Archive

Cafe Review - The Museum Cafe

Posted 4:05am Monday 21st March 2011 by Pippa Schaffler

Ground floor of Otago Museum (across road from Central Library) 419 Great King Street. (4/5) Prices: Flat White: $3.60 (or $4.10 for large), Long Black: $3.10, Mocha: $4.10   Atmosphere: Busy and family orientated. There were lots of children running around us screaming and it was a Read more...

Rango

Posted 4:01am Monday 21st March 2011 by Nicole Muriel

Directed by Gore Verbinski. (4/5). Don’t be fooled by the trailer which, emblazoned with star Johnny Depp’s name, sells Rango as a kid’s film with a smart-mouthed hero and lots of laughs.   From the opening scenes, it’s obvious this isn’t as light as Read more...

Hall Pass

Posted 3:59am Monday 21st March 2011 by Hamish Gavin

Directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly. (3.5/5). Every male in a relationship, everywhere, thinks exactly like the characters of this new movie from the Farrelly Brothers. If given the same chance as the guys in Hall Pass, most men would probably end up doing exactly the same thing. The basic Read more...

Fair Game

Posted 3:58am Monday 21st March 2011 by Alec Dawson

Directed by Doug Liman. (3/5). Living as we do now in the Obama era, with the Iraq war drawing to a close, a film about the lies told in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion feels strangely dated at times. This is especially so outside of America, where most people knew the war was totally unjustified Read more...

Conviction

Posted 3:56am Monday 21st March 2011 by Theo Kay

Directed by Tony Goldwyn. (2.5/5). Conviction tells the true story of one woman’s fight for the release of her brother who has been sentenced to life for a murder he did not commit. The film's clunky conventional storyline steps back and forth in time to build up an account of how Read more...

Killer Condom (Kondom des Grauens) – 1997

Posted 3:53am Monday 21st March 2011 by Ben Blakely

Directed by Martin Walz. Starring: Udo Samel, Marc Richter, Leonard Lansink, Peter Lohmeyer. Something strange is afoot at Hotel Quickie. A professor takes his student to the hotel and blackmails her into sleeping with him; he leaves without his penis. It appears that it has been bitten off by Read more...

A fabulous free journal to lust after

Posted 3:22am Monday 21st March 2011 by Mahoney Turnbull

Emily Miller-Sharma and photographer Guy Coombes worked with Chelsea Metcalf and Chelsie Preston-Crayford to document the interaction between their two personalities. Henrietta Harris submitted illustrations to a verbal brief of “Just paint some beautiful pictures like you do. Some Read more...

Bloodlines

Posted 3:01am Monday 21st March 2011 by Pippa Schäffler

Author: T.K. Roxborogh. Publisher: Penguin Books (3.5/5) “Do not feel guilty that you do not love me like her. Our union will be another story, Fleance. I will be a good wife and an excellent queen”.     With this, the reader of Bloodlines is immediately propelled Read more...

The Bed of Procrustes

Posted 2:59am Monday 21st March 2011 by Kari Schmidt

Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Publisher: Penguin Books (NZ) (3/5) The outer aesthetic appeal of The Bed of Procrustes is equal to that of its content. A short book, charmingly presented (with a classical sculpture adorning its cover), it consists of chapters on various aspects of living Read more...

Fringe Festival

Posted 2:49am Monday 21st March 2011 by Hana Aoake

The eleventh annual Dunedin Fringe festival is on this week and I encourage you to go along and see some of the great locally produced events. Pattern and paradox by Dunedin artist Jenny Longstaff is on at the Blueskin gallery in Waitati. If you have a car or want to jump on a bus (don’t Read more...

Phillip James Frost

Posted 2:47am Monday 21st March 2011 by Hana Aoake

Works on paper, A Gallery. The work of elusive Dunedin artist Phillip James Frost is noted as being tactile and messy, yet retaining a sense of delicacy. His practice involves dispersing and recycling fragments of life and imagined worlds, as well as reincorporating motifs featured in previous Read more...

The Glean

Posted 2:45am Monday 21st March 2011 by Kari Schmidt

Contemporary jewellery and other stuff: Richard Scowen, Kelly O'Shea and Shagpile. None Gallery Upon entering None last Friday night, one encountered a diverse variety of work by The Glean. Kelly O’Shea’s pieces largely consisted of found objects such as stones and branches - a Read more...

