Archive

Tortoise in Love

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 8th July 2012 by Georgia Rose

Tortoise in Love is the story of one man’s very very slow pursuit of love. Tom is a gardener, and can discuss in detail the reproductive functions of hundreds of plant species, but is dumbfounded when it comes to talking to women. He finds himself in some cringe-inducing situations while trying to Read more...

Prometheus

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 8th July 2012 by Kathleen Hanna

Ridley Scott directed the very first Alien film way back in 1979. Thirty-three years on, the franchise really needed him back. After six installments, each slightly but noticeably worse than the last, most fans probably expected the seventh to be Alien vs. Dead Horse. What we get is more like 2001: Read more...

Brave (3D)

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 8th July 2012 by Ella Borrie

Brave abandons Pixar’s usual bromance formula for the mystical realm of teenage angst. Set in ye olde Scotland, the story follows Princess Merida, voiced by Kelly Macdonald, and her glorious ginger hair*, as she attempts to break free from her royal destiny. The proverbial free spirit, Merida Read more...

Oreo Nom Nom Nom-ness

Posted 8:39pm Sunday 3rd June 2012 by Sasha Borissenko

Are those late night adventures to the 2-4 not doing it for you? Do their cupcakes feel a little worse for wear? Are you tired of the nacho cheese-chicken cordon bleu combination? Finding yourself wanting something a little more Nigella Lawson or Julia Child? There is nothing more comforting and Read more...

Shihad Beautiful Machine

Posted 8:39pm Sunday 3rd June 2012 by Taryn Dryfhout

“We give up that dream of being in America or we change our name and give it a go. Those were my options — Shit A or Shit B.” In this film chronicling the highs and lows of Shihad, Jon Toogood tells it like it is. Beautiful Machine traces the band’s twenty-three years of the good, the bad, Read more...

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Posted 8:39pm Sunday 3rd June 2012 by Georgia Rose

From the director of Chocolat, Dear John and several ABBA film clips (I’m not joking) comes the film Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Based on a novel and adapted for the screen by the same guy who wrote the screenplay for Slumdog Millionaire, this film was always going to be a romantic story of triumph Read more...

Women In Love

Posted 8:39pm Sunday 3rd June 2012 by Feby Idrus

Despite its title, D.H. Lawrence’s 1920 novel Women In Love is not — I repeat, NOT — a romantic book. If anything, it gives romance of the roses-and-Valentines-Day variety a swift and decisive slap in the face. Though it is mostly about relationships between men and women, what Lawrence is really Read more...

Heart, Hand, Humerus

Posted 8:39pm Sunday 3rd June 2012 by Beaurey Chan

Blue Oyster, 24b Moray Place 16 May – 16 June There’s something utterly enthralling about these paintings that you can’t quite put your finger on. The first thing I noticed was the breathtakingly beautiful use of watercolours. Williamson’s skillful merging of inky blue, dove grey Read more...

Post-Progressive Instrumental Dunedin Shoegaze

Posted 8:39pm Sunday 3rd June 2012 by Lukas Clark-Memler

What better way to finish up New Zealand Music Month than the grand final of the OUSA Battle of the Bands. With so much talent on show, and the extreme diversity of the line-up, from ska-punk to metal to “dance music for the insane”, the judges must have had a hell of a time crowning a victor. While Read more...

Max Payne 3

Posted 8:39pm Sunday 3rd June 2012 by Vimal Patel

I stumble into my room, which is more of a mess than a coke addict’s savings plan. Falling into the chair in front of my desk, I stare into the screen. It stares back at me with a look of pure contempt, taunting me with the question: why didn’t you like Max Payne 3? Just like the game itself, Read more...

Gnocchi Al Nonno

Posted 7:40pm Sunday 27th May 2012 by Maeve Jones

Although relatively labour intensive, homemade potato gnocchi is incredibly cheap, very rewarding and shows that with a little time you can easily make restaurant quality meals on a student budget. “Al nonno” means served in a classic Italian tomato sauce “just like grandpa used to make.” It is Read more...

Dark Shadows

Posted 7:40pm Sunday 27th May 2012 by Loulou Callister-Baker

I remember when Tim Burton brought out the new Alice in Wonderland film a few years ago – the pre-watch excitement, then the gradual slide into mediocrity which climaxed with the final, excruciatingly lame dance sequence. My expectations for Burton’s latest adventure, Dark Shadows, were low. Read more...

