Archive

Caro

Posted 1:14pm Sunday 28th February 2016 by Andrew Kwiatkowski

Rating: B- After viewing this film, one is left with bruises from being bashed over the head with the themes. Carol is an adaptation of the novel The Price of Salt, which follows two women falling in love in 1950s USA. The social norms of that time and place, of course, do not permit Read more...

Blue Oyster Gallery

Posted 12:58pm Sunday 28th February 2016 by Chloe Geoghegan

Most of the time, the Blue Oyster Gallery is quiet, almost too quiet. My shoes, my squeaky office chair, the phone, the stapler, and my keyboard form the percussion section of an administrative orchestra that intermittently plays through the quiet gallery spaces, a new verse every minute from 11am Read more...

Objectivity & Positivity

Posted 12:52pm Sunday 28th February 2016 by Millicent Lovelock

Music writing is fraught. For the past four years of my life I have studied English Literature, and I understand all too well that often, to write with clarity and objectivity, there needs to be, in the mind of the critic, a clear distinction between author and text. I also understand that sometimes Read more...

Why Do We Need…Revolution 4.0?

Posted 12:48pm Sunday 28th February 2016 by Anthony Marris

Revolution 4.0 (which I will call Rev4.0) is the ménage a trois that connects robotics, the internet we use for shopping, streaming etc, and cloud computing. The aim of Rev4.0 is to create “smart factories”, a more intelligent (read efficient) means to manufacture Read more...

Down the Rabbit Hole

Posted 12:37pm Sunday 28th February 2016 by Hayleigh Clarkson

For those of you like me who spent their teenage years in the early 2000s, you will already be familiar with the pop-culture take over that was Playboy. Ranging from bedspreads, jewellery and temporary tattoos through to the popular hit TV show The Girls Next Door, Playboy took over every teenaged Read more...

Disclosure - Caracal

Posted 3:20pm Sunday 4th October 2015 by Veronika Bell

Rating: 2/5 After the announcement of Disclosure’s new album, I was beyond excited. I felt like Christmas was just around the corner. I was ready to be blown away. Instead, the experience was much like Santa forgetting about me. Miserable. With the amount of hype that surrounded the album, Read more...

Theatre: Time Stands Still

Posted 3:12pm Sunday 4th October 2015 by Shaun Swain

Rating: 4/5 "When you’re looking down that lens, time comes to a stop.” We all try, in one way or another, to capture some aspect of life and keep it forever; sometimes to preserve it, sometimes to just let it go. Lara Macgregor’s rendition of Time Stands Still, written Read more...

Everest

Posted 3:07pm Sunday 4th October 2015 by Nita Sullivan

Rating: 4/5 This film depicts the real events of a Kiwi company, Adventure Consultants, and its disastrous expedition to Mount Everest. Based on Rob Hall’s 1996 trip, Everest follows Rob (Jason Clarke) as he leads eight climbers through Nepal towards the highest peak on earth. Read more...

Sicario

Posted 3:05pm Sunday 4th October 2015 by Maya Dodd

Rating: 4/5 Sicario follows FBI agent, Kate Macer (Emily Blunt), as she enters into the CIA’s secretive world. The agency has been trying to shut down the Mexican drug cartel that governs the border between the USA and Mexico. As a drug taskforce agent, Kate has dealt with many domestic Read more...

Tangerine

Posted 3:03pm Sunday 4th October 2015 by Greta Melvin

Rating: 3/5 Having seen my fair share of short iPhone-made videos, I was sceptical about how high the cinematic quality of an entire film would be. Baker’s use of an iPhone aptly reflects the fast-paced movements of the characters and the dialogue, making for a dynamic experience. But while Read more...

Big Pharma

Posted 2:58pm Sunday 4th October 2015 by Carl Dingwall

Rating: 4/5 In an industry where saving people can make you a tidy profit, there have been many accusations of putting money before people’s lives. The Big Pharma conspiracy has always been a scary idea, and it isn’t helped by recent examples of corporations hiking up prices of Read more...