The road has no name

Posted 2:09am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Jen Aitken

Written & directed by Feather Shaw. Staring Luke Agnew, Rachel Foerg and Alex Ross. (3/5). The programme reads; “Enjoy the play, have a laugh”. Done. This was a great way to kick off 2011’s LTT programme. To write and direct a play all by your lonesome is a big task, the Read more...

Dunedin Fringe Festival: FIND YOUR FRINGE!

Posted 2:08am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Jen Aitken

17-27 March The 2011 Dunedin Fringe Festival has attracted over 50 comedy, music, dance, theatre and visual art acts, including its biggest ever line up of comedy acts! Have you heard of Wilson Dixon? Raybon Kan? Irene Pink? Justine Smith (my personal fav)? Ben Hurley or Steve Wrigley? If you Read more...

Salmonella Dub

Posted 1:24am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Lisa McGonigle

Urban Factory, March 5 2011. On March 5 Salmonella Dub, those stalwarts of the NZ music scene, played at Urban Factory in a gig which had been postponed from its original February 26 date. Since 1991 Salmonella Dub have been pioneering that fusion of dub, reggae and drum’n’bass Read more...

Elbow – Build a Rocket Boys

Posted 1:20am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Sam Valentine

Two years after the release of the Mercury Prize-winning The Seldom Seen Kid, British orchestral-guitar four-piece Elbow return to action with Build a Rocket Boys! Once eloquently described as “prog without the solos”, Elbow’s emotionally laden, grandiose formula is evident in full effect here. Read more...

Patrick Stump – Truant Wave EP

Posted 1:19am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Midge McBryde

Patrick Stump's Truant Wave EP was unexpectedly announced last month and released a mere week later on February 22. It showcases the songs Stump has excluded from his forthcoming album Soul Punk and eases the listener into his fresh synth-pop sound. It’s probably best not to listen to this Read more...

Bulletstorm

Posted 1:13am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Toby Hills

Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC. (5/5). "In the new video game Bulletstorm, players are rewarded for shooting enemies in the private parts (such as the buttocks).”   My worry is that no matter what I write in this review, no matter how much I ache and strain to Read more...

Filo is Your Friend

Posted 1:09am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Niki Lomax

Filo is not scary. Filo is your friend. The fear is understandable; I too once considered filo to be a fearful and tricky business. That was before I actually used it and realised how easy it is. SO EASY. I swear. It’s not nearly as time consuming as you might assume, it’s extremely Read more...

The Adjustment Bureau

Posted 1:04am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Tom Ainge-Roy

Directed by George Nolfi. Starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, John Slattery (3/5). If I had left half way through this movie, I probably would have written a favourable review. Regrettably I stayed for its entirety and now I’m duty-bound to tell the truth. A good start with Read more...

I am Number Four

Posted 1:01am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Directed by D.J. Caruso. Starring Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Dianna Agron. (2/5). I Am Number Four is a teenage sci-fi where Darth Maul-like offspring go to the supermarket, wave at little children in order to look casual (despite the four functioning gills on either side of their Read more...

True Grit

Posted 12:57am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Ben Speare

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Starring Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon. (4/5). On the surface, this is the simple story of 14 year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) trying to bring her father’s killer to justice. However, as in many westerns, there are deeper undertows Read more...

Sanctum

Posted 12:54am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Matt Chapman

Directed by Alister Grierson. Starring Richard Roxburgh, Ioan Gruffudd, Rhys Wakefield. 2/5 As an avid scuba diver, I was expecting big things from Alister Grierson's new film, Sanctum. Produced by James Cameron, it looked set to be an action movie of epic proportions; sadly, I was underwhelmed. Read more...

Mad Max

Posted 12:45am Tuesday 15th March 2011 by Ben Blakely

Directed by George Miller. Starring: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keayes-Byrne, Steve Bisley. Long before Mel Gibson went bat-shit crazy, he was the star of this Australian low-budget road tale. Set “a few years from now” in a post-apocalyptic Australian outback, Mad Max follows Max Read more...

Ruby, you wee gem

Posted 4:39am Monday 14th March 2011 by Mahoney Turnbull

352 George St has never looked so pretty. Dunedin’s finest fashion aficionados were all on show last Wednesday night for the official store opening of Ruby Boutique. An intimate affair hosted by the charming double act behind the famed Ruby and Madame Hawk labels, the cute, super-skinny George St Read more...

