Archive

Five foreign-language films that should have won Best Picture (this century alone)

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Sam McChesney

Everybody knows that the “World Series” of baseball is anything but; in reality, it’s a competition held between the winners of two different American baseball leagues. The competition’s name is often (and rightly) ridiculed, the perfect embodiment of America’s mentality vis-à-vis the world. Read more...

Don’t Starve

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 8/10So far this year I have only reviewed games developed and distributed by the giants of the gaming industry. However, there is a whole other side to the industry. Thus far I have traversed the mainstream; this week we shall delve into the independent (or indie). The large capital Read more...

Mrs Dalloway

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Feby Idrus

Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway begins like this: “Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” This opening sentence is about as simple as this book gets. From here, we are plunged headfirst into this swirling, teeming-with-life ocean of a book. At its most basic, Mrs Dalloway is a Read more...

Facebook cover photos

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

Coverslike.com provides internet users with endless freedom to “customise your Facebook timeline cover” (just in case no photos of you and your friends seem pretty enough). For serious pug lovers you can have one which states “the day God made Pugs He just sat down and Smiled” next to a pug puppy Read more...

Aerosmith

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Basti Menkes

To call my experience at Aerosmith’s gig last Wednesday night a surreal one would be an understatement. Due to the incompetence of and poor communication between the staff scattered around the Forsyth Barr Stadium, it was not until final support act Wolfmother had wrapped up their set that I Read more...

The Veils - Time Stays, We Go

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Basti Menkes

The Veils are one of those cult bands I always wanted to get into, but never bothered to properly investigate. Though the number of people aware of the London-based indie rock outfit is seemingly small, what I have heard of them has been almost unanimous praise. Not counting a couple of promising Read more...

The Room (2003)

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Rosie Howells

The Room – the “Citizen Kane of bad movies” – brings me unprecedented joy. An American romantic drama concerning the love triangle of Lisa, Jonny and Mark (all wonderfully underdeveloped and wooden characters), it is one of the greatest gifts in my life. The bearer of this gift is Tommy Wiseau. The Read more...

Eternity

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Basti Menkes

Eternity is a Kiwi sci-fi thriller written and directed by Alex Galvin. Set in the near future, it stars Elliot Travers as Richard Manning, a Hong Kong-based police detective who makes a right mess of things in the film’s tense opening sequence. His only shot at redemption is to travel to New Read more...

Iron Man 3 (3D)

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Sam McChesney

Much like the prodigious production of Marvel superheroes themselves, a veritable avalanche of Marvel films has been unleashed in recent times. This century alone, 27 Marvel superhero films have assaulted New Zealand cinemas. Some of them – The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man – were damn good. Read more...

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Harriet Hughes

Francie Nolan is growing in Brooklyn, like a tree, constantly in search of light… The tree in her backyard struggles to plant its roots, yet it continues to grow… Shit, that is a cheesy metaphor. But this book is far from cheesy. It is the turn of the twentieth century, and Francie Nolan Read more...

Injustice: Gods Among Us

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: 9/10 Long before this game was announced, its questions were hotly debated. Who would win in a fight between Batman and Superman? Green Arrow and Green Lantern? Wonder Woman and Catwoman? Pimply nerds have argued these questions in comic book shops since the Fifties. Now they have a way Read more...

Candlesticks strike a heated debate

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Zane Pocock

I’ll tell you where to put your candlesticks, young artistsZane PocockIn the most stunning lack of individual style the art world has ever seen, we are currently witnessing a huge proliferation of contemporary New Zealand artists turning their craft towards $1,000 candlesticks. The thought Read more...

Michael Harrison - Invasion Biology

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Zane Pocock

I always enjoy a visit to Michael Harrison shows. His symbolic imagery and soft watercolours are consistent, understated, intimate, and playful. Overall they're comfortable, yet it is this comfort that can very easily transform into boredom if care isn't taken. It is pleasing to see Harrison Read more...