Disclaimer

Posted 2:55pm Sunday 4th October 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Disclaimer, by Renee Knight, is a thriller. Catherine Ravenscroft, after recently moving house with her husband, Robert, finds a book called The Perfect Stranger among her possessions. She has no recollection of buying the book. While reading it, she realises that the main character is a Read more...

Stranger in Strange Land, Jae Hoon Lee

Posted 2:52pm Sunday 4th October 2015 by Ruby Heyward

Stranger in Stranger Land currently on display at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, is an atmospheric, moody installation by Korean artist Jae Hoon Lee. Lee (born in 1973) is a self-proclaimed “cultural wanderer”. His work features “observations” of Arab and Thai culture Read more...

Peanut Noodle Salad

Posted 2:47pm Sunday 4th October 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

I thought I had escaped the joy of 21sts but, before I knew it, it was my own brother’s turn. He decided to have it at the local bowls club and invite 100 of his closest friends. Of course it went without saying I was volunteered to the catering post. Mum was a little ambitious on the menu Read more...

Procrastibaking: Vanilla Cupcakes

Posted 2:42pm Sunday 4th October 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

During my day at home being the world’s worst sick person, I not only managed to make a cake and a batch of meringues, clean the kitchen, vacuum the flat and write a blog post, I also whipped up some classic vanilla cupcakes for SPCA cupcake day. While there are oodles of recipes out there Read more...

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

Posted 1:52pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Maya Dodd

Rating: 3/5 Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is the second instalment of The Maze Runner series, following the survivors from the first film as they discover that the world outside the maze is just as dangerous as the one within it — if not more so. I first stumbled across Dylan O’Brien Read more...

People Places Things

Posted 1:47pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Nita Sullivan

Rating: 3/5 People Places Things follows Will Henry (Jemaine Clement), a Kiwi man who teaches at a local university in New York. He is also a graphic novelist and spends his evenings writing his own semi-autobiographical novel. During their five-year-old twins’ birthday party, Will walks in Read more...

13 Minutes

Posted 1:45pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Greta Melvin

Rating: 4/5 Underdogs and people who fight for the greater good are often portrayed as wholesome characters whose only flaw is that they care too much. Based on the true story of Georg Elser, a German man who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, 13 Minutes is a carefully composed film that Read more...

6 Years

Posted 1:40pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating: 3/5 Hannah Fidell’s 6 Years takes a beautiful and authentic approach to the demise of a young couple’s six-year relationship. However, it falls just short of capturing the same empathy from its audience. Melanie “Mel” Clarke (Taissa Farmiga) and Dan Mercer (Ben Read more...

DeadCore

Posted 1:35pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: 5/5 The first-person platformer is a very unstable genre. First person makes it disorienting — you can’t see your feet and the camera is often shaking. Games like Portal and Mirror’s Edge are examples of such first-person platforming where experimentation has paid off Read more...

Murder That Wasn’t: The Case of George Gwaze

Posted 1:31pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Unusually for true crime, Goodyear-Smith takes the position that no crime actually happened. Charlene contracted HIV at birth from her mother. Both her birth parents died, and Charlene and her older sister Charmaine were adopted by their mother’s sister Sifso and her husband George. For Read more...

Art in Law XIV, Bare With

Posted 1:28pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Susan Nunn

The Dunedin School of Art and the University of Otago Law Faculty have collaborated to bring a twice yearly art exhibition to the corridors of the Richardson Building on the Otago campus. Initiated originally by Peter Stupples, the exhibitions are curated by Marion Wassenaar and have been running Read more...

Cinnamon Churros with Salted Caramel

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

In my opinion, churros are some of the best doughnuts ever. Why, you ask? They have the greatest surface area to volume ratio, meaning more crispy, sweet, cinnamon bang for your buck. I recently (aka yesterday morning) came back from a trip to South America. Over there they make these slightly Read more...

Best and Worst Lyrics

Posted 1:09pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Basti Menkes

The poetic addition of lyrics to our music over time has resulted in some truly stunning lines of verse, as well as a few crimes against the human intellect. Basti Menkes shares some of the greatest and the most cringeworthy moments in our lyrical history. The Good Pink Floyd, Read more...