The Grey

Posted 7:40pm Sunday 27th May 2012 by Taryn Dryfhout

In The Grey, Liam Neeson stars as yet another unlikely hero – the leader of a group of “blocky” working men who are trying to survive after their plane crashes in the middle of the icy Alaskan wilderness. If you have a fear of flying I suggest you sit this one out. The opening scenes leave little to Read more...

The Dictator

Posted 7:40pm Sunday 27th May 2012 by Critic

This is Cohen’s third appearance as the lead in a film after the hit Borat and the less successful Bruno. The movie is closer in style to Borat than Bruno, although unlike Borat the movie is fully scripted. The movie follows North African dictator Admiral General Aladeen, ruler of the state Read more...

Chinese Takeaway

Posted 7:40pm Sunday 27th May 2012 by Sam Allen

Chinese Takeaway opens with a Chinese man preparing to propose to his lover on a boat. This proposal is cut short when a cow falls from the sky and kills her. After seeing Jun (Huang Sheng Huang) thrown out of a taxi while watching aeroplanes, hardware shop owner Roberto (Ricardo Darin) Read more...

Midgets, Rap Music & Meth

Posted 7:40pm Sunday 27th May 2012 by Lukas Clark-Memler

Some cities are synonymous with a musical movement. Seattle and grunge are as inseparable as Cobain and angst. Country music would hardly exist without Nashville, or at least it would be a hell of a lot less profitable. And some would argue that rap music came ‘straight outta Compton’ (see what I Read more...

A Clockwork Orange

Posted 7:40pm Sunday 27th May 2012 by Alice McRae

The first thing you need to know about Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange is something that no-one ever told me: it’s amazing how much slang there is in the novel. Before I read it, all I knew was that it was a well-known book that had been adapted into a cult classic film with an epically named Read more...

Honey, how you thrill me

Posted 7:40pm Sunday 27th May 2012 by Beaurey Chan

Gallery De Novo, 101 Stuart Street 18 May onwards Odd curlicues, elongated vines, mysterious coiling shapes emerging out of the darkness, splatters and drips and all sorts of misted forms presented through a matte and muted colour palette… Ben Webb's exhibition is a peculiar combination of Read more...

Sir Ian McKellen on Stage

Posted 7:40pm Sunday 27th May 2012 by Bronwyn Wallace

We know all too well about the damage and devastation that has hit Christchurch over the last few years. Buildings remain dilapidated, and large sections of the city are still uninhabitable. Sir Ian McKellen, who’s been in and around New Zealand for the past decade filming the Lord of the Rings Read more...

Borderlands 2

Posted 7:40pm Sunday 27th May 2012 by Toby Hills

Platform: PC, PS3, Xbox 360 Genre: Shooter, RPG Borderlands 2 ostensibly contains all the ingredients necessary for a game to be tremendous, addictive fun. It begs to be assessed on its prettiness. The first Borderlands had a tendency to litter its desert fields with identical, Read more...

(CAUC)ASIAN

Posted 7:58pm Sunday 20th May 2012 by Beaurey Chan

Lui Petti Mint Gallery, 32 Moray Place Ongoing until May 24 Did you hear about Frankenstein? No? Well, I heard he likes to stalk through cities full of high-rise buildings at night, sporting an Adidas jumper and a rope necklace, blasting tunes from the boom box. At least he does in the Read more...

White Noise

Posted 7:58pm Sunday 20th May 2012 by Josef Alton

White Noise hisses between radio stations, on the TV, between life and death. It permeates the airwaves. It’s the death knell that slips into the caverns, the subterranean passages that “distinguish words from things.” The unimaginable weight of death presses on Jack Gladney’s shoulders. He is a Read more...

French Onion Soup

Posted 7:58pm Sunday 20th May 2012 by Ines Shennan

Here we go with another recipe from the eloquent, food-loving madame that is Sophie Dahl. The soup itself has a mere four ingredients, but lacks nothing when it comes to flavour. Rich and earthy, with a gentle tang creeping through from the balsamic vinegar, it is one for the cooler nights. The Read more...