Barefoot

Posted 4:24am Monday 14th March 2011 by Sarah Maessen

Author: Michelle Holman. Publisher: Harper Collins (2/5) Barefoot is a loose sequel to Michelle Holman’s debut novel Bonkers. She claims that she felt compelled to tell Sherry and Glenn’s story after they featured as more minor characters in their siblings’ story.   Read more...

August

Posted 4:21am Monday 14th March 2011 by Sarah Maessen

Author: Bernard Beckett. Publisher: Text Publishing (4/5) New Zealand author Bernard Beckett’s latest novel is described as a ‘philosophical thriller’. While I’m not sure that it’s quite a thriller, the combined tension of the characters’ back stories and Read more...

The Uninvited

Posted 4:13am Monday 14th March 2011 by Sarah Maessen

Author: Tim Wynne Jones. Publisher: Walker books (3/5) Mimi leaves the stress of the Big Apple for the tranquillity of her father’s house in small-town Canada, only to find that she is not the only one who thought it would be the perfect getaway. It doesn’t take long for Mimi to Read more...

Shaolin Burning

Posted 4:09am Monday 14th March 2011 by Pippa Maessen

Author: Ant Sang. Publisher: Harper Collins (3/5) Shaolin Burning is a graphic novel by the designer of bro’ Town, yet in it Ant Sang has chosen to steer clear of the New Zealand humour typical of this earlier work. Instead he explores kung fu mythology and Chinese legends. Background Read more...

Clare Fleming’s at once we are rootless and harbouring, floating on an inland sea (I am from here)

Posted 3:59am Monday 14th March 2011 by Hana Aoake

Blue Oyster art project space from March 8 To encounter Clare Fleming’s At once we are rootless and harbouring, floating on an inland sea (I am here) is to be immersed in a deeply personal inner landscape. Clare Fleming is an artist based in Dunedin and a Dunedin School of Art BFA graduate. Read more...

Disasteradio with Thundercub

Posted 3:12am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Sam Valentine

Re:fuel, February 24 2011 After an energetic and engaging performance in the foreign environment of the OUSA balcony during lunch, one-man party machine Luke Rowell, aka Disasteradio, seemed sufficiently excited for the small but passionate Re:fuel audience.   Preceded by current Read more...

Deerhoof – Deerhoof vs. Evil

Posted 3:10am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Sam Valentine

Remember being a teenager? No one could tell you what to do. You refused to clean your room while screaming Rage Against the Machine lyrics as loudly as you possibly could. This is the sound of Deerhoof’s new album. From the child-adorned cover to the free candy included in the press release (omg Read more...

Gil Scott Heron & Jamie xx – We’re New Here

Posted 3:09am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Sam Valentine

Following a period of personal and legal trouble over his drug addiction, living jazz-soul legend Gil Scott Heron released his first album of original material in sixteen years with the excellent I’m New Here in 2010. Gaining critical acclaim for its exploration of contemporary electronic music Read more...

The Blocks Cometh

Posted 2:56am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Toby Hills

It’s a melancholy thing to ruminate on these sub two-dollar iPod touch games, to glimpse a vertical slice of a dystopian world in which we all must eternally run to the right with no respite until we inevitably tumble into the ink. In The Blocks Cometh, you instead jump upwards and because the Read more...

Frittering with courgettes

Posted 2:52am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Niki Lomax

I saw my breath this morning and I fear that what has been a glorious summer may now be ending. And along with it, the season of cheap and fresh summery produce. Tomatoes! Oh how I will miss your abundance. You really rock my world. Courgettes! Can I still convince the flatties to buy you when Read more...

Café review - Green Acorn Cafe

Posted 2:50am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Pip Schaffler

72 Albany St (opposite the Central Library). (2/5) Prices: Flat white – $4.50, Long black – $3.50, Mocha - $4.80   Atmosphere: dreary and tired   Service: prompt but we were the only people in the place.   Location: very convenient – opposite the Read more...

Winter’s Bone

Posted 2:47am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Tom Ainge-Roy

Directed by Debra Granik. 4/5 Winter’s Bone isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a feel-good movie. That said, those of you who can stomach the ceaselessly grey skies, endlessly bleak atmosphere and uncomfortable realism of an American South steeped in meth addiction are in for a Read more...