Etherwood - Blue Leaves

Posted 1:00pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Veronika Bell

Rating: 4/5 Drum and bass is a genre of electronic music with heavy basslines and fast breakbeats, usually around the 160–180 bpm margin. Over the years, drum and bass has developed an unfair stigma in society that really pisses me off. There’s an unflattering conception of Read more...

Myrkur - M

Posted 2:16pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3/5 In a genre of stylistic sameness and poor gender diversity, one-woman black metal outfit Myrkur is a welcome breath of fresh air. Danish muse Amalie Bruun has emerged at long last with M, her debut LP as Myrkur. After a promising EP last year, Myrkur’s first full-length album Read more...

Kadington - Don’t Kick the Cat, EP

Posted 2:09pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Veronika Bell

Rating: 4/5 The world of visual arts gave us Banksy, a mysterious graffiti artist who uses a distinctive stencilling technique and dark humour to critique modern life. Banksy’s iconic political and social commentary has appeared on walls and buildings around the world.  The music Read more...

Tales from the Borderlands

Posted 2:05pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Brandon Johnstone

Rating: 5/5 A Telltale Games masterpiece has almost become a cliché. Tackling some of pop culture’s largest franchises, from Back to the Future to The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, Telltale Games crafts surprisingly captivating stories while avoiding covering old ground or Read more...

The Mountain Story

Posted 2:00pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Thr Mountain Story, by Lori Lansens, is a survival novel. On his 18th birthday, Wolf Truly takes a tram up the mountain he spent much of his adolescence exploring with his best friend Byrd. A year before, Byrd was in an accident on the mountain that Wolf feels responsible for. This, along with the Read more...

Z

Posted 1:53pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Simon Kingsley-Holmes

Classic "Any similarity to real persons or events is not coincidental. It is INTENTIONAL.” With one of film’s most baldly provocative opening statements, Costa-Gavras offers a thriller that hits the ground running. The audience is thrown full force into a poorly veiled Read more...

Straight Outta Compton

Posted 1:49pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Siobon Inu

Rating: 4/5 Before the film’s release, Straight Outta Compton was gaining traction and hype — with suggestions of Oscar nominations, and also criticism of the film’s erasure of domestic violence and abuse. Despite the main cast being unknown talents, the hype concerning Straight Read more...

A Walk in the Woods

Posted 1:46pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Nita Sullivan

Rating: 2/5 On this occasion, audience attendance was sadly indicative of the film’s quality. Based on travel writer Bill Bryson’s 1998 book, A Walk in the Woods recounts some of his 3500-kilometre tramp through the Appalachian Trail. Living a comfortable life in New Hampshire with Read more...

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Posted 1:42pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating: 4/5 Based on the young adult novel of the same name, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl offers the audience a refreshing take on the on-screen adolescent journey — one that is amusing, self-aware and skillfully made. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is shown through the eyes of Greg Read more...

Coconut Chole Curry

Posted 1:39pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Kirsten Garcia

I'm blessed to live with an authentic Indian who teaches the Indian cooking classes at OUSA. I get one-on-one lessons when we flat cook, so I’ve come to master this curry business. As my first appearance in Critic, I’m going to share with you my ultimate crowd-pleaser meal. I Read more...

The (Un)happiest Place on Earth

Posted 1:32pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Jess Taylor

As negative as it sounds, I’ve never been to the self-proclaimed “happiest place on earth”. But chances are, neither have you. As touristy and overrun as Disneyland sounds (in all of its five locations), the internationally known amusement park is a staple on almost all bucket Read more...

Rocket League

Posted 2:00pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Carl Dingwall

Rating: 4/5 You may remember a segment from Top Gear involving cars, a large soccer ball and an attempt to play soccer. Entertaining in its own right, it wasn’t enough for the developers over at Psyonix, who figured it would make a more entertaining game if you added rockets. Welcome to Read more...

Paying with their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran

Posted 1:55pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Paying with their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran, by John M Kinder, takes on the subject of disabilities caused by warfare and the treatment of disabled veterans throughout American history. Kinder begins with the treatment of disabled war veterans and chiefly focuses Read more...