The Five Year Engagement

Posted 7:58pm Sunday 20th May 2012 by Taryn Dryfhout

The Five Year Engagement opens with Tom proposing to his girlfriend Violet. As the pair start to plan their wedding, Violet is accepted into a graduate psychology program in Michigan, an offer she can’t resist. Tom selflessly drops his career and moves to Michigan to be with Violet on the agreement Read more...

Beauty and the Beast (3D)

Posted 7:58pm Sunday 20th May 2012 by Michaela Hunter

Tale as old as time… Beauty and the Beast was actually my favourite movie as kid; and now as an adult I can fully appreciate all of Disney’s racism and sexism, which is cool ... The storyline basically goes like this: Belle is a beautiful lady who likes to read books (shock, horror!) and Read more...

Two Fish ‘N’ A Scoop

Posted 7:58pm Sunday 20th May 2012 by Bronwyn Wallace

May 19 - June 9 Directed By Patrick Davies Starring Hweiling Ow & Chris Parker Written By Carl Nixon Two Fish ‘N’ A Scoop began its debut in Dunedin last year as a successful Read Out Loud in the Fortune Studio. After a great audience reaction and a clear vision for the play’s Read more...

Trials Evolution

Posted 7:58pm Sunday 20th May 2012 by Toby Hills

Platform: Xbox 360 Genre: Puzzle, Racing Trials Evolution is frustrating. Not just because it’s really hard, but because the art-direction of its levels loves to poke fun at you. A Nitro Circus-inspired motocross rider can slide effortlessly along a thin girder on a partially constructed Read more...

Fabulous

Posted 7:58pm Sunday 20th May 2012 by Lauren Wootton

We’re all familiar with the rhythmic reggae dub that has sound-tracked many a Kiwi summer, known as The Black Seeds. It’s been four years since their last album and their latest release – Dust and Dirt – is a wee bit different while still being completely the same. With a slight emphasis Read more...

The Avengers

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Nick Hornstein

Several years in the making, The Avengers concludes a long journey that Marvel began with the hit Iron Man in 2008. With such a well-orchestrated tease through the previous movies, the question remained whether the hype of The Avengers could be met. The answer to that is a gamma radiated, super Read more...

A Dangerous Method

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Eve Duckworth

Based on the play The Talking Cure, David Cronenberg directs this drama based on the true story of the turbulent love triangle that developed between two towering intellectuals – Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) – and a troubled patient (Kiera Knightley). Seduced by Read more...

Spud

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Emma Scammell

After some preparatory research before watching this film I discovered that the historical context of Spud was 1990s South Africa, a pivotal time for South African people. The 1990s saw the abolition of apartheid, the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years’ imprisonment, and the birth of Read more...

The Way

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Lulu Sandston

The Way is a fictional story about the “Way of St James” or “El Camino Santiago”, a pilgrimage from the French Pyrenees to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. The story is about Tom (Martin Sheen), an ophthalmologist who isn’t interested in seeing the world (how ironic) and Read more...

Stuffed Baked Potatoes

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Ines Shennan

These easily prepared stuffed potatoes are the ultimate comfort food. The potatoes take at least an hour to cook, but little other preparation is required. Go Mexican and fill ’em up with chilli beans (I like the hot varieties because I’m a sucker for spice), cheese and fresh chilli. Or play it a Read more...

2012: CAPOCALYPSE

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Bronwyn Wallace

Capping Show returns this year with a strong and entertaining performance that is the talk of campus this week. Haven’t already seen it? Where have you been? With a constant flow of punchlines, crazy bright costumes and interesting sets, it’s a must-see. Aaron Mayes and Caitlin McNaughton direct the Read more...

Lovepuke

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Bronwyn Wallace

Written by Duncan Sarkies Directed by Emma Feather Shaw “We’ll make you laugh, cringe, and maybe you’ll even find that you see a little bit of yourself in the characters.” The Globe Theatre is opening its doors, surprisingly, to a new youthful crowd this month, as Duncan Sarkies’s Read more...

Fez

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Toby Hills

Platform: Xbox 360 Genre: Puzzle It’s a fez. Fezzes are cool. In this case Gomez, the over-sized oblong-headed protagonist, is granted magical powers by a felt hat he finds in his two-dimensional pixel home. It grants him the insight to see his world in a whole new way. Gomez is a Read more...

