Archive

Josh Hunter & Jessie Lee Robertson - As Bad As Me

Posted 1:47pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Loulou Callister-Baker

“My mum knew I’d be fucked if I did anything else,” Josh said when I asked him why he went to art school. Enamoured of popular culture, Americana, comics and tattoos, Josh Hunter and Jessie Lee Robertson aren’t quite like the art school graduates I typically encounter, but Read more...

Skinny Soup

Posted 1:43pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

I make a lot of cakes. Pastries, slices, anything baked really. I even have a site called Sophie Likes Cake. You can probably guess that because of this I would also consume a lot of cake. In an attempt to counteract my calorific hobby, I also go to the gym. A lot. I also tend to eat a lot of Read more...

Theatre: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Posted 1:35pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Kirsty Gordge

Rating: 4/5 With three actors playing several roles throughout the show, The Hound of the Baskervilles is a theatre production that provides a refreshingly unconventional take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most well-known Sherlock Holmes mystery. Featuring Detective Sherlock Holmes (Nick Read more...

Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation

Posted 1:31pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Maya Dodd

Rating: 3/5 I never used to be a fan of the Mission: Impossible franchise. Maybe I was too young to appreciate it — or maybe I was jealous of Katie Holmes — but with Tom Cruise’s love of Scientology and his overwhelming arrogance, I don’t know why I’d have ever Read more...

Les Combattants

Posted 1:28pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Cameron Evans

Rating: 3/5 With nine nominations at the 40th César Awards, Les Combattants’ arrival on the big screen was much anticipated. While the film offers the audience an unconventional and interesting romantic comedy, it often teeters on the line between mediocre and good. With some Read more...

Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Shaun Swain

Rating: 4/5 As the old saying goes, “it’s not the destination that counts, it’s the journey” — in the case of the 1200-year-old Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, there really is no other way to put it. But while it is the journey that truly counts, it’s nothing Read more...

Arcee

Posted 1:53pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Daniel Munro

Rona Wignall, aka Arcee, is a hip hop artist hailing from Dunedin. While studying a Bachelor of Music, Arcee also uses her talents on the mic as a rapper. Arcee is set to release her highly anticipated self-titled debut album this Friday, Lyrics so often come second to beats and adlibs with hip Read more...

Singles in Review | Issue 19

Posted 1:51pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Basti Menkes

Alice Glass - “Stillborn” After releasing a trilogy of stunning records together as Crystal Castles, musicians Alice Glass and Ethan Kath parted ways late last year. The immediate (and sexist) assumption was that Ethan was the true creative brawn while Alice’s role was Read more...

On Immunity: An Inoculation

Posted 1:37pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

On Immunity: An Inoculation, by Eula Biss, is the author’s personal meditation on  vaccinations and the web of subjects she connects to them, including disease, safety, motherhood and social responsibility. Biss looks at the metaphors and legends of immunity, the social ramifications of Read more...

Gaming World Grieves Loss of Icon

Posted 1:30pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Brandon Johnstone

In mid-July, gaming (and arguably wider pop culture) lost an icon and a hero. Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, passed away, on to the great Rainbow Road in the sky. Although corporate leaders die all the time, Iwata was an exemplary president, and his life and death warrant conversations about Read more...

The Mafia Kills Only in Summer (La mafia uccide solo d’estate)

Posted 1:26pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Greta Melvin

Rating: 4/5 In The Mafia Kills Only in Summer, Pierfrancesco “Pif” Diliberto portrays Sicilian life from the 1970s to the 90s — a time when the Mafia, known as the Cosa Nostra, were fighting for supremacy against government officials. Despite this serious subject matter, this Read more...

Mr Holmes

Posted 1:23pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Maya Dodd

Rating: 4/5 In my mind, Benedict Cumberbatch will always be Sherlock Holmes. My utter love for Benedict Cumberbatch in this role made me a little sceptical of Ian McKellen’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in Mr. Holmes, but his performance is worthy of recognition and, perhaps, even an Read more...

