Archive

Voyager Seven

Posted 4:17am Monday 11th July 2011 by Jen Aitken

THEA152 Technology Class, (4.5/5). The point of the “Voyager” assignments is to get the THEA152 students to work together and create a show displaying all of the skills they have learnt over the past semester. Sometimes these shows can be technological but dull. Sometimes they can Read more...

Hangman – Sampler CD Review

Posted 3:54am Monday 11th July 2011 by Basti Menkes

Otherwise untitled, this 6-track sample album from Auckland quartet Hangman attempts to pick up from where other funk-rock groups left off. The hip-hop vocals are reminiscent of Zack de la Rocha, the Red Hot Chili Pepper-style basslines are faintly catchy, and the pornographic wah-wah Read more...

Chickstock

Posted 3:51am Monday 11th July 2011 by Sam Valentine

With music’s often perceived reliance on alcohol (both for performance and paycheques), Chickstock - an all ages, nonprofit event run for local high school acts - proved refreshingly naïve. Organised by the dedicated Jessica Young, under the guise of the Chicks Project, with ten local high school Read more...

To-Fu: The Trials of Chi

Posted 3:45am Monday 11th July 2011 by Toby Hills

Platform: iOS, (2/5). You're a simple block of tofu. The ninjutsu discipline to which you are totally dedicated does not look kindly on the superficial practises of faux-meat meals: such as the tofurkey or the toficken. Humbleness is of utmost importance, as represented by the simple red Read more...

Firefly Hero

Posted 3:44am Monday 11th July 2011 by Toby Hills

Platform: iOS, (4/5). Trute? Flumpet, maybe? In any case, It's irrelevant what I call the solo, synthesized instrument, of brassy and fluty timbre, that provides the musical context for Firefly Hero. Just like the game's visual style, fundamental mechanics and 'story', it is as simple and Read more...

Study Comfort Food

Posted 3:41am Monday 11th July 2011 by Johanna Tonnon and Susie Krieble

Thanks to everyone who contributed recipes this semester. I hope volunteers and readers have a very merry exam season and a happy winter break. Baking/cooking/eating is an amazing procrastination technique during exams and this week Johanna Tonnon and Susie Krieble bring you some brilliant Read more...

Cafe Review - The Church

Posted 3:37am Monday 11th July 2011 by Pippa Schaffler

50 Dundas St, beside Alhambra field, (1/5). Prices: Flat White: $4, Long Black: $3, Mocha: $4   Why I came here: After hearing everything from rave reviews to disturbing diatribes I thought it was time for a friend and me to provide our own verdict.   Atmosphere: One Read more...

Hook, Line and Sinker

Posted 3:33am Thursday 7th July 2011 by Michaela Hunter

Directed by Andrea Bosshard and Shane Loader, (3/5). Prior to viewing this film, I was impressed by its grassroots origins; it was shot over 5 weeks with a crew of 12, a cast of 100, in 35 different locations, on a cash budget of less than $40,000 and self-distributed to 47 screens around the Read more...

Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil

Posted 3:31am Thursday 7th July 2011 by Madeleine Wright

Directed by Mike Disa, (2/5). When a movie screens at 4pm every day during the week with no alternative, it’s a fairly safe bet that the average age of the target market is somewhere between 7 and 14. Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil fits this model perfectly. It had everything a modern Read more...

The Hangover Part II

Posted 3:28am Thursday 7th July 2011 by Nick Hornstein

Directed by Todd Phillips, (4/5). Disclaimer: If you haven’t watched the The Hangover (2009), go and do so before reading this. With The Hangover earning more than $467 million worldwide – the top grossing R-rated comedy of all time – it was no surprise that director Todd Read more...

Reflections of the Past

Posted 3:25am Thursday 7th July 2011 by Sarah Baillie

Directed by Alexander Roman, (1.5/5) Morbid curiosity and a long time obsession with the film Heavenly Creatures lured me to Rialto to see this documentary about the Parker-Hulme murder case of 1954. A film with the potential to be a fascinating exploration of this dark stain on New Read more...

The Wizard of Gore (1970)

Posted 5:04am Wednesday 6th July 2011 by Ben Blakely

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis, Starring: Ray Sager, Judy Cler, Wayne Ratay. I first came across The Wizard of Gore when it was mentioned in the movie Juno and I decided I needed to know more. Could this be the goriest movie ever? I intended to find out. The premise is pretty Read more...

