Archive

Tamara Drewe

Posted 5:08am Monday 28th March 2011 by Maya Turei

Directed by Stephen Frears. (3/5). Tamara Drewe is pretty sweet. The story seems predictable, but then leads you on until you think it's all sussed before surprising you with something totally unpredictable. It is wonderfully silly and heart-warmingly sickening in the best possible way. Read more...

Never Let Me Go

Posted 5:06am Monday 28th March 2011 by Lauren Hayes

Directed by Mark Romanek. (5/5). It may look like an ordinary British romance, but don't let this fool you; Never Let Me Go is a film about clones. Based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go unfolds in a world that seems familiar but isn't quite our own. The human race is living Read more...

Blue Valentine

Posted 5:03am Monday 28th March 2011 by Sarah Baillie

Directed by Derek Cianfrance. (5/5). Blue Valentine documents the heart-breaking story of every married couple’s worst fear: falling out of love. Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) meet when they are young and carefree. Six years on, their marriage is falling apart and they Read more...

Mommie Dearest (1981)

Posted 4:58am Monday 28th March 2011 by Ben Blakely

Directed by Frank Perry. Starring: Faye Dunaway, Mara Hobel, Diana Scarwid. Based on the book of the same name by Christina Crawford, Mommie Dearest depicts the bizarre life of Joan Crawford as her daughter saw it. The film begins with a typical morning for Joan Crawford. After a 4am wake-up Read more...

The Human Mind

Posted 4:11am Monday 28th March 2011 by Sarah Maessen

Author: Robert Winston. Publisher: Bantam Books (4/5) The Human Mind captivates the reader with the characteristically informative, entertaining and fascinating style Robert Winston has become renowned for. The moustachioed presenter of the TV series “The Human Body” this time focuses Read more...

One Day

Posted 4:08am Monday 28th March 2011 by Eve Hermansson

Author: David Nicholls. Publisher: Hodder & Staughton (3/5) The relationship between Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley begins the way many do in the fine institution we call university: an attempted hook-up following a drunken party. It’s the Eighties, the two have just graduated and the future Read more...

Desi Liversage, Bloodlines and Bloodstains

Posted 4:05am Monday 28th March 2011 by Hana Aoake

Dunedin School of Art. (It’s super close to campus. Another reason to procrastinate!) Desi Liversage uses the medium of textiles to express and expose the darker colonial heritage of South Africa during the second Boer war. This installation was inspired by Liversage’s grandmother’s Read more...

Colleen Altagracia

Posted 4:02am Monday 28th March 2011 by Hana Aoake

The emptiness of full pockets, The Blue Oyster, Tuesday, March 22, 2011. The sombre white walls of the Blue Oyster further added to Altagracia’s performance of The emptiness of full pockets last Tuesday. Performers stood completely still as persons dressed in contamination suits filled their Read more...

The Branch presents Half

Posted 4:01am Monday 28th March 2011 by Hana Aoake

George Street, Friday, March 18, 2011. Dunedin collective The Branch’s one-night-only exhibition/performance Half was a five-star feast for the senses. The Branch is a collective of eight young artists, musicians and filmmakers and this was their third collaborative project. Upon first entry Read more...

Merz & More: A Selection of Sights, Sounds, Films & Trivial Acts

Posted 4:41am Monday 21st March 2011 by Jen Aitken

from Dr Jonathan W. Marshall’s Museum of Bad Taste “Ceci n’est pas une artist”   In Merz and More Dr. Jonathan W. Marshall took us on a guided tour of a computer hard-drive and video and music collection. Presenting a selection of audiovisual and audio recordings Read more...

Rebecca Black – Friday. Single

Posted 4:18am Monday 21st March 2011 by Sam Valentine

IS THIS THE WORST SONG EVER WRITTEN? Thought Justin Bieber was the antichrist? Clearly you’ve haven’t heard thirteen year old Rebecca Black’s latest single “Friday”. Currently a Youtube sensation (topping nine million views to date), Black has taken taste to a new Read more...

Bright Eyes - The People's Key

Posted 4:16am Monday 21st March 2011 by Sam Valentine

“Dear Conor Oberst. You will need more than zany samples to escape the emotional songwriting heartthrob box you have previously been so keen on.” (2/5) Clearly forgetting he announced his wishes to “retire” the Bright Eyes moniker in 2009, and after a small solo detour, the eternal Read more...

Chase & Status - No More Idols

Posted 4:14am Monday 21st March 2011 by Sam Valentine

Drum and Bass heads mainstream. Mixed results. (3/5) Giving its eternal affinity with the singles format, the “dance” album can be an interesting concept. Of course, many crossovers have been made with an elite few artists successfully making the transition from the club to the couch. Read more...

Inside a Star-Filled Sky

Posted 4:12am Monday 21st March 2011 by Toby Hills

Platforms: PC, OSX (4/5) Very few games are “by” one guy. Novels are by an author, songs and paintings by an artist, films are scaffolded by a single-minded vision, i.e; “directed by”. But videogames, feats of virtual engineering, are by necessity often created by Read more...

Chilli Bean Roast

Posted 4:08am Monday 21st March 2011 by Johanna Tonnon

This is a recipe I adapted from one of those Watties recipes from the supermarket. The recipe called for a few basic Watties ingredients, such as baked beans, spinach and Frozen Potato Roasters, plus some eggs. I wanted to add more colour and taste so I swapped the baked beans for chilli beans, the Read more...

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...