Self/less

Posted 1:20pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Andrew Kwiatkowski

Rating: 1/5 Disappointingly, it turns out that everything good in this movie was packed into the trailer. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Damian Hayes (Ben Kingsley) is directed to Professor Albright (Matthew Goode) who tells him about “shedding” — a medical procedure where Read more...

The Guest

Posted 1:15pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Jaxon Langley

Rating: 4/5 In 2011, director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett debuted their slasher film, You’re Next. The pair have now returned with The Guest — a thriller film with gore and pitch-black humour that offers the audience a slightly different take on home invasions. Following Read more...

Pho Ga (Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup)

Posted 1:06pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

Pho, pronounced “fa” is a clear broth soup full of noodles, herbs, chilli and the meat of your choice. It is really healthy and has flavour enough to knock your socks off. The broth is the most important part of this whole dish. Making your own really makes a difference but if you Read more...

LSD Lovin’ with Jim Cooper

Posted 1:00pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Jess Taylor

On spotting the unassuming Brett McDowell Gallery on Dunedin’s Dowling Street, there is no trace of the trippy wonders bursting behind the gallery’s old wooden doors. The works beyond were crafted by a homegrown artistic hero, Jim Cooper, and come together in an exciting exhibition Read more...

Diaz Grimm

Posted 2:57pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Daniel Munro

Diaz Grimm. You may not know the name yet, but you should. Diaz Grimm has just dropped his debut album Osiris and is now headed on his first New Zealand tour. Following a sold-out show in Hamilton, Grimm is heading our way for the second show of the tour this Thursday. Critic: First up, tell us a Read more...

Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss

Posted 2:54pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4/5 Chelsea Wolfe is an experimental singer-songwriter from Sacramento, California. Since her 2010 debut, The Grime and the Glow, she has incorporated sounds from the spheres of folk, electronica and heavy metal into her music. Drenched in gothic imagery and hinged upon her haunting Read more...

Foreign Gods, Inc.

Posted 2:47pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

The protagonist of Foreign Gods, Inc. — a novel of magical realism by Okey Ndibe — is Ike Uzondu, a Nigerian living in New York who is unable to get the high-paying work he is qualified for, due to his accent. Instead, he works as a taxi driver. When his green-card-driven marriage ends Read more...

Sichuan Dan Dan Noodles

Posted 2:40pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

O nce you have all the ingredients, assembling this noodle dish couldn’t be simpler. In fact, it is a really cheap and easy mid-week dinner option. Once you have your chilli oil, it lasts for yonks in your cupboard, and the sauce is a couple of ingredients simmered together. I recommend Read more...

Kerbal Space Program

Posted 2:33pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Carl Dingwall

Rating: 5/5 In space, no one can hear you scream … Or laugh uncontrollably as your space capsule spins in a similarly uncontrollable fashion towards the planet Kerbin. Welcome to Kerbal Space Program. Half physics sandbox, half management simulator, you play this game as what appears to be Read more...

Zina Swanson - For Luck

Posted 2:24pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Ruby Heyward

Inside the Dunedin Public Art Gallery is an aesthetically pleasing corner that contains all the luck you need. Covered in white tiles and created with a heavenly balanced composition, sits Zina Swanson’s exhibition, For Luck. It is meticulous and precise, a goldmine for those with Read more...

Ant-Man

Posted 2:19pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Maya Dodd

Rating: 3/5 While I’m a huge fan of the Marvel films, and the concept of a universe teeming with superheroes is my wildest dream come true, my expectations of Ant-Man were incredibly low. Ants, while known for their strength, are not something that I would rave about. They aren’t Read more...

La Chambre bleue/The Blue Room

Posted 2:16pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Greta Melvin

Rating: 4/5 Based on George Simenon’s novel of the same name, Mathieu Amalric’s film adaptation of La Chambre bleue is an erotic psychological thriller with an element of crime. However, La Chambre bleue doesn’t position itself as a whodunnit but, instead, invites the audience Read more...

