Archive

State of Decay XBLA

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 9/10 No doubt many of you have noticed that the world seems to have come down with a nasty case of zombie fever. Films, books, video games – name it and there is probably a large number of zombie iterations currently being developed or hitting the crowded market. This is the fifth Read more...

Pumpkin Pesto Risotto

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Kirsty Dunn

Tis the season for pumpkiny goodness. I picked up a fine, fresh looking specimen from the Dunedin Farmer’s Market last weekend for just $2 and managed to make this, a few servings of soup, and even had a little left over to go with the roast last night. Cooking with seasonal produce requires a bit Read more...

Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Feby Idrus

This entertaining read is the newest collection of short essays from humourist and writer David Sedaris, who burst onto the scene with his second book Me Talk Pretty One Day. As with his previous essay collections, Sedaris’ essays cover his childhood in North Carolina, the state of present-day Read more...

A Micronaut in the Wide World

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

Hocken Library, 15 June – 10 August Exhibitions featuring an illustrator are few and far between. Depending on the number of bedtime stories you demanded as a kid, they can plunge you nostalgically back into childhood. Although he lived most of his adult life in London, Graham Percy Read more...

It’s A Wonderful Life

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

Frank Capra’s 1946 It’s a Wonderful Life is the best Christmas film ever made. Don’t worry, not in an oh-my-Jesus-I’m-so-hipster-I-can-only-appreciate-films-made-before-the-advent-of-the-toaster-oven kind of way, but in a highly-accessible-heart-warming-life-affirming way. James Stuart, in Read more...

The Wolverine

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 4/5 It takes a movie like The Wolverine to make you realise why all of the superhero films (particularly Marvel’s) are beginning to feel stale, and it is because they all feel exactly the same. Although they all have different heroes facing different situations, they share virtually Read more...

Ping Pong

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

Rating: 2.5/5 Ping Pong is a documentary that follows eight competitors at the World Over-80s Table Tennis Championships in China. These elderly sportspeople include such characters as terminally ill Terry from Great Britain, 85-year-old Texan first-timer Lisa and 100-year-old ping pong Read more...

The World’s End

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Lyle Skipsey

Rating: 4/5 I feel there should be a disclaimer up front: when I left the movie last night I fully expected to give it a rather mediocre score. However, having slept on it, maybe I judged too soon. The World’s End is the third instalment in the “not a trilogy” Cornetto trilogy that Read more...

Gardening With Soul

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

Gardening with Soul is a New Zealand documentary film that tells the story of a year in the life of Sister Loloya Galvin, the 90-year-old head gardener of Wellington’s Home of Compassion. Director Jess Feast follows Sister Loyola through the four seasons, in which their conversations and Loyola’s Read more...

To the Wonder

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

The Regent Theatre - Octagon Sunday 18 August 8.45pm Rialto Cinema - Moray Place Tuesday 20 August 4pm Terrence Malick is a director lucky enough to have been stamped with auteur status. Nature, love and religion are the core of his past works Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Read more...

The Gilded Cage (La Cage dorée)

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

The Regent Theatre - Octagon Friday 9 August 6.30pm Tuesday 13 August 11am This upstairs-downstairs drama/comedy was a break-out hit in France, closing on 1.2 million admissions and sparking a Latino remake that is currently in the works. Set in present-day Paris, The Gilded Read more...

Utu Redux

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Amber Pullin

The Regent Theatre - Octagon Saturday 10 August 8.15pm Thirty years since its release, Geoff Murphy’s Utu will be hitting the silver screen again this August, digitally restored and remastered for the International Film Festival. Starring Anzac Wallace and Bruno Lawrence, Utu is a story of Read more...

Dial M for Murder

Posted 3:50pm Sunday 4th August 2013 by Rosie Howells

Rialto Cinema - Moray Place Saturday 17 August 8.30pm Sunday 18 August 5.45pm Dial M for Murder has everything you’d expect from a great Alfred Hitchcock movie: Grace Kelly, greed, and scissors as a murder weapon. Driven by betrayal and lust for money, ex-tennis star Tony Wendice (Ray Read more...

App of the Week | Issue 17

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Raquel Moss

Did you know that there are still people who carry their assignments around on a USB drive? It’s a risky game. Half the time you forget to bring it; the other half you leave it in a library computer. Awesome. Save yourself the pain by signing up for Dropbox. It’s a simple but powerful service Read more...

The Many Paths to Yeezus—Piracy or Purchase?

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Raquel Moss

Ten years ago, you may have been regarded with awe when you successfully downloaded the new Green Day album and burned multiple copies so that your friends could listen to “Wake Me Up When September Ends” on their discmans. No? Just me? These days, piracy is a pretty casual pastime in Read more...

David Lynch - The Big Dream

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4/5 David Lynch began his career as a solo musician with his 2011 album Crazy Clown Time, but his knack for sound design dates back a good thirty years. Lynch helped compose the unsettling ambient score to his 1977 film debut Eraserhead, and has been involved in the music for all of Read more...

