Archive

That Dragon, Cancer

Posted 12:36pm Sunday 1st May 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: A When you hear that a game has tackled the heavy topic of a child battling with cancer, it’s understandable you’d be skeptical. It’s likely to be emotionally manipulative, or merely uncomfortable rather than honest, or just corny. That Dragon, Cancer is none of these Read more...

Teenage Fans

Posted 12:34pm Sunday 1st May 2016 by Millicent Lovelock

Yesterday I sat thinking about my thesis as I listened to Sandy Hsu’s “Teenage Girls” on repeat. It’s a tender song, but rough around the edges, recorded in a bathroom with some lo-fi piece of recording equipment that manages to capture Hsu’s crystal voice but muffle Read more...

Eye in the Sky

Posted 12:31pm Sunday 1st May 2016 by Nita Sullivan

Rating: A- Before seeing Eye in the Sky, a fairly topical military thriller that centres on the arguments around and ramifications of using drones in modern warfare, I had pretty high expectations and I wasn’t disappointed.  Dame Helen Mirren leads a pretty star-packed cast (Alan Read more...

Orphans & Kingdoms

Posted 12:28pm Sunday 1st May 2016 by Alex Campbell-Hunt

Rating: A It’s an interesting coincidence that both of the new Kiwi movies currently showing cover similar subject matter - both involve juvenile delinquents getting into a dangerous predicament alongside a reclusive adult, with everyone eventually bonding and becoming better Read more...

A Warrior’s Tail

Posted 12:24pm Sunday 1st May 2016 by Lisa Blakie

Rating: D A Warrior’s Tail is a low budget Russian animated film which I’m hoping was poorly translated because I have no idea what the narrative was actually trying to convey. Every character was obnoxious and annoying and lame and had their own bizarre storylines going on. So Read more...

Allegiant

Posted 12:21pm Sunday 1st May 2016 by Jessica Thompson

Rating: C+ I wanted to give Allegiant a chance, I swear. I walked into that cinema, illegal chips under jacket, with clean judgment and an open mind. Excited, if anything, to see director Robert Schwentke amend the travesty that was Insurgent. Alas. Allegiant is the third installment to the Read more...

Chicken Kiev

Posted 1:18pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by Kirsten Garcia

The origins of this dish are unknown but it seems to have been made popular by the Soviets. It’s like garlic bread but instead of bread, we’re using chicken. I was considering calling this recipe a butter bomb since that’s what you’ll essentially get. I do love butter. I am a Read more...

Fashion Rules OK

Posted 1:13pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

There comes a point in each semester when the uni’s endless sea of stripes, denim, grey, black and white becomes a bit too monotonous to bear. At this point, vintage fashion never fails to provide a fresh and energising splash of colour. Fashion Rules OK, the new exhibition at the University Read more...

Tomorrow there will be Apricots

Posted 1:08pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by Jessica Thompson

14 year old Lorca is obsessed with reading cooking books in an attempt to win the love and respect of her mother Nancy, an icy chef who grieves the death of her husband. Lorca struggles with her mother’s uncaring nature and cooks the most delicious sounding treats in attempt to woo and prevent Read more...

Why do we need..augmented reality?

Posted 1:00pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by Anthony Marris

Augmented reality (AR) is where applications on mobile and tablet devices are able to use both the camera lens and a database to add additional information onto a real world scene in real time (or near to). This is different from Virtual Reality. In VR, the scene is created from nothing and fed to Read more...

Don’t Starve - Shipwrecked

Posted 12:58pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by James Tregonning

Rating: A- Don’t Starve was originally released for PC in 2013, and was pretty successful, getting a PS4 port the next year. It’s a survival game in which you, a scientist named Wilson, have meddled with powers beyond your ken and have been sucked into an unknown world, where you have Read more...

Mind of Mine - Zayn Malik

Posted 12:53pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by Millicent Lovelock

When Zayn started releasing singles post-One Direction I was worried that it was going to take him an album and a bit to get into the swing of things. I wasn’t overly impressed by ‘Pillowtalk’, although it is a catchy tune I don’t think it is all that cohesive, and Read more...

Interview with Lakes

Posted 12:51pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by Sam Fraser-Baxter

Lakes are an eclectic and constantly evolving act. In this digital age of music, finding a way to set yourselves apart can be a little difficult. Lakes have had no trouble finding their own musical niche. From the early days with the debut release Reflections of the Night Before, Lakes created an Read more...

Zootopia

Posted 12:45pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by Jess Alsop

Rating: A- I knew very little about Zootopia before I saw it, so I’ll admit I was expecting some kind of strange Madagascar knock-off. Luckily I was wrong.  Instead, Zootopia is about a world run by animals that have evolved from their ‘savage’ days of being predators Read more...

Sherpa

Posted 12:41pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by Lisa Blakie

Rating: A If anyone you know doesn’t know what white privilege is, or is too ignorant to even try to understand, all they need to do is watch Sherpa and everything around the concept will become abundantly clear. If not, you need to disassociate yourself from them ASAP. Sherpa is a Read more...

The Man Behind the Pope

Posted 12:39pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by Andrew Kwiatkowski

Rating: 0/5 or anything less than zero, or the lowest letter grade possible Fresh from my Grandmother’s funeral mass and with great trepidation I marched into the theatre to watch a film about the head Catholic honcho, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, or as you know him, the incumbent Pope Francis. Read more...

Florence and the Uffizi Gallery

Posted 12:37pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by Jessica Thompson

Rating: B+ Florence and the Uffizi Gallery is my entire art history course for this semester. But try not to let that put you off. In a tiny cinema this simple documentary swept me out of my seat into another country, for a high quality tour of Italian Renaissance art. Directed by Luca Viotto Read more...

One-Cup Desserts in One Minute

Posted 1:14pm Sunday 17th April 2016 by Kirsten Garcia

As students, most of us are probably limited in time, resources or ingredients to whip up sweet stuff like you (or more likely, your Mum) might at home.  But we are a creative and persistent bunch, and there are ways to make do with modest supplies and a microwave, all in the time of a study Read more...

Hākui: Women of Kāi Tahu

Posted 1:05pm Sunday 17th April 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

Visiting the current exhibition Hākui: Women of Kāi Tahu was an insightful, valuable, special and rare experience. The Otago Museum, working closely with Whānau, rūnaka and iwi throughout New Zealand, have created a gallery space which tells the life stories of Kāi Tahu Read more...

How to be Both

Posted 12:58pm Sunday 17th April 2016 by Hayleigh Clarkson

This is an incredible novel full of wit, sarcasm, and characters that are a touch arrogant and temperamental. Ali Smith’s How To Be Both has won the 2014 Costa Novel of the Year award, the 2015 Women’s Prize for Fiction award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014. It is a Read more...