Little Big Planet 3

Posted 2:30pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Anonymous Bird

Little Big Planet 3 arrived late last year, and is the third instalment in Sumo Digital’s super fun and silly trilogy. The Little Big Planet franchise is known for being fun, cute and particularly creative. The games are all about promoting creativity. The playable characters are Read more...

Interview with Gabriel Griffin

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Basti Menkes

Gabriel Griffin is a local musician and the drummer of the experimental jazz trio, Sewage. His playing style is eclectic, calling to mind percussionists like Zach Hill, Noah Lennox and Brian Chippendale. Critic caught up with Gabriel to discuss drumming, sci-fi and his latest musical Read more...

The Chemical Brothers - Born in the Echoes

Posted 2:23pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4/5 Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons occupy a place of honour in the museum of electronic dance music. Alongside acts like Fatboy Slim and The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers defined the rave scene of Europe in the ’90s. Their kaleidoscopic music saw big beats and druggy, euphoric pop Read more...

A Vision of Fire: Book One of the Earthend Saga

Posted 2:15pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

AVision of Fire: Book One of the Earthend Saga is a science-fiction thriller by Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin. As a sticker on the front aggressively proclaims, Gillian Anderson is the actor who played Dana Scully in The X-Files. After an attempt is made on India’s ambassador to the United Read more...

Interview with Virginia Heath

Posted 2:12pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Mandy Te

Critic: When going through all the Scottish film archives, did you have specific things in mind when choosing what you would use, and how did you know which footage to pick? It was a fluid process. I wanted an overall theme of love and loss, which relates to a lot of things such as war, Read more...

Scream Season 1 (Episode 1)

Posted 2:07pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Mandy Te

TV With slasher films being seen as a fad of the 1980s, the Scream franchise was said to have revitalised the horror genre in a way that was both satirical and enjoyable for teenagers in the 1990s. MTV’s Scream: TV Series is the television adaptation of the popular franchise and, in several Read more...

Paper Towns

Posted 2:03pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating 3/5 Like all things John Green, Paper Towns is a metaphor. With last year’s release of The Fault in Our Stars, comparisons will inevitably be made between these two films. However, Paper Towns — while similarly containing teenage characters who speak unnaturally — takes Read more...

Magic Mike XXL

Posted 2:01pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Shaun Swain

Rating: 4/5 Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike was a low-budget arthouse tragicomedy about male strippers that surprised audiences with its narrative depth. Now removing the “tragedy” and substituting the “arthouse” with “road trip”, Gregory Jacobs’ Read more...

Aliens

Posted 1:59pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Alex Campbell-Hunt

Classic From a time when quality sequels were probably even rarer than they are now, Aliens is a mind-blowing second instalment to the 1979 Alien. After surviving the events of the first movie, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) returns to civilisation after being in stasis for 57 years. Read more...

Slow Cooker Roast Beef Bowls

Posted 1:53pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

I first tried out this recipe with a lamb roast. Awkwardly,  though, my flatmate unplugged my slow cooker so she could use the coffee grinder (very understandable) but forgot to plug it back in (the caffeine had not yet been consumed, brain function was low). This meant that it did not Read more...

Neil Dawson - Negative Space

Posted 1:42pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by James Thomson-Bache

As someone whose major interest and study of art lies in painting, specifically in the safety and comfort of a wall-fixed picture that orders me to stand still and “read” what I’m seeing, I initially walked straight past the front-end exhibition Negative Space at the Milford Read more...

Interview with Bill Gosden

Posted 2:09pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Mandy Te

From 30 July to 16 August, the New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) will be screening almost 100 films from 25 countries. Critic interviewed Bill Gosden, the director of NZIFF, to learn more about the event. What does your role as director of NZIFF entail? I’m responsible for Read more...

Ted 2

Posted 2:05pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Shaun Swain

Rating: 1/5 If I described Seth MacFarlane’s sequel to Ted as incredibly masturbatory, I would only be lowering myself to the level of MacFarlane’s tasteless sense of humour. But it doesn’t matter. Ted 2, despite its painfully large budget, provides no inspiration for good Read more...

