Archive

Dues Ex: Human Revolution

Posted 6:11am Monday 19th September 2011 by Critic

Platforms: PC, xbox 360, PS3 (4.5/5) My version of Adam Jensen, protagonist of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, practised Batman's brand of pacifism. Shattered elbow joints, enough brain trauma for hours of unconsciousness, even getting squashed by an industrial freezer; it's all dandy as long as Read more...

The Help

Posted 6:09am Monday 19th September 2011 by Lu Sandston

Director: Tate Taylor (4/5) Based on the best-selling book by Kathryn Stockett, The Help was adapted for the screen and directed by Tate Taylor. It’s the late 1960s in Jackson Mississippi and Skeeter (Emma Stone) returns from university to her hometown, which is populated by a group of Read more...

Hanna

Posted 6:07am Monday 19th September 2011 by Eve Duckworth

Director: Joe Wright (3.5/5) Think The Bourne Identity but in the form of a teenage girl who has been trained by her father from babyhood to be an ice-cold killer, and you have Hanna.   The film begins sixty miles below the Arctic Circle. There, in a snowscape across which a deer Read more...

Incendies

Posted 6:05am Monday 19th September 2011 by Michaela Hunter

Director: Denis Villeneuve (5/5)   Incendies opens with an unsettling scene of child soldiers having their heads shaved, accompanied by the evocative Radiohead’s ‘You and Whose Army?’. The undefined nature of this scene flows throughout the film, which is somewhat Read more...

The Bang Bang Club

Posted 6:01am Monday 19th September 2011 by Jane Ross

Director: Steven Silver (3/5) Based on the real-life experiences of four South African photojournalists who achieved international notoriety and recognition for their documentation of the turbulent lead-up to the Republic’s first free election in 1994, The Bang Bang Club really should Read more...

Chrome yellow

Posted 3:23am Monday 12th September 2011 by Bronwyn Wallace

This week’s lunchtime theatre featured an adaption of Aldous Huxley’s 1921 novel Crome Yellow, a story that mocks the fashions of the time and delves deeply into topics such as art, education, love and life. The director went unaccredited in the programme, so I apologise for not Read more...

Chad VanGaalen – Diaper Island

Posted 2:58am Monday 12th September 2011 by Critic

  With a prolific musical and illustrative output only matched by his passionate cult following, Chad VanGaalen seems on a mission to induct listeners into his own insular, idiosyncratic world. Populated with melancholy, melody and wonderfully off-kilter compositions existing on a musical Read more...

Beastwars with Soulseller and Idiot Prayer

Posted 2:56am Monday 12th September 2011 by Critic

Once again returning to Dunedin after a spectacular May performance, the Beastwars Winter Tour saw some true sonic weight hit Re:Fuel. Friday September 2 Re:Fuel  Opening proceedings, Idiot Prayer played an unfamiliar set comprised of new material. With almost industrial Read more...

Bastion

Posted 2:53am Monday 12th September 2011 by Markus Ho

Platforms: PC, XBLA You can’t help but feel like a child as you play through Bastion, bright-eyed and attentive, completely captivated by the story of the Great Calamity. “Proper story supposed to start from the beginning. Ain't so simple with this one” is how the story of Read more...

Moroccan chickpeas with spicy paella

Posted 2:51am Monday 12th September 2011 by Ruby the nutritionist

Chickpeas are just the best. Every time I go home for a holiday I fill a gym bag with delicious things from my mum’s pantry (Air NZ “sports allowance”, thank you!), including various nuts and seeds and dried fruit and, of course, cans of delicious legumey goodness. Mum just sighs wearily and reminds Read more...