Jon Hopkins - Immunity

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 5/5 Producing for Coldplay. Collaborating with Brian Eno. Scoring films. Over the course of the last decade, London-based producer Jon Hopkins has built himself an impressive CV. However, almost all of his work has been on the periphery of or in cooperation with other artists. This Read more...

Mario and Luigi: Dream Team (3DS)

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 8/10 How is it that an Italian plumber has become such an iconic and enduring figure within the gaming industry and pop culture in general? It’s a question that has been posed many times over the years, and though many have proffered possible answers, I don’t think there is a Read more...

MOTHRAs

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Tim Lindsay

The MOTHRAs were a way to celebrate Scarfie filmmaking, and usually featured a wide variety of submissions ranging from wacky and weird to funny but sincere. It was sort of like the Oscars, except it was probably much less grand. The Mothra is a fictional Japanese monster. It sometimes Read more...

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Rosie Howells

“The Belafonte, home to Team Zissou, skilled crew of deep sea divers, adventurers, documentary filmmakers. Led by internationally renowned oceanographer captain Steve Zissou, expert on every aspect of marine life.” The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was Wes Anderson’s fourth feature film, Read more...

Pacific Rim

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3.5/5 Guillermo del Toro is one of my favourite modern directors. Regardless of whether he is dabbling in horror (The Orphanage), dark fantasy (Pan’s Labyrinth) or action (Hellboy), he brings to each of his movies a unique sense of wonder and imagination. Pacific Rim sees del Toro Read more...

Twice Born

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Jonny Mahon-Heap

Rating: 2/5 The trope of love blossoming amid war is as old as cinema itself, with many of these films achieving classic status (Casablanca, Atonement, The English Patient – to name a few). Plenty more, however, have struggled to depict romance against the backdrop of conflict without lapsing Read more...

Monsters University

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Amber Pullin

Rating: 4/5 As the “prequel” to Monsters, Inc. (2001), Pixar’s Monsters University revisits monsters Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) in their college freshman days, before they became “scarers.” Now, don’t be put off by this film’s “prequel” status; this Read more...

Self-Crusting Tomato and Brown Lentil Quiche

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Kirsty Dunn

Halt! Before you freak out at the presence of the “L” word and let memories of bland bygone quiches prompt you to move on to the next column, let me assure you that this is, hand on heart, the tastiest, most flavoursome quiche I’ve ever had; maybe even the best of all egg-based savoury dishes ever. Read more...

The Violent Bear it Away

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Lucy Hunter

Francis Marion Tarwater was born in the wreck of the car crash that killed his mother and grandmother and drove his father to suicide. Adopted by Rayber, his school-teacher uncle, baby Francis is oblivious to the devastation he was born into. But crazy great-uncle Tarwater decides he need someone to Read more...

Café Art

Posted 4:45pm Sunday 28th July 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

A friend of mine regularly teases me about being a “snob” when it comes to all things cultural. The best example of this snobbery I can give you is refusing to get coffee from the link – the aesthetics just don’t cut it. The counter-argument, however, is that having standards is not Read more...

Interview: Ruban Nielson (Unknown Mortal Orchestra)

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

In between touring the world and playing gigs with international acts like Grizzly Bear and Wavves, Ruban Nielson has returned to New Zealand to tour with Nielson’s current band, Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Loulou Callister-Baker had a brief and appropriately abstract conversation with Nielson to work Read more...

App of the Week | Issue 16

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Raquel Moss

You know those vibration masturbation apps that are widely available in app stores? I have questions: Why would that be a good idea? First of all, your phone is a disgusting piece of equipment. It’s covered in germs and you probably use it while you’re on the toilet. And secondly, the Read more...

Mundane, Fleeting, Fun

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Raquel Moss

Occasionally, I have reason to suspect that at the grand age of 22 I might already be “over the hill.” This realisation came several weeks ago when I found myself asking, irritably, “what is this Snapchat thing and should I be on it?” I had heard that teenagers were using it to sext each other. As Read more...

Shortbus (2006)

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Rosie Howells

Shortbus is the holy grail of sex cult films. It makes The Rocky Horror Picture Show look like My Little Pony: The Movie (this actually happened – Danny Devito voice acted for it). The plot follows love therapist Sofia on her quest for sexual discovery, her blossoming friendship with gay couple Read more...

The Lone Ranger

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3.5/5 Director Gore Verbinski really rubs film critics up the wrong way. This is likely due to the tendency his films have to be loud, densely-plotted and half an hour too long. His latest, a big-budget adaption of The Lone Ranger, is no exception. Like most of Verbinski’s films (such Read more...

The Look of Love

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 3/5 This biopic, directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring English comedian Steve Coogan, tells the true story of real estate mogul and smut peddler Paul Raymond. Though Paul Raymond is not well known to our generation, he was once known as the “King of Soho” due to the large Read more...

Despicable Me 2

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by AJ Anderson

Rating: 4/5 Heading off to see Despicable Me 2 I was filled with high hopes of fake Russian accents, adorable one-liners and, of course, the darn cutest minions you’ve ever seen. Within the first couple of minutes I already knew that I was not going to be disappointed. The movie takes Read more...