Dragon’s Dogma

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Toby Hills

Platform: PS3, Xbox 360 Genre: Action RPG Dragon’s Dogma has you forming a ragtag band of roguish adventurers, traversing an awesome untamed landscape and killing large fantastical beasts like griffins and chimeras as an afternoon’s work. “But wait!” you might cry, “isn’t that like every Read more...

Angels and Aristocrats

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Taryn Dryfhout

When you enter the lower galleries of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, until the end of June, you will not be able to avoid the withering stare of “Charlotte Countess Talbot”, whose eyes follow you around the room. This large piece by Thomas Gainsborough and John Hoppner takes centre stage in the Read more...

On the removal of my toenail and the music that helped me get through it

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Lukas Clark-Memler

Last week I had my toenail removed. What started out as an ordinary ingrown nail became infected and pus-filled until my entire toe turned a disturbing shade of mauve and swelled to a rather inconvenient size. This condition made wearing shoes difficult and, since Dunedin is pretty cold this time of Read more...

Howl (an excerpt)

Posted 7:08pm Sunday 13th May 2012 by Staff Reporter

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, Read more...

Sophie’s Granola

Posted 12:51am Monday 7th May 2012 by Ines Shennan

Critic Food this year has been centred around hearty dinners, savoury dishes and a whole lot of olive oil. So now it’s time for something a little sweeter, something to rouse the tastebuds of the sugar-lovers among you. Delving into the land of breakfast, my dream of daily poached eggs on toast with Read more...

A Good Wee Cause

Posted 12:51am Monday 7th May 2012 by Beaurey Chan

Walk into the Dunedin Community Gallery this week and you will be confronted by a large and odd assortment of some quite frankly wacky and eccentric items. Miniature glass pieces soldered together to create a curving spiral-like form constitutes one original sculpture by the window; a portrait of a Read more...

Bossypants

Posted 12:51am Monday 7th May 2012 by Feby Idrus

Oh, Miss Tina, will you marry me? Who’s this Tina, you ask? That’d be Tina Fey, former Saturday Night Live writer, 30 Rock creator, all-round comedienne and now, thanks to her debut book Bossypants, pants-splittingly funny author. Part sardonic memoir, part behind-the-scenes tour, and part Read more...

2012: Capocalypse

Posted 12:51am Monday 7th May 2012 by Bronwyn Wallace

A week-and-a-half out from Opening Night, I sat down with the co-directors of this year’s Capping Show to discuss how this year is panning out for them so far. A show this size, and which gathers such huge crowds, is always a highlight of the Uni year. But it’s also a daunting task, albeit one which Read more...

Dub FX

Posted 12:51am Monday 7th May 2012 by Lauren Wootton

“Fat beats, dirty bass lines, rap vocals and melodic vocal lines too. And I put it all together with loops. I’m multi genre.” Ben Stanford’s description of his sound sums it up in a few short adjectives; he has something for everyone. The DJ better known as Dub FX’s unique style started off Read more...

5 People to Watch Out for in 2012

Posted 12:51am Monday 7th May 2012 by Lauren Wootton

New Zealand Music Month is upon us and Isaac and I thought it was about time we made some predictions. We’ve compiled a wee list of some New Zealand artists/bands we think are going to make it big in 2012 (whether nationally or internationally), and if you haven’t heard of them already, you will Read more...

A Separation

Posted 12:51am Monday 7th May 2012 by Loulou Callister-Baker

When I think about the topic of divorce in film, I conjure up scenes of slightly comedic melodrama which only goes so far as the Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn types can take it. I had thought that divorce in film was a topic left to the cardboard world of cliché until the Oscar-winning film A Read more...

The Most Fun You Can Have Dying

Posted 12:51am Monday 7th May 2012 by Nicole Muriel

Michael (Matt Whelan) is around about your age. Like you, probably, he’d been reasonably assuming that he was at the start of his life. Now he’s got terminal cancer.  Michael’s only option is an expensive treatment that raises his chance of survival to a dismal 10%, and his town manages to Read more...