Oblivion

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Rosie Howells

Oblivion tells the story of the last man and woman on Earth, who are both attractive and like each other (that’s a stroke of luck, huh?). After aliens blow up the moon, our planet is ravaged by natural disasters, and war ensues between humanity and our galactic enemies. Although we won the war Read more...

The Big Lebowski

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Josie Cochrane

The Coen Brothers (Joel and Ethan) wrote, directed and produced this cult comedy classic 15 years ago. Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) is a lazy, unemployed stoner living in LA, who hangs with his bowling buddies, drinks White Russians, and enjoys long hot baths while listening to tapes Read more...

Performance

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Jonny Mahon-Heap

Like Lex’s pseudo-political banter or a Unicol girl’s acquisition of the fresher five, it’s a certainty that Oscar winners will undo much of their good work with subsequent awful films. While Performance (released elsewhere as A Late Quartet) never reaches the murky depths of a Halle Berry/Catwoman Read more...

The Croods 3D

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Sam McChesney

I’m at least 15 years older than this movie’s target audience. That’s fine though, because as innumerable sanctimonious reviewers love to point out, a good kids’ film should also appeal to adults. Maybe it’s because kids are stupid, so their opinions don’t really signify much. Maybe it’s because a Read more...

Barbara

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Kathleen Hanna

Pre-film trailers are typically selected to appeal to the same audience as the film itself. When I arrived at the cinema to see Barbara, knowing nothing about it, the first trailer I was shown was about an old person being chosen to cook for the President of France. The trailer was very long, and Read more...

The Knife - Shaking The Habitual

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Basti Menkes

For the uninitiated, The Knife are a Swedish electronic duo consisting of Karin “Fever Ray” Andersson and her younger brother Olof. The siblings splice together an eclectic array of genres including synthpop, industrial, world music, and ambient to create a technicolour sound that defies mimicry or Read more...

Astro Children

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Basti Menkes

Astro Children are a Dunedin shoeglaze/spacepop band comprised of childhood friends Millie Lovelock and Isaac Hickey. Recently they have been enjoying huge local success, with latest single “Jamie Knows” topping Radio One’s song chart for seven weeks running. Critic caught up with the duo recently Read more...

The Sun Also Rises

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Madeline Sherwood King

Not much happens in The Sun Also Rises. It’s the 1920s. Four men and one woman visit Spain to see the bulls, and then they go home again. During their stay in Spain, it becomes apparent that all four men love the woman, but she falls in love with a guy who loves bulls. One particularly brutish man Read more...

Defiance (PC, PS3, Xbox360)

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games (or MMORPG, games that are played entirely online with people from all over the world) are a tricky business. They require significantly more money to develop than a standard video game instalment due to the large scope of content as well as the ongoing costs Read more...

Crispy Chicken with Salty Satay and Ginger Bok Choy

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Ines Shennan

This dish satiates the tastebuds on every level: it’s sweet, salty, and ginger-laden, with crispy chicken ready to soak up all the fun. Rice bran oil is a great choice to use for high-temperature cooking, and is also neutral in flavour, allowing your other ingredients to shine. Frying chicken over a Read more...

Filthy Fudge Brownies

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Ines Shennan

This brownie is immoral and fiendish. Unlike the consistently firm, cake-like brownies often found sitting pretty in cafe cabinets, this is far more brutish and unforgiving. On the Chocolate Baked Goods Spectrum, it sits far closer to a decadent slice of fudge than a cake. Luckily, it has a more Read more...

Sweet, Salty, Saturday: Indulgent Food

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Ines Shennan

This week Ines Shennan spins a few stories about her Farmers Market exploits, and delivers recipes for decadent, salty, sweet, soft, crunchy, spicy, and generally delicious mouthfuls of bliss. The kind of rich, heartwarming, beaming-smile-across-your-face kind of food that you can’t wait to share Read more...

