and a stifling red sky. A man and woman hold each other’s leather-gloved hands, and give each other romantic stares through the viewing windows of their spacesuits. Then the man trips, falls, smashes his helmet, and starts Read more...

A Perfect Day

Posted 12:29pm Sunday 21st August 2016 by Alex Campbell-Hunt

Rating: B- In A Perfect Day, Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins, Olga Kurylenko and Mélanie Thierry play four aid workers stationed in the Balkan Mountains, during a period of armed conflict. They are trying to retrieve a rotting corpse from a well, to prevent contamination of the local water Read more...

Suicide Squad

Posted 12:26pm Sunday 21st August 2016 by Samuel Rillstone

Rating: A- Suicide Squad, directed by David Ayer, follows a group of supervillains from the DC Comics universe as they are captured and forced to save the world in return for shortened sentences. It boasts an all-star cast lead by Will Smith as Deadshot, Jared Leto as the Joker, Margot Robbie as Read more...

Rams

Posted 12:25pm Sunday 21st August 2016 by Lisa Blakie

Rating: A+ Rams tells the story about how sheep are pure and good, and incurable disease is evil and sucks. Set in Iceland on a remote rural farming valley, we’re introduced to Gummi, who lives and breathes the sustainable lifestyle, breeding sheep for the entirety of his life. His Read more...

Pandemic Legacy: Season 1

Posted 12:18pm Sunday 21st August 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: A+ Learning to play board games is usually a single-evening affair. You may spend an evening learning the rules, and every evening thereafter you will be developing your own strategy around those rules. What enables you to develop a strategy is the fact that the game’s rules will Read more...

The Wisdom of Psychopaths

Posted 12:14pm Sunday 21st August 2016 by Lucy Hunter

Psychopaths look, smell, and sound like regular people, but they don’t care about you any more than they care about the steak they ate for lunch. The good news is, not all psychopaths are serial killers. The bad news is, you’ve probably bumped into a psychopath today. Approximately one Read more...

Pale Fire

Posted 12:10pm Sunday 21st August 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

The epic poem “Pale Fire” has been put into a book following the murder of its author, American poet John Shade. Accompanying the poem is a preface, extensive notes and commentaries by Shade’s editor, Charles Kinbote. At least, when you first approach Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, Read more...

The Beginner’s Guide to making your music collection less hetero:

Posted 12:00pm Sunday 21st August 2016 by Millicent Lovelock

Tracy Chapman - "Give Me One Reason” on New Beginning Everybody knows Tracy Chapman. Or, at least everybody should know Tracy Chapman. “Give Me One Reason” is a favourite of mine, my dad used to make mix tapes to listen to in the car and this song was on one of Read more...

La Crepe

Posted 11:55am Sunday 21st August 2016 by Kirsten Garcia

If you love good vibes and yummy crepes you can find them both at the La Crepe stall at the Saturday Morning Farmers Market. Disclaimer: I have worked for Christophe and Marie flipping crepes at the market for more than a year and a half now, only a fraction of their almost 12 years at the market. I Read more...

Tormentum: Dark Sorrow

Posted 6:00pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: B- As we jump from one adventure game to another, Tormentum: Dark Sorrow is an indie horror adventure game that runs mainly on its fantastic art style. The makers of Tormentum were inspired by the art of Dark Souls, Zdzislaw Beksinski (who, by the way, is FANTASTIC) and HR Giger Read more...

Her Story

Posted 5:58pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: A It’s almost traditional that Full Motion Video (FMV) adventure games are utter shit. Their cutscenes were very poorly implemented, they contained no writing or acting of any merit, and they were unpleasant to play in every aspect. Fortunately, modern game developers only use an Read more...

Bela Lugosi’s Dead —Bauhaus

Posted 5:55pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Lucy Hunter

I don’t know anything about this band but this was the only song I listened to for about six months. The song is nine minutes and 37 seconds long, with a two minute introduction of tapping drums and bass, with a weird scratchy noise in the background. The bass is out of tune and there is the Read more...

Unlimited — Bassnectar

Posted 5:52pm Monday 15th August 2016 by William Sharp

Review: A+ All students who are searching for a new artist or genre to explore will discover quite the colourful gem in Bassnectar’s recently released album. Lorin Ashton, known famously by his stage name ‘Bassnectar,’ released fifteen tracks ranging from the deep melodic to the Read more...

Shakshuka

Posted 5:47pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Kirsten Garcia

Shakshuka is a traditional Israeli breakfast, good for any time of the day with cooked eggs on top of a savoury tomato sauce. This is the best way to eat runny eggs in my opinion.  It's meant to be a bit spicy so if you're after a kick, add some chilli, cayenne pepper, or use smoked Read more...

Saga Volume 6

Posted 5:43pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Jack Blair

Finally! It’s book six, and our narrator is old enough to make decisions that impact the plot more than just needing a nappy change in the middle of a fight. I’m happy to report that despite the fact that our central character is four years old, the series does not backtrack in the Read more...

My Family and Other Animals

Posted 5:39pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

When the miserable English climate proves too much for young Gerald Durrell and his haphazard family, all five of the Durrells decide to relocate to the Greek island of Corfu. For Gerald, an aspiring naturalist, this is a dream come true. The wildlife of Corfu turns out to be a treasure trove of Read more...

Before Sunrise

Posted 5:35pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Joe Higham

Rating A- If you were to have spontaneously asked that attractive man/woman you saw in your day-to-day life to spend the day with you, it could’ve ended in a similar way to Before Sunrise­except it never would. Celine (Julie Delphy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) find themselves on the same Read more...

Stranger Things

Posted 5:32pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: A+ Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) has gone missing, his mother Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) is certain he is still alive and is determined to find him. Will’s brother Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) is devastated—watching his mother seemingly lose her mind in her desperation to Read more...

Why do we need…Anonymous?

Posted 5:28pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Anthony Marris

Anonymous is a collective of computer enthusiasts who have a far-reaching presence in both the real world and the online one. Seen on Youtube clips wearing the mask from V for Vendetta, as well as having electronically distorted voices, they are often called a “hacktivist” group (from Read more...

Felix Harris & Mate Pavic

Posted 5:24pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Lucy Hunter

Works by Felix Harris and Mate Pavic is an experience in the darker parts of humanity. The two artists were paired by gallery owner Inge Doesburg, who saw Harris’ work and contacted Pavic in The Netherlands. Pavic’s works look as though they have been done in a frenzy, with black ink Read more...

Highlights at Hocken: Documenting the History of New Zealand Art

Posted 5:21pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

In a world where everyone knows the names Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso, it’s easy to assume that all art of value comes from overseas. In actual fact, the art history of New Zealand is arguably just as rich, inspiring, and fascinating as that of Europe. And better Read more...

Edinburgh Realty Premier Art Awards

Posted 5:15pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Carolijn Guytonbeck

Art awards can be such a fascinating mélange of art, giving a wide insight into the range of currently produced artwork. They can also be fun as there are times when you have those 'go figure' moments in seeing the winners. There usually is the option to have your democratic say and Read more...