The Falling

Posted 2:02pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Jaxon Langley

Rating: 3/5 Following her heartbreaking docu-drama, Dreams of a Life, Carol Morley brings us The Falling — a bewitching, deadpan period portrait of female adolescence that explores the subject of mass psychogenic illness and treads into other dark territory. Although it is well-written and Read more...

NZIFF Programme Launch Film: Mavis!

Posted 1:59pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating: 3/5 This year’s New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) is Dunedin’s biggest film festival to date. With almost 100 films from 25 countries, the 39th Dunedin International Film Festival celebrated the launch of its programme with a delicious array of macarons, dips, Read more...

Madame Bovary

Posted 1:56pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating: 3/5 As a writer, Gustave Flaubert spent his career chasing after “le mot juste” — “the right word” — and, for many people, Madame Bovary truly captures his perfectionist style. However, film adaptations of Madame Bovary have yet to embody that Read more...

Son Lux - Bones

Posted 1:48pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Basti Menkes

Son Lux is the stage name of American composer, Ryan Lott. Appearing in 2008 with his spine-tingling debut album At War with Walls & Mazes, Son Lux quickly established himself as a force to be reckoned with.  Son Lux’s songs have the deliberate architecture of a classical composer, Read more...

High On Fire - Luminiferous

Posted 1:44pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3/5 High On Fire is a heavy metal trio from Oakland, California. The band was formed in 1998 by Matt Pike, the once and future guitarist of pioneering doom metal group, Sleep. High On Fire has since earned itself a reputation for its genre-straddling style and vehement live shows. On its Read more...

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

Posted 1:37pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Cheyanne Intemann

Rating: 4/5 Heavensward is the recent expansion to the Square Enix massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Final Fantasy XIV had a particularly bad 1.0 launch, with daily experience gain limits, huge empty maps, shockingly poor optimisation and clunky combat. Read more...

The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies

Posted 1:31pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Martin Millar’s novel, The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies, is set in Athens, 421 BC. During this time, the city-state of Athens is at war with Sparta, and has been for ten years. The playwright Aristophanes wants to put on a comedy called Peace for the Dionysia Festival, as his entry in a Read more...

Spicy Roasted Winter Vegetable Lentil Salad

Posted 1:23pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

You know when you eat one thing so many times until that one day when it makes you feel sick and you can’t face it ever again? That is how I feel about soups in general at the moment. I had been scouting for new ideas for cheap winter vegetables when I came across this recipe for a winter Read more...

Vital Bodies

Posted 1:06pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Artists: Georgette Brown, Wendelien Bakker, Anna Rankin, Sam Norton, Virginia Overell and Holly Childs. Curated by: Georgina Watson   Seeking out the vital bodies in the current Blue Oyster show curated by Georgina Watson is an experience that crosses the disciplines of writing, Read more...

Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids

Posted 2:25pm Sunday 12th July 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids is a collection of sixteen personal essays written by professional writers about one particular decision that perfect strangers often feel they have a say in: choosing not to have children. This choice should not Read more...

Jono Das - Illustrations EP

Posted 2:20pm Sunday 12th July 2015 by Daniel Munro

Jono Das is a man of many talents. Along with producing, he uses his creativity in design, art and videography. The title of Das’s debut EP Illustrations is a reflection of him as an artist with “beats being his new drawing”. The EP has been two years in the making, with the Read more...

Singles in Review | Issue 15

Posted 2:15pm Sunday 12th July 2015 by Basti Menkes

Beach House - “Sparks” Baltimore duo, Beach House, is at the forefront of modern dream pop, a genre built on whispered vocals and shimmering walls of sound. A criticism frequently leveled at the genre is that in striving for its particular kind of gossamer beauty, dream pop Read more...

Mortal Kombat X

Posted 2:02pm Sunday 12th July 2015 by Carl Dingwall

Mortal Kombat is one of those series that everyone knows about, even if they don’t play games. People probably recognise its memorable theme song and two cheesy movies, the classic announcer shouting “FINISH HIM!” and, of course, its gratuitous violence and gore. So now that we are Read more...