Max Payne 3

Posted 12:51am Monday 7th May 2012 by Toby Hills

Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC Developer: Rockstar Vancouver Genre: Action 3rd Person Shooter You expect an unobtainable beauty to be the protagonist in a modern videogame: A Nathan Drake type with sculpted muscles, a full head of hair that’s wavy but not-too-wavy, and a perfect coating Read more...

Homebrew’s New Drop

Posted 5:21pm Sunday 29th April 2012 by Lauren Wootton

After their gig with David Dallas and P-Money at O-Week, Home Brew have been busy recording and preparing their new album, Home Brew, touted as a debut double album conceptualised by the balance of life’s extremities. Released on May 4, it has two sides, one “dark” and the other “light”, and is Read more...

Coq au Vin

Posted 4:56pm Sunday 29th April 2012 by Ines Shennan

Arich, wine-based sauce slowly tenderises chicken drumsticks as it bubbles away with garlic, thyme, bacon and mushrooms. As you may deduct from the name, the dish is of French origin, translated as “rooster with wine”. The name has been subject to numerous “coq” jokes in our flat, a sign of the Read more...

1, 2, 3, 4

Posted 4:56pm Sunday 29th April 2012 by Beaurey Chan

So what I’ve been trying to do by writing this section this year is emphasize the burgeoning Dunedin arts culture, emphasis on burgeoning - not just cause I like that word (I really do, is the English major geek in me showing?) but because it’s so true that there’s a quietly growing arts scene here Read more...

Memories Of My Melancholy Whores

Posted 4:56pm Sunday 29th April 2012 by Louise Pearman

Memories of my Melancholy Whores is the story of an unnamed, lonely, 90-year-old man who decides to treat himself to “the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.” He then finds liberation in his decision not to take the drugged 14-year-old’s virginity, and proceeds to fall in love Read more...

Stupid Walls

Posted 4:56pm Sunday 29th April 2012 by Danny Goodwin

Brought to you by: Stage South Next Performance : May 26 The theatre scene is back on again this week in Dunedin, bringing with it some awesome work from Read Out Loud. This series of play readings is a whole new way to experience theatre and gives some choice New Zealand work the chance Read more...

Lord of The Rings: War in the North

Posted 4:56pm Sunday 29th April 2012 by Markus Ho

Developer: Snowblind Studios Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3 As video game adaptations of movies go, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Lord of Rings: The Return of the King are among the best. It may have been a while ago, but nothing beats the feeling as you watch the “perfect kills” Read more...

American Pie: Reunion

Posted 4:56pm Sunday 29th April 2012 by Taryn Dryfhout

American Pie: Reunion is yet another installment in this series of films, with this one being much anticipated due to most of the original cast returning in their more adult roles. It opens with American Pie’s golden couple, Jim and Michelle, who have been married for years and have a Read more...

Mysteries of Lisbon

Posted 4:56pm Sunday 29th April 2012 by Feby Idrus

Mysteries of Lisbon is a long movie – as it should be. Based on the nineteenth-century classic Portuguese novel Os Mistérios de Lisboa, this film adaptation’s length enables the novel’s full scope to be explored – in particular its intertwining stories, multiple locations and fabulous, romantic Read more...

Tono and The Finance Company

Posted 4:56pm Sunday 29th April 2012 by Isaac McFarlane

Characters can be people who stand out from the crowd, or symbols of writing systems. They can be found in the pages of comic books and on the screens of Cartoon Network-addicted children with absent parents and televisions for babysitters. They can also be found in almost every one of Anthonie Read more...

Beef Tagine with Couscous

Posted 5:04pm Sunday 22nd April 2012 by Maeve Jones

This week we have a slightly different but incredibly delicious way to cook your cheaper cuts of meat, sure to beat all other beef stews. Tagine is a North African dish where meat is cooked slowly in various spices until it is fragrant and tender, usually in the clay pot that goes by the same name. Read more...

Haunts of Dickens

Posted 5:04pm Sunday 22nd April 2012 by Taryn Dryfhout

Haunts of Dickens is a collection of almost 60 watercolours painted by British artist Paul Braddon (1864-1937). The exhibition is part of Charles Dickens’s 200th birthday celebration and contains scenes from Dickens’s novels, ranging from Great Expectations to The Old Curiosity Shop. The Read more...

Pets! Dead Or Alive!