Looking swell while studying up a storm

Posted 4:22am Wednesday 6th July 2011 by Mahoney Turnbull

Campus Perspective La Femme Exams + fashion. Not a wholly happy combination. In fact, a damn hard equation to nut out. Exams are like the fatal bullet of bogan-esque brutality, reducing even the most elegant to debased forms of style, especially with this haphazard weather of late. Read more...

The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul

Posted 4:04am Wednesday 6th July 2011 by Sarah Maessen

Author: Deborah Rodriguez, Publisher: Bantam, (1/5). I will admit it from the outset; I didn’t finish this book. It looked like a light, easy read, probably about women with troubles finding friendship. My first mistake was to browse the back. A quote caught my eye: “as if Read more...

Justin Spiers: Castleland.

Posted 3:58am Wednesday 6th July 2011 by Hana Aoake

Blue Oyster Project Space With the potential to both repel and capture the viewer, Justin Spires’ photographs in his Castleland exhibition enable the viewer to feel as though they are sneaking into and infiltrating an array of fortresses. Castleland is formulated around the purpose of a Read more...

Michaela Cox: Nightgarden

Posted 3:55am Wednesday 6th July 2011 by Hana Aoake

Temple Gallery Climbing a wiry staircase, through a seemingly enchanted garden, one walks into the Temple Gallery. A former synagogue, Temple Gallery has a feeling of spirituality. This sensation is furthered by Michaela Cox’s romantic and mythical works in her current exhibition, Read more...

Beastwars w/ Operation Rolling Thunder and Kahu

Posted 1:34am Friday 1st July 2011 by Sam Valentine

Chicks Hotel Saturday May 21 With wild, possessed eyes and a gruff white beard, Beastwars frontman Matt Hyde is the living embodiment of his music. Possessing a guttural roar, akin to that of a demonic warlock, his dominating presence is impossible to ignore. Controlling the attention of the Read more...

Brink

Posted 1:33am Friday 1st July 2011 by Toby Hills

Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, (3.5/5). I can't stress enough how much better Brink would have been had it had no cutscene-heavy story, or if it had even scrapped the single player entirely. The plot is fundamentally solid; an isolated idealised city called “The Ark” Read more...

Aloo Gobi

Posted 1:31am Friday 1st July 2011 by Niki Lomax

Curry has always been our flat “go-to” meal when we are lazy and the fridge is looking sad. It’s ideal winter comfort food. Aloo Gobi (“aloo” meaning potato and “gobi” meaning cauliflower) is particularly ideal for winter as the more ritzy vegetables become rapidly less appealing both in appearance Read more...

Cafe Review - The Fix

Posted 1:29am Friday 1st July 2011 by Pippa Schaffler

Ground floor of The Innovation Centre (opposite St Dave’s) – i.e. that glass building you check yourself out in as you walk past, (5/5). Prices: Flat White: $4, Long Black: $3.50, Mocha: $4 Why I came here: I’ve been before; the coffee is perfect and right on campus. Atmosphere: Read more...

From Time to Time

Posted 1:24am Friday 1st July 2011 by Hana Aoake

Director: Julian Fellowes, (2/5). Previously responsible for such thrilling titles as The Young Victoria, Gosford Park and Downton Abbey, writer and director Julien Fellowes delivers his second feature film, From Time to Time. Based upon the novel The Chimneys of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston, Read more...

Your Highness

Posted 1:23am Friday 1st July 2011 by Hana Aoake

Director: David Gordon Green, (3/5). Despite the terrible reviews this film received, I convinced myself to go and see Your Highness for the mere purpose of seeing Natalie Portman’s ass. I was mildly amused by aspects of this film, although in saying this I am a person who is easily Read more...

Tracker

Posted 1:21am Friday 1st July 2011 by Theo Kay

Director: Ian Sharp, (3.5/5) As I sat through a barrage of historical drama trailers, I began to wonder whether Tracker would rise to deliver a captivating and original piece of film fit for Aotearoa’s growing list of classics. Or would it fall into a formulaic category like so many Read more...

Piranha II: The Spawning (1981)

Posted 1:20am Friday 1st July 2011 by Ben Blakely

Director: James Cameron. Starring: Tricia O’Neil, Steve Marachuk, Lance Henriksen, Ricky Paull Goldin.  If you’re concerned that you haven’t seen the first installment of the Piranha series, do not worry. You are not in any danger of missing any vital pieces of Read more...

Designers to Watch

Posted 1:03am Friday 1st July 2011 by Mahoney Turnbull

Tis the season to be scarfie Aren’t these cosy numbers just so alluring? Bleemweaver is a bright, happy and imaginatively-woven textile range by Brianna Lee Martin. Combining her skills in weaving and design, this talented artist creates unique textiles entirely handmade in the Read more...