The King’s Speech

Posted 2:45am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Sarah Baillie

Directed by Tom Hooper. 5/5 So yeah, The King's Speech won Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor and Screenplay at the Academy Awards last week; I guess it deserves a mention in the hallowed pages of Critic. Not just another “historical drama” (a genre which can be boring), the film Read more...

In A Better World

Posted 2:44am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Nicole Muriel

Directed by Susanne Bier. 4.5/5 Danish drama In a Better World won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe this year for Best Foreign Language Film. With the action divided between small-town Denmark and an African refugee camp, it follows the lives of two children, Christian (William Jøhnk Read more...

Love Birds

Posted 2:39am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Hamish Gavin

Directed by Paul Murphy. 3/5 Love Birds continues the recent New Zealand trend of lighthearted genre films. Since Sione’s Wedding we’ve had No.2, Boy, Paul Murphy’s Second Hand Wedding and now Love Birds, also directed by Murphy. Starring Rhys Darby and Sally Hawkins, Love Birds Read more...

Harold and Maude - (1971)

Posted 2:36am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Ben Blakely

Directed by Hal Ashby. Starring: Bud Cort, Ruth Gordon, Vivian Pickles. Harold is a young man, perhaps late teens/early twenties. He enjoys staging suicide attempts and going to funerals. Maude is seventy-nine, she enjoys stealing cars, collecting and making art-works and going to funerals. What a Read more...

DUD: The Dunedin Comic Revue

Posted 1:49am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Sarah Maessen

Author: The Dunedin Comic Collective (3/5) In stark contrast to The Good Book, the Dunedin Comic Collective’s first comic revue is blissfully unpretentious.   A long time coming, this publication is a selection of works by members of the Dunedin Comic Collective and friends. It Read more...

The Good Book

Posted 1:47am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Sarah Maessen

Author: Lucinda McMeeken and Trudy Cockroft. Self Published (2/5) When you choose such a name as The Good Book, you’re giving yourself awfully big shoes to fill and it doesn’t appear that Dunedin’s ‘fresh young designers’ have particularly large feet. Obvious Read more...

Permanent Vacation

Posted 1:42am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Sarah Maessen

Author: Kerry Ann Lee. Self Published (4/5) Kerry Ann Lee knows her stuff. She’s been producing zines for at least a decade, with the result that her latest appears effortless and polished. Permanent Vacation is essentially a collection of musings on travel; what it’s like to be an Read more...

Reuben Moss, Don’t look up

Posted 1:38am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Hana Aoake

Rice and Beans Gallery (February 24 - March 15, 2011). Entering Reuben Moss’s Don’t look up creates a strong sense of having entered a disjointed environment, with many of the exhibition’s core ideas leaving the viewer feeling distant. Don’t look up examines the horrors Read more...

We Will All Burn In Hell

Posted 1:35am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Lauren Hayes

a gallery (February 10 – March 5) While the a gallery, located two kilometres south of the university, is slightly outside the usual student stomping ground, it's worth the walk to catch the current exhibition. We Will All Burn In Hell is the first show to be held in the new artist-run space, and Read more...

Review: The Wonder of Sex

Posted 4:54am Monday 28th February 2011 by Jen Aitken

Written by Patrick Barlow, Directed by Lisa Warrington. Staring Phil Grieve and Keith Adams. (2/5) The Wonder of Sex spans the ‘sexual’ history of the last 2000 years, coincidently the combined age of the audience at tonight’s performance, few though they were. Thankfully, Read more...

Melvins

Posted 4:34am Monday 28th February 2011 by Sam Valentine

Re:fuel, Dunedin. 20th February 2011 With the audience like black-t-shirt-wearing, leather-clad moths to the proverbial flame, Re:Fuel seemed close to capacity as the Melvins took the stage. The oddly placed Sunday timeslot seemed to have deterred few.  It was as if the crowd were sending Read more...

Radiohead – The King of Limbs

Posted 4:31am Monday 28th February 2011 by Sam Valentine

Nearly three and a half years after their masterpiece In Rainbows, Radiohead return with The King of Limbs, which can only be described as a challenging album. With the first few listens reaping little reward, it would be safe to describe this release as one for the Radiohead devotees. In the Read more...