Posted 5:04pm Sunday 22nd April 2012 by Bradley Watson

Marina Lewycka’s Various Pets Alive and Dead delves into the development of a slightly dysfunctional family who have taken very different lives after growing up in a left-wing liberal commune. Set in 2008, the novel moves between Doncaster and London, exploring both the present lives of the Read more...

The Girl in Stillettos

Posted 5:04pm Sunday 22nd April 2012 by Lauren Wootton

Dunedin’s own Girl in Stilettos is in town next week and playing at Sammy’s on her national tour. Annah Mac will perform on April 28 as part of the tour to promote her single, as well as her album released in September last year. I caught up with her to find out all about her bowls skills, and how Read more...

RED

Posted 5:04pm Sunday 22nd April 2012 by Bronwyn Wallace

Written by John Logan Directed by Lara Macgregor Starring John Bach and Cameron Douglas Performing until May 5 The Fortune Theatre’s latest award-winning production RED is a fierce and intriguing look in to the life of Mark Rothko and his assistant, over the space of two years, as he Read more...

Avernum: Escape From the Pit

Posted 5:04pm Sunday 22nd April 2012 by Toby Hills

Remember when, in well-supervised playground games, you had to take turns? Avernum taps into all that nostalgia, as well as all the comfort that comes from navigating a series of isometric cubes. This RPG is deliberately generic – so it’s equal parts charming and predictable. After Read more...

Must-sees at the World Cinema Showcase

Posted 5:04pm Sunday 22nd April 2012 by Sarah Baillie

The World Cinema Showcase is back in town, and boy are there a lot of good movies to be seen! The baby version of the New Zealand International Film Festival, the WCS is running from April 19-May 2. The great thing about film festivals, apart from being able to go to the movies in the middle of the Read more...

Footnote

Posted 5:04pm Sunday 22nd April 2012 by Sam Allen

Footnote is a comedic satire that explores the awkward rivalry between two Talmudic Scholars, Eliezer Shkolnik and his son Uriel Shkolnik. Director Joseph Cedar pieces this award-winning film together beautifully, rendering it extremely engaging and surprisingly insightful. In the process of Read more...

Titanic (3D)

Posted 5:04pm Sunday 22nd April 2012 by Michaela Hunter

Titanic appreciators should definitely go and experience this classic film in 3D. Seeing Titanic for the first time in years was enjoyably nostalgic, despite the slight cringe factor of the cheesy lines and the accompanying Celine Dion soundtrack. I got far more involved in it than I thought I Read more...

Vietnamese Salad

Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Ines Shennan

This colourful, crunchy and tangy salad is of Vietnamese inspiration. A piquant dressing coats finely sliced vegetables, poached chicken (if you so wish), honey-roasted peanuts and fresh mint. You can substitute the lemons for limes for a more authentic flavour, though they will set you back a few Read more...

Get Your Performance On

Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Bronwyn Wallace

After a week off I’m sure it’s safe to say that, for most of us, we’re not at all rested. Cramming in working on assignments between crazy nights out? It’s what the break is really for. Now that we’re back in the swing of things, however uninvited it may be, it’s time to get serious. It’s time to Read more...

The Women of the 6th Floor

Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Becky Ruthers

A Cinderella story in reverse, Jean-Louis Joubert is a successful stockbroker living a life of upper-middle-class refinement in early 1960s Paris. He works the same job and occupies the same lavish apartment as his father and grandfather did before him, expecting to do so for the rest of his life, Read more...

The Hunter

Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Andrew Oliver

Daniel Nettheim’s The Hunter is a beautiful and hypnotic piece of visual art weaving the dreamscape terrain of the Tasmanian bush and the powerful presence of Willem Dafoe into a delectably tense thriller that delivers action, suspense and drama in equal parts. Dafoe plays Martin, a professional Read more...

Mirror Mirror

Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Sasha Borissenko

What better way to engage an audience who are afflicted by today’s frightful economic climate than to present a storyline based around a financially burdened kingdom thanks to the follies of a beauty-obsessed queen? In one sense Tarsem Singh’s Mirror Mirror affirms issues of violence, Read more...

The Lorax (3D)

Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Jane Ross

If you were raised on the whimsical poetic meters and trippy cartoon drawing style of Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) you may find the nauseating pace of the new 3D film version a tad too much sensory overload. There is just so much going on, and while you won’t want to miss out on the hectic Read more...