Whip It

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Kirsty Dunn

Now that I have your attention, deviants, listen up: If Barry White’s voice could be distilled into dessert form, it would look, and taste, like this. This sumptuous chocolate mousse takes a mere twenty minutes to prepare, pleasures the palette in ways you never knew existed, and allows you Read more...

The Walking Dead: 400 Days

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 8.5/10 Telltale Games announced earlier this year that season two of The Walking Dead was indeed in development – an announcement that surprised very few considering the runaway success of the first season of this flawless point-and-click adventure based on Robert Kirkman’s comic Read more...

Let’s Get Physical

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Basti Menkes

The BestMassive Attack - Mezzanine Ignore the album cover. When it comes to “soundtracking” coitus, Massive Attack’s third album Mezzanine is the undisputed champion. Regardless of where you are, what state you’re in, who you’re with and in what position, the album’s brooding textures and Read more...

Sweet Tooth

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Lucy Hunter

This is the sex issue, so I decided to write about a sexy spy book. It is 1972. Serena Frome is the beautiful daughter of an Anglican bishop, groomed by her much older lover to join the British Secret Services in the patriarchal ranks of MI5. Serena is considered something of a freak of Read more...

Among the Machines

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 21st July 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

The use of technology has become a natural part of our lives. However, the idea of technology manipulating nature itself and becoming a controlling, dominating force tends to sit a little uncomfortably. Among the Machines is one of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s (DPAG) major exhibitions for 2013 Read more...

App of the Week | Issue 15

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Raquel Moss

Evernote is not just an app – it’s so much more than that. Evernote, once you start to use it, becomes an extension of your brain. If you’ve ever sat in the middle of a pile of paper, wailing because you can’t find the notes you need, you could probably benefit from using it. There’s a reason its Read more...

Making the web your bitch

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Raquel Moss

You’re already one of the thirty-seven per cent of people worldwide using Google Chrome to navigate our beloved web, right? So I don’t have to begin this by nagging you to use it? No? Still using Internet Explorer like a schmuck? Come on, even my Nana uses Chrome, and all she’s doing is playing Read more...

Deadpool (XBOX 360, PS3, PC)

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 8/10 Just when you thought Marvel had adapted every single one of their heroes, here comes Deadpool, a character I believe has been under-utilised and misrepresented thus far in Marvel’s attempts to take over the world … or at the very least the entertainment industry. For those of Read more...

Austra - Olympia

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3.5/5 Canadian synthpop outfit Austra emerged in 2011 with a bang, their first album Feel It Break among the finest debuts in recent memory. It wove gothic electronica around Katie Stelmanis’ operatic vocals to stunning effect; picture Kate Bush collaborating with The Knife and you Read more...

Kanye West - Yeezus

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Bella King

Rating: 4.5/5 The moment Yeezus, Kanye West’s sixth solo album, leaked online, it set a million keyboards around the globe on fire. Suddenly everyone was a critic, scrambling to push their opinion of an album worlds away from its predecessor, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Indeed, in Read more...

Winter Whisk(e)y Cake

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Kirsty Dunn

Gie him strong drink until he wink, // That’s sinking in despair; An’ liquor guid to fire his bluid, // That’s prest wi’ grief and care: There let him bouse, an’ deep carouse, // Wi’ bumpers flowing o’er, Till he forgets his loves or debts, // An’ minds his griefs no more. (Robert Read more...

The Silence of the Lambs

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Tim Lindsay

Read the title to yourself a couple of times. It is freaking creepy. It sends shivers down your spine then back up to your head to remain for days. When you watch this film, you do not see the face of evil. You enter its mind. The Silence of the Lambs won five Oscars in 1991: Best Actor and Read more...

White Lies

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Rosie Howells

Rating: 3/5 White Lies is a film adaptation of Witi Ihimaera’s novel Medicine Woman, which tells the story of Paraiti (Whirimako Black), a Maori healer from the 1920s, and her strange involvement in the lives of the rich Pakeha woman Mrs. Vicars (Antonia Prebble) and her maid Maraea (Rachel Read more...

After Earth

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 2.5/5 M. Night Shyamalan has had a roller coaster of a career, from the unadulterated success and cultural penetration of The Sixth Sense to his ultimate demise with the painful The Happening and the destruction of the much-loved Avatar with The Last Airbender. Frankly, he has become Read more...

The Internship

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Tim Lindsay

Rating: 2/5 Start of the U.S. summer? Check. An assorted cast of misfits with the odds stacked against them? Check. A worrying lack of originality in the plot? Check. Welcome to The Internship, your regular Hollywood light comedy. The film seems to benefit from director Shawn Levy’s Read more...

The Magic of Reality

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Lucy Hunter

“Reality is everything that exists. That sounds straight forward, doesn’t it? Actually, it isn’t.” Thus begins Dawkins’ introduction to science for young people. I didn’t realise this was a young adults’ book until I started reading it, but, being an eager yet largely ignorant admirer of science, I Read more...

Art From a Laboratory

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

I don’t find a plastic crucifix immersed in a glass of urine offensive. However, the artist responsible for the Piss Christ received death threats for this sacrilegious work, indicating that some feel otherwise. Different individuals find different things “shocking,” but in spite of this it often Read more...