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Posted 4:28am Monday 28th February 2011 by Sam Valentine

Hey Pitchfork, I’mma let you finish but… Probably the most (over) hyped album of 2010, Kanye West’s opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (MBDTF) certainly deserves a post-uproar review. Drawing on the narcissism and bragging of his previous album, MBDTF takes Kanye’s musical Read more...

Brains – constant love forever

Posted 4:26am Monday 28th February 2011 by Sam Valentine

“give me highbrow, or give me death” With the long awaited constant love forever, ex-Dunedin trio brains should silence all ‘the haters’. Recorded in surprisingly fitting spacious high fidelity, a masterful ear for melody slowly reveals itself across the ten tracks. Removing the almost Read more...

Magika

Posted 4:21am Monday 28th February 2011 by Toby Hills

In Magicka, Arrowhead Game Studios have constructed a game where magic feels as powerful as it should, where an exploding magma ball behaves exactly as you would expect it to, yet within an incredibly balanced, robust system of game mechanics. Energy beams shift with slow weight, feeling like Read more...

NOT TOAST

Posted 4:15am Monday 28th February 2011 by Niki Lomax

This being my fourth year in this fair southern city, I am well acquainted with the inadequacies of the student diet. It’s fair to say that in the last three years I have consumed my body weight several times over in toast and pasta. Toast for breakfast, toast for lunch, pasta - usually covered in Read more...

The Fighter

Posted 4:13am Monday 28th February 2011 by Mike Jensen

Directed by David O. Russell. Hoyts, Rialto 5/5 I went to see The Fighter knowing only that it was a boxing film, that Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale were its stars, and that it was a nominee for an Oscar for Best Picture. Other than that, I had no idea what to expect. So as I watched the Read more...

Black Swan

Posted 4:09am Monday 28th February 2011 by Alec Dawson

Directed by Arren Aronofsky. Hoyts, Rialto 4/5 Darren Aronofsky, who set back the drug consumption of a generation by several years with Requiem for a Dream, has now turned his camera on ballet in Black Swan. Aronofsky certainly did enough to convince me, with my limited knowledge of the art form, Read more...

127 Hours

Posted 4:08am Monday 28th February 2011 by Matt Chapman

Directed by Danny Boyle. Hoyts, Rialto 4/5 How far would you go to survive when you have no hope left? Such is the question that director Danny Boyle raises with his latest film, 127 Hours. Boyle, best known for directing Slumdog Millionaire, chronicles the true-life ordeal of climber Aron Read more...

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Posted 4:04am Monday 28th February 2011 by Benjamin Blakely

Directed by Russ Meyer. Starring: Tura Satana, Haji, Lori Williams & Susan Bernard. Speed, sex and violence are the cornerstones of any blockbuster today as they’re sweet tools to sell shit. Russ Meyer was well practiced at this combo long before the likes of Tarantino made their careers Read more...

Fashion comes to Dunedin

Posted 3:44am Monday 28th February 2011 by Mahoney Turnbull

Dunedin could be coming dangerously close to breeding an uber-dark design aesthetic, a blueprint for conformist culture and generations of sinister scarfies. Nom*D. Need I say more? This year’s autumn-winter collection? Danse Macabre. How very Antwerpian of you, Margi Robertson. Taking us Read more...

The God Instinct

Posted 3:39am Monday 28th February 2011 by Jonathan Jong

Author: Jesse Bering. Publisher: Nicholas Brealey. (4/5) ‘God (and others like Him) evolved in human minds as an “adaptive illusion”, one that directly helped our ancestors solve the unique problem of human gossip.’   Thus runs the central thesis of Jesse Read more...

The Death of Lanyop

Posted 3:26am Monday 28th February 2011 by Hana Aoake

Hello and welcome back to all to Dunedin students. I implore you to discover and engage with the unique cultural environment that Dunedin has to offer. Earlier this year, the Tenancy Tribunal ruled that artist Larry Matthews could not open his small art gallery {Lagniappe} Lanyop to the Read more...

ONEFEST - part 02

Posted 10:55pm Sunday 26th September 2010 by Simon Wallace

The final night in Radio One’s Onefest series for 2010 draws together soul-inspired low-end theorists from across Aotearoa. Their renown is booming by the day. You will doubtless hear their talents expounded in articles and interviews in the future – but, for now, here are their words on records and Read more...