Sweet, sweet burlesque

Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Siobhan Milner

Burlesque is an art form that is becoming more and more respected each year in our society. With competitions such as Miss Burlesque New Zealand, and Dunedin’s very own Amateur Burlesque Nights, it is gaining popularity and recognition as a creative and valid dance form. The art of the tease is one Read more...

Path of Exile

Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Toby Hills

There’s a really subtle hint of Aotearoa in Path of Exile. Certain characters, such as the playable hulking marauder, are adorned with koru-inspired patterns. Swamps are packed with bipedal bird-like, but monstrous, Rhoa, and donating to the free-to-play (at least when it gets released; it’ll be in Read more...

SSX

Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Tom Pullan

After what feels like an age, SSX is back. 2012’s iteration brings the amazing snowboarding franchise into the real world, but retains all the madness that defines SSX. With 9 deadly descents – from the Whitehorn Mountain in the Rockies to New Zealand’s own runs down Tasman and Wakefield – Read more...

Boy bands: the new get-rich-quick scheme

Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Lauren Wootton

I’m just looking for a good night/like baby, baby, baby, oh/that’s what makes you beautiful! One Direction, JBiebs, Reece Mastin … just a small sample of our daily bombardment of images of young(ish) boys telling us how amazing we are. Despite encouraging cradle-snatching in anyone over the Read more...

Ignorance

Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Josef Alton

Ignorance is not just stupidity. Milan Kundera’s thoughtful examination of repatriation is qualified by his own experience as a Czech émigré living in France. His firsthand experience of what it is like to leave home and start over provides the novel with a problematic yet realistic interpretation Read more...

Franny and Zooey

Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Josef Alton

Franny and Zooey is a book about the two youngest siblings of the Glass family. It’s separated into two distinct sections — the first being a short story called Franny, and the second being a novella entitled Zooey. The first part focuses on Franny and her boyfriend Lane when they meet up Read more...

Why We Write

Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Lukas Clark-Memler

It’s not easy being a music critic. Score an album too low and you’re labeled a cynic; too high, you’re a naïve optimist. Take the easy road out by giving it a 6 or a 7, and you’re criticized for having no backbone. Then there’s always the case of trivializing artistic intent with pompous Read more...

Caramelised Onion Flatbread

Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Ines Shennan

Bouncy flatbread adorned with a blanket of sticky, sweet red onions and rosemary? Yes please. Making bread from scratch is a simple pleasure that contrary to popular opinion is remarkably easy. You don’t need to possess a bread maker, nor do you need to slave away in the kitchen for hours with flour Read more...

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Bronwyn Wallace

Directed by: Luke Agnew “Every time you play hangman a stick figure family loses a father.” For the final issue before out beloved mid-semester break I believe a change of pace is in order. This week I interviewed the cast of the latest Lunchtime Theatre at Allen Hall and attempted to Read more...

Binary Domain

Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Toby Hills

If you asked someone who had never played a videogame to describe a one you would be provided with a fairly accurate breakdown of Binary Domain: A group of burly humans, who form a gleaming ethnic-rainbow, gun down robots that swarm about the player like schools of herring. It ain’t Read more...

The Hunger Games

Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Ella Borrie

Director: Gary Ross The Hunger Games is the most recent piece of Young Adult lit to roll off the Hollywood production line. In a post-apocalyptic America, the indulgent Capitol rules over twelve districts. Tributes are picked from a lottery of citizens for the Capitol’s instrument of Read more...

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Emma Scammell

Director: John Madden The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel follows a group of bitter and bored 70-plus retirees who feel the need to fight the injustices of an ageist English society by travelling to India to “find themselves.” Abounding with distinguished actors, each of the seven main Read more...

La Bella Luna

Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Beaurey Chan

I’m just going to put it out there: The full moon is kind of, well, freaky. Studies have cropped up throughout history striving to prove a connection between the nights the moon is full and all kinds of crazy human antics on earth, including insomnia, insanity and of course lycanthropy. Make of it Read more...

Scrawls and Swirls

Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Beaurey Chan

The lecturer is droning on and on, and you’re bored to death but can’t be bothered taking notes. Inevitable solution? You start doodling. Stars, spirals, stickmen, dragons, Pokémon – whatever takes your fancy. They might one day appear in a gallery as part of your own art exhibition. Read more...