Machine of Death: a collection of stories about people who know how they will die

Posted 12:46am Friday 1st July 2011 by Sarah Maessen

Author: Various; Eds. Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, & David Malki “This book, unlike most others, started its life as an off hand comment made by a bright green Tyrannosaurus Rex”   The book is based on a comic from Ryan North’s Dinosaur Comics in which T-Rex Read more...

Selected Works from Quadrant Gallery

Posted 12:43am Friday 1st July 2011 by Hana Aoake

To enter Quadrant Gallery is to experience a serene, mesmerising atmosphere. Located on Moray Place, Quadrant showcases and sells jewellery, sculpture and other such objects. Immediately I was hypnotised by Nicole McLaren’s apocalyptic sculptures, which are constructed from ceramic, plaster and Read more...

My First Attempt

Posted 11:54pm Monday 30th May 2011 by Bronwyn Wallace

Theatre As Is. Jimmy Currin, Luke Agnew, Feather Shaw and Hahna Briggs, (4/5). As I arrived at Allen Hall Theatre, joining an already eager audience in the foyer, My First Attempt was giving nothing away. This latest piece from the Theatre As Is was devised “using chance operations by Read more...

Marrow Zine's May Release Launch Party

Posted 7:36am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Sam Valentine

May 14, Re:Fuel Bar. With Thundercub, Black Yoghurt, Surgical Department, Max Waots, Nicole Van Vuuren (DJ).  “The little zine that could?” With the current flood of self-produced gig guides (INK), comic collections, (DUD), culture mags (Crop) and zines, Dunedin’s Read more...

Die Antwoord - $O$

Posted 7:33am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Kari Schmidt

From their Afrikaans accents, wack dance moves, insane videos, rapping skills, attitude, sex appeal, haircuts, fashion, names, use of rats, incorporation of South African references (e.g. tokoloshes, fish paste, racial culture) and the female gaze, there is nothing that doesn’t appeal to me about Read more...

Cult Classic: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Posted 7:30am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Toby Hills

Platforms: PC, Xbox I'm still not certain what the elder scrolls actually are. Old rolled-up papers, presumably with something mega-important written on them. I guess. If the third in the seventeen-year old series, Morrowind, doesn't ring a bell then maybe the forth will: 2006's Oblivion. No? What Read more...

Lume

Posted 7:29am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Toby Hills

Platforms: PC, OSX, (2.5/5). I payed $8.13 for Lume, which follows from prices listed in round US dollar figures. As cheap as Steam's prices tend to be (I got Portal 2 for about $62.73, give or take $3.09), I can't say that Lume was worth it. The question then becomes then what to say about an Read more...

Homage to a domestic goddess

Posted 7:27am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Niki Lomax

Nigella Lawson is the only deity I worship. This being the food issue, I felt a reasonable amount of pressure to write something awesome. I ended up deciding that the most awesome thing/person of all is Nigella Lawson. Thus in the food column this week I pay homage to Nigella Lawson, a true Read more...

Source Code

Posted 7:24am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Director: Duncan Jones, (4/5). Source Code is 2011's Inception but with less ambiguity and fewer close ups on Leonardo DiCaprio’s concerned, faraway gaze (just kidding, love you Leo). Bird’s-eye view and panning shots of Chicago open this action/sci-fi gift of a Read more...

Queen of the Sun

Posted 7:23am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Gareth Barton

Director: Taggart Siegel, (3.5/5). One of the hardest things to do with documentary filmmaking is find the perfect “talent”. Talent in a documentary is the person or people who represent the face of the film, building the story with their dialogue, and, importantly, creating an Read more...

King George VI: The Man Behind the King's Speech

Posted 7:20am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Lauren Hayes

No director credited, (2/5). You can't blame a guy for trying to cash in on The King's Speech. The film was massive, winning an awful amount of awards. It doesn't take a movie mogul to realise that the real-life “spinoff “ could make a serious quick buck, especially amidst Read more...

Water for Elephants

Posted 7:16am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Nicole Muriel

Director: Francis Lawrence, (3/5). Water for Elephants combines two fantasies – running away to the circus and a forbidden romance – offering itself as the ultimate escapist movie. The story: hopeful student Jacob Jancowski (Robert Pattinson) is about to finish veterinary school Read more...