Mr. Biscuits

Posted 10:54pm Sunday 26th September 2010 by Sam Brookland

If you have a more than passing familiarity with the Dunedin music scene, you're no doubt aware of the way in which bursts of new bands, moments of creativity and excitement, and a thrilling feeling of Dunedin being the centre of the musical world come and go in waves every three or four years; and Read more...

Truth - Puppets

Posted 10:51pm Sunday 26th September 2010 by Simon Wallace

Aquatic Lab (4/5) Truth’s halfstep swagger is no lightweight matter. Disembodied vocals lie in industrial bass-weight as the trio pursues sound as physical presence, with walls of low-end set against pneumatic percussion. Their debut album, Puppets has to be felt to be believed. Read more...

Truth

Posted 10:47pm Sunday 26th September 2010 by Simon Wallace

Essentially New Zealand's most internationally recognisable dubstep export, this Christchurch based producer/DJ trio have, in member Tristan Roake's words, "been on around forty-five plane flights … and played close to forty shows" over the last eight months. Dividing this air-mileage and Read more...

Live review: Mountaineater and Operation Rolling Thunder

Posted 10:34pm Sunday 26th September 2010 by Sam Valentine

Promoted (justifiably) as “the absolute pinnacle of Dunedin’s sonic rock spectrum,” Mountaineater and Operation Rolling Thunder at 12 Below certainly delivered on its promise, proving Dunedin is endowed with two of the greatest sonic rock bands in the world.  Having never witnessed Read more...

Tono & the Finance Company’s ‘Barry Smith of Hamilton’ (Pikachunes remix)

Posted 10:29pm Sunday 26th September 2010 by Staff Reporter

This week Critic had the pleasure of listening to a new Pikachunes track. Pikachunes is Miles McDougall, a Christchurch-born Auckland based electro/Detroit house act. The new Pikachunes track is a remix of Tono & the Finance Company’s ‘Barry Smith of Hamilton’. It’s no surprise Read more...

Glee

Posted 4:56am Monday 23rd August 2010 by

Fridays, 9.30pm TV3 2/5    It's a presumptuous title, really – Glee – but for many of the show’s weekly viewers it amounts to exactly that. Why? The answer is at once both obvious and unfathomable, depending on where you stand. The show is immediately Read more...

LTT Review: A Gaggle of Saints

Posted 4:53am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Jen Aitken

Written by Neil Labute Directed by Katie King Starring William Tait-Jamieson and Emere Leitch-Munro (2.5/5)       A Gaggle of Saints, taken from Neil Labute’s Bash trilogy, is a confronting piece about homophobia. What is so wonderful about this Read more...

Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare

Posted 4:50am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Caleb Wicks

Warner Brothers 3/5      In 2005, Avenged Sevenfold took the world by storm with their album City of Evil. Critics raved, girls screamed, and emo kids found another band to add to their death list. The band’s self-titled album, released in 2007, did not have the Read more...

Pixies Live

Posted 4:43am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Dave Local

CBS Canterbury Arena, Christchurch 3 August 2010    The Pixies are, unashamedly, my favourite band of all time. My formative musical experiences are intricately tied to their mixture of alternating screams and breathy grunts. But this is some twenty years later, and a band that Read more...

Turok

Posted 4:41am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Ethan Khalsa

Platform: PS3, XBox 360, PC (3/5)    Turok was one of the earlier games released for the PS3 and XBox 360. It was greatly anticipated due to its earlier fame on the Nintendo 64 but after its release was generally viewed as a great disappointment. The graphics weren't great, Read more...

A tribute to the in-between

Posted 4:39am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Tien-Yi Toh

The reality is that fantastic food places are rare and far in between, particularly in a small(ish) city like Dunedin. We are lucky enough to have a few restaurants that serve exceptionally good – sometimes even outstanding – food, but the rest mostly just fall in the ‘not bad’, ‘okay’, or Read more...

Soul Kitchen

Posted 4:36am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Edwin Ouellette

Directed by Fatih Akin Rialto 3.5/5 Okay, I know. The title alone might make Soul Kitchen sound like a cross between a lame Snoop Dogg flick and Hell’s Kitchen, but don’t let that ruin your appetite for Fatih Akin’s latest lighthearted comedy. Besides, where Read more...