Lego City Undercover (WiiU)

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Baz Macdonald

The Wii U was launched a year earlier than it should have been. Nintendo denies it, but the truth is that they sold their consoles with promises of games, promises that have now been revealed as lies. When the Wii U was announced at E3 2012 it had a wide variety of launch titles, including Pikmin 3, Read more...

Mefisto by John Banville

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Lucy Hunter

What would you sacrifice to have everything you ever wanted? What happens if you sell your soul, but there is no afterlife to suffer in? John Banville recreates Goethe’s Mephistopheles in twentieth-century Ireland, bringing the old religious parable into a modern, secular setting, where God and the Read more...

Rust and Bone

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Sam McChesney

Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), an unemployed man in his mid-twenties, hitches into town with his five-year-old son. He crashes at his sister’s squalid abode, and finds work as a nightclub bouncer. One night he breaks up a fight – a girl, Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard), is bleeding, so he gives her a ride Read more...

Trance

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Lyle Skipsey

Danny Boyle’s latest movie is a mind-bender. Starring James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, and Vincent Cassel, the movie follows an art heist gone wrong. Simon (McAvoy) is an auctioneer of fine art. He is charged with selling the rarest of paintings to the world’s wealthiest people. When an attempt Read more...

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Ella Booray

Perks is a coming-of-age story with a surprising absence of acne and angst. Charlie (Logan Lerman) is a misfit lost in the labyrinth of high school. Enter Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson), who envelop him into their warm bosom of friendship. The film follows the group as they grow up, Read more...

Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Basti Menkes

Though never previously a fan of Justin Timberlake and his music, I always considered him to have a lot of potential. Admiring his vocal talent and the reverence with which he channels his influences (namely Michael Jackson and Prince), I hoped that one day the planets would align and he would come Read more...

Badd Energy - Underwater Pyramids

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Charlotte Doyle

When writing a review, it can be extremely difficult to take an objective, non-partisan perspective and put my own personal taste to one side. Especially with the album Underwater Pyramids by Badd Energy, as it is a style of music that sits at the lower end of my music-enjoyment spectrum. Initially Read more...

Autechre - Exai

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Basti Menkes

Anybody familiar with Mancunian duo Autechre will know they make some of the most complex, unconventional, inaccessible electronic music in the world. Their trademark sound is of stranded synth melodies, eerie digital drones, and pieces of electronic shrapnel ricocheting off one another to form Read more...

The Strokes - Comedown Machine

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Basti Menkes

At this point in their career, The Strokes really don’t have much to lose. After releasing two near-perfect, critically-acclaimed albums in quick succession, the New York quintet stumbled on their overlong third LP First Impressions Of Earth, and have since failed to reignite the music world’s faith Read more...

David Bowie - The Next Day

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Basti Menkes

Upon learning that David Bowie was to release his twenty-fourth studio album this year, my expectations weren’t altogether very high. With Bowie recently entering his sixty-sixth year on this planet, my mind instantly feared a lifeless and desperate-sounding record, the sound of an old man trying in Read more...

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Kathleen Hanna

Russ Meyer really liked boobs. His favourite Hollywood actress was Dolly Parton, he described 39DD-toting Anita Ekberg as “the most beautiful woman I ever photographed,” he had a penchant for casting women in their first trimester of pregnancy (gross), and his two favourite expressions were Read more...

The Host

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Fionnuala Bulman

Considering the Twilight saga brought over 10 hours of sparkly humans and pained expressions to our cinema screens, it’s fair to say I didn’t have huge hopes for The Host, the film adaptation of the sci-fi/romance novel written by Stephanie Meyer in 2008. It didn’t help that it was a Sunday morning, Read more...

No

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Gerard Barbalich

Those movies nominated for the illustrious Oscars are a typical bunch of tales (many think there are only seven tales) that take us on similar journeys, all similar but slightly different, and return us safely at the end. And for No, which was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, it Read more...