Balsamic and Sun-dried Tomato Roast Chicken

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Maeve Jones

Unfortunately, autumn is technically upon us. However there are still many reasons to celebrate; most important among these is that we still have a few weeks left to revel in the glories of summer produce. Fifty-cent corn can still be skimmed off the cob to transform any salad. Seconds tomatoes can Read more...

Necrotising Fasciitis

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Luke Agnew

Walking into the performance space I immediately felt like more than a spectator; the darkness, the soundscape and the organised chaos of the space drew the audience in before we could fully appreciate that we were immersing ourselves in the installation that is Flesh. Walking around was Read more...

Dragons and Daydreams

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Beaurey Chan

Gallery De Novo, 101 Stuart Street March 16-29 It’s a funny thing about life that we always seem to want the opposite of what we have. Cue hideously overused trope “the grass is greener on the other side”, and all that jazz. Ironically, this cliché seems to apply even more to those things Read more...

Scarfies Come Home

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Lauren Wootton

An interview with Six60 bassist Chris Mac is one of the easiest 20 minutes a music journalist can ask for. Sure I asked him the important stuff, but considering how nervous I was about calling a member of Six60 (I messed up the phone number three times, my hands were shaking so much), the yarn I had Read more...

The Binding of Isaac

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Toby Hills

I didn’t realise that the Isaac (a nude baby, the eponymous protagonist of The Binding of Isaac) was tossing large spheres of his own lukewarm salty tears at his enemies until I’d attempted the game a handful of times. Forgivable, I think, as Binding is filled with dozens of depraved, silly plot Read more...

The 10pm Question

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Natasha Loveday

“Frankie liked very much to remember that February the fourteenth had begun badly and shown every sign of becoming a real horror, but – as the benefit of hindsight proved – it marked, ultimately, a turning point in his mood and fortune, because at 8.36 a.m. the new girl boarded Cassino’s East-West Read more...

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Sarah Baillie

Martha Marcy May Marlene is not the full name of the young woman in this film – thank goodness. Her real name is Martha. Marcy May is the name given to her by Patrick, the leader of the cult she has been living with for the past two years. Having fled the cult community, disoriented and distressed, Read more...

Project X

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Lukas Clark-Memler

Imagine the best party you never had. Thousands of people and limitless booze; DJs, fireworks and a flamethrower; a smorgasbord of uppers and downers; topless girls and a bouncy castle. So sets the stage for Project X, the latest incarnation of the “found-footage” genre. But instead of monsters Read more...

My Week with Marilyn

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Michaela Hunter

My Week with Marilyn is based on the diaries of Colin Clark (played by Eddie Redmayne), a third assistant to the film director of The Prince and the Showgirl which famously united Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) and Lawrence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) in 1956. Clark revealed in 2000 that he had Read more...

Brother Number One

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Taryn Dryfhout

Brother Number One is a New Zealand documentary which follows former Olympic athlete Rob Hamill as he journeys to Cambodia to testify against the man responsible for the torture and killing of his brother, over thirty years ago. Rob’s brother Kerry disappeared in 1978 while sailing towards Read more...

The 2012 Dunedin Fringe Festival

Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Bronwyn Wallace

Over the next 11 days the Dunedin Fringe Festival will change the way that you think about entertainment. The 2012 programme features over 50 events and more than 370 artists from places as exotic as the UK, and Canada. This week’s theatre page previews some of the best stuff on in the next few Read more...

Sweet Tooth

Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Beaurey Chan

“Canker” by Audrey Baldwin 5pm, 22 March 2012 Blue Oyster Gallery That’s your preview so far for Audrey Baldwin’s performance art piece “Canker”, which features as part of the Blue Oyster Gallery’s Performance Series for the Visual Arts section of the Fringe Festival. While perhaps not Read more...

John Cooper Clarke

Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Tash Smillie

In a brilliant coup d’état for Critic’s poetry section, Dunedin has snared itself a poet of international infamy as the headline act of this year’s Fringe Festival. John Cooper Clarke, “punk’s poet laureate” will be bringing his iconic performance poetry to Sammy’s this month. Described as Read more...