Step Up 3D

Posted 4:34am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Nicole Muriel

Directed by John Chu Hoyts 1.5/5 The opening sequence of this third installment of the Step Up series is one of those candid camera interview montages, with the characters talking about what dance means to them. They’re speaking from the heart: there’s no doubt the Read more...

Skin

Posted 4:33am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Sarah Baillie

Directed Anthony Fabian Rialto 4/5 kin is a biographical film about the life of Sandra Laing, a ‘coloured’ child born to white parents during the apartheid era in South Africa. Despite her skin being distinctly darker than her parents, an unusual phenomenon, Sandra Read more...

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Posted 4:31am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Aleksandar Vuckovic

Directed by Daniel Alfredson Rialto (3/5)       The Girl Who Played with Fire is a Swedish crime thriller and sequel to the highly acclaimedThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.    The film picks up where the original left off, with Lisbeth Salandar Read more...

Mirror

Posted 4:13am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Jonathan Jong

Author: Jeannie Baker Publisher: Walker Books (4/5)  There is something unspeakably happy-making about illustrated children’s books that are unapologetically forthright in their social messages. Jeannie Baker’s latest – Mirror – tells what is Read more...

How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog

Posted 4:12am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Jonathan Jong

Author: Chad Orzel Publisher: Oneworld (4/5) Particle-wave duality is not the doctrine that photons and elections (etc.) are simultaneously waves and particles. Neither are they really particles with wave-like properties or really waves with particle-like properties. Rather, Read more...

A Life on Gorge River – New Zealand’s Remotest Family

Posted 4:11am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Brittany Travers

Author: Robert Long Publisher: Random House (2/5)      This book tweaked my interest ever since the author, Robert Long, was given a rock star’s welcome at the Dunedin Public Library, where he launched this début book. It’s the sort of story Read more...

Inherent Vice

Posted 4:10am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Henry Feltham

Author: Thomas Pynchon (4/5)    When you are famous for writing difficult books, there will always be a handful of people who are going to be put off when you write a noir detective thriller, set in seventies surf-hippie Los Angeles (where, incidentally, Pynchon – age Read more...

Interview with Larry Matthews - Owner of {lanyop} lagniappe small art gallery

Posted 4:06am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Staff Reporter

Tucked away behind Mou Very bar on George Street is {lanyop} lagniappe small art gallery, an offbeat and unique art space that is only open when the sun goes down. Gallery-goers view works by candlelight while being serenaded by live piano. Critic talks to owner Larry Matthews. What was the Read more...

Something Quartet - preview

Posted 5:01am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Logan Valentine

This week I had the pleasure of hearing the track ‘Toilet Doorhandles’, an advance release from the Something Quartet’s forthcoming album. Just to fill you in, the Something Quartet are usually a Septet who squash half of Dunedin’s music scene into a band. Bugs is the lead music director of the Read more...

The Twitch - Time For Change

Posted 5:00am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Raymond Sawkins

Rangi Records / Border Music (4.5/5) Well, if you know anything about The Twitch, you will know they are experts at putting maximum attitude into everything they wave their wand at. This piece of pure Rock ‘n’ Roll magic is no exception. Just looking at the cover will Read more...

Crackdown 2

Posted 4:54am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Damien Khalsa

Platforms: Xbox 360 ( 3/5)       Crackdown 2 is a sequel to Crackdown, one of the first sandbox games on the Xbox 360. Crackdown was an odd game in that few reviewers gave it better than average reviews, but it nevertheless appeared on their lists of personal Read more...

Chilli, Garlic & Prawn Vermicelli

Posted 4:49am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Tien-Yi Toh

I think it’s time for another pasta recipe. This is the dish that I am most proud of, even though I am not sure that I have the right to be proud of something that isn’t an original idea. I watched Jamie Oliver make something like it on TV once so I just followed the basic rules and Read more...

Cemetery Junction

Posted 4:43am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Nicole Muriel

Directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant Coming soon to DVD 3/5    Quite a surprise from the Gervais/Merchant team, this film actually wants to be taken seriously. You wonder if earnest is a good choice for these guys to make; after all, their success has been in Read more...

Killers

Posted 4:29am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Max Segal

Directed by Robert Luketic Playing at Hoyts, Rialto (3/5) Kutcher and Heigl are back at it again in a slightly younger and lamer version of Knight And Day. Most audiences are not buying that a Kutcher-type character would be into a 'young', Heigl-type. And let's face it, we Read more...