Jack the Giant Slayer

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Rosie Howells

Don’t we bloody love our expensive fairytale re-boots? Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsman – all released within 18 months. And I think it’s fair to say they’ve hardly been instant classics, despite the obnoxious lineup of stars that sign on (I would assume Read more...

Bioshock Infinite

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Baz Macdonald

I could have written this review in five words: fucking awesome, go play it! However, it’s probably my responsibility to explain what exactly about Ken Levine’s new masterpiece Bioshock Infinite elicits this response. Despite the massive steps the video game industry has taken in the past 20 Read more...

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Thomas Thomson

“You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s latest novel. Relax. Concentrate … Let the world around you fade.” So begins Italo Calvino’s masterful, polyphonic novel If on a winter’s night a traveller. Published in 1979, self-referential and perfectly postmodern, this book is an examination Read more...

Cinnamon Buns

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Ines Shennan

I adapted a pizza dough recipe from blog The Londoner to create the buns. The result is a pile of fluffy, sweet cinnamon-laden goodness. Citrus peel adds welcome bitterness, but leave it out if it ain’t your thing. Throw in a handful of slivered almonds for crunch, if you wish. Most importantly, try Read more...

Pulled Pork (Round Two)

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Ines Shennan

This pulled pork with a naughty black pepper crust is so tender it should be illegal. Juniper berries, which are typically used to flavour gin, are lovingly bashed to release their fragrant pepperiness and are combined with tropical, flirty pineapple. Hours upon hours of cooking time gently allow Read more...

Leek, Chicken And Balsamic Pasta

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Ines Shennan

Pasta is easy to prepare and always filling – cheers carbs. Chicken and leek paired together with a splash of cream makes for a comforting and indulgent meal, with balsamic vinegar offsetting the richness with a slight tang. It’s easy to adjust the quantity to feed a large group of people too, and Read more...

Six60 Interview

Posted 6:30pm Sunday 24th March 2013 by Basti Menkes

Six60 is everybody’s favourite New Zealand roots band. Born and bred right here in Dunedin, the whanau-loving, roots-remembering bunch of bros have recently been enjoying some international success, with audiences in the US and UK reportedly finding them “amazing,” “awesome,” and “incredible” Read more...

Broken City

Posted 6:30pm Sunday 24th March 2013 by Tim Lindsay

Having recently seen Russell Crowe’s sensitive side in Les Miserables, my inner Crowe-Bro yearned for the gladiatorial, UFO-spotting, phone-throwing Russell that we have all come to love over the last 10 years. Crowe teams up with Mark Wahlberg in a gritty political thriller that disappointingly Read more...

Liberal Arts

Posted 6:30pm Sunday 24th March 2013 by Jonny Mahon-Heap

Hollywood doesn’t tend to capture the “university experience” (for lack of a less cringeworthy term) with much accuracy or success. Mostly consisting of American Pie-esque comedies or 90s trash like The Skulls, the genre doesn’t quite work. Liberal Arts (the stateside term for a BA) succeeds where Read more...

Wuthering Heights

Posted 6:30pm Sunday 24th March 2013 by Ailis Oliver-Kerby

To physically represent the angst at the heart of the story, the opening of Wuthering Heights shows Heathcliff banging his head against a brick wall. This is precisely what I felt like doing for the first half of the movie. The characters are unlikable, the shaky camera technique made me nauseous, Read more...

God of War vs Gears of War

Posted 6:30pm Sunday 24th March 2013 by Baz Macdonald

Back in the days of Playstation vs. Nintendo N64, when choosing a console most people would pick the opposite console to what their friends had, so that you and your mates had access to all the games being released. Now, in the age of PS3 vs. Xbox 360, factors such as online gameplay have created a Read more...

On the Road

Posted 6:30pm Sunday 24th March 2013 by Josef Alton

In the autumn of 1957, Jack Kerouac picked up an early edition of the New York Times from an all-night newsstand in the Upper West Side, Manhattan and read Gilbert Millstein’s review of On the Road. Millstein declared the novel “the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important Read more...