Archive

Apple Tree Yard

Posted 12:34pm Sunday 10th September 2017 by Shaun Brinsdon

Rating: 3.5/5 Following the likes of successful BBC mini-series like Happy Valley comes Jessica Hobbs’s Apple Tree Yard. Based on the novel of the same name, Apple Tree Yard centres on Dr Yvonne Carmichael (Emily Watson), a scientist who is unhappy in her marriage. She begins an affair with Read more...

The Secret History

Posted 12:29pm Sunday 10th September 2017 by Zoe Taptiklis

The Secret History is difficult to place into a temporal setting. Initially, based on the characters’ diction and the elaborate descriptive passages, I thought it was set in the ‘50s. The excessive use of home phones, the ones wired to the wall, made me think it was the ‘70s. Read more...

Cinnamon Rolls to Warm Your Poor Student Souls

Posted 12:26pm Sunday 10th September 2017 by Liani Baylis

I love bringing you guys my own recipes and shit, but I’ve discovered yet another amazing blog. I’m absolutely frothing over veganricha.com at the moment and these cinnamon rolls make me want to marry the clever little lass. During my non-vegan years, I had a go-to cinnamon roll Read more...

The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses

Posted 2:15pm Sunday 3rd September 2017 by Lisa Blakie

Rating: 5/5 The Symphony of the Goddesses tour started in 2012 after the 25th anniversary celebration of the Legend of Zelda at E3 2011. Playing for just one night in Auckland (on a SCHOOL night too!), I was determined to go; it had been a dream to see this show live since I heard the orchestral Read more...

The Case of the Missing Body

Posted 2:14pm Sunday 3rd September 2017 by Zoe Taptiklis

It has been a treat reading this book. It took me under an hour to read, but it’s taken days to digest. Imagine not knowing what your body is. I’ve always said that I have parsnip legs; they’re long and effing pale, wide at the top, tapering out into teeny little toes Read more...

The Haunting

Posted 2:09pm Sunday 3rd September 2017 by Alex Campbell-Hunt

Rating: 3/5 This is an… interesting movie. A late ‘90s entry in the Haunted House genre, it is imprinted in my memory because I vividly recall as a kid being torn between wanting to see it and thinking that it was going to be terrifying. More specifically, I remember making it as far Read more...

Okja

Posted 2:06pm Sunday 3rd September 2017 by Samuel Rillstone

Rating: 2.5/5 I found Okja to be less of a revolutionary film exposing the capitalist meat industry and more of a low ruckus. The cast boasts such powerhouses as Jake Gyllenhaal, Tilda Swinton and Lily Collins, all of whom create vibrant and intriguing performances. Even the young talent, the Read more...

A Comprehensive Guide to Games Where You Can Pet Animals

Posted 1:04pm Sunday 20th August 2017 by Lisa Blakie

Recently, my general feeling towards life has been that animals are the only pure things left in this year of general chaos. I don’t know about you, but I’ve personally changed my settings on Facebook to see posts from “Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary”, “Cool Cat Read more...

The Big Sick

Posted 12:56pm Sunday 20th August 2017 by Shaun Brinsdon

Rating: 4/5 The Big Sick opened with great acclaim from critics and viewers alike. The film is based on the true story of how Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani began their relationship. They wrote the screenplay of the film together and Nanjiani plays himself, while Gordon delegated her role to Read more...

Atomic Blonde

Posted 12:54pm Sunday 20th August 2017 by Todd Johnstone

Rating: 5/5 This movie will leave you feeling like you have just been continually hit in the face for two hours – but in a good way. I didn’t expect much going into it; I knew that it was directed by one of the directors of John Wick, so the action scenes and stunts were likely to be Read more...

The Lost Daughter

Posted 12:50pm Sunday 20th August 2017 by Jessica Thompson

"Books, once they are written, have no need of their authors."   Nobody knows who Elena Ferrante really is. An Italian writer, she (could be a he, but everyone assumes…) is mainly famous for her coming of age Neapolitan novels. Ferrante has been named one of the 100 Read more...

Gratis: A Q + A with Carisma

Posted 12:45pm Sunday 20th August 2017 by Bianca Prujean

This week, Critic takes a journey deep inside the Argentinian discotheque with Buenos Aires-based DJ/producer duo, Carisma. Carisma recently dropped their long-awaited full length album, Gratis. Out on Dengue Dancing Records, Gratis features nine tracks of heavily pulsed crunch beats, arpeggiated Read more...

Vegan Cupcakes that Are to Kill For (Just Not Sentient Beings)

Posted 12:40pm Sunday 20th August 2017 by Liani Baylis

A couple of weeks back, I shared my favourite cupcake recipe with you. I feel very passionate about said recipe, so I never mustered the courage to try “veganise” it. I’ve done it with other recipes, but that one I hold dear to my heart. Then, like a guardian angel, along comes Read more...

Dunedin’s Coffee Cup Art Trail

Posted 12:37pm Sunday 20th August 2017 by Waveney Russ

Latte art is dead. Do you think I ask to be presented with a sweet cat whose face I must suck into inexistence if I want to enjoy the five-dollar stimulant that, at this point, I chug back as if medication? Ephemeral. Transient. In an effort to clog my life with anything mildly resembling artwork Read more...

Shin Hanga (新版画)

Posted 12:12pm Sunday 13th August 2017 by Waveney Russ

Early 20th century Japan is a total cultural divergence from a tiny South Island town like ours, but the McDowell gallery has been authentically transformed into a perfect haven for the impressionistic prints of a pre-war age gone by. Shin-hanga (literally meaning “new woodcut Read more...

Nutshell by Ian McEwan

Posted 12:05pm Sunday 13th August 2017 by Zoe Taptiklis

Ian McEwan claimed fame from the world of non-literary oriented folks when Kiera Knightly had sex in a library, a scene that won the novel, and movie, Atonement, a permanent place in the collective memory of popular culture. I confess, I’ve tried to read Atonement several times, and I never Read more...

Ov Pain

Posted 12:03pm Sunday 13th August 2017 by Reg Norris

I’m not from here. Most of the people from where I’m from migrate north to the oily plains of Melbourne. It’s a rite of passage and sign of artistic commitment, or the need for restaurants open after 10pm, departure lounges teeming with tortured fortune seekers, or the guarantee of Read more...

To the Moon

Posted 11:59am Sunday 13th August 2017 by Lisa Blakie

Rating: 5/5 I’ve been on a bit of a story-rich indie game high recently. Oxenfree, Cibelle and Ladykiller in a Bind to name a few. This is definitely due to their accessibility. The most that these games cost is only around $20, they are available for both Windows and Mac, and can be Read more...

Dunkirk

Posted 11:56am Sunday 13th August 2017 by Callum Post

Rating: 4/5 Having directed some of the biggest movies of the last decade (such as Inception and The Dark Knight Trilogy), the Christopher Nolan brand has become synonymous with imaginative, mind-bending success. But now that he’s decided to make his mark on the war genre, as have so many Read more...

The Thirty-Nine Steps

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 6th August 2017 by Nick Ainge-Roy

Written at the start of the First World War while John Buchan was bedridden by illness, The Thirty-Nine Steps is a classic of the crime fiction genre. It stars Richard Hannay as the archetypal action hero. Returning from Africa after several years working as a mining engineer, Hannay intends on Read more...