Singles in Review | Issue 23

Posted 1:46pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Basti Menkes

Battles - “The Yabba” and “FF Bada” “Robot Rock” may be a Daft Punk song, but no band fits that description quite like Battles do. Since their 2007 debut album Mirrored, Battles have been blurring human and machine together in synth-infused blasts of Read more...

Ghosts of Electricity

Posted 1:43pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Basti Menkes

Ghosts of Electricity are a white-collar punk trio from Auckland. Critic caught up with frontman and principle songwriter Tim Fowler recently to discuss their great new album Trolls, the current New Zealand music climate, and trying to sound like Lana Del Rey. Tell me a little about the Read more...

We Are Your Friends

Posted 1:36pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Kirsty Gordge

Max Joseph’s music drama, We Are Your Friends, successfully captures the struggles of four young adults who have opted out of student loans and, instead, are attempting the get-rich-quick route. Following their attempts at wealth, aspiring DJ Cole (Zac Efron) and his friends, Ollie (Shiloh Read more...

Ricki and the Flash

Posted 1:34pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Maya Dodd

Rating: 4/5 Meryl Streep is not only an incredible actor with a great set of pipes, there is also just something unique about her that leaves me in awe. But, for me, nothing will ever top her performance as the stylishly cold Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada. However, with impressive Read more...

Last Cab to Darwin

Posted 1:31pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Valu Maka

Rating: 3/5 Last Cab to Darwin is one of those circling-the-drain films that makes you reflect on your life and keeps you up at night with deep questions such as “what makes life worth living?”. Directed by Jeremy Sims, Last Cab to Darwin  follows Rex McRae (Michael Read more...

Ever the Land

Posted 1:27pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Ngarangi Haerewa

Rating: 2/5 Part of the quintessential cinematic experience is going into the cinema knowing next to nothing about the film. With such logic, I was halfway toward the ultimate cinema experience. While it was initially thrilling, Ever the Land was also disappointing. Directed by Sarah Grohnert, Read more...

Savoury Muffins

Posted 1:16pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

My best friend Sophie M loves savoury muffins. Like crazy loves. She will buy one almost every day to have for morning tea. In her muffin quests, she has come to be quite the connoisseur. I always get really nervous when I make them for her for fear they will not live up to her high standards. For Read more...

Tully Arnot - Grey Goo

Posted 1:10pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by James Thomson-Bache

"It’s an experimental space,” curator Chloe Geoghegan remarked on my arrival to the Blue Oyster’s most recently installed exhibition, Grey Goo. It certainly did feel that way as I stood there, an ominous hum playing around me and a McDonald’s burger shaking vigorously at Read more...

This War of Mine

Posted 2:53pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by George Elliott

Rating: 4/5 In the past decade, the video game industry has been disrupted by a revolution of sorts: the medium is being reclaimed from the potent forces of commercialisation. The rise of the independent developer, propelled by advances in digital distribution, the democratisation of software and Read more...

Singles in Review | Issue 22

Posted 2:46pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Basti Menkes

The Dead Weather - “I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)” The most experimental of all of Jack White’s bands is arguably The Dead Weather, in which he shares vocal responsibilities with Alison Mosshart of The Kills. The quartet makes scuzzy, psychedelic blues rock drenched Read more...

Legacy Music Group

Posted 2:41pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Daniel Munro

Dunedin has birthed some huge names in music, with acts like Six60 and The Chills enjoying not only national but international success. While certain acts have made it big outside our wee student city, hip-hop has not been among them. Lucas “Big Sima” Gunn asked us to “name a Read more...

Southpaw

Posted 2:36pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Alastair Reith

Rating: 3/5 Do we really need Southpaw? Do we really need a microwave reheat of another boxing film?  Despite the influx of Eastern European titans in recent years on the world stage, boxing in the United States remains a Black- and Latino-dominated sport, as it has been for decades.With Read more...

Women He’s Undressed

Posted 2:30pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Cameron Evans

Rating: 4/5 In Women He’s Undressed, director Gillian Armstrong goes beyond fashion and offers the audience a comprehensive insight into the life, motivations and tribulations of Australian, Orry Kelly — a costume designer whose success is unknown to most of Australia. Using an Read more...