Certified Copy

Posted 4:28am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Sarah Baillie

Directed by Abbas Kiarostami NZIFF (4/5) Certified Copy is an enchanting reflection on the nature of art, relationships, marriage, and – in a wider sense – reality.    James Miller (William Shimell) is a British academic who is in Tuscany promoting his Read more...

NZ International Film Festival 2010

Posted 4:23am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Max Segal

Another NZ International Film Festival has come and gone, and our film-watching stamina has been put to the test. For two-and-a-half weeks they've thrown eight or ten films per day at an enthusiastic public, eager for a break from the usual Hollywood fare. What was the result? Did you see as Read more...

Second Nature: the Inner Lives of Animal

Posted 4:22am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Mariya Semenova

Author: Jonathan Balcombe Publisher: MacMillan (4.5/5)    Second Nature is an engaging and inspiring must-read for everyone, from animal lovers to anthropocentric sceptics. The author, Jonathan Balcombe, is a biologist with a great body of knowledge about animal Read more...

Pretty Monsters

Posted 4:21am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Sarah Maessen

Author: Kelly Link Publisher: Text Publishing (4/5)    If you are looking for something short and bittersweet, this is the book for you. Pretty Monsters is a collection of short stories featuring everything from your childhood nightmares – werewolves, aliens, Read more...

the Bookseat

Posted 4:19am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Jonathan Jong

Product: the Bookseat Manufacturer: Emerging Products Website: www.thebookseat.com Retailer: University Bookshop (5/5)      Even among gadget geeks, there is often some unease over reading accessories. They somehow seem to go one step too far: Read more...

True Blood

Posted 4:24am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Lauren McEwan Nugent

Prime Wednesday 9.30 pm (4/5) In the small southern U.S. town of Bon Temps, vampires have ‘come out of the coffin’, making their presence known to the world. After the discovery of synthetic blood, they’re thankfully able to nom on something other than humans. Naturally Read more...

Vampire Diaries

Posted 4:22am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Martin Zissou

TV2 Thursdays, 8.30pm (2/5)      Want to see the dredges of Twilight and the off-cuts of True Blood coagulate in front of you for 40 long minutes? Not really? Yeah, I don’t blame you. This week we’re checking out a couple of teen-vampire TV shows that have Read more...

LTT Review: Here We Are

Posted 4:19am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Benjamin Blakely

Written by: Dorothy Parker Directed by: Diana Mockford Starring: Alex Wilson and Miriam Noonan (2.5/5) When going to see a work by a new director I always have a slight sense of trepidation, never quite knowing how the situation will pan out. Here We Are was set on a train and the Read more...

Dropkick Murphys - Live on Lansdowne

Posted 4:13am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Caleb Wicks

4/5 Live on Lansdowne is the second live album from Celtic Punk group Dropkick Murphys, second live album. It consists of an entirely new set from their original St. Patricks Day live album, which came out back in 2002. Live CDs make me apprehensive: generally, they sound like shit because Read more...

Sleigh Bells - Treats

Posted 4:10am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Sam Valentine

NEET Recordings 4/5 After gaining some serious indie hype late last year with their bedroom-recorded demos, noise pop duo Sleigh Bells has finally delivered with debut effort Treats. Comprising short, well-written pop drenched in boom box distortion, Treats proves to be an exciting and Read more...

Die! Die! Die! - Form

Posted 4:07am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Sam Valentine

Flying Nun Records 4.5/5 Building on the more melodic moments on their previous work, with Form semi-Dunedin trio Die! Die! Die! has created a work of true mastery. This new album features a notable shift in production values from the cold and distant Promises Promises; Form moves the band Read more...

Zelda Series

Posted 3:59am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Ethan Khalsa

To continue with the ripping-out of well-loved games, here are the Zelda games as an entirety. These games are fun as a general rule, and the classics have been argued to be some of the best games ever made. Nintendo has never really tried to hide the fact that they are milking their old games Read more...

FoodWishes.com

Posted 3:14am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Tien-Yi Toh

I’m a big fan of FoodWishes.com. Every one of Chef John’s recipes that we’ve tried has turned out perfectly, and that is not something I can say about any of the current celebrity chefs. I’ve always wanted to have a typical ‘Southern’ meal, which to me, having been influenced by pop TV, equals fried Read more...