Bad Taste (1987)

Posted 7:14am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Ben Blakely

Written/Directed by: Peter Jackson. Starring: Terry Potter, Peter O’Herne, Craig Smith, Mike Minett, Peter Jackson and Doug Wren Imagine if your dad and a bunch of his mates got together and decided to film a Mothra. It’s kinda naff cause it’s your dad and he’s a bit naff and Read more...

No More Fat Pants

Posted 6:30am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Melissa Letica

Fat pants. The Warehouse’s finest. Whatever you call them, I think they are disgusting. You know what I’m talking about; those dirty grey fleecy-lined track pants that everyone seems to be sporting these days. Retailing for $8.50 during the holy grail of yellow dot sales, a recently conducted survey Read more...

Teetering Precariously

Posted 6:27am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Ines Shennan

Here goes a rant on a particular craze that a small minority seem to mindlessly follow on campus. As Peter Griffin would say, it’s really grinding my gears. Let me preface this by saying it is not the item itself which causes me to do double-takes, but rather the times and places in which this item Read more...

Sweet Valley Confidential - Ten Years Later

Posted 6:15am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Ilka Fedor

Author: Francine Pascal. Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, (3.5/5). This is a must-read if you ever read the Sweet Valley High series. Set 10 years on, twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield from sunny Sweet Valley, Southern California, are now archrivals. Jessica, the ever flirtatious, popular and Read more...

Atheist Manifesto – The Case Against Christianity, Judaism and Islam

Posted 6:13am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Stefan Fairweather

Author: Michel Onfray. Publisher: Arcade Publishing. (5/5). In a modern world that is (sadly) still bombarded with the irrationality of religion, Onfray’s Atheist Manifesto book is a welcome read, arming the rationalist with arguments, counter-arguments, and facts to rebut the Read more...

SUJI PARK: That which opens.

Posted 6:10am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Hana Aoake

BRETT MCDOWELL GALLERY. Closes May 26. The question which I often ask myself when encountering any ceramicist’s work is how have they transferred a medium which is thousands of years old and which always appears to me to be static into something dynamic.   Suji Park is an Read more...

Let There Be Capping Show

Posted 6:07am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Chad Huffington

Main sketch written by: Thom Adams, Rest of the show performed/written by ensemble cast. Directed by: Alex Wilson and Trubie-Dylan Smith. Assistant Director: Aaron Mayes, (5/5). By the time you read this, Capping Show will probably be completely sold out – because it sells out Read more...

Fight the Fat

Posted 6:05am Thursday 26th May 2011 by Jen Aitken

Written by Arthur Meek, Directed by Lisa Warrington. Staring Hilary Halba and Ben Blakely, (2/5). This show sees Laurel (Halba) and Ben (Blakely), two down-and-out actors kicked out of a theatre-in-education programme, struggle to get the “money and mandate” to re-launch their Read more...

Beastwars Preview

Posted 6:33am Wednesday 25th May 2011 by Sam Valentine

Beastwars are the result of a barbaric and brutal world sliding into the abyss. Where we see war and disaster surrounding us on all sides. Where half-truths and hidden agendas lurk behind every act of the world’s eroding empires. And where all these things are channelled into righteous and Read more...

MEN FROM ANOTHER PLANET

Posted 6:31am Wednesday 25th May 2011 by Isaac McFarlane

State Of Mind subscribe to a different reality than the rest of us; a reality that involves ridiculously heavy bass, a ridiculously energetic full-noise set and, to top it all off, dancing spacemen. Yes, fucking spacemen. Dressed from head to toe in reflective black material, they sauntered up to Read more...

CULT CLASSIC: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Posted 6:29am Wednesday 25th May 2011 by Toby Hills

Platform: Nintendo 64 It's become a cliché to criticise each new Zelda release as being just like all the rest. “Yawn”, they chorus. “You start off as some sort of fey-leaf elfin dude in a forest wearing green pyjamas. You find the wooden sword and shield, hack some plants Read more...

Bangai-O HD: Missle Fury

Posted 6:28am Wednesday 25th May 2011 by Toby Hills

Platforms: XBLA (Dreamcast), (3/5). Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury is arcade-y almost to the point of absurdity. Developer Treasure sets a mature example by presenting mecha that seem to run on carbon neutral bio-ethanol, regaining health from fruit. I guess they had to do all they could to offset the Read more...

Granny’s Tupperware

Posted 6:26am Wednesday 25th May 2011 by Niki Lomax

My granny has an impressive Tupperware collection. Cylindrical containers, rectangular containers, square containers, triangular containers, massive ones, miniature ones, white ones, brown ones, blue ones, green ones, jelly moulds… you name it, she’s probably got two. As a kid I assumed all grannies Read more...